morningsong said:

XxAxX said:

it isn't the amount of physical space we occupy, it's the resources we use to keep up our way of life. the amount of waste we generate individually, causing things like floating garbage piles in the ocean and the florida gulf dead zone. it's the pesticide-linked death blow to the bumblebees, the antibiotics we piss into the waterways that affect the entire food chain, it's the fact that people eat meat which requires so much acreage to raise, it's the forests we've decimated to make toilet paper, or farmland to raise cows, fresh water sources made foul by industrial waste, all the little things which each human being requires for his or her way of life cumulatively adversely affecting the envirinment.

nicola tesla did invent free, clean energy sources, but j.p. morgan wanted people to pay for their electricity so he stifled those designs.

basically, it's because humans are sort of stupid and short lived and destructive to the natural world. not to mention we're better off in fewer numbers because we also do not get along with each other very well and frequently war with each other, causing environmentally tragic consequences....

fewer humans means less demand on limited planetary resources, greater integrity of the web of life here that supports us

Sometimes I have a fear of the idea of someone taking it upon themselves to thin the herd. A lot of elitist (don't interpret that as me calling you an elitist, I am not) feel that way about "problem" countries and people, beinging the poorest make up the bulk of the population. I've seen these televised discussion groups many years age addressing such issues and it was a bit frightening how they addressed the problem. Many scientists today are saying the damage has already been done reversing it will take a very long time. So with that in mind I'm looking at those we who are working towards solutions and alternatives.

i've read these arguments too. there has been a lot of discussions among the so-called 'conspiracy' groups that believe the elites are indeed planning something wicked to come our way. the most popular of these theories involves a deliberately engendered global pandemic, decimating populations not inoculated. there are precedents; allegedly smallpox infested blankets were given to the native american indians to wipe out their numbers.

https://academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/Bioterrorism/00intro02.htm

http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring04/warfare.cfm

https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/american-history-myths-debunked-the-indians-werent-defeated-by-white-settlers/


i'm not sure that we can survive the next century without a massive population decrease


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/01/stephen-hawking-dangerous-time-planet-inequality

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stephen-hawking-pollution-stupidity-artifical-intelligence-warfare-biggest-threats-mankind-a7106916.html

phen Hawking believes we must be vigilant to the dangers of artificial intelligence Getty Images

Professor Stephen Hawking says he believes pollution and human “stupidity” remain the biggest threats to mankind, while also expressing his concerns over the use of artificial intelligence in warfare.

The world’s leading theoretical physicist argued “we have certainly not become less greedy or less stupid” in our treatment of the environment over the past decade, during an interview on Larry King Now, which is hosted on Ora TV.

Professor Hawking said: “Six years ago, I was warning about pollution and overcrowding, they have gotten worse since then. The population has grown by half a billion since our last interview, with no end in sight.

“At this rate, it will be eleven billion by 2100. Air pollution has increased by 8 percent over the past five years. More than 80 percent of inhabitants of urban areas are exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution.

“The increase in air pollution and the emission of increasing levels of carbon dioxide. Will we be too late to avoid dangerous levels of global warming?”

The cosmologist was speaking at the Starmus science conference in Tenerife, themed this year as a tribute to his life’s work. (cont. at link)

[Edited 3/17/17 21:12pm]

KingBAD said:

morningsong said:

KingBAD said: You evooool.

yet no one paid attention.

what i gotta do???

hello KingBAD happy st patrick's day! :shamrock:

XxAxX said:

KingBAD said:

yet no one paid attention.

what i gotta do???

hello KingBAD happy st patrick's day! :shamrock:

I really don't understand the concerns with this. It has been planned for nearly 15 years and is at the stage where it can be rolled out to provide a safe way for parents with mitochondrial defects to have children. I have donated my eggs five times to women that cannot concieve. In theory I am the biological mother of any children born from my eggs, even though the pregnancy was matured in the recipients womb. I guess you could argue that there are three parents involved in this procedure which has been used for many years now.

This '3-parent' procedure in this case is different however because it invokves the DNA of the male and female parent, mixed with the mitochondria of the donor egg which is then reinserted into the mother. There is nothing to suggest that this creates abnormalities, moreover that it negates the risk of mitochondral inherited conditions. This gives hope to couples who have severly disabled children and cannot risk another child with the same complaint. I would be more than happy to donate my eggs for this procedure as I see it as an advancement on the current IVF/ICSI capabilities.

There is nothing 'alien' or designer aboout this - it is merely another way of allowing couples that otherwise couldn't have children, to have children. Given the joy that IVF has bought to my personal life, I don't see why we should deny that joy to others when the technique has been proven safe in the past decade and a half. We should celebrate advances in science that rid people of incurable, horrific disease for which there is no cure - and this does this, allowing healthy babies to be born.

XxAxX said:

^ no. the only measures i can think of to implement that would slow down our self-destructive human slide are 'draconian'. and, i'm not the person to make decisions like that on behalf of humanity. beides, many people think it is already far too late to stop what is happening. i'm not sure i agree but i doubt humans can cooperate long enough to make real, effective change.

in my perfect world, the sky people/viracocca/shiva/jesus/mithras/horus/annunaki return and gift us technology to assist in our development. but even an event like that would be met with resistance from some.

so, no real answer other than once we are gone (and my prayer is that we don't take this planet full of beautiful, intelligent plants and animals down with us), another life form will rise to dominance here on planet earth, as has always been the case and they will maybe even succeed where we have failed.

XxAxX said:

^ no. the only measures i can think of to implement that would slow down our self-destructive human slide are 'draconian'. and, i'm not the person to make decisions like that on behalf of humanity. beides, many people think it is already far too late to stop what is happening. i'm not sure i agree but i doubt humans can cooperate long enough to make real, effective change.

in my perfect world, the sky people/viracocca/shiva/jesus/mithras/horus/annunaki return and gift us technology to assist in our development. but even an event like that would be met with resistance from some.

so, no real answer other than once we are gone (and my prayer is that we don't take this planet full of beautiful, intelligent plants and animals down with us), another life form will rise to dominance here on planet earth, as has always been the case and they will maybe even succeed where we have failed.

So - to link this back to the thread title - are you saying that, in your opinion, we shouldn't develop treatments that allow people to have children that couldn't otherwise? Because the human population is too full as it is? Or have I misunderstood? I'm really interested as to what 'draconian' measures you are referring to?

I totally agree with your final paragraph BTW.

maplenpg said:

XxAxX said:

^ no. the only measures i can think of to implement that would slow down our self-destructive human slide are 'draconian'. and, i'm not the person to make decisions like that on behalf of humanity. beides, many people think it is already far too late to stop what is happening. i'm not sure i agree but i doubt humans can cooperate long enough to make real, effective change.

in my perfect world, the sky people/viracocca/shiva/jesus/mithras/horus/annunaki return and gift us technology to assist in our development. but even an event like that would be met with resistance from some.

so, no real answer other than once we are gone (and my prayer is that we don't take this planet full of beautiful, intelligent plants and animals down with us), another life form will rise to dominance here on planet earth, as has always been the case and they will maybe even succeed where we have failed.

So - to link this back to the thread title - are you saying that, in your opinion, we shouldn't develop treatments that allow people to have children that couldn't otherwise? Because the human population is too full as it is? Or have I misunderstood? I'm really interested as to what 'draconian' measures you are referring to?

I totally agree with your final paragraph BTW.

no. that's not what i'm saying. see my reply at #36. as to draconian measures, further back in the thread we discussed that

[Edited 3/18/17 13:34pm]

maplenpg said:

morningsong said:

maplenpg said:

I really don't understand the concerns with this. It has been planned for nearly 15 years and is at the stage where it can be rolled out to provide a safe way for parents with mitochondrial defects to have children. I have donated my eggs five times to women that cannot concieve. In theory I am the biological mother of any children born from my eggs, even though the pregnancy was matured in the recipients womb. I guess you could argue that there are three parents involved in this procedure which has been used for many years now.

This '3-parent' procedure in this case is different however because it invokves the DNA of the male and female parent, mixed with the mitochondria of the donor egg which is then reinserted into the mother. There is nothing to suggest that this creates abnormalities, moreover that it negates the risk of mitochondral inherited conditions. This gives hope to couples who have severly disabled children and cannot risk another child with the same complaint. I would be more than happy to donate my eggs for this procedure as I see it as an advancement on the current IVF/ICSI capabilities.

There is nothing 'alien' or designer aboout this - it is merely another way of allowing couples that otherwise couldn't have children, to have children. Given the joy that IVF has bought to my personal life, I don't see why we should deny that joy to others when the technique has been proven safe in the past decade and a half. We should celebrate advances in science that rid people of incurable, horrific disease for which there is no cure - and this does this, allowing healthy babies to be born.

I don't think anyone is upset about someone who was unable to have children for one reason or another being able to but designer babies just became real and not the stuff of scifi. What are the implications of that or are we supposed to ignore such questions and just say no one could possibly use such technology for screwed up reasons?

I think the fault lies with the term 'designer babies' - this is about avoidance of inherited diseases. We've been asking the question 'What if people use it for the wrong reasons?' about all sorts of things including nuclear weapons and the internet for decades - both of which are far more powerful than a scientific procedure to help those with mitochondrial problems. Each 3-parent case has to be cleared by HEFA before it can proceed and infertility clinics are tightly governed so I see no reason why it should go wrong, at least in the short term anyway.

XxAxX said:

maplenpg said:

So - to link this back to the thread title - are you saying that, in your opinion, we shouldn't develop treatments that allow people to have children that couldn't otherwise? Because the human population is too full as it is? Or have I misunderstood? I'm really interested as to what 'draconian' measures you are referring to?

I totally agree with your final paragraph BTW.

no. that's not what i'm saying. see my reply at #36. as to draconian measures, further back in the thread we discussed that

[Edited 3/18/17 13:34pm]

Ah...okay. My bad.

My personal opinion is that as we become evermore antibiotic resistant, that a superbug will eventually kill a good number of us - something like a modern day plague.

maplenpg said:

maplenpg said:

XxAxX said:

no. that's not what i'm saying. see my reply at #36. as to draconian measures, further back in the thread we discussed that

[Edited 3/18/17 13:34pm]

Ah...okay. My bad.

My personal opinion is that as we become evermore antibiotic resistant, that a superbug will eventually kill a good number of us - something like a modern day plague.

i agree, and it is already happening according to some. our micro-predators (bacteria) are becoming drug resistant, such as the new "superbug" called CRE — carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae, which is resistant to every known antibiotic in the US.

imo the scariest thing about this superbug is that it is known to spread in hospitals, despite precautions taken to prevent that. there's a great documentary on Netflix called Resistance which goes into detail.

someday in the not-too-distant future, a common strep throat infection could kill people. maybe someday, the three-person IVF genetic tinkering of the DNA in babies will engineer a resistance to this superbug.

https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/12/nevada-woman-superbug-resistant/

http://www.mycme.com/news/first-case-of-superbug-resistant-to-last-resort-antibiotic-documented-in-us/article/499495/

[Edited 3/18/17 14:54pm]

XxAxX said:

maplenpg said:

Ah...okay. My bad.

My personal opinion is that as we become evermore antibiotic resistant, that a superbug will eventually kill a good number of us - something like a modern day plague.

i agree, and it is already happening according to some. our micro-predators (bacteria) are becoming drug resistant, such as the new "superbug" called CRE — carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae, which is resistant to every known antibiotic in the US.

imo the scariest thing about this superbug is that it is known to spread in hospitals, despite precautions taken to prevent that. there's a great documentary on Netflix called Resistance which goes into detail.

someday in the not-too-distant future, a common strep throat infection could kill people. maybe someday, the three-person IVF genetic tinkering of the DNA in babies will engineer a resistance to this superbug.

https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/12/nevada-woman-superbug-resistant/

http://www.mycme.com/news/first-case-of-superbug-resistant-to-last-resort-antibiotic-documented-in-us/article/499495/

[Edited 3/18/17 14:54pm]

I have been to a lecture on antibiotic resistance and it makes for frightening stuff. It makes sense that any bug spreads quicker in a hospital where immune systems are weak and levels of infection are high. I will try to get to see the documentary - thank you for recommending. Personally, I don't believe there is a link between antibiotic resistence and three-person IVF but you never know. It is very interesting to watch superbugs such as Ebola and how people can quickly invent a vaccine with the proper funding ,and how quickly it can be fast-tracked into the public domain if needs be.

morningsong said:

maplenpg said:

I think the fault lies with the term 'designer babies' - this is about avoidance of inherited diseases. We've been asking the question 'What if people use it for the wrong reasons?' about all sorts of things including nuclear weapons and the internet for decades - both of which are far more powerful than a scientific procedure to help those with mitochondrial problems. Each 3-parent case has to be cleared by HEFA before it can proceed and infertility clinics are tightly governed so I see no reason why it should go wrong, at least in the short term anyway.

I agree with you up to where that question means; since bad things are possible then it all should be scrapped and thrown away; I don't think the question shouldn't be asked at all because history has proved over again that there are people in this world, highly intelligent people, who do things just because they can and they screw others over in the process. They may be smart but they have no conscious.

Agreed, but I believe that the vast majority of people want the best from advancements in technology and medical science and I'm not even sure we see the negatives until they occur (certainly not in the case of the internet). There will always be people who use these advancements for their own agenda but we need to balance it against that amount of people who will benefit. For me personally, the gun was probably the very worst invention, especially the AK-47, a weapon which gave people power in an uneven playing field - highly regulated 3 parent bables? - I really don't think it's a concern. I hope not anyway.

morningsong said:

maplenpg said:

I think the fault lies with the term 'designer babies' - this is about avoidance of inherited diseases. We've been asking the question 'What if people use it for the wrong reasons?' about all sorts of things including nuclear weapons and the internet for decades - both of which are far more powerful than a scientific procedure to help those with mitochondrial problems. Each 3-parent case has to be cleared by HEFA before it can proceed and infertility clinics are tightly governed so I see no reason why it should go wrong, at least in the short term anyway.

I agree with you up to where that question means; since bad things are possible then it all should be scrapped and thrown away; I don't think the question shouldn't be asked at all because history has proved over again that there are people in this world, highly intelligent people, who do things just because they can and they screw others over in the process. They may be smart but they have no conscious.

good points. hitler was working on a breeding program specifically for the purpose of engineering a super race. http://www.spiegel.de/int...46978.html

more recently china has been in the news for tinkering with human embryos to prevent a disease; some of the results showed unexpected mutations:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11558305/China-shocks-world-by-genetically-engineering-human-embryos.html

"This news emphasises the need for an immediate global ban on the creation of GM designer babies,” said Human Genetics Alert Director, Dr David King.

“It is critical that we avoid a eugenic future in which the rich can buy themselves a baby with built-in genetic advantages.

“It is entirely unnecessary since there are already many ethical ways to avoid thalassaemia. This research is a classic example of scientific careerism - assuring one's place in the history books even though the research is unnecessary and unethical."

• Three parent babies: House of L... could be sterile

The team has used a gene-editing technique known as CRISPR/Cas9 which was discovered by scientists at MIT.

It works by capitalising on the fact that bacteria attack viruses by snipping away part of their genetic code, effectively dismembering the virus. The CRISPR technique uses a bacterially derived protein to cut-away a particular gene, which is then replaced or repaired by another molecule introduced at the same time.

The technique has been used in adult cells and animal models but never in human embyos.

Advocates of gene editing say that it could eradicate devastating inherited disease. But others are worried that it crosses an ethical line, allowing children to be genetically engineered. And because the genetic changes are happening to embryos the changes will be passed down to future generations.

Huang and his colleagues set out to see if the procedure could replace a gene in a single-cell fertilized human embryo; in principle, all cells produced as the embryo developed would then have the repaired gene.

The Chinese team used embryos they obtained from the fertility clinics had been created for use in IVF but had an extra set of chromosomes, following fertilization by two sperm, which stops them resulting in a live birth.

They injected 86 embryos with the Cas9 protein and left them for two days to allow the gene-editing to take place.

• Genetically engineering 'ethical' bab...professor

Of the 71 embryos that survived, 54 were genetically tested. This revealed that just 28 were successfully spliced, and only a fraction of those contained the replacement genetic material.

They also found a number of unexpected mutations in genes which should not have been effected by the technique.

continued at link

XxAxX said:

^ and just as awful, think of Operation Paperclip whereby the US Government secretly smuggled some of those scientists out of Germany and gave them refuge right here in the good old USA true story https://www.cia.gov/libra...erica.html

XxAxX said:

morningsong said:

XxAxX said:

^ and just as awful, think of Operation Paperclip whereby the US Government secretly smuggled some of those scientists out of Germany and gave them refuge right here in the good old USA true story https://www.cia.gov/libra...erica.html

Yeah around WW2 there were many great things and some really scandalous things going on. Almost like do anything and everything and see what sticks. It always makes me wonder if this is the greatness we're to be getting back to or are we allowed to raise the bar a bit here? [Edited 3/18/17 18:46pm]

time to raise the bar and put in place different priorities, for example the health of our planetary environment over our 'needs'. but, then again who am i to say what's best?? others feel differently

XxAxX said:

it's heeere

No Chickens Were Harmed In The Making Of This Fried Chicken

from: http://www.huffingtonpost...eaab251fa?

continued at link...

XxAxX said:

it's heeere

No Chickens Were Harmed In The Making Of This Fried Chicken

from: http://www.huffingtonpost...eaab251fa?

The taste testers munched thoughtfully on the chicken tenders. “Delicious,” they said, if only a little spongier than usual. Most agreed they would eat it again.

“It tastes like chicken,” one diner marvelled.

“I went back for seconds,” said another.

The chicken the group had devoured was unlike anything they’d ever eaten. It was chicken, alright, but chicken that had never once breathed, or clucked, or been slaughtered.

The chicken tenders were produced by Memphis Meats, a Silicon Valley-based food tech company that says it’s successfully developed the world’s first ever “clean” chicken and duck meat through cellular agriculture — in other words, they were grown in a lab.

Announcing the achievement last week, the company called it “an unprecedented milestone for the clean meat industry.”

A ‘Historic’ Breakthrough

The clean meat movement, though nascent, is not entirely new. Clean beef has been produced before — the first hamburger made from lab-grown beef was consumed in London in 2013 — but poultry had remained a challenge.

In November, researchers at North Carolina State University said they’d successfully grown a “nugget” of turkey meat about the size of a finger tip in their lab, but the team has yet to announce the development of anything more substantial.

Memphis Meats has now raised the bar with their lab-grown chicken and “slaughter-free” duck, which was served à l’Orange last week to the group of taste testers.

“This is a historic moment,” Uma Valeti, co-founder and CEO of Memphis Meats, said of the company’s poultry breakthrough in a statement. “We really believe this is a significant technological leap for humanity, and an incredible business opportunity — to transform a giant global industry while contributing to solving some of the most urgent sustainability issues of our time.”

Chicken is the most consumed meat in the United States. In 2016, Americans gobbled up almost as much chicken as beef and pork combined, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Worldwide, more than 60 billion chickens are raised for meat annually.

Duck, on the other hand, is enormously popular in China, home to 1.3 billion people. Some 2.7 million metric tons of duck meat are consumed there every year, reports the Wall Street Journal.

“Chicken and duck are at the center of the table in so many cultures around the world, but the way conventional poultry is raised creates huge problems for the environment, animal welfare, and human health,” said Valeti. “It is also inefficient. We aim to produce meat in a better way, so that it is delicious, affordable and sustainable.”

continued at link...

Frankenfood!