This is a half baked long term idea that will be predicated on the existence of mastery of human genetic engineering, and external human birthing technologies.
Human birth rates is falling in many developed countries. If technologies are developed to grow humans on demands to replace falling birth rates, then there may be a temptation for the state to maintain human populations via growth vats.
The danger is that there will be a temptation for the state to technologically modify vat grown humans to better 'citizens' (e.g. genetic engineering, or implants). After all, its not in the state's interest to invest precious resource on a citizen that may potentially rebel.
Well, just as there is a human rights charter. There should be a 'minimum standard' of cognitive humanity enforced by the UN, possibly even stronger than human rights charter (Dedicated military task force?). It would ensure that any humans that a particular country(or corporation) wants to create, at least are cognitively human. Which means no external or internal mental control via technological or genetic means.
This charter should also apply to AIs of a certain level created by state or corporate entity, if such AIs are to be allowed to be recognized as a person with a passport.
Why this? Well if there is injustice in a state, then it become an unstable equilibrium because of human nature not to accept it. If human nature is modified to accept injustice, then the equilibrium will have been reached. Plus such a state will be a threat to other state, because their citizens are reliably loyal to only their creator. It also brings to question about free will, and if the state is allowed to remove a human's free will from the beginning of it's life.
tl;dr: Global charter for the prevention of new humans created with mental control via genetic or technological means.-- mofosyne, Nov 09 2013 [Obscure TV reference] That's you, that is. http://www.youtube....watch?v=5nCKYEM8qRcHistory Today (apropos bigsleep's comment, for those that don't know the reference; all very childish!) [DrBob, Nov 15 2013] UN Colonial Mortal Dictata https://www.haloped...nial_Mortal_DictataIn Halo Lore there is a law forbidding the cloning of human beings, or the exploitation of humans for the sakes of experimentation [mofosyne, Aug 06 2021] How do you determine this? Do vat grown humans have to be self loathing? Is there a standard temperment test to be applied to vat grown humans? What happens to the vat grown humans of extraordinary temperment that don't rebel under any circumstances? Are they abominations?-- rcarty, Nov 09 2013 // If human nature is modified to accept injustice, then the equilibrium will have been reached. //
If there is no perception of injustice, then does injustice per se exist ?
In the current system, 12 jury members can choose to consign an individual to lifetime incarceration if the individual has willfully killed another human.
If the elected legislature then enacts a law which extends this protection to chimps, gorillas and orang-utans, all of which demonstrate reasoning intelligence and self-awareness, is this by its nature unjust ?
If they equally choose to remove the protection of the same law from everyone who drives a green car (which is a personal choice) is this unjust ?
// Plus such a state will be a threat to other state, because their citizens are reliably loyal to only their creator. //
You say that like it's a bad thing ...
// It also brings to question about free will, and if the state is allowed to remove a human's free will from the beginning of it's life. //
Freedom is irrelevant, self-determination is irrelevant. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your technological and biological distinctiveness to our own. You must comply. You will be Assimilated. Resistance is futile.-- 8th of 7, Nov 09 2013 Your average Authoritarian State won't be happy with a population of biological robots. That's because the leaders get a charge out of ordering around folks who have Free Will, and who might prefer to not be ordered around. Robots, of course, lack Free Will and have no preferences. BORING, as far as leaders of Authoritarian States are concerned.
The main reason birth rates are declining in developed countries is because in those places just about everything is linked to a price tag. It costs too much for average folks to have a lot of children. In less-developed countries, where bartering is extremely widespread, the costs aren't so obvious.-- Vernon, Nov 09 2013 Barcode third-world children at birth, then parents can scan them regularly to see how much they've cost so far.-- 8th of 7, Nov 09 2013 //In less-developed countries, where bartering is extremely widespread, the costs aren't so obvious.//
Uh, no. In less developed countries, people generally use money. They even have clothes and language these days, you know. Bartering is not widespread.
People in underdeveloped countries are generally acutely aware of the costs of an extra mouth to feed, but also of the need to have children who can look after them in old age.
Historically, they had large numbers of children because most of them died in infancy or childhood, and they needed or wanted to ensure at least two surviving children (which makes sense). As basic healthcare improves, family sizes fall everywhere, although they lag a little behind survival rates.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 09 2013 You're mama's so vat, you were raised in a vat.-- rcarty, Nov 09 2013 tanks for the mammaries...-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 09 2013 <Rolling Stones> "Hey you, get outta my vat " </RS>-- FlyingToaster, Nov 09 2013 Why should brainless people not be grown for organs?-- Voice, Nov 09 2013 Well, since a successful brain transplant of a trained monkey with a non-trained monkey happened while the footage was still black and white. It would be my guess that it is already being done.
Your brainless clone could be genetically tweaked and still not reject a transplant of your brain since it is technically still your same old body... it just so happens to be eighteen again is all.Forget organ transplants. Brain transplants and stem cell research are the keys to limited immortality for the mega-wealthy.
Some folks are probably on their third or fourth clone by now.hmm, I wonder how long it would take for dementia to become unavoidable in such a circumstance?-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 09 2013 //Some folks are probably on their third or fourth clone by now.//
Yeah baby.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 09 2013 // a successful brain transplant of a trained monkey with a non-trained monkey happened while the footage was still black and white. //
If it's possible with the higher primates, it should be trivially easy with the welsh.
FYI, it's not done by physically transplanting brains. The existing brain contents are backed up to a server, then written to the new, blank brain. A bit like upgrading your hard drive.
However, for some professions, it's easier just to leave the new brain completely blank. No- one notices …-- 8th of 7, Nov 09 2013 For clarity, they just plumbed one monkey head into the blood supply of another, then severed the redundant bits in each case.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 09 2013 So, you've NOT seen the movie, "Idiocracy", then?-- Grogster, Nov 10 2013 Free will is an entirely meaningless concept.-- WcW, Nov 10 2013 That sort of puts America's global mission of championing liberty into question.-- rcarty, Nov 10 2013 There is no connection between the concept of free will, which is metaphysical, and the notion of liberty. US policies have nothing to do weigh either.-- WcW, Nov 11 2013 There's certainly a connection between free will and liberty. The terms are interchangeable. Certianly some of the discourses on free will are quite meaningless, especially to an atheist, but it doesn't take much to show that there is a state of being uner duress and coercion, and a state of having free will. One of the major areas of sociological study of organizations and institutions are how 'totalizing' they are over individuals.-- rcarty, Nov 11 2013 //For clarity, they just plumbed one monkey head into the blood supply of another, then severed the redundant bits in each case.//
Yes, but since then actual brain transplants have been performed. There was one with amphibians, one of which had been trained to be diurnal and the other nocturnal, after the swap the brains retained their conditioning from before the operation.Where is the follow up research? Promising results should have a bit of follow up don't you think?
Given the interim time between that publicised procedure and now, coupled with advancements in research on nano-tech, neuroprosthetics, and stem cell regeneration, is it really so far fetched to assume that somebody somewhere has successfully pulled off a human brain transplant by now?
Quite a while ago too if my gut is right, and I mean... can you really blame them?Put yourself in the shoes of someone wealthy enough to buy several lifetimes and ask yourself if you would or would not given the choice.
Then ask yourself if the success of such a project would ever become common knowledge given the billions of people on this planet.
It's pretty much a no-brainer.Ha!I'm not even mad...-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 11 2013 // mad… //
Sp. "mad … MAD … MAAAAAAD … MUHWHAHAHAHA !"-- 8th of 7, Nov 11 2013 I never liked golf.-- popbottle, Nov 11 2013 I'm not a fan of golf either, but I do love a game of Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy.-- Zeuxis, Nov 11 2013 We prefer drinking games involving Janx spirit.-- 8th of 7, Nov 11 2013 What is the standard by which we establish if something has free will?-- WcW, Nov 12 2013 It doesn't have to follow physical laws in a predictable way.-- rcarty, Nov 12 2013 So, essentially speaking, a concept without meaning. At best a rhetorical crutch?-- WcW, Nov 12 2013 Well, of course there are arguments for both sides, free will and determinism. You can simply say "not all action is within our means of prediction, but that doesn't equate to free will". That would be fine. But for the purposes of politics that is sufficient to say people have free will, beyond the power of other men to control and that will be the refuge called freedom.
But if you are making theological arguments, that we do not have free will, all actions are predictable to a suitably endowed outside observer then you are getting into the realm of predestinationism. That isn't so bad in and of itself, but predestinationism eventually reduces into hermeneutics, semiology, and ultimately self- delusion of the postive reinforcement of pragmatic action that one's fate is preordained by god to be one of salvation, and others of damnation, and other historically specific nuances.
It's obviously an interesting topic of discussion, but I would state my own position very simply. People do in fact have free will despite complete immersion in nature. While the scope of actions are not unlimited and people have to act within constraints, the variety of possible actions in any given situation are sufficient to say choices can be made freely. Some determinists will argue that important constraints exist to suggest behaviour such as right or wrong, moral and sinful, smart and stupid, indicating there is underlying guidance to action that can be observed in 'signs', leading to the conclusion people are not meant to act freely but towards a predetermined or predestined end. This is embodied in the song "I saw the sign" by Ace of Base. Those who disagree simply argue that these are merely evaluations immanent in pragmatic action, and that action needn't be pragmatic but can instead be ends in themselves, despite what results may follow, in that case being means to ends. The aforementioned deterministic ideologies seem to necessarily imply that there is a diety that has sided in the argument in favor of determinism. This is likely the alienated subjectivity of the observer whose religious tendencies are deterministic of action. They cannot be expressing any will but their own, and certainly not gods will, which they certainly can not command by definition. The determinist is usually drawing an evaluative conclusion from right and wrong and mocks free will from a righteous position of moral safety. The freewillians on the other hand do as they please despite moral suggestions or edicts to the contrary that do nothing to constrain their actions. Take for example a determinist ascete and a hedonistic freewillian. The former may be well in health and have a thick bankroll, and the latter infected with sexual disease and has only outturned pockets. What can be concluded from this comparison? The determinist proves his side because he measures with his pragmatist equation of good=true, and the freewillian must concede because he can no longer seek out his pleasures? This has indeed been a conclusion throught the ages. However, by some miraculous eventuality liberty has still soared with its golden wings above this self-righteous disciplinarianism time and time again dropping doodoo on its wrinkled head.-- rcarty, Nov 12 2013 I'm sorry, I missed the part where we could measure if someone or something had free will. You just wandered away from the whole question.-- WcW, Nov 13 2013 I provided an objective starting point, but you immediately dismissed it. I continued to elucidate relevant discourses.
It's a very simple matter. Compare an employee working in a factory, and a child playing in a field. Consider the employee five minutes after his shift ends, and the child under close watch by his parent. That there can be degrees of free will shows that there is indeed free will, but also determinist constraints.
Go back to "following physical laws in a predictable way". Consider a thrown ball, and a thrown bird. Both weigh the same, and both were thrown with the same energy, and in the same trajectory, but the ball will land predictably, but the bird will not - it has free will.
Consider a draught animal, flowing water, and a man used to perform the same labour turning a mill. The water has the least free will, then the draught animal, then the man. However, a key purpose of the sciences throughout time has been to bend the wills of each of these forces - a key goal of positivism is to control and predict better.-- rcarty, Nov 13 2013 So in principal free will applies only to humans. Also, we measure it with the precise "we know it when we see it" test, just like with pornography?-- WcW, Nov 13 2013 I edited my previous comment, but no in a broader sense free will can be applied to a broad range of physical objects. Electricity is an interesting one. For millenia as far as humans were concerned it had the free will of god. But today electricity has no will and is under complete mastery by mankind.
Then again there are determinists that fully reject the idea of free will as an illusion.-- rcarty, Nov 13 2013 — rcarty
whoa... that's a real essay. Well would it be okay if my argument in regards to that... is that whether free will is real or not, is not important. Instead it is more important that a diverse make up of human personality exist; to prevent the stagnation of society and also to increase the chance of out of the box innovation?
Think of why the Monte Carlo approximation Algorithm exist, which uses random functions to assist with optimizing a stochastic process. This includes human society, which can have many solution, and near infinite pathways to danger.
In multiple stages of human history, there has been multiple cases of people trying to lock into a dogma that eventually led to disaster, even if that dogma was what enabled them to succeed previously. In that sense, the idea that we need to find a solution to question of free will, is unneeded.
The belief that we have free will is enough.
cite: Self fulfilling prophecy.-- mofosyne, Nov 13 2013 The whole free will/determinism thing is a false dichotomy and your view of free will seems entirely relativistic. The moment you understand why a thing does what it does you regard it as no longer having free will. Weak tea I say.
This idea is at the heart an attempt to remove basic humanitarian protections from an organism judged "not human enough" because it lacks adequate free will. In this case "free will" can only be established using religious and pop song based standards, and some sort of bizarre false dichotomy of free will vs. determinism. Frankly this sounds like the establishment of a franchise of humanity for "people who think like I do" thinly veiled in fear mongering about how our population is about to be over run with "non human corporate slaves". Personally I would rather live with and fight for a liberated form of humanity for all individuals, than live under a regime that sought to "protect liberty" by dehumanizing some individuals on very capricious grounds.-- WcW, Nov 13 2013 I didn't say anything anticorporate. I'm against determinism in general because it leads to certain conclusions that I disagree with. For example a person who has made bad choices or has failed is fundamentally flawed, or inferior. Corporatism is just living in a society with people, and is constraining but not necessarily a proof of determinism.-- rcarty, Nov 13 2013 //dehumanizing some individuals on very capricious grounds.// They have to be humanized first and will you be giving human rights to a horse? a pig? a monkey? a human with less intelligence than the monkey? a program with more intelligence than the human?The line must be drawn.-- Voice, Nov 13 2013 "//dehumanizing some individuals on very capricious grounds.// They have to be humanized first and will you be giving human rights to a horse? a pig? a monkey? a human with less intelligence than the monkey? a program with more intelligence than the human?
The line must be drawn."
Dear me. I'm always concerned when people want to draw "the line" in the population of self identified humans.-- WcW, Nov 14 2013 Star Trek VI Azetbur: “Human rights! Why, the very name is racist!"-- DrBob, Nov 14 2013 We as a species are actually in a unique position at the moment, having no other humanoids around for the last few thousand years. If the Neanderthals had hung on just a bit longer, the world would be very different.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 14 2013 Not much we didn't, even by the most generous interpretation of the data (which is wrong, btw). Interbreeding was very limited.
You might as well argue that the Barbary Lion is not extinct because there was the occasional cross- breeding with other subspecies of lion.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 14 2013 OK the barbary lion is not extinct because of occasional crossbreeding with other types of lionses.-- rcarty, Nov 14 2013 Fingers crossed for that, [bigs], otherwise your species is even more doomed than it was ...
// a human with less intelligence than the monkey? //
We understand that not only does Tony Blair have a passport (the again, there are such things as pet passports), but that he has also been permitted to breed.
This seems, on due consideration, unwise.-- 8th of 7, Nov 15 2013 //That's you, that is.// Oh bigsleep; I think I love you!-- DrBob, Nov 15 2013 Oh, get a room ...-- 8th of 7, Nov 15 2013 random, halfbakery