PretentiousElizabeth

As someone from the outside of the US looking in, I'm always reminded of this Onion article every month or so when one of these stories makes news in the Anglosphere: https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819576527 " 'No way to prevent this' Says Only Nation Where This Happens Regularly" It just seems totally bizarre that you can all look at your country and have this debate, when every other modern country solved it. Same thing with healthcare - it shouldn't be a debate, you can just look at everywhere else to find out, across the Atlantic or a lot of the time just slightly North of you or over in Australia. *sigh* Politics aside, the thing that drives people to do mass murder and other such horrific acts? Differs from person to person, I'd assume. I'd imagine it's probably a combination of all kinds of things - people don't just snap over something or other, it's just a boiling for whatever else they've got going on - whether that be social, mental, emotional, what have you. Is the response irrational? Yeah, but that's human beings for ya - we're not rational. It's very rare, I think, that people can just wake up one morning and go "Yeah, I wanna kill people, that sounds like fun." They're usually angry, pent-up somehow, or occasionally downright depressed or full of self-loathing. The spree killer isn't some cackling maniac who laughs at the bloodshed - they're a human being, just a very broken one. To chalk what they do up to "Evil" as a force rather than just a concept to mean "immorality" is to declare all people with the capacity to be spree killers as being completely and utterly beyond any form of redemption or help before they do the spree killing. Is there sometimes something just fundamentally wrong with some people? Yeah - but that doesn't mean most people are just broken beyond repair. This guy was a domestic abuser, right? So he's probably got a lot of anger and control issues - if you can get to the root of why, you can either fix it, or institutionalise the guy if he's well and truly beyond help. But for whatever reason, some people don't get that help. Maybe they don't think it's a problem, maybe we as a society aren't willing to tell them it's a problem, maybe the infrastructure and paths to such things just don't exist where he was. Prevention is the best cure is a mantra that rings true for a reason - so, in my opinion, we should work on preventing these people from getting to such a state in their lives where they feel murdering people - usually with a suicide or suicide-by-cop as the end result, something I assume they're aware of - is the best outlet or solution to their problems. Are these mass shootings getting worse, more common? Perhaps, or perhaps we're just hearing about it more because we're so interconnected now with our technology and communications. It's like when people bring up terror attacks being more common - in the last 20 years, yes definitely. In the last lifetime? I didn't, but I know people who lived through "The Troubles", when Britain was dealing with a terrorist problem from Irish nationalists - not as globalised an issue, but terrorism is still terrorism no matter which flag it drapes itself in, so maybe it's always been there, and maybe that's the same with spree killers. No matter the answers to any of that, I'm just sad we're going to go through the same cycle - we'll talk about it, debate it a little, forget about it in a few weeks unless we're directly connected to it, then there will be another mass shooting and nothing will get done all over again. I'd say "Maybe there needs to be something truly shocking to inspire change", then I remember that schools get shot up in the US on a seemingly regular basis, and you can't really escalate from "killing children".

I know this isn't a question specific to Skyrim and is almost more of a meta question, but I figured the mod discussion was the best place to put it and I am playing Skyrim. Where is one supposed to file bug reports for a mod one's using? Is it in the posts of the mod, the mod's forum if it has one, contacting the creator directly, somewhere else entirely? Is there such a thing or is it more of a "Go to troubleshooting or forums for that mod on it's page and see if there's any known fixes and the creator will pick up on it if there aren't?" Apologies for asking something so trivial, I'm still new here and learning the ropes of how the site and it's community works.

I think a problem with considering augmenting our intelligence in the current age is that it's really, really hard to do even conceptually. Changing ourselves physically is all well and good, hell I'm pretty young in the grand scheme of things and it might be something I have to consider properly in my lifetime, but being able to make someone smarter isn't as easy as making someone harder,better,faster,stronger, etc. It's not that humans don't want to be smarter, it's that we pretty much don't know how. If we find a way to give everyone eidetic memories, awesome, I'm first in line if I ever got the cash together - but we don't know how. The difference between the two isn't that intelligence isn't physical so we don't care about it, it's that intelligence isn't physical so it's an intangible thing we can't change in such a quick and easy way. Intelligence is such a broad concept interlinked with so many things that trying to modify it genetically is kind of a crapshoot that's liable to do more harm than good, especially considering we still don't fully know what affects it and those that we do are often associated with drawbacks, like anxiety, depression or schizophrenia. That's just our genetics though, is our intelligence not also built on an environment where we and/or others nurture our intelligence and have a desire to do so? Transhumanism might be able to increase the capacity for intelligence, but it can't force people to develop more intelligence. I think if the technology was there that it was such an easy consideration and so easily understandable as physical modifications, we'd be considering it. As it stands, the ability simply isn't there, not the desire. Sure, we might be able to do so, but it's risky and might not get that big a payoff. The risk/reward of trying to modify the biology of people for intelligence is high on the risk without the promise of a vast reward at our current level of understanding. I stress that I'm nothing more than a laymen in this field, if I'm wrong please feel free to correct me! So if biological augmentation is too far off to consider right now, the discussion becomes one of mechanical augments. The problem with this is that, as I understand it, the idea of modifying one's intellect mechanically is pure science fiction for now. We're making progress, like mapping out the connections of the human brain thanks to the Human Connectome Project, but there's not really much we can affect physically. Using nanotechnology one could perhaps make, repair, and strengthen synaptic connections to give people better information recall and quicker thinking, but that's not necessarily affecting intelligence so much as how quickly you can apply your intelligence. So if both biological and mechanical augmentation is so far from being able to have any real applications (barring a major scientific breakthrough, of course), but physical augmentations of both varieties are much closer, it makes sense we discuss the physical augments as we can already easily envision them and consider their applications. Or maybe I just have too much faith in humanity's value of our intellect and preserving it and we will just devolve into cyborg apes as time goes on, who knows? :tongue: I think a problem with considering augmenting our intelligence in the current age is that it's really, really hard to do even conceptually. Changing ourselves physically is all well and good, hell I'm pretty young and it might be something I have to consider properly in my lifetime, but being able to make someone smarter isn't as easy as making someone harder,better,faster,stronger, etc. It's not that humans don't want to be smarter, it's that we pretty much don't know how. If we find a way to give everyone eidetic memories, awesome - but we don't know how. The difference between the two isn't that intelligence isn't physical so we don't care about it, it's that intelligence isn't physical so it's an intangible thing we can't change in such a quick and easy way. Intelligence is such a broad concept interlinked with so many things that trying to modify it genetically is kind of a crapshoot that's liable to do more harm than good, especially considering we still don't fully know what affects it and those that we do are often associated with drawbacks, like anxiety, depression or schizophrenia. That's just our genetics though, is our intelligence not also built on an environment where we and/or others nurture our intelligence and have a desire to do so? If genetic modification of our intelligence, whether that be through strengthening synapses or modifying neurotransmitters to make people think faster and remember more, or getting a better understand of the genome so as to modify ourselves safely and knowingly by giving ourselves eidetic memory or something, we probably would. As it stands, the ability simply isn't there, not the desire.

Tex, I think you've got a false equivalence going there. Eugenics, at it's most extreme, is a desire to change humanity by removing certain people or peoples from it. Of course, the actual meaning of eugenics has been a matter of debate since it was coined - some would call any form of meddling with our genetics eugenics. Transhumanism is a desire to change humanity by altering things in people whom are already living (or by some definitions like ones which include gene therapy, soon to be living). One is depriving people of life or the ability to procreate if they so wish, the other doesn't effect this. That's not to say there isn't a discussion to be had about transhumanism potentially leading to eugenics, but that support of transhumanism doesn't make one a supporter of eugenics, especially insofar as the eugenics practices by the Nazis. If you think that transhumanism would lead to "seeking perfection" and destroying humanity in the process, then I ask what, at our core, makes or breaks us from being human? As ProConsul said, Is being a homo sapien, the scientific term, the same as being human, the philosophical term? Is it our physical form that dictates whether we're human, or something mental, perhaps even emotional? Would mechanical or biological augments effect this, and if so, why? Though your point about stem cells and the ability to do some small edits to them is interesting, as genetic engineering could be considered a form of transhumanism. For example, if there was some way to screen embryos for a genetic condition, like Huntington's, and then cure it, do you think it would be right to do so? Would you partake in such a thing, would you allow it to be legal for others if they so chose? Do you think it would start a slippery slope toward further edits, and if so, do you think perhaps we're already on that route? Do you think people would fall into eugenics, even with such horrific examples so readily available and remembered in history that even the word itself is tainted to some extent now? If we don't touch our genetics - whether that's by choice because of the concerns you raise (which is actually the case right now as the United Nations has a declaration forbidding the altering of the human genome, calling it the "common heritage of humanity" which should be preserved. Not explicitly illegal, but it perhaps shows what most nations think of the topic, as it was signed unanimously), or by making it explicitly illegal, so as to deliberately avoid the Gattaca reality - and instead focus upon more mechanical augments to ourselves which by their nature would only be available after we've reached adulthood and stopped growing, does your opinion of transhumanism change?

Transhumanism is, broadly speaking, the idea of the human race going beyond our current limitations through the application of technology or science. This idea has always fascinated me, but I've met people who vehemently oppose the notion and who vehemently endorse it. An example of transhumanism would be cutting a limb to replace it with a robot one that's better than a human one - think Deus Ex Human Revolution's augments, that's a form of transhumanism (and to my mind the kind most commonly portrayed by media). So for example, if I got a replacement organ that functioned better and more efficiently for longer than my regular organ, that would also be a form of transhumanism. You could also include gene therapy as a form of transhumanism. My basic question is this: Do you think transhumanism is ultimately a good or bad thing? Why? And would you personally adopt what it offers/would offer? Personally, I'm totally on board with the idea. My reasoning is as follows: Science and technology advance unerringly. They might be set back sometimes, they might slow down sometimes, but it keeps going onwards. If I have the option to replace parts of myself with superior technology, I see no reason why I shouldn't. If I can make myself think faster, live longer (healthily), or be healthier with the aid of technology, I'm simply making use of something we already use. I mean, I'm currently wearing glasses, if I can get artificial eyes that can see better than my eyes could even if they were perfect, is that not an objective improvement to my life? I've heard the argument that repairs to things like robotic limbs would be expensive and that, unlike regular human flesh, it won't repair itself (excluding the development of nanomachines, of course), but my eye is basically all of those things anyway; hard to repair, not very sturdy, and unlikely to recover from a major injury. At least from how I see it, something like that is almost a "duh" position to me. On a societal level, transhumanism is just another technology. I've often heard that it would only make the class divide larger and lead to the rich getting richer because they could afford better technologies, and it would be highly visible to everyone. My response to that is that that's exactly the same process with any new technology, or is no different from how things currently are. The wealthy already have access to better opportunities than the poor - whether that comes from the area in which you live, the places you can afford to go, the people you have connections to, the phrase "the rich get richer" rings true for a reason. You can argue the level at which this is true, maybe you believe anyone can make it coming from nothing, but it's still harder for the people at the bottom to work their way to the top at the very least. All transhumanism is is another layer of that, but that isn't exactly going to upset society and turn it on it's head. But, like all technology, it'll trickle down to everyone over time, just like phones or computers. These days nearly everyone has a smart phone, and that's basically a supercomputer that you can carry in your pocket. The same goes, I think, for transhumanism - to begin with the augments might be crude and expensive, but over time they'll become cheaper, better, and improving nearly everyone's lives (in the context of the First World, at least). So, do you agree? Disagree? What are your reasons?