For the Old Farts...

[warpedx]

Here's a trippy new article. Kinda interesting, but can you say "Instant overpopulation??"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4003063.stm

[acoenfam1]

Interseting! Sounds as if someone is working on, what was it Larry Niven caled it in his "Known Space" scifi novels, boosterspice. It does raise quite a few moral questions though.

[Icehawk]

I saw a story about that in Popular Science a while ago. Over populations would have to be my biggest concern, but maybe profilactics companies will become sponsored by the government or 999 out of every 1000 people will be steralized. :puzzled:

One one hand it would be nice to have that much time to accomplish whatever you wanted, but on the other it would totally be screwing with the balance of nature even moreso than we allready have. Let’s try to get offworld colonization going before we do this kind of crap so at least we'll have a place to put everyone.

[acoenfam1]

"999 out of every 1000 people will be steralized."

A lottery?

[Icehawk]

YOU WIN!!! CONGRADULATIONS!!! YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO JIZZ!!!

Probably not, chances are it would turn into a selective breeding program. If people are trying to modify themselves to be perfect anyways, they'll most likely try to breed perfect people right off the bat and save the trouble of having to go through gene therapy later.

[El Pirata]

Here's a trippy new article. Kinda interesting, but can you say "Instant overpopulation??"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4003063.stmTwo words, NEVER HAPPEN. These bozos are thinking they can get people to live to 1000 years old yet they can't even wipe out the common cold.

[drkanglr]

At the bottom of the article is an alternate view link. Check that one out. It's a bit more realistic. Of course, knowing that I didn't get into paintball until later than most of the kids today, it would be nice to be playing still at the young age of 375. Wonder what WDP will be putting out then, huh?

[Crazy4Paintball1]

Thats kind of cool....overpopulation could be a major problem though, and things could get complicated with selective breeding and stuff...but its cool that people are researching stuff like that...

[walbuls]

All i have to say is 1 word "Incest" and no one wants that. It would be like a hillbilly revolution. Every girl would be your sister. Sounds fun huh? This plan would be a disaster.

[drkanglr]

What would be different from the way it is in Texas right now?

[matthepepe]

ya really havent you ever heard of West Virginia

[walbuls]

Ya i have but who wants the whole world like that. Not me.

[warpedx]

What's wrong with every other person being named Cletus, Jebediah, or Billy-Bob (Billy-Sue for the ladies)??

[drkanglr]

Don't forget your cousin, Skeeter

[warpedx]

You back off my girlfriend!

[drkanglr]

I can't back off of her. Her dad's pointin' the double barrel at me!

[Icehawk]

My god... this conversation is degrading fast. I don't see though how incest would become a problem. Granted, you would have more family members, but only because your great great great great great great great grandparents would still be kicking. Of course it would be the same in everyone else’s family as well. It's not like we're locking the Jones' in a building for 1000 years just so see what kind of problems develop. If anything, the birthrate would drop dramatically because people would have more time to successfully raise a child before they got too old which, as a result, would lengthen the amount of time before all the possible permutations of family lines cross and you end up screwing distant cousins. Overpopulation would still be an issue but I don't believe incest would be any more of an issue in this scenario than it would be today. Sorry, but I just had to inject this conversation with a good bit of intelligence again. Hope I didn't throw all the people from the Southeast and Southcenteral U.S. off by doing so.

[walbuls]

My incest comment was in conjunction with the selective breeding comment.

[drkanglr]

And I was just playing along w/ Walbuls. Don't let the locations fool you. N.C. isn't still in the stone ages. But hey, thanks for interjecting some of that thar in-tele-jense for us. ;)

[Icehawk]

Walbuls and drkanglr - No worries. I too live here in the Deep South. I've just seen so many good discussions go down the drain in some of my college classes that I felt I had to try to save this one. Sorry if I sounded kind of like a prick (I just reread my last post and I even think I did).

As far as selective breeding goes, I can see where the incest argument would come from, but I still don't believe it would happen. Purebred dogs are made by breeding into their own lineage, but it has been proven that is most advantageous for humans to mix up the genes as much as possible, which is a fact that I believe whoever was in charge of the program would keep in mind. If such a program was put in place, I believe it would consist of a genetic screening and discount anyone who had any serious genetic abnormalities (everyone has millions of them) and attempt to decide what the most advantageous combinations of certain individuals would be. From there, the top x-number of individuals would be accepted and the next generation would be born. This number would be very large though, since the purpose of the program would be to keep a proper population number in relation to the amount of resources we have while producing the best results. Also, since the accepted applicants would come from all over the world, the chances of intra-family breeding would be next to nil. Of course there are many other ideas for how the program would work, but this one just makes the most sense in my mind. Any other theories are welcomed along with any comments on possible flaws this one may have.

P.S. - On a completely different note, does anybody know what those nifty little spinning stars under our name mean?

[walbuls]

Donations? maby

[drkanglr]

Number of years w/ AOG