If you can really, truly get liver-on-a-chip to work, it's going to positively change drug testing forever and will be the first huge win for tissue engineering.
You can throw away animal models for tox screens forever, and that's great news. It will save vast amount of time and money. By using a much better proxy model for humans (slices aren't organs, they have different rheological characteristics and morphology, but they're a damn sight better than mice), you'll wash out candidates earlier and faster, and hopefully enrich the pipeline.
Slowly but surely, and it's good to see steps in this direction.
Meh. There are plenty of human cell line derived assays for things like membrane permeability, liver toxicity, etc.
Those assays are super helpful, but don't replicate what happens in humans. They are good boxes to check, and can help weed out compounds early, but just because a compound passes the assay doesn't guarantee something weird won't pop up in humans.
Is it possible that these proxies you mention could weed out compounds incorrectly? For example, if we have a liver proxy that fails on drug A, is it possible that drug A will work fine in the human body provided that there’s a lot of other processes that could contribute to the liver?
Absolutely. That's the flip side of in vitro and animal testing. You might see a negative signal and stop development, only to find out that it can't be replicated in humans.
The cell line assays replicate much of what happens in humans, but not all of it, in particular the interactions between different tissues. For example, a drug might be toxic in a liver assay because a reactive metabolite damages the cells. But in an actual human, you might never see those high of concentrations in the liver or there may be a process (like glutathione adducts) that deactivates the metabolite and prevents cell damage.
I've heard nearly any implant you put inside body has negative impact and this is also true for titanium implants which is seemingly inert and harmless metal.
How many people their body with some industrial chip, I'll never use anything like this unless my life depends on it.
Look at how much energy and computer cycles they have to put into just for folding a single protein and then realise that scaling it up at our current level is basically impossible: https://foldingathome.org/
Does anyone have a layman-accessible explanation for how exactly this works? My last biology class was freshman year of college, but I find the "body-on-chip" startups incredibly interesting. I take it this is different than "growing" organs via stem cells?
Basically, when you are growing organs or organoids (or 3d printing organs) with stem cells (which are used for organ on a chip too), you're actually trying to recreate the physical organ itself in it's original structure/function. You can imagine in the extreme the end result of trying to do this with a lung would be actually having a working lung that you could transplant into a person.
Organ on a chip is less about making a lung, amd more about making a very controllable device that that has all the relevant behaviors and characteristics of a lung, so you can experiment with it. The end result of this might be a bunch of chips all connected to eachother with all sorts of tubes, and different cells grown in each tube with exact stimuli of all sorts being applied by an automated system. The goal wouldn't be to make a long you could put into a person. Rather, the goal would be to make something that, when you put a drug in through one of the tubes, would tell you exactly what would happen to the drug and how the lung of a real person would react if you were to give them the drug.
The lines can get blurred, organoids on a chip, 3d printed organs used for research purposes, etc. But in general, (and you'll see this in how the different companies market themselves) growing organs is trying to get functional organs that could eliminate the need for a donor for an organ transplant, and organ on a chip is trying to get perfect research tools to eliminate the need for mice in research.
This reminds me very much of manufacturing quality testing, where you do initial DoE and validation builds to develop knowledge of the process. Eventually the knowledge of procc behavior at boundary conditions is known well enough that you can start to use alternative process monitoring approaches, like building a representative mockup of in-vitro conditions that represents the actual use conditions.
It doesnt have to be the same vector, just the same eigenvector.
We need to clone decephalized humans and livestock.
With thousands of brainless bodies kept alive on life support, you have test subjects for a limitless number of experiments that would have never been possible before. You also create a never-ending O negative blood supply and organ harvesting program.
It the case of decephalized animals, you also get cruelty free meat. And that's how you bootstrap the program and port it to the human model.
There would be a lot of political pressure, but this would be a space-age jump in supporting fundamental biological research, supplying renewable body parts and tissues, and keeping us healthy and young.
We need to do it.
If I ever get Elon Musk money and power, I'm doing this instead of rockets.
>With thousands of brainless bodies kept alive on life support, you have test subjects for a limitless number of experiments that would have never been possible before. You also create a never-ending O negative blood supply and organ harvesting program.
what society would ever produce decephalized humans when they could produce cephalized humans? a weak society that could not possibly adapt or grow.
>It the case of decephalized animals, you also get cruelty free meat.
only if you redefine cruelty to mean "what happens when bad things happen right in front of you". If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears...
>And that's how you bootstrap the program and port it to the human model.
of course, it's really no surprise. why are farmers less intelligent than hunter-gatherers? the process of domestication is self-imprinting. I think vegetarians really do have a point- not one that has to do with the cruelty of animals on an individual level, but with the very nature of domestication of animals itself. because the slippery slope of husbandry is ALWAYS eugenics. and the morality applied to animals always gets applied to humans given enough time.
>There would be a lot of political pressure, but this would be a space-age jump in supporting fundamental biological research, supplying renewable body parts and tissues, and keeping us healthy and young.
>We need to do it.
>If I ever get Elon Musk money and power, I'm doing this instead of rockets.
of course WE need to do it right? for millions of years humans lived and were forced to accept death, but THIS is the generation that we need to change by creating unholy abominations of our own kind.
You are pathetically evil. I will patiently wait for you to die.
Let me tell you who you are:
"Many modern people, on the other hand, are disturbed by the prospect of physical deterioration and death, as is shown by the amount of effort they expend trying to maintain their physical condition, appearance and health. We argue that this is due to unfulfillment resulting from the fact that they have never put their physical powers to any practical use, have never gone through the power process using their bodies in a serious way. It is not the primitive man, who has used his body daily for practical purposes, who fears the deterioration of age, but the modern man, who has never had a practical use for his body beyond walking from his car to his house. It is the man whose need for the power process has been satisfied during his life who is best prepared to accept the end of that life."
> You are pathetically evil. I will patiently wait for you to die.
I have posed an engineering solution to disease that harms zero humans and furthers knowledge many fold, yet you wish for my death. Wow. You are incredibly misguided in your anger.
> what society would ever produce decephalized humans when they could produce cephalized humans? a weak society that could not possibly adapt or grow.
You can't dissect or experiment on thinking, feeling humans! That's immoral. Decephalized humans never have a thought process or consciousness. They're vegetables grown in a lab. Using them to further science and heal sick people is even more ethical than using lab animals, and I would argue it is our moral imperative to attempt this as soon as possible.
You do know that humans are animals and that our time in the universe is limited? My perspective is that there is no god other than us to lift ourselves up to reach the stars. We have to help each other as best as we can, and this technological reverse salient is begging for exploitation. It unlocks so much potential.
Biology is a platform, a machine, an ecosystem. We need to fully commandeer it. We're still in the punch card phase, and I want to see us reach the biological equivalent of compilers.
It's a fluke that I even exist, and I want to take full advantage of my limited time here. You're putting up artificial barriers and limitations.
>I have posed an engineering solution blah blah blah
"Don't worry guys, all Nazi Germany did was invent and execute engineering solutions! they are free of all moral consequences!"
>harms zero humans
>You can't dissect or experiment on thinking, feeling humans! That's immoral.
>there is no god other than us to lift ourselves up to reach the stars
>Biology is a platform, a machine, an ecosystem.
let me get your argmuent right:
treating humans like mindless animals and dehumanizing them = immoral bad nazi experimentation, playing god. it's cruel! don't you know that people have dignity and can feel pain!
making humans like mindless animals and dehumanizing them = moral, good, playing god, the purpose of society is just to live forever so I can post on hacker news, if we make them into genetic abominations they can't feel pain, and can't have dignity!
You have the simplest understanding of morality that contradicts on the slightest inspection. the reason you think this way is because you never question the basic axioms of your belief system that was handed down you. It is clear that you have a completely meaningless understanding of cruelty beyond hedonistic "pain = cruelty".
>Biology is a platform, a machine, an ecosystem. We need to fully commandeer it so we can make it into a perverted abomination as soon as possible.
I think life itself has some intrinsic value (it could perhaps be described as a type of pervasive-yet-hidden beauty) besides just existing forever in a perverted and impotent form.
>You do know that humans are animals and that our time in the universe is limited?
Your world view is very bizarre to me. Death of sentient beings is fine or good, but creation of inanimate, non-sentient things - which will invariably reduce sentient suffering and death - is evil?
>what society would ever produce decephalized humans when they could produce cephalized humans? a weak society that could not possibly adapt or grow.
...Huh? What?
>only if you redefine cruelty to mean "what happens when bad things happen right in front of you". If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears...
How? Going from killing conscious beings to not killing them anymore is the opposite of cruelty.
the idea that people should simply live and die naturally is becoming increasingly antiquated
>what society would ever produce decephalized humans when they could produce cephalized humans? a weak society that could not possibly adapt or grow.
The primary driving force behind growth and change in society (by proxy of individuals attempting to fulfill the power process) is competition. The conflict that causes this motivation is death- that is to say that the root reason why people do things is because they will eventually not be able to do things. In a society where no one has to compete in the "sexual marketplace", and no one dies within a reasonable lifespan, there largely is no reason to change or grow
>How? Going from killing conscious beings to not killing them anymore is the opposite of cruelty.
Is the alternative to this kidnapping people and harvesting their organs? No of course I don't support that. If you are suggesting that letting people die because they needed organs harvested in a gravely unethical manner is "killing". then yes, I do support that form of "killing" because it is so far removed from the actual meaning of killing that it no longer bears meaning.
>the idea that people should simply live and die naturally is becoming increasingly antiquated
Indeed, and I personally think that's a very, very good thing. Preventing aging and death is one of the most noble things we as a species can strive towards, in my opinion. I believe this should be the ultimate goal for all sentient beings, not just humans. I believe more and more people are coming to share this sentiment, and I believe that if humanity still exists in 100 years from now, this will be the prevailing world view.
>The primary driving force behind growth and change in society (by proxy of individuals attempting to fulfill the power process) is competition. The conflict that causes this motivation is death- that is to say that the root reason why people do things is because they will eventually not be able to do things. In a society where no one has to compete in the "sexual marketplace", and no one dies within a reasonable lifespan, there largely is no reason to change or grow
This is an extremely common argument, and in my opinion, a weak one. Competitive forces can and do achieve great results across many domains, but to suggest that the only way to achieve great results is through competition, conflict, and death across all areas is a very simplistic and narrow view of reality, I think. I think it's a fallacy of the converse.
Longevity researchers like Aubrey de Grey have good counter-arguments to these sorts of arguments against anti-aging and immortality. For a basic overview, I think the counter-arguments he gave on his recent appearance on Joe Rogan are good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-z0kglwpwo
I believe eliminating aging and death in humans will enable far more growth, change, and happiness than we ever could have experienced before. (To be clear, true immortality will never be possible; quasi-immortality may eventually be possible; biological immortality seems pretty likely to be possible within this century or next century.)
I don't think if you told people they weren't going to eventually die of cancer and aging that they would no longer want to do anything. If anything, it would more effectively enable them to pursue their true passions, since they wouldn't need to save up for retirement before a certain age. (They could if they wanted to, but they would no longer have to.)
In an immortal society, there would still be market competition, and sexual competition, and all sorts of other competition. (I think even if you did remove those two sorts of competition, society would still grow and change effectively, but that's a separate topic.) Although it's an unavoidably influential force at this time, we aren't slaves to natural selection, and to the extent possible, I think we should try to become the opposite of slaves to it. I think we should try to be self-determining.
People should be able to die whenever they want to. They shouldn't have to slowly fall apart and crumble into goo, largely beyond their control. You only have one chance to exist, and it's extremely brief. Why make it briefer than it otherwise could be?
>If you are suggesting that letting people die because they needed organs harvested in a gravely unethical manner is "killing". then yes, I do support that form of "killing" because it is so far removed from the actual meaning of killing that it no longer bears meaning.
But what about decephalization is at all unethical? I don't understand. It seems like the opposite. I think it's one of the most ethical things we can possibly do. There would be far less need to do potentially harmful, torturous, or lethal experiments on thinking animals, including humans. And for humans who want to consume meat, they can do it in a way that doesn't require inflicting pain and death on conscious entities.
I do happen to think it probably isn't practica...
>Preventing aging and death is one of the most noble things we as a species can strive towards, in my opinion. I believe this should be the ultimate goal for all sentient beings, not just humans.
The people I know who value nothing above their own lives have been without exception weak and deplorable. You can try and spin this as "preventing ALL deaths, not just mine" but in my experience it's just self-deception. People who can't psychologically handle their own deaths and subordinate it to other goals or principles are too weak to do so.
I'm not arguing against preventing aging. It might be a wonderful thing. But with few exceptions when talking to people who had been on the brink of death and destruction they all said it was the best part of their lives, some saying they would go back to it in an instant.
Decephalized HN posters would be great for fascist dystopia.
If you can justify the creation of human cattle the purposes of masturbation, you are a monster. You are worse than hitler, because even hitler cared about german people. You would be complicit with "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" just for your own sexual amusement. and because you "LOVE SCIENCE" so much
I've seen a lot here, but this takes the cake. I'm not sure if that post is a troll, assuming it is not:
Half of the energy and time of any decent person with morals goes into stopping smart psychopaths like that poster from doing whatever the heck they want.
I'm not religious, but it makes me wonder if the church is actually needed to keep those people in check.
As Shapiro says, you need to be taken seriously where it matters. If you sincerely need to ask which morals this violates, you show that you have no classical humanistic education. Such an education cannot be provided in a web forum.
It is sad that because of a couple of psychopaths tech people are not taken seriously outside of web forums.
Is easy to claim the moral high ground when you don't define it, meaning where are you drawing the line? If I lose a leg in an accident and some scientists (plus doctors) can make a clone of my leg and my leg only to reattach it on my body is that moral or amoral? If yes then what about the complete lower body? If yes what about everything below the neck?
In the spirit of a certain forum that likes the phrase "whatever s(he) is feeling at the moment":
The spergs on HN posit that brainless people have no rights since they don't feel anything. That is their chance to replace their rubber dolls with sex bots.
It's not. I've had this idea for some time, and I'm absolutely serious.
We already grow human cells in culture. It's like growing an extremely delicate plant. The HeLa cell line is derived from Henrietta Lacks, and she's been dead for some time. There's nothing wrong with growing and manipulating cells like this. Eukaryotic cells are as brainless as prokaryotic ones. This is how we do basic research.
We create multicellular tissue cultures, often using the extracellular matrix from cadavers. Again, basic research. Nothing wrong, nobody hurt.
If you can grow a human body without a head and brain, how is that ethically different from a plant? Please explain it to me. As long as you guarantee the brain never develops, it's ethically cleaner than telling a white lie.
Personhood requires a brain. Period.
I don't believe in a soul. So that's not an issue either.
Next explain to me why we shouldn't do this, because headless clones will cut organ transplant waiting lists to zero and help us cure cancer, diabetes, and every other human disease that doesn't directly involve the brain.
I was under the impression that the nervous system outside the brain is only propagating signals back and forth, and all the actual compute is localized in the brain. If that's true, then the GP's idea makes sense; if it isn't, then that's a can of worms we need to sift through eventually.
I worked as a genetic engineer in human cell therapy: developmental biology doesn't really work that way. You can't just "decephalize" without causing massive secondary effects in body development and maturation - the nervous system is very much a central part and organizer of animal development, and also centrally important in a lot of the physiology you want to test when doing drug trials! And good luck keeping decephalized animals alive long enough to harvest outside a sterile lab. You don't need to be an edgelord billionaire to make a difference, but you'd benefit by learning more biology.
I don't have firsthand experience, but it seems like you could play with ectoderm development in conjunction with manual surgical techniques. Program the neural tube cells to die at a certain stage of development or when treated with certain media.
I think keeping the body alive will pose a much greater problem than preventing the brain from developing.
46 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 114 ms ] threadYou can throw away animal models for tox screens forever, and that's great news. It will save vast amount of time and money. By using a much better proxy model for humans (slices aren't organs, they have different rheological characteristics and morphology, but they're a damn sight better than mice), you'll wash out candidates earlier and faster, and hopefully enrich the pipeline.
Slowly but surely, and it's good to see steps in this direction.
Those assays are super helpful, but don't replicate what happens in humans. They are good boxes to check, and can help weed out compounds early, but just because a compound passes the assay doesn't guarantee something weird won't pop up in humans.
The cell line assays replicate much of what happens in humans, but not all of it, in particular the interactions between different tissues. For example, a drug might be toxic in a liver assay because a reactive metabolite damages the cells. But in an actual human, you might never see those high of concentrations in the liver or there may be a process (like glutathione adducts) that deactivates the metabolite and prevents cell damage.
it’s not a perfect model, but i think it’s a better proxy than a mouse.
And it will prevent much animal suffering.
How many people their body with some industrial chip, I'll never use anything like this unless my life depends on it.
Organ on a chip is less about making a lung, amd more about making a very controllable device that that has all the relevant behaviors and characteristics of a lung, so you can experiment with it. The end result of this might be a bunch of chips all connected to eachother with all sorts of tubes, and different cells grown in each tube with exact stimuli of all sorts being applied by an automated system. The goal wouldn't be to make a long you could put into a person. Rather, the goal would be to make something that, when you put a drug in through one of the tubes, would tell you exactly what would happen to the drug and how the lung of a real person would react if you were to give them the drug.
The lines can get blurred, organoids on a chip, 3d printed organs used for research purposes, etc. But in general, (and you'll see this in how the different companies market themselves) growing organs is trying to get functional organs that could eliminate the need for a donor for an organ transplant, and organ on a chip is trying to get perfect research tools to eliminate the need for mice in research.
It doesnt have to be the same vector, just the same eigenvector.
With thousands of brainless bodies kept alive on life support, you have test subjects for a limitless number of experiments that would have never been possible before. You also create a never-ending O negative blood supply and organ harvesting program.
It the case of decephalized animals, you also get cruelty free meat. And that's how you bootstrap the program and port it to the human model.
There would be a lot of political pressure, but this would be a space-age jump in supporting fundamental biological research, supplying renewable body parts and tissues, and keeping us healthy and young.
We need to do it.
If I ever get Elon Musk money and power, I'm doing this instead of rockets.
what society would ever produce decephalized humans when they could produce cephalized humans? a weak society that could not possibly adapt or grow.
>It the case of decephalized animals, you also get cruelty free meat.
only if you redefine cruelty to mean "what happens when bad things happen right in front of you". If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears...
>And that's how you bootstrap the program and port it to the human model.
of course, it's really no surprise. why are farmers less intelligent than hunter-gatherers? the process of domestication is self-imprinting. I think vegetarians really do have a point- not one that has to do with the cruelty of animals on an individual level, but with the very nature of domestication of animals itself. because the slippery slope of husbandry is ALWAYS eugenics. and the morality applied to animals always gets applied to humans given enough time.
>There would be a lot of political pressure, but this would be a space-age jump in supporting fundamental biological research, supplying renewable body parts and tissues, and keeping us healthy and young.
>We need to do it.
>If I ever get Elon Musk money and power, I'm doing this instead of rockets.
of course WE need to do it right? for millions of years humans lived and were forced to accept death, but THIS is the generation that we need to change by creating unholy abominations of our own kind.
You are pathetically evil. I will patiently wait for you to die.
Let me tell you who you are:
"Many modern people, on the other hand, are disturbed by the prospect of physical deterioration and death, as is shown by the amount of effort they expend trying to maintain their physical condition, appearance and health. We argue that this is due to unfulfillment resulting from the fact that they have never put their physical powers to any practical use, have never gone through the power process using their bodies in a serious way. It is not the primitive man, who has used his body daily for practical purposes, who fears the deterioration of age, but the modern man, who has never had a practical use for his body beyond walking from his car to his house. It is the man whose need for the power process has been satisfied during his life who is best prepared to accept the end of that life."
I have posed an engineering solution to disease that harms zero humans and furthers knowledge many fold, yet you wish for my death. Wow. You are incredibly misguided in your anger.
> what society would ever produce decephalized humans when they could produce cephalized humans? a weak society that could not possibly adapt or grow.
You can't dissect or experiment on thinking, feeling humans! That's immoral. Decephalized humans never have a thought process or consciousness. They're vegetables grown in a lab. Using them to further science and heal sick people is even more ethical than using lab animals, and I would argue it is our moral imperative to attempt this as soon as possible.
You do know that humans are animals and that our time in the universe is limited? My perspective is that there is no god other than us to lift ourselves up to reach the stars. We have to help each other as best as we can, and this technological reverse salient is begging for exploitation. It unlocks so much potential.
Biology is a platform, a machine, an ecosystem. We need to fully commandeer it. We're still in the punch card phase, and I want to see us reach the biological equivalent of compilers.
It's a fluke that I even exist, and I want to take full advantage of my limited time here. You're putting up artificial barriers and limitations.
"Don't worry guys, all Nazi Germany did was invent and execute engineering solutions! they are free of all moral consequences!"
>harms zero humans >You can't dissect or experiment on thinking, feeling humans! That's immoral. >there is no god other than us to lift ourselves up to reach the stars >Biology is a platform, a machine, an ecosystem.
let me get your argmuent right:
treating humans like mindless animals and dehumanizing them = immoral bad nazi experimentation, playing god. it's cruel! don't you know that people have dignity and can feel pain!
making humans like mindless animals and dehumanizing them = moral, good, playing god, the purpose of society is just to live forever so I can post on hacker news, if we make them into genetic abominations they can't feel pain, and can't have dignity!
You have the simplest understanding of morality that contradicts on the slightest inspection. the reason you think this way is because you never question the basic axioms of your belief system that was handed down you. It is clear that you have a completely meaningless understanding of cruelty beyond hedonistic "pain = cruelty".
>Biology is a platform, a machine, an ecosystem. We need to fully commandeer it so we can make it into a perverted abomination as soon as possible.
I think life itself has some intrinsic value (it could perhaps be described as a type of pervasive-yet-hidden beauty) besides just existing forever in a perverted and impotent form.
>You do know that humans are animals and that our time in the universe is limited?
yes I am quite aware
>what society would ever produce decephalized humans when they could produce cephalized humans? a weak society that could not possibly adapt or grow.
...Huh? What?
>only if you redefine cruelty to mean "what happens when bad things happen right in front of you". If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears...
How? Going from killing conscious beings to not killing them anymore is the opposite of cruelty.
the idea that people should simply live and die naturally is becoming increasingly antiquated
>what society would ever produce decephalized humans when they could produce cephalized humans? a weak society that could not possibly adapt or grow.
The primary driving force behind growth and change in society (by proxy of individuals attempting to fulfill the power process) is competition. The conflict that causes this motivation is death- that is to say that the root reason why people do things is because they will eventually not be able to do things. In a society where no one has to compete in the "sexual marketplace", and no one dies within a reasonable lifespan, there largely is no reason to change or grow
>How? Going from killing conscious beings to not killing them anymore is the opposite of cruelty.
Is the alternative to this kidnapping people and harvesting their organs? No of course I don't support that. If you are suggesting that letting people die because they needed organs harvested in a gravely unethical manner is "killing". then yes, I do support that form of "killing" because it is so far removed from the actual meaning of killing that it no longer bears meaning.
Indeed, and I personally think that's a very, very good thing. Preventing aging and death is one of the most noble things we as a species can strive towards, in my opinion. I believe this should be the ultimate goal for all sentient beings, not just humans. I believe more and more people are coming to share this sentiment, and I believe that if humanity still exists in 100 years from now, this will be the prevailing world view.
>The primary driving force behind growth and change in society (by proxy of individuals attempting to fulfill the power process) is competition. The conflict that causes this motivation is death- that is to say that the root reason why people do things is because they will eventually not be able to do things. In a society where no one has to compete in the "sexual marketplace", and no one dies within a reasonable lifespan, there largely is no reason to change or grow
This is an extremely common argument, and in my opinion, a weak one. Competitive forces can and do achieve great results across many domains, but to suggest that the only way to achieve great results is through competition, conflict, and death across all areas is a very simplistic and narrow view of reality, I think. I think it's a fallacy of the converse.
Longevity researchers like Aubrey de Grey have good counter-arguments to these sorts of arguments against anti-aging and immortality. For a basic overview, I think the counter-arguments he gave on his recent appearance on Joe Rogan are good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-z0kglwpwo
I believe eliminating aging and death in humans will enable far more growth, change, and happiness than we ever could have experienced before. (To be clear, true immortality will never be possible; quasi-immortality may eventually be possible; biological immortality seems pretty likely to be possible within this century or next century.)
I don't think if you told people they weren't going to eventually die of cancer and aging that they would no longer want to do anything. If anything, it would more effectively enable them to pursue their true passions, since they wouldn't need to save up for retirement before a certain age. (They could if they wanted to, but they would no longer have to.)
In an immortal society, there would still be market competition, and sexual competition, and all sorts of other competition. (I think even if you did remove those two sorts of competition, society would still grow and change effectively, but that's a separate topic.) Although it's an unavoidably influential force at this time, we aren't slaves to natural selection, and to the extent possible, I think we should try to become the opposite of slaves to it. I think we should try to be self-determining.
People should be able to die whenever they want to. They shouldn't have to slowly fall apart and crumble into goo, largely beyond their control. You only have one chance to exist, and it's extremely brief. Why make it briefer than it otherwise could be?
>If you are suggesting that letting people die because they needed organs harvested in a gravely unethical manner is "killing". then yes, I do support that form of "killing" because it is so far removed from the actual meaning of killing that it no longer bears meaning.
But what about decephalization is at all unethical? I don't understand. It seems like the opposite. I think it's one of the most ethical things we can possibly do. There would be far less need to do potentially harmful, torturous, or lethal experiments on thinking animals, including humans. And for humans who want to consume meat, they can do it in a way that doesn't require inflicting pain and death on conscious entities.
I do happen to think it probably isn't practica...
The people I know who value nothing above their own lives have been without exception weak and deplorable. You can try and spin this as "preventing ALL deaths, not just mine" but in my experience it's just self-deception. People who can't psychologically handle their own deaths and subordinate it to other goals or principles are too weak to do so.
I'm not arguing against preventing aging. It might be a wonderful thing. But with few exceptions when talking to people who had been on the brink of death and destruction they all said it was the best part of their lives, some saying they would go back to it in an instant.
If you can justify the creation of human cattle the purposes of masturbation, you are a monster. You are worse than hitler, because even hitler cared about german people. You would be complicit with "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" just for your own sexual amusement. and because you "LOVE SCIENCE" so much
Half of the energy and time of any decent person with morals goes into stopping smart psychopaths like that poster from doing whatever the heck they want.
I'm not religious, but it makes me wonder if the church is actually needed to keep those people in check.
It is sad that because of a couple of psychopaths tech people are not taken seriously outside of web forums.
What's moral or amoral is dependant on whatever he is feeling at the moment. I very much doubt he has defined it.
The spergs on HN posit that brainless people have no rights since they don't feel anything. That is their chance to replace their rubber dolls with sex bots.
It's not. I've had this idea for some time, and I'm absolutely serious.
We already grow human cells in culture. It's like growing an extremely delicate plant. The HeLa cell line is derived from Henrietta Lacks, and she's been dead for some time. There's nothing wrong with growing and manipulating cells like this. Eukaryotic cells are as brainless as prokaryotic ones. This is how we do basic research.
We create multicellular tissue cultures, often using the extracellular matrix from cadavers. Again, basic research. Nothing wrong, nobody hurt.
If you can grow a human body without a head and brain, how is that ethically different from a plant? Please explain it to me. As long as you guarantee the brain never develops, it's ethically cleaner than telling a white lie.
Personhood requires a brain. Period.
I don't believe in a soul. So that's not an issue either.
Next explain to me why we shouldn't do this, because headless clones will cut organ transplant waiting lists to zero and help us cure cancer, diabetes, and every other human disease that doesn't directly involve the brain.
Well, it requires a complex nervous system.
How many neurons are there outside of the brain?
How many neurons create a sensing, feeling being?
It's an assumption to say that the only way for consciousness around organic feeling to exist is through a brain. We don't know that.
Have you seen Elysium? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)
I think keeping the body alive will pose a much greater problem than preventing the brain from developing.