researchers have found a gene that when it mutates causes children to
age 10 times faster than normal.

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?
e=pri&dt=060809&cat=frontpage&st=frontpagept_medicalmysteries_progeria_
060808&src=abc

if they can find a way to slow the aging of these kids, can they slow
the aging of the general population. should they?

On 8/9/06, Robert wrote:
(...)
> researchers have found a gene that when it mutates causes children to
> age 10 times faster than normal.
>
> http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?
> e=pri&dt0809&cat=frontpage&st=frontpagept_medicalmysteries_progeria_
> 060808&src=abc
>
> if they can find a way to slow the aging of these kids, can they slow
> the aging of the general population. should they?
(...)

There is something wrong with the link (even after putting it all
together in a single line) and I couldn't get into the article.
However, it seems from the link that this is related to progeria
research. If so, then I suppose that what the scientists are trying to
do is to find a cure that will make those children age like a *normal*
person. The treatment then will probably not make difference for a
normal person, though it may point lines of future research in
longevity treatments.

On the other hand, seven years ago it was found a gene that, when
deleted, would make otherwise normal mice live 30% longer, and it is
strongly suspected that given the same genetic edition a human being
would show the same effect. (Though of course research on transgenic
humans is not exactly a burgeoning field in science... As far as we
know.)

An there is the whole thing of the Immortality Institute
(http://www.imminst.org/), which has the ultimate goal of extending
human life indefinitely and making death a matter of choice (or
accident). For those scientists the answer to your question is clearly
yes.

sorry for the bad link. yes, it is about that. they said that it was
in a gene that if it mutated caused the children to age faster. It
might be the same gene that was changed in the mice. regardless, in
the study of the gene, they have found something that seems to slow
the progress of the disease and does in some cases seem to reverse it
some. there are attempts to raise the money for a drug study now.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Lucio de Souza Coelho"
wrote:
>
> On 8/9/06, Robert wrote:
> (...)
> > researchers have found a gene that when it mutates causes
children to
> > age 10 times faster than normal.
> >
> > http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?
> >
e=pri&dt=060809&cat=frontpage&st=frontpagept_medicalmysteries_progeria
_
> > 060808&src=abc
> >
> > if they can find a way to slow the aging of these kids, can they
slow
> > the aging of the general population. should they?
> (...)
>
> There is something wrong with the link (even after putting it all
> together in a single line) and I couldn't get into the article.
> However, it seems from the link that this is related to progeria
> research. If so, then I suppose that what the scientists are trying
to
> do is to find a cure that will make those children age like a
*normal*
> person. The treatment then will probably not make difference for a
> normal person, though it may point lines of future research in
> longevity treatments.
>
> On the other hand, seven years ago it was found a gene that, when
> deleted, would make otherwise normal mice live 30% longer, and it is
> strongly suspected that given the same genetic edition a human being
> would show the same effect. (Though of course research on transgenic
> humans is not exactly a burgeoning field in science... As far as we
> know.)
>
> An there is the whole thing of the Immortality Institute
> (http://www.imminst.org/), which has the ultimate goal of extending
> human life indefinitely and making death a matter of choice (or
> accident). For those scientists the answer to your question is
clearly

lets try this link to a simular story.

http://www.personalhealthfacts.com/hgh3.html

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Robert" wrote:
>
> sorry for the bad link. yes, it is about that. they said that it
was
> in a gene that if it mutated caused the children to age faster. It
> might be the same gene that was changed in the mice. regardless, in
> the study of the gene, they have found something that seems to slow
> the progress of the disease and does in some cases seem to reverse
it
> some. there are attempts to raise the money for a drug study now.
>
> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Lucio de Souza Coelho"
> wrote:
> >
> > On 8/9/06, Robert wrote:
> > (...)
> > > researchers have found a gene that when it mutates causes
> children to
> > > age 10 times faster than normal.
> > >
> > > http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?
> > >
e=pri&dt=060809&cat=frontpage&st=frontpagept_medicalmysteries_progeria
> _
> > > 060808&src=abc
> > >
> > > if they can find a way to slow the aging of these kids, can
they
> slow
> > > the aging of the general population. should they?
> > (...)
> >
> > There is something wrong with the link (even after putting it all
> > together in a single line) and I couldn't get into the article.
> > However, it seems from the link that this is related to progeria
> > research. If so, then I suppose that what the scientists are
trying
> to
> > do is to find a cure that will make those children age like a
> *normal*
> > person. The treatment then will probably not make difference for a
> > normal person, though it may point lines of future research in
> > longevity treatments.
> >
> > On the other hand, seven years ago it was found a gene that, when
> > deleted, would make otherwise normal mice live 30% longer, and it
is
> > strongly suspected that given the same genetic edition a human
being
> > would show the same effect. (Though of course research on
transgenic
> > humans is not exactly a burgeoning field in science... As far as
we
> > know.)
> >
> > An there is the whole thing of the Immortality Institute
> > (http://www.imminst.org/), which has the ultimate goal of
extending

On 8/9/06, Robert wrote:
(...)
> lets try this link to a simular story.
>
> http://www.personalhealthfacts.com/hgh3.html
(...)

Indeed HGH is already used in anti-aging treatments worldwide.

I found another link (hopefully "unbreakable" :-) that talks about the
gene stuff itself:

http://www.sph.umich.edu/news_events/74press.html

nice find. now the question is weither or not the earth can handle
longer living populations. generally retirement is considered to be
about 65 to 70. will we have to extend this to 100? will the
workforce be able to absorb the increase in workers? will it have any
effect on space colonizing efforts?

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Lucio de Souza Coelho"
wrote:
>
> On 8/9/06, Robert wrote:
> (...)
> > lets try this link to a simular story.
> >
> > http://www.personalhealthfacts.com/hgh3.html
> (...)
>
> Indeed HGH is already used in anti-aging treatments worldwide.
>
> I found another link (hopefully "unbreakable" :-) that talks about
the

--- In spacesettlers, "Robert" wrote:

> if they can find a way to slow the aging of these kids, can they slow
> the aging of the general population. should they?

One would hope so, and yes.

The truth is, nobody ever dies from "old age;" people die from various
complications of aging. This isn't just being clever with words; this
is the truth. Think about it: if you were to cure cancer, heart
disease, and alzheimers, wouldn't people live longer? Add arthritis,
osteoperosis, and a whole list of other things which kill people.

Aging is sort of like AIDS in that it doesn't kill you itself, but
instead leaves you open to attack from other things which kill you.
There is no more reason to avoid curing aging than there is to avoid
curing AIDS. Indeed, aging leads to the deaths of more people.

Here is something I posted at teh IMDb in relation to a proposed
remake of the movie _Logan's Run_.
My general rule is to do things as close to the source material as
possible. But hey, I'm not making this movie, am I? So just for fun...

In the future, life seems to be a utopia: everybody has material
wealth in abundance, the work week is 24 hours, there are lots of fun
ways to spend that leisure time, and thanks to longevity treatments,
people remain young and vibrant to the age of 121... at which point
they are expected to die. No Carousel, no Renewal, they just step into
the Deep Sleep facility and are painlessly killed by the technicians
there.

The reasons are given as:
IT isn't natural to live longer than that. Before the longevity
treatments were invented, you could probably count on one hand the
number of people confirmed to have lived longer than 121, and
certainly you wouldn't have to resort to counting toes.
THE longevity treatment starts to wear off at that age, and people
start to age. Slowly at first, then gradually faster and faster, until
one is aging normally. At the age of 175 or so, one is the equivilent
of 60 and aging at the natural rate. Why go through all that? Isn't
121 years of youthful vitality enough, without having to drag through
80 or 100 years of aging, feebility, and eventual helplessness? And
where does it all end? In death. So you aren't even avoiding death,
just making it prolonged and miserable. See how good your Controller
is, to spare you all of that? Now step into the nice Deep Sleep booth.
Good boy.
BTW, there are Runners who claim the process could be slowed (though
not stopped) by additional treatments, but see the next reason for why
that would not be done.
POPULATION is tightly controlled, and in order for new children to be
born, the oldsters have to step aside. Otherwise the society will
become stagnant (it already is, but hey). Sure, the oldsters would
eventually get old and die anyway, but to have "new blood" as often as
the Controller has determined is optimal, that's too long to wait.
BESIDES, it's expensive to take care of old people. The work week
would probably have to be extended from 24 hours (three days of eight
hours each) to 28 hours (an extra half day!).

Now we have a story which isn't about the value of youth, or the value
of age. We don't, in a real sense, any longer have _Logan's Run_. We
have now a story about whether or not people have the right to use
technology to enjoy "unnatural" benifits, whether or not government
has the right to tell its citizens when to die, and whether or not
society has an obligation towards those "selfish" enough to grow old.

These are complex enough issues that it isn't just a case of liberals
support one side and conservatives support the other. For instance: it
isn't very conservative to give the government the power to tell
healthy people to die "for the good of society", but it also isn't
conservative to tell the whole society that they have to work harder
to support non-working oldsters.

All that said, if they are going to call this movie _Logan's Run_,
then it aught to be _Logan's Run_, and not what I have described
above. The above might make a good movie, but don't call it _Logan's Run_.

Let's take our clothes off before they freeze!
- Logan 5

>
> The truth is, nobody ever dies from "old age;" people die from
>various
> complications of aging. This isn't just being clever with words;
>this
> is the truth. Think about it: if you were to cure cancer, heart
> disease, and alzheimers, wouldn't people live longer? Add arthritis,
> osteoperosis, and a whole list of other things which kill people.
>
> Aging is sort of like AIDS in that it doesn't kill you itself, but
> instead leaves you open to attack from other things which kill you.
> There is no more reason to avoid curing aging than there is to avoid
> curing AIDS. Indeed, aging leads to the deaths of more people.
>

I agree. Pehaps genetics won't solve much. After all, every complex
system suffers aging. It is just a matter of seeing a ten years old
car in Canadian wheather.

Besides, who would want dictators that live forever?

To learn to live one also has to learn to die, and make room for
future generations.

Omar

--- In spacesettlers, "Omar E. Vega" wrote:

> I agree. Pehaps genetics won't solve much. After all, every complex
> system suffers aging. It is just a matter of seeing a ten years old
> car in Canadian wheather.

But with proper maintainance, there are folks still tooling around in
Model T's.

> Besides, who would want dictators that live forever?

How many of history's dictators died of "old age?" They usually die
well before the infirmities of age catch up with them.

> To learn to live one also has to learn to die, and make room for
> future generations.

OK. You first.

The problem now is not living up to 100, many of the younger people today may not live beyond 50 years: a tense, unhealthy, environmentally expensive, and much hyped modern lifestyle. I have had the mortification of seeing three relatively young people in my own immediate family dying prematurely.

Selvaraj
P.S. Interesting post below. This is just one part of the problem.

OUTSOURCING OBESITY
The world is fast becoming fat and rotund. Is the industrially produced
food the new killer?

The world is fast becoming fat, obese and rotund. And so are the hungry and impoverished. If nutritionists are to be believed, more and more slum dwellers in New Delhi, Mumbai and elsewhere are fast adding on unwanted body fats. Resulting obesity is turning into a major killer - topping the global chart.

As if this is not enough, the US President George Bush has announced that the United States is rapidly outsourcing obesity to India. Speaking sometimes back before the US Chamber of Commerce, Bush said that since most of the millions of jobs outsourced were to India since he first became the President, "These jobs are now making the people of India fat instead of us."

America hopes to shed some three trillion pounds of unsightly cellulite every year through outsourcing. Since the call centre jobs are sedentary, workers are fast putting on weight. One reason is that the BPO industry has provided enough space for the fast food joints thereby providing the workers with the limited choice of eating junk foods to fill their hungry stomachs. In the long run, therefore, the fast growing BPO industry will create a health epidemic in India.

At the same time, genetically modified food with no visible advantages for the consumers is being marketed with impunity. Between 2001 and 2004, the Swiss multinational Syngenta released about 700 tons of the illegal seeds into the US market by mistake, enough to produce about 150,000 tons of corn. This new corn variety contained a gene that makes it resistant to the antibiotic Ampicillin. It is widely feared that if humans consume animals fed with the corn, they could develop immunities to antibiotics.

As the US and European Union remained locked in a battle over certification, the fact remains that more and more such unwanted and unhealthy foods are being dumped all over. In 2001, a similar mishap from Starlink had cost the US economy over a billion dollars. In any case what is being marketed as 'substantially equivalent' is something that brings no gains to the average consumers. It only helps the biotech seed companies garner more profits from its cultivation. Since what is grown has to ultimately enter the food chain, scientists are being used to justify the need to have such crops and then pronounce these foods as safe.

For almost three decades in a row, the global food industry grew at a phenomenal rate with the promise of feeding the upwardly mobile population with tasty and cheap fast foods. The educated and the rich first latched on to the attractively packed and quickly delivered food products. By the time they realized that the industrially produced foods were unhealthy and in reality a killer, the habit had grown.

The industry meanwhile grew in size and moved across shores using the power of advertisement to lure the gullible consumers. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), which is always eager to promote unwanted technologies so as to promote the commercial interests of the agribusiness companies and that too in the name of hunger and malnutrition, turned a blind eye to the unhealthy food trends and for obvious reasons.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) too belatedly reports that more than 1.2 billion people, about one-sixth of the global population, are now overweight. Ironically, the number of fat people far exceed the number of absolute hungry - some 840 million people go to bed with empty stomach. The only redeeming feature being while a majority of the obese are in the developed countries, almost the entire population of hungry live in the Third World countries. So far only 115 million people in the Third World are reportedly obese and the faulty eating habits have induced a rise in heart and diabetes-related problems.

The worst affected is of course America. With its heavily subsidized food supply chain, receiving enormous subsidies at the time of production and processing, food was never so cheap. Backed by media blitz, Americans devoured everything that was put on the market. The result: obesity has now become the major killer in the United States, leaving cigarette smoking far behind. Some 400,000 people die every year from obesity-related ailments. More and more agile activists and affected people are now moving the courts to stop the food industry from killing people and also to seek adequate compensation.

In China, a country that was battling malnutrition all these years, reports now indicate that over 22 per cent of Chinese are obese, and the rate of fattening is rising faster. In India, a study conducted by the All India Institute for Medical Studies (AIIMS) reveals that 27 per cent of school children are obese. Another study by the Centre for Obesity Research (COR), Kanpur, shows that between 1998 and 2003, India spent Rs 3,750 billion on treating obesity-related problems, with tax-payers picking up the tab for half the amount. This is because urban India, which may be only five percent of the country's population, consumes 40 per cent of the country's available fat.

Obesity is fast growing in eastern European countries, where obesity rates have tripled in last 25 years. In Australia, some 20 per cent of the school children and adolescents are obese and over-weight. In Middle East, the obesity ratio has reached 60 per cent. In Japan, where people were traditionally thinner and short, reports show that men between the age of 20 and 60 are getting fatter at an alarming rate. The alarming trend is therefore something that the consumers as well as the governments need to worry about. As the British Food Standards Agency pointed out recently, if obesity continues to grow at the present rate, today's young people will not be able to live as long as their parents. And yet, when the WHO earlier this year came out with a report chastising the sugar industry for being responsible for growing diabetes, and therefore calling for a reduction in sugar consumption, the industry reacted and forced the international agency to withdraw its report.

At the same time, worried at the rising anger among the consumers, the American food industry has come together to prepare a joint front against the spate of legal suits being filed. Nor has the industry allowed the governments to clamp moratorium on advertisements on the small screen. The recent softening of the Indian government's stand against the soft drink industry is a pointer to who decides as to what we should eat and drink. The relentless expansion of McDonald's and Wimpy's to the remote corners of the developing world is an indication of the impact of media backup to unhealthy foods.

This brings us to the more fundamental question. It is often been said that the consumer is the best judge of the market economy and therefore he or she makes decisions that are best required. The food industry therefore pleases the consumers by repeatedly saying that consumer is the king. In reality, the consumer is simply stupid.

Take the case of cigarettes. It has been clearly written on the cigarette packs that smoking is injurious to health, and yet the educated went on smoking as if there was no tomorrow. How can the consumers be considered wise if the sales of cigarettes continued to soar despite the loud warning? Similarly, after the damage already done by the food industry, no questions are being asked about the newly introduced genetically modified food products. If the consumers were never discerning enough to find out how the fast foods were detrimental to their health, they are not making any effort to question the nutritional and human health value of the genetically-modified foods that have suddenly appeared on the market shelves.

After all, what benefit does a consumer have by eating a soybean that has a gene for herbicides? When will the consumer begin to ask these simple questions? What benefit does the average consumer in India have when the industry provides them with cotton seed oil for cooking that contains a bacterial gene for toxicity? How long will the consumers allow the food industry to poison them? When will the consumers begin to question the nutritional safety of food products that are being forced down their throat?

Regardless of what GM food means for human health, a Japanese-US study published by the annals of the American Academy of Sciences has recently concluded that beef and milk from cloned cattle is similar to that produced by normal animals. "We conclude that most parameters of the composition of meat and milk from somatic animal clones were not significantly different from those of the genetically modified animals," the study had concluded. If that be so, what is wrong with the beef and milk from ordinary cattle? Why should the consumers opt for milk and meat from genetically modified cattle? Why is the industry producing these genetically modified cattle when the normal cattle are no less inferior?

Failure to ask these questions is resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. These are unwanted deaths. These deaths are the not the outcome of poverty and hunger. The industrial food epidemic affects first the rich and educated. Their only fault being that they have been eating whatever came their way. Like cattle, they are being very conveniently led to a slaughter house.

Food produced industrially is now becoming a major killer. Obesity related deaths have now reached an epidemic proportion. Who will bell the cat?

Devinder Sharma

From: Xenophile

--- In spacesettlers, "Omar E. Vega" wrote:

> I agree. Pehaps genetics won't solve much. After all, every complex
> system suffers aging. It is just a matter of seeing a ten years old
> car in Canadian wheather.

But with proper maintainance, there are folks still tooling around in
Model T's.

> Besides, who would want dictators that live forever?

How many of history's dictators died of "old age?" They usually die
well before the infirmities of age catch up with them.

> To learn to live one also has to learn to die, and make room for
> future generations.

OK. You first.

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.

This is an interesting artical, and there is doubtlessly much truth in
it. However, the overall tone makes me suspisious as to whether or
not some less-than-exact stuff may have been sneaked in. There is
talk of ampicillian-resistant GMO, but no mention of putting the old
GM on peanuts to rid them of the most deadly allergen in the world of
food allergies.

It almost made it sound as if the US has decided "We're too fat; let's
make India fat too." Like there's a "fat conspiracy" out there.

Finally, the whole thing ignored a simple fact, a fact which cannot be
ignored if the problem is to be solved: junk food tastes good. People
aren't eating Big Macs because the media have forced them too; people
are eating Big Macs because Big Macs taste good.

Still, yes, it is a problem. A problem which CAN be solved, but which
might not be.

On 8/11/06, Xenophile wrote:
(...)
> How many of history's dictators died of "old age?" They usually die
> well before the infirmities of age catch up with them.
(...)

Are you sure? Right now I remember a lot of dictators dying of old
age: all the leaders of the old Soviet Union, as well as Mao Tse Tung,
Pol Pot and Kim Il-Sung. Apparently Castro and Pinochet are going
through the same path. In fact the only dictator that right now I
remember dying of non-natural causes - suicide, in his case - was
Hitler. (Who some may not consider exactly a dictator, for as far as I
remember he ascended to power through democracy.)

And, of course, if you consider as dictatorships all the countless
absolute monarchies that existed throughout millenia of human history,
then the number of "dictators" dying of old age would skyrocket.

On the other hand, even though democratically elected leaders stay
only four or five years in power, I remember a lot of them dying of
assassination or suicide: Kennedy and Lincoln in the U.S., Vargas in
Brazil, Rabin in Israel, and... I think that there was also a Swedish
or Norwegian leader who was murdered, wasn't it?

On 8/11/06, Xenophile wrote:
(...)
> Finally, the whole thing ignored a simple fact, a fact which cannot be
> ignored if the problem is to be solved: junk food tastes good. People
> aren't eating Big Macs because the media have forced them too; people
> are eating Big Macs because Big Macs taste good.
(...)

I agree that the simplest explanation is that junk food tastes good.
And I think that there is a good evolutionary reason for that. After
thousands of years of intermittent starvation, most of human beings
are probably genetically programmed to LOVE fat and sugar and get fat,
and get fat *fast*, whenever possible.

Of course there is a minority of "mutants" who apparently are not
programmed that way. I for one like neither MacStuff nor Coke. (I
guess that Coke may be addictive due to the caffeine, but hey, coffee
and cappuccino are SO much better... ;-)

On 8/11/06, Brad Walsh wrote:
(...)
> I remember reading that our genes get shorter as we age. Literally the gene
> strands lose pieces from the ends, meaning that older cells begin to lose
> some capabilities. For example the gene that codes to make collagen, the
> connective tissue in skin that keeps it soft and pliable, falls off some
> skin cells as we get older. So gradually more and more tissues lose the
> ability to make collagen, and our skin begins to look wrinkled or weathered.
> It is not clear yet all the functions that are lost in this process, but
> advances in human genomics will elucidate more of these over time. Some may
> be correctable, through medications for example, but others, like production
> of collagen in the right places, may not. So aging is an actual biological
> process, not just an accumulation of incidental damage over time.
(...)

You are talking about telomeres, the "knots" at the ends of
chromosomes that mark the number of times that a cell will replicate.
There has been recent research on tinkering with telomeres (making
cells multiply more than the expected from their original
programming), as we can see in this discussion topic at the
Immortality Institute:

http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f3&t637&s

We still don't know all the details of why our genetic material
begins to degrade after a certain amount of time, but it makes sense
from an evolutionary standpoint. In order for a species to remain
successful, it must be able to adapt to a changing environment. The
only way for a non-technological species to do that is to have its
older members die out and be constantly replaced by a slightly
different mix of genes. If older members remain with youthful
fitness, the younger (less wise) ones would not be able to compete
for food, mates, shelter, etc. The gene pool would stagnate, and
environmental change could wipe the species out. Having a gene pool
that slowly drifts one way or the other as the environment changes
helps a gene line survive. Note that it doesn't guarantee the
survival of a specific species, because that species will eventually
evolve into one or more different species, but that line will survive.

Of course, we are a technological species. That makes us unique on
Earth because we are able to adapt to brand new situations almost
instantly. We no longer require generations of death and struggle to
find a new gene pool that can adapt to new problems. That makes death
less useful to us. In fact, in a way, some people may feel that
immortality may have an advantage. (get ready for the
controversy....) Medical science allows people to live now that would
have quickly died just decades ago. Genetic diseases and deformities
that would have proved an evolutionary dead end in the past, are now
"no big deal." People who are too weak and unintelligent to survive
in the wild, can easily thrive in a modern society and pass their
genes on. In fact, as long as the state is paying their hospital
bills, genetically weak people can produce many offspring and
eventually come to dominate the gene pool. Some people may decide
that it would be preferable to end reproduction and use immortality
to ensure that the gene pool stays stronger. It could be that some
space settlements will try this, thinking that the Earth is bound to
be overrun by fast breeding "imbeciles."

Anytime you start talking about eugenics, peoples' hair starts to
stand up on the back of their necks, and for good reason. Yet it is
inescapable that modern technology takes away much of the necessity
for a high-quality gene pool. Our technology will be able to
compensate for our shortcomings as we get weaker, but it will be
perilous to become dependent on our technology, which we will
inevitably do. We become more vulnerable to disaster should our
technology ever let us down, or should our energy supply run out, or
should some war or political upheaval sufficiently disrupt our society.

Of course, there are those who believe that we are already immortal,
and to them, this thread is probably kind of silly.

doug

On Aug 11, 2006, at 12:09 PM, Brad Walsh wrote:

On 8/11/06, Douglas May wrote:
>It could be that some
> space settlements will try this, thinking that the Earth is bound to
> be overrun by fast breeding "imbeciles."
(...)

They will become Asimov's Spacers. ;-)

However, while physical deficiencies seem kind of unimportant today,
*mental* deficiencies are more crippling than ever in an world ever
more complex and information-soaked. A retarded person can have a
somewhat normal life in a primitive or agrarian society, but hardly in
a high-tech one. So I think that the scenario of Earth being taken by
Eloi is not much likely to happen.

>Our technology will be able to
> compensate for our shortcomings as we get weaker, but it will be
> perilous to become dependent on our technology, which we will
> inevitably do. We become more vulnerable to disaster should our
> technology ever let us down, or should our energy supply run out, or
> should some war or political upheaval sufficiently disrupt our society.
(...)

On the other hand, Spacers will for starts be unable to survive
without high technology working properly. (Unless of course those
ox-powered Amish habitats are really possible.)

Also, I should point out that in societies open to genetic engineering
in humans there will be no genetic disorders (or disadvantages) simply
because all those medical conditions will be corrected before the
child is even conceived. In fact, for governments themselves it would
be way cheaper to correct citizens before birth than to keep their
health artificially by means of expensive welfare. In that sense I
think that the movie Gattaca pictures a more likely vision of the
future than the "Eloi Earth".

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Xenophile

> Still, yes, it is a problem. A problem which CAN
> be solved, but which might not be.

And a point worth making is that obesity is a problem that the vast
majority of the world, for the vast majority of human history, would
have envied us for having.

Regards,

Mike Combs

This is the basis of the story The Marching Morons by Cyril M Kornbluth,
check out the link;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_M._Kornbluth

An interesting thought but runs into trouble if you look close, IQ is not a
direct function of genetics, dim parents can have bright children and the
reverse of course, still, it does present interesting concepts.

Darren Brown
Canberra
Australia

On 12/8/06 6:31 AM, "Lucio de Souza Coelho" wrote: