Topic: Humans vs. inhumans

[son_the_vampire]

I opened my eyes to the idea a bit more after reading this--->http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/152240-what-is-transhumanism-or-what-does-it-mean-to-be-human
whats to happen 40 years from now?? The idea of being Ancient kinda makes me shiver, then i just drink my coffe to speed up that process!

[Shiroi Koumori]

Hmmm... interesting article. It is the core of a lot of sci-fi stuff and I think it might happen in the future. And I would be old by then. hehehe.

[son_the_vampire]

Agreed. They have talked about placing chips in people in the very near future. That makes watching movies like "Time" more reasonable lol. I just think that our exposure to these sorts of things are limited to what people are willing to know. Technically i want to know it all but i know that some things are better left unknown

[Shiroi Koumori]

well, they already placed chips on endangered animals, so humans might not be far off.
I think they are called RFIDs, and the us military is developing them to be inserted in their military forces.

Although Christians would not be very happy about it when it moves to the civilian population. (mark of the beast)

Personally, I don't like inserting foreign objects in my body and have those things track my movements.

[X]

Personally, I don't like inserting foreign objects in my body and have those things track my movements.

I would be a definite infringement on human rights for sure. The only viable way for them to give people implants is if it was optional; Where you would have the right to decide if you wanted it or not. But to forcibly have an implant given to you is just plain wrong and immoral on many levels. It's essentially taking the "Big Brother" thing to a whole new level of intolerance. It wouldn't surprise me if a major rebellion/war broke out because of the crazed idea of 'you have no choice' implantation. It's bad enough as it is with the XBOX 720 doing the whole big brother bulls**t.

[VladCT]

So what next? Will it end up being Law vs. Chaos all over the world or something?

[Ratty]

Had a hard time keeping my eyeballs from rolling out of my head when I read

— if you believe in evolution, at some point we ceased being a great ape and became human.

No, we're still apes. Humans are animals, just a particular type. It's a little insulting to A-sexuals and people with pacemakers or hearing aids to ask if not having any sexual attraction or if having mechanical enhancements/life extenders makes them not human. Personally I embrace a future where mechanical enhancements can extend our life periods and physical abilities. Just imagine it, first we cure blindness and help the lame walk, then in time we reach a point that maintaining your body for a long life is like maintaining and upgrading your car or your computer.

Personally I think it's silly to think that human advancement would/will stop if we live longer with a lower birthrate. One of the things that stunts our growth as a species is that by the time we finish our basic education our lives are already about a quarter over, leaving fewer healthy fruitful years for us to utilize and expand upon that knowledge.

[Mooning Freddy]

What makes us human? A very interesting and difficult question. Nice article mate.
It is the topic of many works of fiction and films like Blade Runner and Dark City. In the film Dark City, a race of aliens with superhuman abilities manipulate people, using them as rats for their experiments.

"We fashioned this city on stolen memories, different eras, different pasts, all rolled into one. Each night, we revise it, refine it, in order to learn."
"Learn what?"
"About you, Mr Murdoch, you and your fellow inhabitants... What makes you human."
"Why?!"
"We need to be like you."

Epic script, if you ask me. 

No, we're still apes. Humans are animals, just a particular type. It's a little insulting to A-sexuals and people with pacemakers or hearing aids to ask if not having any sexual attraction or if having mechanical enhancements/life extenders makes them not human.

We had a debate in Contemporary Political Philosophy course about such questions. It was the topic of how to construct a philosophical analysis.

Question: Do animals have natural rights?
Statement: No, only humans have rights.
Challenge: Why do only humans have rights?
Answer: Because they have superior intelligence to animals and can understand the need in natural rights. 
Argument: There are animals who have superior intelligence than some humans (for instance humans who are severely mentally challenged). Does this mean those humans don't have natural rights as well?
S1: No, they don't. S2: They do have rights. In this case the explanation needs to be altered; Intelligence alone is not sufficient to support my statement. 

[Lelygax]

No, we're still apes.

Its like saying that we are bacteria or something, because of the evolutionary chain.

We could have evoluted from apes, but we dont are apes. We are animals though, surely.

[Lone Wolf]

We are animals though, surely.

Ditto.

[TheouAegis]

We are bacteria, festering and multiplying, spreading our disease over all the life of the earth.  Divide, multiply, conquer! The life of a parasitic bacterium.

[Ratty]

Its like saying that we are bacteria or something, because of the evolutionary chain.

We could have evoluted from apes, but we dont are apes. We are animals though, surely.

No we're still apes, specifically we're "Great Apes" (the group that also includes our cousins the Chimps, Gorrillas, Orangutans and Bonobos) as genetic and taxanomic evidence attests. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae Just ask any primatologist/anthropologist.

We had a debate in Contemporary Political Philosophy course about such questions. It was the topic of how to construct a philosophical analysis.

Question: Do animals have natural rights?
Statement: No, only humans have rights.
Challenge: Why do only humans have rights?
Answer: Because they have superior intelligence to animals and can understand the need in natural rights. 
Argument: There are animals who have superior intelligence than some humans (for instance humans who are severely mentally challenged). Does this mean those humans don't have natural rights as well?
S1: No, they don't. S2: They do have rights. In this case the explanation needs to be altered; Intelligence alone is not sufficient to support my statement. 

Since "rights" are, like the concepts of "good" and "evil", something which does not exist outside of human conception they are whatever we say they are since they don't really exist. This is why different countries have different lists of rights, we just made'em up and change them as we see fit.
If you look up his thoughts on the subject of rights from his last stand up special, George Carlin articulated this much better than I ever could.

[son_the_vampire]

To piggyback on Ratty, i have a cousin who looks like an orangutan because she is Latina born with red hair.. so when she was a baby she got the nickname monkey.

But more seriously speaking, i think we are in a time now where the youth is brought up and introduced to technology way earlier then we were exposed. I am 25 an i had to learn how to use a computer in school. my neice is pushing two years old and has gotten 3 stars in angry birds... point in case, there is no stopping technology from reaching something. So i agree that evolution takes place even in our lifetimes... A rare breed in our case as we are Dungeon Apes