Transhumanism; Ethical and Moral dilemmas

[JadeGreen]

I recall seeing an article somewhere; I'm not sure how legitimate that the first human head transplant is to be attempted later this year on a man who is paralyzed from the neck down. I am 21 and I believe I will live to see humankind transcend our human bodies in one way or another, be it into a digital realm via full brain scan and uploads into androids or via advances in medical science that would allow us lab grown organs, 3d printed body parts or even whole bodies. I'm not saying I think I will have such an opportunity as I think it is overly-optimistic to say that in my lifetime I will see the common man able to get himself a new body when the old one is paralyzed by a stroke, but I am sure that in my elder years this will be available to the rich and wealthy. (Hey, I'm either pleasantly surprised or right.) I just want to hear your thoughts. Some people will inevitably argue that changing your body in such a way goes against nature or god or something along those lines. There is a spectrum. On one end you have purely medically necessitated procedures; lab made organs to replace faulty or diseased ones. Limbs could theoretically be regrown, spinal injuries healed. People with severe burns could have themselves reconstructed and restored to their original appearance. Also, it is already possible for people to modify themselves to an extent through plastic surgery, remove wrinkles or unwanted weight. Transgender people have the ability to transition with today's technology, and it is only getting better. What if a person wanted to have the appearance of someone of a different race/ethnicity, and pick a new name to boot? Should that be allowed? What about people who don't even want to appear human. The question isn't if we could genetically engineer someone a new body with four arms, but should we? There would also be the potential to hybridize human and animal DNA *cough* furry community *cough*. If we allow someone to cue up a lab-grown body and transfer themselves into it, are they a new person after the transition, or a continuation of the old? Some people might live through multiple lives, experimenting with different bodies and lifestyles. If we open up the possibility for people to be essentially immortal by ditching their old body and switching into a new one, how would society react to these people? If only the wealthy could be immortal in such a way, accumulating hundreds of years of experience and knowledge while the lower class only had one lifetime, couldn't they establish such a firm claim that they could more or less remain in charge forever. (There's an interesting sci fi dystopia waiting to happen.) Even if such a thing didn't happen, how would younger generations feel as a part of society? You think the generation gap is bad now? How would family structures be different when more than 3 or 4 generations are alive at a time, and your great great great great great grandparents all shake their fists at you? I also have firsthand experience to tell you that young inexperienced people in the workplace get treated like absolute dogsh*t in today's society. Imagine when that climb to seniority, decent pay and benefits takes centuries, and your senior employees have hundreds of years more experience than you. That isn't to say it would be all bad. If people could live for hundreds of years then they would benefit from being able to master skills for centuries or more. Imagine how good a painter or musician would be if they had a couple centuries to practice. Of course this would make that climb to a competitive level for any skill for young generations all the more daunting. Also, if we had this level of genetic engineering and control over human growth; we would theoretically be making designer babies. It's not just the child's physical appearance (they could always change that when they got older), but that parents could even go a step further to implant genes that could modulate their child's personality traits. (Of course that brings the whole nature-nurture argument into this.) I would argue that it would be possible to, by changing genes, at least be able to control some of your child's basic chemistry and therefore some of their personality traits. I know this is disorganized; poorly written and something of a summary of my thoughts, without harping on the finer points. But I've been considering posting this somewhere for awhile now, and its time I squeeze it out.

[DawnEye11]

Wow. By head transplant do you mean they take part of a brain and add that to the other brain? Or do you mean like taking a head and putting it to another body? I feel like the latter is very disturbing and I don't see how that would work....Makes me think of the people who got their head cut off in the olden days.I just found out about the 3d printer this year because of the rocko modern life reboot preview my brother showed me. Hehe Its pretty cool and would be amazing if in the future it could reconstruct things with better material. The thing I see thats problematic with people modifying themselves is that their life can be at risk. If it becomes way better in the future than I think it could still be problematic. Some might become addicted to change up to the point where no one recognizes them anymore and life seems like a video game. But to be honest I think it would be cute to have furry cute cat ears like in the anime. But I would find it strange if doctors took cat ears, stitched them to human heads and made it so that the ears moved when you wanted them to. It would make me feel like humanity doesn't respect the beauty of what was already given to them. However, if they made a baby grow cat ears as he/she grew in the mother's stomach...I would just be mind blown and hope for no bad side effects for the baby ofc. If there was no side effects I guess the earth would become populated with nekos, kitsune or whatever they came up with.^^ I just remembered something. I saw a documentary before of humans who grew hair more than the norm on their face and body. Back than they were treated as animals but made to reproduce with others and they seemed like monsters/pets to those with authority and money. So...i guess something similar could happen as well.