A meditation on technology: "Scientists just edited a human embryo for the first time."

“I think we're all bugs and mice, and are only different expressions of an all-inclusive cheese.” -- Charles Fort

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/scientists-just-edited-a-human-embryo-for-the-first-time-yes-people-are-freaking-out/

Really amazing. Technology moving at light speed. What will the world look like in a hundred years? Impossible to imagine.

"Yes, people are freaking out." As if they haven't already created navy seals with gills :p

For thousands of years we've been at war, suffering, a few bipeds with everything and most with nothing. We try to change but apparently we can't. Then there is hope: Technology!

For the first time ever, there are new methods becoming possible that could end suffering. At least that's what some believe. And others believe other things which conflict with the first things.

If the CRISPR technique or its predecessor is ever successful, there will be psychos with money and plans of world domination, there will be different schools of thought that disagree on the correct path to take human evolution, there will be wars, there will be naturalists who reject any genetic manipulation, there will be laws both progressive and degressive, civilization will divide, and there will be beautiful miracles.

The fighting has already started and they haven't even made a baby yet (who knows what they do underground).

Technology isn't stopping. Dangers are increasing, not because of the technology. It's not the cigarette's fault you can't stop smoking.

Thanks to technology, all disease may be cured. We could have exponentially longer lifespans. Diseases may multiply, even by design. We could destroy our reproductive ability and become extinct. Nobody really knows what will happen.

Nature is unpredictable and we don't understand it. Tampering with DNA will result in tragedy and miracles. Do the potential rewards justify the risks?

People will believe different things and be in conflict.

“People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.” -- Charles Fort

Unless there is a transformation of consciousness, war and suffering will continue as it has for all of history.

The only technology needed to transform is the mind and the heart.

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by @skypal