Al Jazeera: “Engineering Human Evolution” -- 0h:35m:41s Youtube Video.

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Link here.

Al Jazeera website link for the video disinclined.

A brief synopsis from the Al Jazeera website:

Cyborgs, brain uploads and immortality—How far should science go in helping humans exceed their biological limitations? These ideas might sound like science fiction, but proponents of a movement known as transhumanism believe they are inevitable.

In this episode of The Stream, we talk to bioethicist George Dvorsky; Robin Hanson, a research associate with Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute; and Ari N. Schulman, senior editor of The New Atlantis, about the ethical implications of transhumanism.

Discuss below.

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Small point of order from watching the video (it’ll make sense when you get there):

South Korea Bounces Reign of Baby Boys:

Shedding an age-old preference for sons, South Korea has in the last two decades become the first Asian country to reverse a large sex imbalance at birth. A radical shift in Koreans’ attitude toward female babies—and toward working women—has brought down the rate of sex-selection abortion, the New York Times reports.

Sons were once viewed as a form of retirement insurance, while daughters were married off to serve their husbands’ families. But thanks to economic changes, what Korean parents most want from their children in old age is now emotional rather than economic support—something daughters are seen as better at providing. Observers hope South Korea can provide a model for China and India, where abortion of female fetuses is rampant.

Korea had too many boys… and then they started wanting girls rather than boys.

[John_Maxwell]

Did anyone else have a hard time following the conversation due to all of the context switching? This sort of discussion is really best experienced through text.

In any case, it didn’t seem to me as though this would provide much insight to the average less wronger.

Robin, I applaud your heroic effort to keep awake on the other side of the planet...

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Upvote this comment* if you think this video isn’t worthy of lesswrong.com’s time.

* Edited for clarity.

[Antisuji]

You mean downvote this, right? Actually, I’m having trouble thinking of a reason why this is helpful over and above the karma system already in place.

[Logos01]

Upvote this comment. I meant it as a poll.

[Antisuji]

Yes, I understood the sense of the comment. Usually when a user posts a poll they provide (at least) 2 options, plus a karma sink. Without the sink it just sounds like you’re asking for free karma.

Please note, I’m not saying that I think this is a ploy to increase your karma score beyond the value of your contributions. Rather, I am merely pointing out that it has the appearance of such and could be so misconstrued.

[Oscar_Cunningham]

The above post isn’t worthy of LessWrong’s time (to be accurate: It doesn’t have anything to do with rationality). I expressed this belief by voting it down.