Genejack Factories not that far away?

[Zeiter]

I came across these three articles today that all had eerily similar implications. One tells about how scientists were able to make monkeys into workaholics by blocking a gene, another tells about a "superboy" in Germany that has a gene that boosts muscle growth, and the third article talks about a gene injection that can also boost muscle growth. If these were taken together and all implemented on a person, what would we have? Something eerliy similar to a genejack. Here, read the articles for yourselves:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5673747/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5278028/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4282866/

[Whoha]

Yes, its called Chinese slave labor.

[livid imp]

Whoa, good work Zeiter. Creepy, but nice find.

[Commy]

First we have tidal harnesses in Europe, then ideas for a space elevator built by NASA, and now this. What will be next? Some Chinese leader named Yang you will nuke the US?

[#endgame]

You forgot that I found a article that implied that we were getting close to SotHB. It was on old fashioned paper though.

[Commy]

And there was also an article about robots that could make their own decisions and explore Mars like any other human. And there was one about theorizing parallel universes and the superstring theory. And stuff about 'Unified Theory' and 'Theory of Everything'. And did you hear about the Supercollider at CERN? SMAC, wether we like it or not, is very,very, real...

[Zeiter]

Yes, the creators were exceptionally foresighted. I think I read in the back of the manual that they did quite a bit of research before creating the in-game techs so that it wouldn't sound like they were just making things up out of thin air.

[Natalinasmpf]

Brings up a question: should Genejacks be allowed to compete in the Olympics?

SMAC, wether we like it or not, is very,very, real...

Naturally, and deep, else I wouldn't play it!

Apparently some of the influence of the programmers can be seen. I wonder where they got the nerve-stapling idea from. Its usually only mentioned in medical journals, kept quite discreet.

And they love the word "transcendence". Various other things.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Chinese slave labor is in the quantities, not the qualities.

But it looks like your post was humorously intended so I go no further.

[Apocalypse]

Well, IIRC, right now it'd be fairly hard to change more than one gene in any baby/whatever. It's pretty much impossible at the moment. So we're still a ways off.

[Quezacotl06]

I'm exited about getting a nice big pressure dome for my town :P

[Thalan]

Polymorphic software also exists, perhaps even verging on the borders of pre-sentient algorithms, judging from what they can do and SMAC's description of them :P.
And of course, what the military can do but does not disclose is always about 12 years in advance of civilian science, so there might actually already be "genejacks"/neural grafting/singularity tachyon bolts in testing somewhere

[binTravkin]

And of course, what the military can do but does not disclose is always about 12 years in advance of civilian science

Actually much more than 12yrs!

Do you know about fuel power cells which generate electrical power out of gas not by burning it but in slow, effective reactions?

US army had it in 70's, civilians only started using it few yrs ago (maybe in mid 90's)

And all those UFO things..
Do you really think aliens if they were so advanced would let us see them?
Nope!

Remember SMAC - if you have Anti-Gravity tech (L14) then you're very likely to have also the cloaking tech (L11)!

Therefore I tend to think it's whether trials of the newly researched US military technology and I suspect that in that 1951 UFO really hit earth and they're deciphering it's tech and building their own vehicles based on it..

[Natalinasmpf]

Well, IIRC, right now it'd be fairly hard to change more than one gene in any baby/whatever. It's pretty much impossible at the moment. So we're still a ways off.

Its not that difficult. Changing two genes is just twice as hard as changing one gene. Its linear. Its not if after you change the first gene, the difficulty changing anything else skyrockets. You can insert 100 genes (procurement by Polymerase Chain Reaction [PCR], addition by viral vector) if you want.

You just do the whole procedure twice. Of course, the more you tamper, the more chances of deformities, but yeah.

[AnimateDream]

Don't forget the human genome project. We already recorded the whole thing. All of these things were already talked about in the scientific community a lot long before SMAC got there. Tidal harnesses have been around for decades. They just did us a favor by paying attention to what is and isn't scientific instead of making nonsense words like photon blasters. I would like to point out however that we are nowhere near making cognizant ai. It lies in the fundamental differences between a human brain and a computer. The human brain doesn't store information like a computer at all. Its like one big microchip. The synapses in the brain are then formed as needed to store information or as you learn to accomplish new tasks. That would be like redoing the circuitry of a computer everytime you wanted it to hold information. Computer scientists having tradition gone the approach of using lots and lots of code trying to get computers to behave intelligently. Then adding in even more when something doesn't work right. Only recently they're noticing this approach isn't working. They need to start on a more fundamental level. The brain isn't even digital in its processing really. The best supercomputers in the world can't even consistently beat the human chess champions and chess is easily simplified to a mathmatical level. Computers can sort of mimic learning by trial and error when they are given an algorithm by which to rate their own performance but that is different for every task and they will still only operate within what the possibilities programmed in their original code. In complex tasks even this fails as humans may reason what they did wrong, the computer will simply note the attempt as failed unless even more complex code is put that is also specific to each situation. Anyways, sorry for unleashing a rant, but maybe you can take comfort in knoing your humanity will not be challenged by computers too soon.