[Bio-Tech] Template for Female Space Colonists

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

They will have to have specific roles anyway. If one ignores the "yuck" effect(which some believe is a canary in the coal mine) hereditary occupations do have precedent. On the other hand this would go far beyond that to making them suited for nothing else. If nothing else it condemns future generations to inordinate suffering if ever their occupation becomes obsolete. Even if such a thing does not happen, it necessarily creates a caste culture more fixed then any before. If nothing else, unless the colony is automatized pretty soon it will need someone for waste management. To genetically engineer someone for that is automatically to create Dalits, and more important, knowing humanity they will probably be treated as such unless bigotry is taken out during the process. All this is just the stuff that comes to mind. Almost surely there will be unforseen consequences.

If it is not made to breed true and is done to volunteers it is hard to see how it is different from going to a trade school. It does sound kind of yucky though.

Then too, if the precedent of the postulated female colonists is an example, the project involves not just engineering someone's job but engineering their minds. That is pretty much turning hypothetical future people into your own objects.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Then too, if the precedent of the postulated female colonists is an example, the project involves not just engineering someone's job but engineering their minds. That is pretty much turning hypothetical future people into your own objects.

The ghost of C.S. Lewis is beating on the door.

The set up does kind of require someone desperate (Earth is doomed so we're scattering people like lemming colonies) or evil. Aside from moral questions, hereditary occupations might work and even be efficient in societies that are slow to change but would seem particularly ill suited to societies experiencing rapid change - like a fast growing colony.

[scc]

When did I, the OP, ever mention hereditary occupations?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by scc

When did I, the OP, ever mention hereditary occupations?

Threads are like pets: when left unattended, they tend to wander - through guesswork and extrapolations, among other things.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by scc

When did I, the OP, ever mention hereditary occupations?

The logical assumption of having specialized reproducers who do nothing else is having specialized everything else.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Infornific

The ghost of C.S. Lewis is beating on the door.

The set up does kind of require someone desperate (Earth is doomed so we're scattering people like lemming colonies) or evil. Aside from moral questions, hereditary occupations might work and even be efficient in societies that are slow to change but would seem particularly ill suited to societies experiencing rapid change - like a fast growing colony.

Like female sex machines, bioengineered castes do not seem a logical response to a new colony. Flexibility and hardihood will simply be at to much of a premium for specialization to be a strong competitor. If for instance there is a disaster like an earthquake or a war with natives or with alien colonists, everyone will be needed, and everyone of the "everyone" will later be needed back in civil work as soon as possible. Specialization really isn't for insects but it is something only mature societies can afford.

And yes, I would not be surprised if that was the ghost of C.S. Lewis inside me. Probably not literally, but who knows what they do up there when they are bored?