Category Archives: THE NEW NORM.

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WILL GENETICALLY ENGINEERED/ASSEMBLED PEOPLE BE ALLOWED INTO HEAVEN.

07 Tuesday Jul 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, Genetic engineering, Genetics., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Natural selection., POST COVID-19., Reality., Religion for a digital age., Religious Beliefs., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The state of the World., Truth, Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Fifteen-minute read) 

As if the world does not have enough problems regardless of the application, genetic engineering is a very controversial topic in our society.

According to most religious doctrines, life begins at conception, not anymore.

When digital technology took over the world, things we perceived as science fiction became reality. Today the same thing is happening with Genetic Engineering.

Life is made up of just four alphabets that give the instructions, and when we change the guide book we change the being carrying it. 

As we are seeing it does not matter what religious beliefs you have or otherwise, the current coronavirus is not fussy who it infects.

We are on the verge of being able to transform, manipulate, and create organisms for any number of productive purposes.

Human genetic engineering may soon be possible. It might well be in its infancy from changing the course of our lives. From medicine to agriculture, to construction and even computing, we are within reach of age when manipulating the genetic codes of various organisms, or engineering entirely new organisms, promises to alter the way we relate to the natural world.

Genetically engineered food is a divisive topic that is deeply embedded in the ongoing debate around climate change, sustainability, and food security.

There are many pros and cons regarding this topic and there are many powerful arguments for and against genetic engineering and gene therapy.

We already improve crops and animals. Why not humans?

Evolution is a change in the inherited characteristics of a population of organisms from one generation to the next.

This happens anyway and genetic enhancement is just speeding up this natural process.

We will have to make difficult decisions in the future on whether we want to play god in order to be able to fight deadly diseases and colonize another planet, grow enough food, replace exhausted resources. 

Of course, the big question is. 

Is it wrong to play god by effectively creating and changing life? 

Altering genes to improve strength, beauty or intelligence undermines the moral and legal idea that all humans are equal, creating further inequality in society – those who are genetically engineered and those who are not.

These individuals would have no say in this, but when they arrive at the pearly gates will they be allowed to enter. 

Genetical engineering is an extremely controversial issue without even considering the views of religions. The ethical question becomes even more daunting when we consider genetic engineering as it applies to animal life, particularly human life.

One could say that God has no say about any of this?

The Bible does not directly address the issue of genetic engineering, because genetic engineering was unknown at the time that the Bible was written, so there is a concern that a bold pursuit of advances in genetic engineering is motivated by defiance of God.

God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and overall the creatures that move along the ground.’

The gift of life is a product whether it comes from God or not and can be reproduced and modified to make a better product. So where are we with the artificial manipulation, modification, and recombination of DNA or other nucleic acid molecules in order to modify an organism or population of organisms.

It is my belief that genetic engineering has promised to better mankind, and it is our ethical obligation to research it but not exploit it.

Determine the genetic material of embryos in humans limiting the chances of children’s autonomy to determine their own destinies.

This means that the entire life of children is changed irrespective of their wish. This practice is immoral in nature because it is an unnatural way of molding the life of a human being to become what they themselves do not wish to be, resulting in social inequalities.

All raises a number of significant ethical issues. 

From genetically modified crops, using less water to speeding up the growth of plants to adapt to the global warming problem, to the overall life expectancy of animals and humans, to designer babies, to the development of new diseases, or to miscarriages, to resistance against antibiotics, to political decisions, to the uses of genetically modified bacteria for making biofuels, to the use of genetically modified seeds to increase yields and also make plants more resistant to pests, to the whole ecological system, to human behavior.

By treating the human embryo as mere ‘laboratory material’, the concept itself of human dignity is also subjected to alteration and discrimination. Dignity belongs equally to every single human being, irrespective of his parents’ desires, social condition, educational formation, or level of physical development. To create embryos with the intention of destroying them, even with the intention of helping the sick, is completely incompatible with human dignity.

Embryology is governed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

Human embryos produced for research purposes cannot be implanted into any woman’s womb and must be discarded after 14 days.

In evaluating these concerns, we need to bear in mind that genetic engineering is still young. Some of the possibilities, such as creating new species of superhumans or subhumans, seem highly unlikely, at least for the foreseeable future.

However, there is a need to have morally correct legislation that guides the way science develops genetic engineering otherwise it will be a Pandora’s box of dangerous genetic modifications posing a threat to humanity with the rich in a society enjoying the fruits of genetic enhancements.  

chances and risks of genetic engineering

Ecological Engineering, the application of science to the optimum conversion of the resources of nature to the uses of humankind.

NATURE is being distilled—among many forms—into a network, where nodes represent species and links represent interactions between them.

Ecosystem engineering combined with genetic engineering not only impacts communities on ecological timescales but will profoundly shape the evolution of life on Earth. The complexity of an ecological community can be distilled into a network, where diverse interactions connect species in a web of dependencies.

The dynamical consequences of community structure is not yet a well-defined theory for the assembly of communities that incorporates multitype interactions.

The role of these ecosystem engineers has not been considered in ecological network models.

To unravel nature’s secrets we must simplify its abundant complexities and idiosyncrasies.

On the other hand, GENETIC engineering is entering a new phase as the available techniques become much more precise. Precise genetic editing opens up the opportunity for personalized medicine, with treatments tailored to our own unique DNA.

What is becoming possible and what will the implications be?

Just imagine a genetic engineering breakthrough that brings the dream of fixing everything from a deadly disease to environmental catastrophe into reach, simply by cutting and pasting bits of DNA. 

Primarily, as with any technology, once it becomes cheap and easy, it’s going to be used more and more – so we can expect an explosion of activity and innovation around genetic engineering in the coming years.

A lot of controversy surrounds “transgenic” genetically modified organisms, resulting in bureaucratic obstacles that mean GM crops are scarcely cultivated across much of the European Union, Africa, and Asia.

For example, if a gene from a pig was inserted into a banana, will people of the Muslim faith stop eating bananas and so on.

Did you know that over seventy percent of all processed foods on supermarket shelves contain at least one genetically engineered ingredient? If you are not eating 100% organic food, you are eating genetically modified foods. It is almost impossible to avoid eating GMO foods. Presently, over ninety percent of the soybeans, canola, sugar beets, and cottonseed oil are bioengineered. Seventy-two percent of the corn is genetically altered. And more and more food products are being altered every day.

Considering every five minutes, there is a new life and every eight minutes a death and none of us last forever. 

We all live for a short time in the fourth dimension of time so is any of this relevant. 

Leaving apart the ethical issues, let us be optimistic for a while.

Genetic engineering hasn’t, and won’t, stop it raises ethical and moral questions to which there are, as of yet, no clear answers.

How we as a species solve these problems will tell us not only something about the global landscape of moral decision-making but will define precisely where the human race will end up over the next few generations.

It’s not an exaggeration to say genetic engineering could totally alter the way we live – and these changes won’t necessarily be positive.

While we humans are gaining the powers of the gods, we aren’t at all ready to use them. We aren’t prepared to handle these Promethean technologies responsibly.

While the advance of genetic technologies is inevitable, how it plays out is anything but.

A first inkling of where we are heading can be seen in the direct-to-consumer genetic testing industry.

When genetic Engineering reaches the mass, the change is going to be permanent.

The overlapping genomics and AI revolutions may seem like distant science fiction but are closer than you think. Because we are all one species. We will ultimately need to develop guidelines that can apply to all of us.

As a first step toward making this possible, we must urgently launch a global, species-wide education effort and inclusive dialogue on the future of human genetic engineering that can eventually inform global norms that will need to underpin international regulations. This process will not be easy, but the alternative of an unregulated genetic arms race would be far worse.

Scientists today have loftier ambitions than building a new app or social media companies.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE : LOOKS AT WHAT IS NOW BEEN CALLED THE NEW NORM.

26 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by in 2020: The year we need to change., Climate Change., COVID-19, Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Economic Depression., Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Human values., Humanity., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, POST COVID-19., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Technology., Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, Viruses., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Economy.

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(Fifteen-minute read) 

While the pandemic continues to turn the world upside down, new realizations are beginning to dawn on us, there’s no going back to normality.

There is no doubt that we are getting close to the “new abnormal”.

We are all in this together and no one really knows what the future holds but you only have to look at the advertising industry to see what is coming. 

We are now in a digital dance in which the use of surveillance and testing to find and control outbreaks will eventually determine who gets to make or earn a living or not.

Under the cloak of preventing the virus from spreading governments are either already deploying, or actively considering, surveillance technology of such intrusiveness that it would have caused outrage and furious protests even a month ago. 

As the human and economic impact unfold, how massive this change will become is still unclear.

Indeed, it is a real question as to whether normal or abnormal can be sensibly used at all, given their tremendous baggage and built-in biases and the general confusion they create.

However, there are a few new norms becoming clearer.

The current devastating pandemic is likely to happen again and again and the digital dance to avoid the next outbreak will not be to the tune of governments, but two powerful global corporations laying down the law to territorial sovereigns and restructuring the economic order. 

Whole industries grossing billions of dollars are built on the words “normal” and “abnormal” and on the ideas of “well” and “disordered.”

It is therefore inconceivable that the right thing can be done and that the situation can change. Given that even the best and the brightest in the field of advertising are attached to an illegitimate naming game, from Bio this and Bio that there is probably no hope for change other than COVID free. 

Add the coming World economic depression, with unemployment and climate migration one thing is clear, slowing the pace of climate change and adapting to its impacts, must become a central organizing principle of society at all levels, from local to global through national and regional.

The declarations of climate emergency must start meaning that, rather than being just an additional agenda item for busy executives and politicians.

Why? 

Because climate change and the erosion of wildlife habitats will ensure a ready supply of zoonotic viruses.

Up to now, the emphasis is on lifting the lockdown has centered solely on the necessity of bringing the economy out of its cryogenic chamber to take in the world it has inherited.

We’re all online now, new conformity which is developing a serious digital divide between the young and older generations. And if the impact of Covid19 is another step in the collapse of modern societies, then it is likely it will have been another climate-driven step in that collapse.

The new normal, in other words, change what was wrong but keeps what was right with the old normal.

But if the old normal was wrong, then why did we call it normal?

The word “normal” appears straightforward enough it possesses a certain kind of authority or “power to divide and distinguish things” since a person’s mental model of “what is normal?” is tremendously influenced by how society and its institutions define “normal.”

But like many of our words, as soon as we begin thinking about it, it starts to fall apart at the seams. The fact with which we started our process of categorization becomes the standard or norm, and everything that diverges from that norm is not just different but abnormal and therefore less than normal.

Our concept of normal pulls double duty; it tells us that what is, ought to be.

Nor can it mean “free of discomfort,” as if “normal” were the equivalent of oblivious.

Normality forces upon us are that “in most cases, no formal rules or standards indicate what conditions are normal” In the absence of such rules, those who wish to identify normality will normally turn to one of three different definitions.

The first is the statistical view, “where ‘the normal’ is whatever trait most people in a group display”. Normal is what is typical, what most people do – which means it is impossible for any individual to be normal.

Second, the norm provided a concrete standard that, if followed, allowed the user to reproduce a specific pattern. Normal-as-ideal, then, might be in harmony with normal-as-ubiquitous, but it might be quite different.

What is normal for a human being, then, are all those behaviors that make it fit to thrive in its particular niche. The capacity to feel shame when betraying a loved one is normal in this scheme, as is the desire for one’s offspring to survive.

When it comes to defining normality, we start with what we think is normal before even considering what is abnormal with all three above end up sliding into each.

The new normal will mean that most of us will go back to most of what we were doing before the pandemic struck (1), but that our societies will make changes for the better (2), which will end up being good for the survival of our communities (3).

The question, then, is why would you use the word “normal” at all? 

Normal is safe. It’s familiar. In the face of fear, people long to go back to a time before the fear set in.

Covid-19 causes us to experience a great deal of anxiety, and then we imagine a carefree time before these feelings set in. We don’t begin with normality and then categorize those instances where it is transgressed.

If we begin with all of those things that we instinctively feel are “abnormal” and then try to find comfort by erecting a norm that resolves our anxieties. We then locate this norm “in the past”, which gives us the benefit of claiming the norm as our own. This, after all, may seem easier to attain than one that requires all the hard work of creation.

It is not something we need to build from scratch; all that is necessary is that we return home to it.

We will all continue to face daunting challenges for which we are not prepared. Modern medicine, as advanced as it is, is still, in the grand scheme of things, relatively young.

We’re not sure what exactly the future will look like – which is why we prefer to discuss it in the familiar terms of the good ole’ days – but we know that it’s coming to greet us.

Bergson used the term élan vital to describe the mysterious impulse toward an open future that seems to animate all life. In fact, this impulse is what life is. Life, says Bergson, “since its origins, has been the continuation of one and the same impetus which separates itself into diverging lines of evolution”.

If we are careful two huge tech companies that control mobile phone technology will enable governments to build and deploy proximity-tracking apps on every smartphone in the world.

 Your online appointments for everything IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER.  

Here is a shortlist of Normal abnormalities in the world. 

  • 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
  • 750 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5)
  • 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)
  • In developing countries, some 2.5 billion people are forced to rely on biomass—fuelwood.
  • The wealthiest 20% of the world accounted for 76.6% of total private consumption. The poorest fifth just 1.5%. In other words, about 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s financial assets
  • A quarter of humanity — live without electricity.
  • 51 percent of the world’s 100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations.

A strong economy in a nation doesn’t mean much when a significant percentage (even a majority) of the population is struggling to survive.

THE NEW NORM.

Thinking about it, I much prefer the new COVID-19 normal, as I am certain you do too. After all, it has, in some bizarre way, opened our eyes to the infinite treasures that lie within us and in front of us, that we may have been too numb to notice until now.

What was once the unknown and frightening becomes your new normal.

We can make the new normal any way we want providing we make it GREEN. 

If “the new normal” means giving up to technology then THE NEW NORMAL MUST BE REJECTED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.

These temporary measures are just that; temporary. They need to be observed, but NOT FOREVER. New normal or not, every day really is a miracle.

The new normal that activity tracks your steps, whether you are black or white, rich or poor, left or right-wing, gay or straight, Muslim or other, Facebook or Twitter, contaminated or not, is irrelevant to living life and appreciating the world we all live on. 

It’s the powerful combination of humanity and values that count. We are living in a world of continuous change “Technology Rules The World.”

The new norm requires that we consider our systems as a platform for scaling value.

An investment that needs to be made by leadership. The time has passed for small commitments, hyperbole, and delays in embracing sustainable investing.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.