[Gatac]

The "humane" part got me thinking about something else: With improved DNA screening, we can quite probably identify every major genetic ailment prior to birth in the near future. I know that this straddles the general abortion debate, but here's the rub: I believe that there's a choice there, and that it must be left to the parents. I believe people when they tell me that they love their children no matter what, but I find it harder to swallow when they say that if they had a choice, they'd rather stick with a differently-abled child than a healthy one. Even further along this line, you find people who intend to intentionally cause genetic disorders in their kids (for example, I've seen people advocating induced dwarfism), and here's where I draw the line. I don't get these people at all - I understand the "I want a healthy child" and the "Well, life's a gamble" crowd, but why *cripple* their children? That seems excessively cruel.

Of course, we then get to the question of whether society at large can even afford to care for differently-abled people, and whether they are a necessary part of society. (Not the people as individuals, but as being differently-abled.) It could be that we slowly drift into an Eugenics-esque era where we slowly get a grip on the genome of the next generation while advanced prosthetics and new treatments deal with existing cases. I don't think it's a bad idea, either. It does seem that for everyone who loudly proclaims that they are proud of their disability (and I think that's okay, too), there's a couple more who'd really like to walk, talk, see and think like what we define as "normal". Then again, we run into biodiversity issues and all that further claptrap, so I don't think there'll be easy answers.

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Now to the heat death. I presume you mean the one of earth's ecosystem. Well, yes, that could be a problem, but they might find a solution. Maybe it takes living on a hot hellhole before you can seriously consider ways to protect yourself, but I wouldn't discount mankind's ingenuity + a problem + time. Also, shouldn't these people be able to decide for themselves whether they want to live? If the situation becomes truly inhospitable, we'll just die out, but before that there's a whole range of adaptions we can make. Indigenous people in Africa and Australia deal with blistering heat all the time, living at the edge of human survivability. Everything hotter than that will just plain not sustain human life.

I think this is another choice we must leave to the parents. Alternatively, provide the safe suicide option for people already living in that age.

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When I said "Let the problem sort out itself", I meant making safe suicide available to everyone. I wasn't talking economics, but if you want to, okay.

Times are a-changin', as the song goes. International economy is going several wild ways, none of which could be predicted in the long term. To name but one example, the whole copyright debacle (viz: Internet "piracy") is changing economic realities as we speak. Norway just declared iTunes illegal under their laws, and if you told someone who's been in a coma for ten years, you'd have to explain what iTunes is. It'd blow his mind.

Similarly, the old globalism "We'll just outsource it to India" is running into problems, too, as the traditional outsourcing countries become more affluent themselves. China is rising quickly, and they have a goddamn space program now. Who knows where they'll be in 20 years? Who knows what's going to happen to our oil-dependant economies?

Redistribution of wealth has never worked. I firmly believe that the only way to deal with this is to raise the poverty line so high that everyone has a home, food and Internet access. This may sound basic, but it'll benefit us immeasurably - not only is it the humane thing to do, it also gives us access to literally billions of minds that went untapped for their full potential. Smart people are born everywhere. Give them access to knowledge and I think we'll have a few scientific revolutions ahead. Not the least of which is that access to the Internet is the ultimate in expression of free speech and commerce - that's why we must fight to protect it from those who are looking to turn it into another TV - or censor it. Viva la revolucion, brother!

How to drive this surge, you ask? Post-scarcity. We're all trekkers, so I'll say "replicator" and you know what I mean and what that implies. Don't laugh yet, we're getting there, too. Rapid prototyping is becoming more rapid and less prototyping as people are discovering that you can actually use such techniques to build useful stuff. Biologists are using rebuilt printers to build complex multi-cell organs from cloned cells. There's a proposal for a 3D printer large enough to build a *house* out there.

The future's a-comin', and it'll be bright. Can't stop the signal and all that feel-good stuff.

Gatac