The Gaming Den

If we can make mice glow in the dark, when the hell are we going to be able to get rippling abs without exercise and a proper diet, perfect gender reassignment (complete with the ability to reproduce), restored hearing and sight, and most importantly getting humans glow in the dark?

Lago PARANOIA wrote:If we can make mice glow in the dark, when the hell are we going to be able to get [<snip>], and most importantly getting humans glow in the dark?

Oh, that's easy. When we get permission to perform genetic engineering on humans. The main reason we can do it with mice is because there are more mice on the planet than we actually want, it's trivial to make more, the maturation cycle is fast, and society as a whole (PETA excluded) don't particularly care about lots of mice dying. Not so with humans.

We won't be able to do it to non-in-vitro fetuses until we get gene-insertion therapy worked out though, so mostly you'd be seeing glow-in-the-dark babies who would later mature into glow-in-the-dark adults.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:While we're talking about fascism, what's your opinion on the Obama administration not releasing torture photographs?

I am all for letting the other guy/country decide the rules of war.

Koumei wrote:Hilariously, everyone's favourite joke news program bought that sham completely, showing that they're competing in the incompetence network.

Do you mean the Colbert Report?

No, Daily Show. At least when we first started to hear this stuff.

In your opinion, if India and Pakistan didn't have nuclear weapons how would things have worked out different and what are the ramifications of this?

Also in your opinion, what depths would it take for India and Pakiston to actually have a nuclear exchange?

And finally, what would be the ramifications of the U.S. telling Iran 'fuck everything, have some nuclear power'? I don't think much would change in the long run, even if they acquired nuclear arms somehow, but I do think that would pretty much politically destroy anyone supporting it.

I was referring to Fucks News.

Incidentally, I have a question about gene alterations. If you alter someone's genes, does it basically have to be while they're just a lump of cell, or could it be done to a live human? And if the latter is the case, will it actually change them, or just be passed onto offspring?

Basically, if in my lifetime they allow gene alterations and there's a gene for... I forget the term, but it means you register pain but don't get the *pain* part of it and thus aren't bothered by chronic problems... or if they find the "grow awesome huge wings" gene, would the best I can manage be "have children (not fucking happening)" or would there be hope for me?

Koumei wrote:Incidentally, I have a question about gene alterations. If you alter someone's genes, does it basically have to be while they're just a lump of cell, or could it be done to a live human? And if the latter is the case, will it actually change them, or just be passed onto offspring?

It's easiest to do when they're just a lump of cells. Gene therapy via engineered virus hasn't (to my knowledge) worked on humans yet. On the other hand, radiation seems to work pretty well if you aren't picky about the kind of modification. Although it can make passing on the mutation difficult (not always--my girlfriend's grandfather walked round Hiroshima at ground zero, and while he has no hair whatsoever, he fathered something like 5 children after the irradiation).

Koumei wrote:Basically, if in my lifetime they allow gene alterations and there's a gene for... I forget the term, but it means you register pain but don't get the *pain* part of it and thus aren't bothered by chronic problems... or if they find the "grow awesome huge wings" gene, would the best I can manage be "have children (not fucking happening)" or would there be hope for me?

The thing where you register pain but don't actually feel pain is a problem in itself, which is why people feel pain in the first place. Although not obnoxious chronic pain. And my suggestion for dealing with your chronic pain is to move somewhere that marijuana is legal.

Lago wrote:In your opinion, if India and Pakistan didn't have nuclear weapons how would things have worked out different and what are the ramifications of this?

Not very.

India had nukes for decades before Pakistan did, and Pakistan came over the wall repeatedly anyway. Apparently convinced that India wouldn't escalate to a nuclear war. They were correct, but of course India's army is much larger, more loyal, and better trained than the Pakistani army, so every war ha pretty much gone the same way: Pakistan invades and takes some territory. Then India blows up all their stuff and sets fire to air bases in Islamabad and then goes home.

About the only event that was contingent on nuclear weapons existing was Musharraf getting full support for his coup against Nawaz Sharif. If Sharif hadn't had any nuclear weapons, he couldn't have threatened to use them on India over the Kargil War. And then... what? Pakistan was still overdue for a military coup. If it hadn't been a moderate like General Musharraf it would have been another furniture chewing madman like General Zia-al-Huq.

If anything, the presence of nuclear weapons has been a moderating effect on the region. With the superpowers no longer able to accept militant jihadists in control of anything important when there are nuclear missiles lying around, the US and China have had to stop funding fuckers like Zia in favor of coming down on militancy across the board.

"It was all fun and games when you were just shooting Indians. Seriously, we were never in any danger of running out of Indians, so it was more like a prank. Like how we help India fund Tibetan terrorists in China. Jolly good joke that. Not running out of Chinese people either. But you're playing with the big boys now. These nukes aren't toys, and if you're going to treat them like toys we're grounding your country."

It's like how Putin has announced that he is no longer amused by Kim Jong Il's antics and both Russia and China have signed onto a UN resolution that gives an open letter of marque to commit piracy on all North Korean vessels to every sea captain on Earth. When nuclear weapons start getting thrown around, crazy militant dictatorships stop being an amusing cat's paw to harm the economies of their neighbors and start being a real threat to everyone.

-Username17

Catharz wrote:It's easiest to do when they're just a lump of cells. Gene therapy via engineered virus hasn't (to my knowledge) worked on humans yet. On the other hand, radiation seems to work pretty well if you aren't picky about the kind of modification. Although it can make passing on the mutation difficult (not always--my girlfriend's grandfather walked round Hiroshima at ground zero, and while he has no hair whatsoever, he fathered something like 5 children after the irradiation).

Oh sure, gene therapy has totally worked. The problem is that sometimes people die. We can insert a gene with a virus, but our control over where it is inserted isn't super good. So if you have a recessive ailment that affects just a specific kind of cell (like Cystic Fibrosis), we can spray some virus with copies of the fixed genes in there to insert some functional protein making copies into those cells and cure the illness.

Unfortunately, sometime those genes insert into the middle of genes or other structural elements and you get cancer and die. We have gene therapy kind of suspended on humans right now because of the high rate of mysterious death, although a bunch of people got it in the first wave and those who are still alive seem to have made full recoveries.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:Oh sure, gene therapy has totally worked. The problem is that sometimes people die.

Huh, I thought the main problem was that the inserted genes tended to get silenced.

Alright, that's it. I'm getting GFP'd. I will be fluorescent even if it (mysteriously) kills me!
...and they better know how to get people to express GFP, or I don't know what the hell they've been doing.

Enough cases of transgendered violence get reported that we know that one in ten are murdered before becoming adults. That two times as many transgendered people are attacked for being transgendered than gay people for being gay. And that while 2-5% of the population will self report being gay, less than 0.01% of the population will report being transgendered (though the real numbers are higher.)

*sigh*

I generally don't post those because it's just depressing how vitriolic some people are to perfectly natural behavior. It's not like we're born with stiletto heels and dresses. It's all made-up culture stuff.

-Crissa

Jesus Christ, this Iranian election is spinning out of control.

Hey, Ahmadinejad here's some advice: when people are getting pissed off and your opponent is accusing you of cheating complete with Mousavi doing some hardcore throwing down, the correct response to that is not to start blocking websites and banning protests. Especially if you did cheat, because it'll just bite you in the ass unless you're willing to go all of the way. I mean the whole world was watching this election and got kind of nervous.

FrankTrollman wrote: It's like how Putin has announced that he is no longer amused by Kim Jong Il's antics and both Russia and China have signed onto a UN resolution that gives an open letter of marque to commit piracy on all North Korean vessels to every sea captain on Earth.

Fun fact:

Neither Putin, nor anyone else in the governmant cares about anything except pocketing resources. Russia is not getting any stronger, but the fact that Putin is able to propagandize quite the opposite is good for keeping him in power, and it generates certain opinions abroad that are good for keeping other people in power.

Catharz: it's only actually a problem when you're born with it, because then you never realise pain is a bad thing. When you're developing, it's important to understand that pain is bad, and being on fire is bad, because then you learn to avoid it. Once you understand pain, becoming immune to it (aside from, essentially, a little message box saying "Excuse me, your arm is on fire" or whatever) is beneficial: chronic pain is just flat-out ignored, as are all those little pains that piss you off. And if you catch fire or something, you don't scream in agony, black out and die, you rationally say "Well fuck, better do something about this."

And like I said before, I tried wacky tobacky once (it's decriminalised here, you can enjoy it in your own back yard in front of a policeman). It didn't have the desired effect, and made me nauseous. For now I stick with large amounts of prescription narcotics, but ideally I'd like to be proactive about it - stop defending and start attacking.

FrankTrollman wrote: Oh sure, gene therapy has totally worked. The problem is that sometimes people die.

Thanks, that's all I needed to know. Death is totally an acceptable risk, given that it has a tendency to happen to everyone regardless of what they do or don't do, so if gene therapy gets green-flagged in my lifetime, all I need to do is raise/earn/steal enough cash.

Crissa wrote:It's not like we're born with stiletto heels and dresses. It's all made-up culture stuff.

I often wonder if there'd be less people with gender identity issues if society wasn't so stupid/rigid about gender identity in the first place.

Koumei wrote: And like I said before, I tried wacky tobacky once (it's decriminalised here, you can enjoy it in your own back yard in front of a policeman). It didn't have the desired effect, and made me nauseous. For now I stick with large amounts of prescription narcotics, but ideally I'd like to be proactive about it - stop defending and start attacking.

Well, there are different ways of getting THC into your system for the various effects.

Ingestion is a way may patients use (especially if they have bad lungs), and there's some literature in using cannabis in cooking (not just brownies).

Another would be using a vapouriser, though I hear they're expensive. Well, it's still inhalation, but with much less tar and shit, since it's not hot enough to release them. Different high, but presumably easier on the lungs (I'd try it. Smoking it didn't agree with me.).

Okay, so maybe it's just ingestion and inhalation, but there's other ways to do it than just smoke. Worth a shot, at least.

ckafrica wrote:Troops capture MILF base in southern Philippines

I was kind of hoping that'd be MILF as in "Mum I'd Like to Fuck". That'd be pretty hilarious.

Some people instead get nauseous from the stuff, or maybe it doesn't help with their pain. Medicines don't work the same for everyone.

-Crissa

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Jesus Christ, this Iranian election is spinning out of control...the correct response to that is not to start blocking websites and banning protests...

And shutting down cell phone networks.

Iran is the big news story of the moment and a lot of places are getting it wrong and and calling it a legitimate "Shock landslide win!" for the hardliners.

These are guys that had to ban basically all reformers from running in the elections because 7 years ago these guys were getting 70-80% of the vote. The hardliners themselves only get 20-30% of the vote, largely among the poor. And a minority of the poor at that.

So here we are, reform candidates running once more, and the hardliners popularity with the poor at the all time low due to economic and other bungles, the reformer supporters (like say, basically ALL the women and young people) still hating them more than ever especially after they rolled back the reforms of a decade ago in VERY retrograde ways.

And ANYONE is supposed to believe that the hard liners got 60-70% of the vote and the reformers barely broke 30? Even in their biggest strong holds of support?

This Guy has the story straight.

really? ABC, BBC are bang on the money.

cthulhu wrote:really? ABC, BBC are bang on the money.

That's those naughty communist broadcasters for you. Being professional and accurate like dick heads.

I bet they even have journalists on the ground in Iran covering the riots with cell phone cameras after the government confiscated their equipment.

No professional private journalistic enterprise would put up with that sort of expensive or difficult shit.

PhoneLobster wrote:And ANYONE is supposed to believe that the hard liners got 60-70% of the vote and the reformers barely broke 30? Even in their biggest strong holds of support?

Never is anyone so apathetic as when things are going their way. You forget that you need to fight to stay still when all is gravy.

It took them a while, but even Fox and Friends has realized that the Iranian Elections are a sham. CNN has people with camcorders recording the people setting tire fires in the streets while the thug militias who answer directly to the supreme leader run around beating angry civilians. Now is a great time for Iran's socialists to take the control of the country that Reaganite interference prevented them from getting in the 70s.

I wonder how fast Fox and Friends would turn around to wishing for their pet Ayatollah back if that happened?

-Username17