Sanity?

[Dan Goodman]

Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for sanity.

What traits might be encouraged?

--
Dan Goodman
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.

[David Friedman]

In article <xn0i5000...@news.iphouse.com>,

"Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:

> Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for sanity.
>
> What traits might be encouraged?

Elimination of whatever it is that makes males go crazy at about sixteen
and not recover until about 26--as reflected in crime rates, insurance
rates, etc.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
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_How to Milk an Almond,..._ http://tinyurl.com/63xg8gx

[Bill Swears]

On 10/31/2012 9:41 PM, David Friedman wrote:
> In article <xn0i5000...@news.iphouse.com>,
> "Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>
>> Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for sanity.
>>
>> What traits might be encouraged?
>
> Elimination of whatever it is that makes males go crazy at about sixteen
> and not recover until about 26--as reflected in crime rates, insurance
> rates, etc.
>

I'd see more than one option. If genetic engineering can be one off,
and characteristics are selected by parents, you'd get one set, but if
the state is doing the engineering, raising and engineering, then there
are several different models that might be moved toward. Who defines
sanity? Are bad dreams, the ability to slip into PTSD, revulsion about
talking physiology and medical detail while eating sane? Should a sane
citizen accept public announcements as truth without question? Should
there be some sort of icon or logo that automatically tells video
watchers the information they're about to receive is true, and that
countervailing information is information terrorism?

The insanity that David talks about is useful for young soldiers, who
march forward when bits of lead are flying at them.

Is religion sane? Is knee-jerk conservatism a religious state? Is
being "liberal" insane?

Who defines what is sane? If you want a truly passive, productive
populace, then reduce that old sense of curiosity, train the majority to
be uncomfortable if they aren't working, and to accept authority without
question. Engineer and train another, smaller, group to be that authority.

Bill

--
www.billswears.com
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Also at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other fine ebook emporia.
Puppies - http://www.mtaonline.net/~wswears/
Opinions - http://wswears.livejournal.com/

[Jymesion]

On Thu, 01 Nov 2012 06:14:12 -0800, Bill Swears <wsw...@gci.net>
wrote:

> train the majority to be uncomfortable if they aren't working, and to
> accept authority without question. Engineer and train another,
> smaller, group to be that authority.

Would you really want that second set? It would have to have a greater
amount of free will, which is always a bad thing for such societies.

A bureaucracy should be the authority. If no one can possibly screw
things up so badly that people might have reason to question the
social order, it'll reinforce the engineering.

[Jim Hetley]

On Thursday, November 1, 2012 10:14:03 AM UTC-4, Bill Swears wrote:


>
> Who defines what is sane? If you want a truly passive, productive
>
> populace, then reduce that old sense of curiosity, train the majority to
>
> be uncomfortable if they aren't working, and to accept authority without
>
> question. Engineer and train another, smaller, group to be that authority.
>

O brave new world, that has such people in't.

Jim

[Brenda Clough]

I would keep it simpler. Engineer an appetite for reading, and a
focused curiosity to fuel it. Doesn't matter about what. Even if you
have a fraction of people who are maniacally focused upon the
Kardashians (and thus lost to rational discourse) the same force will
drive others to be profoundly interested in astronomy, or cancer research.

Brenda

--
My latest novel SPEAK TO OUR DESIRES is available exclusively from Book
View Cafe.
http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/Brenda-Clough/Novels/Speak-to-Our-Desires-Chapter-01

[Carl Dershem]

"Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> typed in news:xn0i5000k3f03o001
@news.iphouse.com:

> Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for
sanity.
>
> What traits might be encouraged?
>

Depends on who is defining sanity, and how.

cd

[J.Pascal]

On Wednesday, October 31, 2012 11:41:01 PM UTC-6, David Friedman wrote:
> In article <xn0i5000...@news.iphouse.com>,
>
> "Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for sanity.
>
> >
>
> > What traits might be encouraged?
>
>
>
> Elimination of whatever it is that makes males go crazy at about sixteen
>
> and not recover until about 26--as reflected in crime rates, insurance
>
> rates, etc.

Just the other day I had almost the opposite idea. It's sort of in an amorphous state as yet, but I was thinking of a sort of family-ship situation where at least one space born human culture (since the environment can be controlled absolutely) decided to emphasize, slightly, the environmental factors that contribute to male sexual dimorphism during the growth of their children. (I was thinking of the claims that the development of boys is affected by estrogen in our water supply.)

So... probably more young male craziness and teenaged girls with smaller breasts.

-Julie

[David Friedman]

In article <XnsA0FEBC684D4...@88.198.244.100>,

Perhaps postponed puberty?

[Dan Goodman]

David Friedman wrote:

> In article <xn0i5000...@news.iphouse.com>,
> "Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>
> > Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for sanity.
> >
> > What traits might be encouraged?
>
> Elimination of whatever it is that makes males go crazy at about
> sixteen and not recover until about 26--as reflected in crime rates,
> insurance rates, etc.

Which might result in females moving into that social ecological niche;
similar to coyotes taking over the niche left empty when wolves are
eliminated.

[Dan Goodman]

Bill Swears wrote:

> On 10/31/2012 9:41 PM, David Friedman wrote:
> > In article <xn0i5000...@news.iphouse.com>,
> > "Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for
> > > sanity.
> > >
> > > What traits might be encouraged?
> >
> > Elimination of whatever it is that makes males go crazy at about
> > sixteen and not recover until about 26--as reflected in crime
> > rates, insurance rates, etc.
> >
> I'd see more than one option. If genetic engineering can be one off,
> and characteristics are selected by parents, you'd get one set, but
> if the state is doing the engineering, raising and engineering, then
> there are several different models that might be moved toward. Who
> defines sanity? Are bad dreams, the ability to slip into PTSD,
> revulsion about talking physiology and medical detail while eating
> sane? Should a sane citizen accept public announcements as truth
> without question? Should there be some sort of icon or logo that
> automatically tells video watchers the information they're about to
> receive is true, and that countervailing information is information
> terrorism?

What I had in mind is different groups advancing different versions of
sanity. Which might cause some conflicts.

[Dan Goodman]

Various groups, various ways?

[Bill Swears]

That makes sense to me, and is where I was going. You could get deep
agents who've been biologically tailored to blend in, suddenly develop a
virulent and opposition specific disease at, say 35. They wouldn't have
to enter any particular social circle, in fact it would be better if
they went for maximum dispersion inside the opposing country, so the
plague would kick already in spread out to it's furthest geophysical reach.

I know that isn't a sanity issue, but simply a possible genetic
engineering outcome. But you could bounce it up to the planners. What
sort of mindset goes through with creating a "normal" member of a
society who will one day spread deadly contagion, never knowing that she
was designed that way?

With truly effective design, you could get a culture of human shaped
killer wasps who take over other cultures and breed true, you could get
a culture of true libertarians who agree on what that is, and will drive
out anybody who tries to gain a mass consensus on any subject that the
libertarian group disapproves of. You could see cultures of people
who've built genetic markers in themselves to force them to breed true
to their favored racial markers.

Some groups would attempt to develop genetic predisposition to martyrdom
for a particular vision of God/Allah/Yahweh. Others might find it
easier to make everybody genetically loyal to their Savior here on Earth.

Genetically enhanced asteroid miners, love the solitude, don't breath
much except when motion is called for, make a pilgrimage to earth two or
three times in their lives. They love it here for the tourism/sexual
stimulation, but are made island crazy within a couple weeks. A utopia
in which everybody is designed to love a certain job, and the only
controversy is in how to design people with unique specializations who
nonetheless share a strand of common humanity and loyalty to the larger
human hive.

[David Friedman]

In article <c8ydnVE9TfeupgjN...@posted.mtasolutions>,
Bill Swears <wsw...@gci.net> wrote:

Heinlein, of course, has been there already--with a throwaway line in
_Starship Troopers_ on the failed attempt to breed aggression out of the
human race.

[Dan Goodman]

David Friedman wrote:

> In article <c8ydnVE9TfeupgjN...@posted.mtasolutions>,
> Bill Swears <wsw...@gci.net> wrote:
>
> Heinlein, of course, has been there already--with a throwaway line in
> _Starship Troopers_ on the failed attempt to breed aggression out of
> the human race.

And somewhat earlier, in _Beyond This Horizon_.

[David Friedman]

In article <xn0i55du...@news.iphouse.com>,

"Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:

> David Friedman wrote:
>
> > In article <c8ydnVE9TfeupgjN...@posted.mtasolutions>,
> > Bill Swears <wsw...@gci.net> wrote:
> >
> > Heinlein, of course, has been there already--with a throwaway line in
> > _Starship Troopers_ on the failed attempt to breed aggression out of
> > the human race.
>
> And somewhat earlier, in _Beyond This Horizon_.

Except that that didn't involve any centralized attempt to produce a
specific result, at least as I remember. It was what I think of as
libertarian eugenics--a technology that let each couple choose, among
the children they could have, which one they did have.

Or am I forgetting a different part of the story?

[Dan Goodman]

Bill Swears wrote:

> With truly effective design, you could get a culture of human shaped
> killer wasps who take over other cultures and breed true, you could
> get a culture of true libertarians who agree on what that is, and
> will drive out anybody who tries to gain a mass consensus on any
> subject that the libertarian group disapproves of.

Or it might turn out that people bred to be libertarians will mostly
reject libertarianism. Hey, if it's easy and instinctive, it can't be
The Right Thing....

[Dan Goodman]

David Friedman wrote:

> In article <xn0i55du...@news.iphouse.com>,
> "Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>
> > David Friedman wrote:
> >
> > > In article <c8ydnVE9TfeupgjN...@posted.mtasolutions>,
> > > Bill Swears <wsw...@gci.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > Heinlein, of course, has been there already--with a throwaway
> > > line in _Starship Troopers_ on the failed attempt to breed
> > > aggression out of the human race.
> >
> > And somewhat earlier, in _Beyond This Horizon_.
>
> Except that that didn't involve any centralized attempt to produce a
> specific result, at least as I remember. It was what I think of as
> libertarian eugenics--a technology that let each couple choose, among
> the children they could have, which one they did have.
>
> Or am I forgetting a different part of the story?

It was backstory. Aggression had almost been bred out of
Americans/North Americans before the aggressive minority revolted.
And, of course, won.

[J.Pascal]

On Sunday, November 4, 2012 5:08:33 PM UTC-7, Dan Goodman wrote:
> David Friedman wrote:
>
>
>
> > In article <xn0i55du...@news.iphouse.com>,
>
> > "Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>
> >
>
> > > David Friedman wrote:
>
> > >
>
> > > > In article <c8ydnVE9TfeupgjN...@posted.mtasolutions>,
>
> > > > Bill Swears <wsw...@gci.net> wrote:
>
> > > >
>
> > > > Heinlein, of course, has been there already--with a throwaway
>
> > > > line in _Starship Troopers_ on the failed attempt to breed
>
> > > > aggression out of the human race.
>
> > >
>
> > > And somewhat earlier, in _Beyond This Horizon_.
>
> >
>
> > Except that that didn't involve any centralized attempt to produce a
>
> > specific result, at least as I remember. It was what I think of as
>
> > libertarian eugenics--a technology that let each couple choose, among
>
> > the children they could have, which one they did have.
>
> >
>
> > Or am I forgetting a different part of the story?
>
>
>
> It was backstory. Aggression had almost been bred out of
>
> Americans/North Americans before the aggressive minority revolted.
>
> And, of course, won.

Remove aggression and you end up with Reavers. ;-)

-Julie

[Remus Shepherd]

Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
> Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for sanity.

> What traits might be encouraged?

Dullness. A few studies have suggested that insanity and intelligence
are inextricably linked. To make the human race sane, you're gonna have to
make them stupid as well.

... ...
Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com>
New Webcomic: Genocide Man http://www.genocideman.com/
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.

[Bill Swears]

On 11/6/2012 4:49 AM, Remus Shepherd wrote:
> Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>> Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for sanity.
>
>> What traits might be encouraged?
>
> Dullness. A few studies have suggested that insanity and intelligence
> are inextricably linked. To make the human race sane, you're gonna have to
> make them stupid as well.
>

Your contention is premised on the idea that the genetic engineering is
limited to altering balances that exist, rather than creating new
mechanisms. Maybe the genetic design work will turn us into Vulcans,
and the education will be oriented on making us more spontaneous so that
the population doesn't crash because the kids are all Sheldon Cooperish.

[Dan Goodman]

Remus Shepherd wrote:

> Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
> > Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for sanity.
>
> > What traits might be encouraged?
>
> Dullness. A few studies have suggested that insanity and
> intelligence are inextricably linked. To make the human race sane,
> you're gonna have to make them stupid as well.

I don't know of any studies which suggest a link between what IQ tests
measure and insanity.

There does seem to be a link between _creativity_ and insanity. But I
suspect this has more to do with a need to come up with workarounds for
coping with the world.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> writes:

> Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for sanity.
>
> What traits might be encouraged?

Lots of things that sound good in principle and probably *are*, but will
be hell for actual parents to cope with in actual children --
independence, critical thinking, lack of respect for authority,
skepticism.
--
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Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

[David Dyer-Bennet]

David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> writes:

> In article <xn0i5000...@news.iphouse.com>,
> "Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>
>> Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for sanity.
>>
>> What traits might be encouraged?
>
> Elimination of whatever it is that makes males go crazy at about sixteen
> and not recover until about 26--as reflected in crime rates, insurance
> rates, etc.

Ah; testosterone, it's called.

I think there are side-effects of a straightforward elimination of
that.

[David Friedman]

In article <ylfk4nkc...@dd-b.net>,

David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:

> "Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> writes:
>
> > Children are being gene-engineered, raised, and educated for sanity.
> >
> > What traits might be encouraged?
>
> Lots of things that sound good in principle and probably *are*, but will
> be hell for actual parents to cope with in actual children --
> independence, critical thinking, lack of respect for authority,
> skepticism.

While other parents will encourage them.

So the net result is a wider spread of those heritable traits that some
parents approve of and some disapprove of, a narrower spread of those
where almost all parents agree.

[Chris Carter]

I can honestly say that males do not actually go 'insane' in the time frame listed. They are actually the victims of the strange conditions that parents, society, and convention force onto them.

In the late 1800's, a male was grown at 16 or thereabouts, expected to defend himself (with a firearm is necessary), food might have had to be killed, expected to care for his family (if he had one), expected to live only a few more years and actually head of the household, helping to make the laws that we are held to today.

Over the years, humans life spans have increased, there is no longer any danger from the 'wilds', food is available in stores, life is strange to them and they act confusedly because they are confused. What are they to do with the biological 'fight or flight response' and/or the excess adrenyline that accompanies it when the law says 'walk away', call the 'authorities', and allow them to defend you.

To keep two guys from feeling free to 'meet in the street' to duel, laws were created to make it illegal to have the 'meeting'. Hired law enforcement was supposed to cut down on crime, but, instead they became a large part of what keeps the emergency numbers ringing.

I think that somebody should go through the statutes and determine what laws are just outdated, too intrusive and no longer relevant ... eliminate them and lobby for laws that are current, relevant and fair to all. The 'sanity' of young males might increase dramatically.

[David Friedman]

In article <6a9bca46-32bf-420c...@googlegroups.com>,

Chris Carter <nda...@gmail.com> wrote:

> In the late 1800's, a male was grown at 16 or thereabouts, expected to defend
> himself (with a firearm is necessary), food might have had to be killed,
> expected to care for his family (if he had one), expected to live only a few
> more years and actually head of the household, helping to make the laws that
> we are held to today.

Not "expected to live only a few more years." When looking at historical
life expectancy, it's important to remember that a lot of what reduced
it was infant and child mortality.

A quick google finds a table going back that far. In 1880, life
expectancy for men at age 5 was about 56, at age 20 it was over 60.

http://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/english/US/US39-01.html