Concern Over 'Souped Up' Human Race

A BBC article poses usual but tired and pointless ethical questions about enhancing human ability. "Human enhancement could enable older workers to keep pace with younger colleagues.  But there is also the risk that those who fail to join the technological elite would be sidelined as dinosaurs, says Prof Jackie Leach Scully, professor of social ethics at Newcastle University's Policy, Ethics & Life Sciences Research Centre," article reports as a likely issue in our near future.  Will there be coercion?  Corporations have little use for ethical dilemmas, and probably, will only pay lip service to any of them.  Performance will be subtle coercion to enhance yourself.  Smart pills to boost memory and intelligence would only present a concern if they become controlled substances.  Will drug tests become mandatory before taking a college exam?  "Several surveys reveal that many students now use brain-enhancing "smart" pills to help boost their exam grades, which raises the question about whether colleges and universities should insist candidates are 'clean' in the same way that Olympic athletes have to prove they are drug-free to compete,"  is another possible issue posed by article.  The present writer suspects mandatory prescriptions would only be required for underemployed and unemployed workers to make them more employable. Will you take the corticals - as in "The Bourne Legacy" - only to conclude as the lights go out they slipped you a termination pill instead?  It's a Brave New World! 

super soldier suggests desire to replace human beings

The concept of a Super Soldier, according to Wikipedia, has been around for some time in fiction. Wikipedia implies in a single entry real applications have not met with much success, "in the book The Men Who Stare at Goats, journalist Jon Ronson documents how the U.S. government repeatedly tried and failed to devise super-soldiers with psychic powers." Duncan O'Finioan, a real life Super Solder with psychic abilities in a Project Camelot interview, relates his grooming from a young age. O'Finioan is an example to support reality of  Super Soldiers. An article at The Independent, "'Super soldiers': The quest for the ultimate human killing machine," revisits idea with new information and a subtitle, suggesting goal is to mute those qualities that make us human!

"Generals not only want stronger, more alert and less stressed soldiers; they want smarter ones, too. One of the most bizarre neuroscience findings in recent years is that by immersing the human brain in a powerful magnetic field, its powers of reasoning and learning are almost magically enhanced. No one knows exactly how 'transcranial magnetic stimulation' (TMS) works, but the Australian neuroscientist Professor Allan Snyder believes that magnetic fields in some way 'switch off' the higher levels of mental processing that normally cloud our thoughts, allowing a 'pure' form of reasoning to take over," according to the article. A prudent warning is given at the end of the article, all the effort may backfire to produce a less capable zombie. This suggests to readers the Super Soldier is in a developmental phase and not introduced into live action. The O'Finioan case supports idea, the Super Solider has been in service, at least, since Vietnam!

A 2008 Time magazine article, "Can the Enemy Build a Super-Soldier?", the title providing time-tested and tired rationalization that we need to build one! Its crazy circular logic is a ploy used to justify virtually anything. Sleep and nutrition are subjects of contention, in this article, implying desire for soldiers who need little sleep or anything to eat! It sounds wonderful or is it wunderbar? A 90-page document by JASON scientists assessing, "Human Performance," gives readers an idea of immense effort involved! It's a must read for anyone. You may want to know why your boyfriend seems bionic, there's the possibility, he is!

The grimmest result of this push towards Super Soldiers, would be, remote guidance or control of a human being. It makes perfect sense from the perspective of managing war by reducing costs. An individual with no parents or social security number seems a plausible path towards that goal. It's not a pretty prospect!