When you finally can... will you look like your SL self?

I would take full advantage of whatever technology becomes available. I have been envisioning a future history where something like Kurtzweil's singularity has taken place and nanotech has had a benevolent impact on the human race. In that world you can:

Alter your appearance at will.

Become another species.

Uplift other species to human intelligence levels and beyond.

Create AI of human intelligence and emotion levels so that one could no longer tell if someone was originally human or not.

Digitally connect to others thoughts at whatever level is desired - the full spectrum from being a complete disconnected loner to becoming part of the hive mind(s) with various levels of privacy in between.

Replicate objects such as steak dinners or designer homes from the surrounding component molecules so that we no longer have to destroy animals (now potentially intelligent) or the environment to survive at our greedy level of consumption.

The list goes on and on. Unfortunately with these kinds of capabilities and with everyone happy and healthy, there are no stories to tell. So it is just an exercise in wishful thinking for me. Oh, there would still be some conflicts I suppose. There's always some officious puke who wants to mess up paradise.

Getting back a little closer to Des's question, in this scenario I think the vast majority of people will want to look like movie stars. These are the fast food fickle masses who buy into whatever pop culture is thrown their way. Nothing wrong with that, but they won't stand out. If everyone is beautiful, then no one is. But there will be the creative ones who realize it's the tiny imperfections and idiosyncrasies that stand out and make us individuals. They will be even more beautiful. This works in the same way that the machine perfection off most MIDI music sounds horrible to us because it's too perfect, but real masters can put the imperfections back in.

I'd like to think I would fall in the latter group, but I would probably alter myself to survive in a vacuum and just go off and explore the Solar System or some such.



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Yes, without hesitation. The idea of finally being "me" would be heaven. =^-^=

Yes, faster than you can blink your eyes.

No.

I think Cordwainer Smith would have disagreed with you . . .

Pep ( . . . and Charlie Stross still would.)

1. Oh yes, once they were known to be safe. I wouldn't bother looking like my current SL "me"s, though.

BUT - 'known to be safe' probably pushes this sort of modification out much farther than 2019, at least for me. Consider, the genetic origins and even mechanics of major processes like cellular aging, inflammation, osteoarthritis, and the ever-burgeoning incidence of various neurologic disorders are not well understood. So, it seems to me that chances of accidently triggering something nasty are quite high.

2. Why not? I like my mates now to be quite different from me, how wonderful to have more diversity to explore!

3. I would not allow a child to modify themselves, nor would I modify them, until they were fully grown.

Weston, I think biomodification will provide MORE interesting stories, not fewer. Consider this proposition: some guy takes my genome to a biohacker and has himself modified to continuously produce pheromones and/or musk that is guaranteed to attract me. Then he ... well, there are several possible storylines. A luscious little horror psychodrama

I already look exactly like Treasure, lol except that I am taller than her in RL. And, slightly older. My height has always been an issue for me and I'd love to be small and petite like Treasure is, but still with her healthy non-anorexic body. (Yeah she's chunky). As Pep would say, I'd keep the 'linebacker thighs) because I don't like the skinny look. So if I could change my height in rl, I would. That's about it though.

Why would I? I am better looking than my avatar

But what if your chosen traits would pass along? This is common with genetic engineering.


For those not familiar with gene splicing, it's *ridiculously easy* at basic levels. My own kids have done gene insertion (not on themselves) at the San Jose Tech Museum, which incidentally also has a Second Life presence. It takes about half an hour.

I can't even begin to tell you how easy it is to insert certain genes. Merely put the gene you want to insert near some cells, warm up the cells until their membranes become permeable (room temp kinda works, warmer is better) and... there ya go. A gazillion cells *permanently* altered and unable to do anything else but continue on, and replicate with their new genetic coding. Not everything is easily reversible.

Of course, not everything lands where you want... precision slicing and splicing does require huge labs and big science, but once you have a sample what you are looking for... watch out, world.


So to refine the question... if you knew your offspring would have to live with perhaps some, if not all the choices you had made in your life... would it change your decision?

What if your kids would be destined to have the same goth skin, or cat ears just like you?

Then, in that scenario, no. Absolutely not. Any decision like that I'd feel I could only make for myself, as an adult. I'd give the same respect to my future kids to make their own decisions in that area. I'd only do it if I was not having kids, or done having kids (which I am in RL, so am good to go. )

There was an absolutely wonderful story in the Escape Pod podcast about exactly that topic, although it involves an advertising agency who sells using pheromones. Perhaps you are familiar with it? I forget the author, but it is a chilling unforgettable story uploaded about a year ago. It may still be on line:

http://escapepod.org/category/podcasts/

But in my wish fulfillment future the "nannies" would protect us from that sort of thing.

I highly recommend Escape Pod and its sister podcasts PseudoPod and PodCastle. They have been invaluable companions to me when I'm doing mindless tedium like housework.

I would probably, it would also be a good way to end my papertrail i guess, if you look like someone else... do you become someone else?

As I already said the last time this came up, yes. But it won't happen in my lifetime. Or be anything like that cheap.

Please. I can't even be bothered to put chemicals on my hair in the physical world, even though they promise to give me the hair color I've always wanted (and have in SL). Evil chemicals, my precious hair, nope nope nope. Well, maybe. Eventually. One day. When I can be bothered with it. Never got around to learning to wear makeup either. I'm about to turn 40, and people say I don't look anything like it, and I'm just like, "I'm 40, therefore I look 40. The women you think look 40 really just look women who've spent the past 25 years slathering toxic chemicals on their faces." My avatar already looks me, anyway, except that she has a more impractical wardrobe and can change her hair and makeup with less hassle (and no toxicity). So genetic treatments? I don't think so.

Now, if I could get cybernetic ankles to replace my wobbly ones, I'd do it in moment, experimental treatment or not.

I do think we shouldn't be fussing with most of the genetics we are now, not because there's anything unethical or otherwise wrong with genetic manipulation, but because I think certain elements of science and especially industry are arrogantly coasting on what we do know and not properly respecting what we don't know. I think we need at least another 50 years or so of research to determine the long-term and more widespread effects of genetic manipulation before we'll be at a state to really say what we're doing now is safe.

I would go for any health improvement modifications in a moment - disease resistance, better eyesight, even metabolism tweaks. I might correct anything about me that was abnormally unattractive, particularly if I felt it had hurt my opportunities in life. Kids would benefit from such 'corrections', so long as they were within human norm.

But while I am sure there would be advantages to having a complete makeover to be a gorgeous-but-not-too-threatening woman, alas, only in SL have I sampled them, and it would stay that way!

And a silky fur coat, golden eyes etc.. - not before I had kids.

no.

Thank you Briana - I still have a collection somewhere in the loft

I shall be a pegasus pony with pretty wings, shiny hooves and I want a unicorn horn with bling.

Greg Egan: Diaspora, Schild's Ladder. Charlie Stross: Accelerando, Glasshouse. Etc...

That'd be cool. You could call it "Voyage of the Space Beagle".

Considering my main avatar's are rotting corpses.....

YEP!!! Someday, we will ALL look like My Avatar!!

Man! (Sorry, I mean "Mustelid!" You are quick. I never would have made that connection.

I met Van Vogt before he passed away and have a signed paperback copy I cherish.

Some of them, not others.

True but misleading.

Most of our characteristics are determined by ontogeny, meaning, how development proceeds as a complex interaction between genetics and the environment of the growing tissues. Most characteristics can't simply be changed by inserting genes, after development, that would have produced a different development. If you're interested in this subject, read The Art of Genes by Enrico Coen.

Still, I suspect that in the long run, something very much like this will be possible, and our physical makeup will have more to do with how we modify ourselves than what nature gave us. And the limits will be fewer than they are in SL.

LOL i loved this one

That's what it says on the box. Mustelid. Quick is part of the package.

Coolio.