I love words. Words never go unnoticed. They move, create, translate, bind and tear apart. Some people know how to use them so well. Here you can find some linguistic beauty I can't let go unnoticed. Maybe even an attempt to use them well myself.

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26th May 2011

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Neo-Evolution

I just watched this TED talk by Harvey Fineberg. He talks about the mindblowing possibilities biology is offering us to manipulate our own cells and genes. Not only our own, but also those of our offspring. We can become faster, fitter, healthier. We can improve our memory, eliminate diseases. No more diabetes, cancer or alzheimer.

We can live longer. Upgrade our quality of life.

It freaked me out. Fineberg was simply dropping the topic so we can discuss it. Are we ready?
Again; it freaked me out. Biologists, I am afraid, are too often inventing and developing from an ivory tower. Because inventing painless, successful lives in terms of intelligence and physical strength is a very scientific approach. Though not so human. His talk was right after another dude’s long TED rant about the human contradiction of geniality and our never ending chain of evil deeds. So I think I could conclude that, the clever we become… the more capable we become of doing bad things. On different levels. And it seems to me that we can usually keep up with using everything our ingenious minds create, but unfortunately not so much with the consequences. We’re chasing what we produce and it’s often taking us over. Here is the simple example of guns; we’ve invented them ages ago and they control us, still.

Ivory tower. Not only because of the fact that Fineburg is having a materialistic approach, also because of his scientific materialistic approach. Being a scientist, his standards for improved quality of life are far different from other people’s standards. For him, quality may get perked up by having a better memory. For others it may be beauty. And here’s my second point: Imagine your parents picking a look that you hate. We all occasionally hate the way we look. Or they picked talents you dislike. Imagine all the expectations on your neck before you’re even born. Imagine all the people on the world who now hate themselves having their parents to blame. Imagine those kitchen table conversations. 

No. We’re not ready. I’m not ready for this. 
Excuse me for the rant. I tried to keep my panties on.

  1. adrianaverkerk posted this