• shani66
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    3 months ago

    The human body is a wonder of completely random chance, but a complete and utter failure of any kind of system. Anyone who isn’t a transhumanist is a total jobbernowl, in my humble opinion.

    we have organs that only exist to kill us, our mouths are completely fucked, our bodies will just stop making vitally important chemicals, it’s stupidly common for our bodies to kill themselves because it freaks out at perfectly benign things, our super special brains take very stupid shortcuts, and of course the bones. A biologist could probably go on for hours about the failures of evolution, but i am not a biologist.

    • shneancy@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      i’m incredibly salty about how our “only air please” tubes are connected to “everything goes through that” tubes, like what the fuck

      • Jumi@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Don’t forget that our spine would prefer having us walk on all fours

        • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          No, that just lets us talk out of the same hole we put other things into. The talking mechanism could be connected to just the air hole. And as a bonus, we could talk while eating and drinking.

    • CobblerScholar@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      But you see it isn’t a failure, in fact it’s literally the most successful yet. Evolutionary adaptations don’t come about because they make life comfortable they make it so one can live long enough to make babies, everything else is just a bonus

      • rockerface@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Which is why the whole thing kinda starts to break down once a species reaches a point where the specimens can survive after they can no longer produce offspring. Like humans.

        • Liz@midwest.social
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          3 months ago

          There’s multiple examples of the same thing in other species. Typically it’s a social animal where passing on accumulated knowledge is a survival strategy. Whales are one example, I’d have to look up the others.

    • kautau@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      We should have flaccid teeth that only get hard when we are hungry and see food

    • rockerface@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      And penises have some magnificent garbage wiring, leading into all sorts of fun stuff you wouldn’t wish on your enemy. Evolution is just a giant brute force mechanism. An LLM of biology, if you will.

    • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I agree with the sentiment, but trans-humanism as a concept has to fight uphill in all directions to not wind up as repackaged eugenics.

      To improve upon the human form in a way that serves future generations is a path fraught with ethical problems. How does one value a change or augmentation to human form as an improvement? Who gets to improve or be improved? What happens when the technology or treatments are too resource intensive or expensive for everyone? What keeps the rich and powerful from hoarding all the life-extending improvements from the rest?

      At the very minimum, supplying something like an inject-able gene therapy to the masses must be conducted at a global scale - far greater than what it took to eradicate smallpox. Anything less, and we’re picking winners and losers, and slide down the slippery ethical slope.

      • shizomou@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        At the very minimum, supplying something like an inject-able gene therapy to the masses must be conducted at a global scale - far greater than what it took to eradicate smallpox.

        New covid conspiracy theory right there

        • shani66
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          3 months ago

          Our teeth don’t fit correctly either, nor are they really suited enough to the environment to last as long as we live.

          • Liz@midwest.social
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            3 months ago

            They usually fit fine as long as you’re eating a proper diet. You know, lots of veggies and unprocessed food.

            • shani66
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              3 months ago

              No, they last longer that way, but the human mouth is too small for our teeth, that’s why a lot of us have to get our wisdom teeth removed

              • Liz@midwest.social
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                3 months ago

                It’s a tight fit, that’s for sure. I guess it’s more of what you consider to be too small for optimal mouth health and whatnot. Most animals have gaps but we don’t. It would certainly help to have some. Generally, having a better diet does help with tooth arrangement, though. The position of your teeth are influenced by the stresses you put on them. If you’re eating a lot of soft, processed food the stresses the teeth place on each other starts be become a bigger factor in their positioning. If you’re eating a proper amount of “tough” food, chewing helps keep them in proper alignment.

                • Soggy@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  Mine were growing in sideways well before they erupted. Diet had nothing to do with that, just a shorter jaw than our distant ancestors.

        • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Tonsil stones? I haven’t had the displeasure but from what I’ve read, it clearly goes in the “we can do better than this” category.

    • Gabu@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Being a transhumanist is foolish. Just skip the middleman and make better robots to completely take over our species.

      • Emerald@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Well… robots wouldn’t be sentient, so there would be no point. And I would argue making sentient robots is morally wrong.

        • Gabu@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I would argue NOT making sentient robots is morally wrong.