Nature Vs the Environment

[ParaLLL]

A human population drop wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for the planet, but for individual societies it could be catastrophic. Most economic systems depend on continued population growth to function, so if birthrate decreases, then those nations go into recession. I don't know if I've heard anyone claiming that the global human population should decrease per say, but I have read arguments concerning setting limits on it's further growth due to the fact that we don't know how to calculate the earth's carrying capacity for life and at what point we'll reach it. When populations reach their habitat's carrying capacity, their growth doesn't just stall or cut back a little to match the amount of available resources, they go through what's called a crash where the number of individuals plummets dangerously.

True, and I do know all that, but honestly, something is going to happen anyway; either we have a long, drawn-out recession as we slowly (probably deliberately) decrease population, or a shorter but more extreme crash. Something's happening either way; personally it doesn't matter too much to me which one it is.

I guess whether gender-skewing due to "designer babies" in certain cultures is good or bad depends on the scale of effect you're looking at. Though it can't be too good for a good portion of individuals in that culture either. Poor, lonely heteros.

Yeah, my point was that I don't think the scale will be as large as it first seems like it will be.

True. Well, or someone will start spreading around the idea that it's the duty of anyone bisexual and in the larger gender group to just pretend they're exclusively gay so as to not take the attention of anyone in the smaller gender group, and the duty of anyone bisexual and in the smaller gender group to pretend they're exclusively straight, again so they don't take the attention of anyone in the smaller gender group who might pay attention to the larger. Humanity has done much more absurd things for much smaller reasons.... (Or polygamy will be accepted, but that one's not as absurd/as much fun to laugh at humanity for.)

[Corvidae]

Reminds me of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", by Heinlein. Most moon colonists were convicts, sent there forcibly (much like Australia was). Since more men committed crimes than women, most moon colonists were men, with a much smaller proportion of women. Thus there was a polyamorous society, where almost all women had more than one husband (and husbands could have more than one wife, although if women were so rare then don't ask me how that worked out).

Didn't go into the concepts of bisexuality/homosexuality. Also, why would bisexuals have to 'pretend'? Why couldn't they be openly bisexual, but limit themselves to sexual activity with the appropriate gender?

[ParaLLL]

Well, not technically pretend, I just wasn't coming up with any better way to phrase it that didn't take a sentence and a half. I think I was thinking along the lines of behave->act->pretend. Plus it's not an idea I'd agree with, so I wasn't feeling too desperate to phrase it as well as I possibly could, and so went with the shorter phrasing. I do also wonder how much openness would really be possible though; even if people are completely open about saying they're bisexual, if they completely limit themselves, some people will not believe them, and others will probably just forget or not notice. Not everyone would fall into one of the two, but probably a lot of people would.

[Corvidae]

Well, sexual behavior is very different from social behavior. There would be nothing to prevent them from showing attraction to both genders and behaving in most aspects as a bisexual, provided they limited their sexual behavior to the appropriate gender.

[KaidaShade]

Lets see, they've also used it to get other organisms to produce things like insulin, in a step towards a genetic therapy that will allow diabetic patients to get their pancreases to regenerate the islet cells.

Well, technically that's genetic engineering as opposed to stem cell-related work, since they use bacteria with the human insulin gene inserted into them in order to produce insulin for diabetics. They are working on using stem cells to regenerate the cells in the pancreas, however. Since I know a good few diabetics, i welcome these developments.

Actually they were treating cows with stem cells to get them to produce milk with insulin in it because they grew islet cells...or something to that effect. Ill see if I can't find the article to link it.

Hmm, hadn't heard of that. Please, if you can find that article show me, I find these sorts of things really interesting. I just know that, currently, the standard way of producing it is with genetically modified bacteria.

[Keolah]

Heck, why would they even need to limit sexual behavior to the opposite sex? So long as they're willing to produce offspring if needed, why would it matter who they preferred to spend their time with?

And anyway, I'd say, let people have the baby they want. What does it really matter in the long run? A gender imbalance would be a self-correcting problem. If a country like, say, China for example, decided to make widespread use of gender-selection, and then wound up with 80% males, the result would probably be a decrease in population over the next few decades (which they seem to be trying to do anyway), fewer unwanted female babies in the meantime, and then a subsequent increase in the value of females due to there being fewer of them. It would self-correct as more people wanted girls again.

[wolfeyedangel]

Actually Keolah, they have that exact problem, and there's no real corrective factor yet, because culturally sons are still more valued than daughters. It'll likely come with time. I just hope it comes IN time.

~Wolf

[Corvidae]

I don't think we can pick out hair/eye color

Hair/eye color genes are relatively simple. We can't genetically engineer them yet, but you can effectively 'choose'--or at least manipulate probability for--your baby's eye color, by finding someone with the appropriate traits. That is, provided you're not homozygous dominant and want a recessive trait.

Not the most society-friendly procedure, but hey. -shrug-

[wolfeyedangel]

Corvidae: would you care to elaborate on the genetics of it? I'm curious as to your definition of 'relatively simple' and how it relates to the details of the genetics involved.

~Wolf

[Corvidae]

Well--I'm not a geneticist, although I may well become one--as I recall, hair and eye color genes work much the same for general colors. It'd be very hard to get a precise shade of color, but general 'brown hair' or 'blonde hair' should be fairly easy. (Again, as long as you're not homozygous dominant for brown and want a blonde-haired baby). Someone with no red-haired ancestry also shouldn't hope for a red-haired child, because red hair is caused by being homozygous for the gene that controls the production of pheomelanin.

Brown hair/black hair are distinguished by different types of eumelanin, but I'm not entirely sure of the exact genetic distinction.

Eye color is... a lot more complicated, actually, now that I look at it, so that would probably be much harder. Two brown-eyed parents will probably produce brown-eyed offspring; two blue-eyed parents will probably produce blue-eyed offspring, and that's as far as I'll go.