Italians Can Give You Head

[Quiet One]

My biggest worry over this type of thing is that the spinal cords don't sync up. Yes, there's the fear of rejection of the new tissue and the fact that when this was tried with monkeys (as Asmo mentioned) they lived for maybe three days. The problem they had is what I'd be afraid the person would have; paralysis, an inability to swallow, and no actual control over their new body. I haven't heard about the mice thing that was mentioned, but human beings are far more complicated, so that wouldn't encourage me.

I would love to be proven wrong, but nothing about this Frankenstein experiment seems safe to me.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

I feel the need to make this crystal clear.
If we cannot even have animals survive this operation for more than a few days?
It does not belong anywhere near people anytime soon.

 

[ᴛᴏᴄᴋᴀ]

I feel the need to make this crystal clear.
If we cannot even have animals survive this operation for more than a few days?
It does not belong anywhere near people anytime soon.

There's always going to be some doctor to rush this, and behind that doctor is a rich person with some sort of diagnosis that they want to get out of. Any sane doctor would not even consider performing this type of surgery on a human when the outcome is for mice is dismal at best. I can understand why people are eager for it, but I don't think medical technology has reached the point where they're fully prepared for such an operation. Doctors are still humans, and humans make mistakes. This is no doubt going to be an extremely long and detailed surgery, which means the odds of something going wrong increases dramatically. If it came down to me being paralyzed for the rest of my life, or being offered this type of transplant, I'd stick with being paralyzed.

 

[Quiet One]

If human cloning was legal we could trade a person's head onto the body of their clone. That would help with a lot of the rejection issues.

Would still be a risky, dangerous procedure, though. I'd rather have my head put on a robot body, not some other walking chemical sac of rotting meat. If I try to cheat death, I'm going all the way with it!

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

Sadly cloning technology is no where near perfected itself yet. :(
Neither is cybernetics, hell we're still on the verge of figuring out robotic arms, and fairly simple/inflexible one's at that.

But yea, if were attaching my head to an all new body?
I'd probably want it to be a machine body too, varying on how advanced said machine bodies were at the time that is.

 

[Asmodeus]

It takes a lot more successful testing than that to warrant doing it with people.
Testing that cannot be done within only 1 year time.

Pfft. It'll take a day, tops.

And humans are stronger than animals. The monkeys probably died because they didn't get what was happening. A human mind would.

And cloning's already happening. There's proof.

 

[Insidious Joe]

Applying ethical constraints to the sciences will always result in the smothering of technological advancement. Many consider the previous sentence to be cruel and questionable, but the only way to know for certain whether or not something truly works would be to do it on the creatures it's intended for: human beings. Yes, there are similarities to be had in other animals, hence why we use them to test upon, but ultimately we need this to work for ourselves.

Anything less than a cold, sterile approach to the facts and accepting reality will prevent this from becoming a very real possibility, so I say godspeed to Valery. Hell, if religion hadn't stunted the sciences and arts years ago (and still does today), we'd probably have already advanced way past this point in medicine and technology, and you'd all find something else to have moralistic concerns over.

 

[Jorick]

Considering the risk involved, I would not even think about it. The brain is a funny thing, and we're nowhere close to learning how it operates completely. Messing with the nervous system at all makes me cringe. Aside from that, the fact that there are still people whose bodies reject transplanted organs....

I think there's some things medicine should not touch until they're at least 99% sure it would work, and this would be at the top of the list. If it fails, that poor man will wake up with a conscious mind, but unable to do anything at all except maybe talk and even that is questionable. He'd essentially be trapped in a useless body that wasn't even his. That in itself sounds like a horror novel.

Here's the thing though: the guy who has volunteered to be the test subject for this procedure (as the head to be transplanted, of course) has a thing called Werdnig-Hoffman disease, which in short is one of the most extreme forms of spinal muscular atrophy diseases; only 10% of people who have this disease live past 4 years old, just to give you an idea of how bad it is. Basically, his body is already shutting down as the neurons in his spinal cord deteriorate. He knows without a doubt that this deterioration will continue until his lungs just stop working and he dies, if not before then due to various other complications like losing the ability to swallow.

He's already trapped in a useless body, which is probably why he's willing to give this crazy sci-fi sounding long shot a chance. For someone with a normal functioning body the idea sounds insane, but to a guy with that awful disease progression in his future, well... Taking that chance at a working body and then dying in surgery, or after a few days of complication, sounds quite a bit preferable to the slow fade that might take some more years.

Applying ethical constraints to the sciences will always result in the smothering of technological advancement. Many consider the previous sentence to be cruel and questionable, but the only way to know for certain whether or not something truly works would be to do it on the creatures it's intended for: human beings. Yes, there are similarities to be had in other animals, hence why we use them to test upon, but ultimately we need this to work for ourselves.

Anything less than a cold, sterile approach to the facts and accepting reality will prevent this from becoming a very real possibility, so I say godspeed to Valery. Hell, if religion hadn't stunted the sciences and arts years ago (and still does today), we'd probably have already advanced way past this point in medicine and technology, and you'd all find something else to have moralistic concerns over.

Those ethical constraints also prevent researchers from doing stuff like spiking the drinking water of towns with weird chemicals to see what happens, or kidnapping people off the streets to use as test subjects, or injecting known toxins into people (probably desperate fucks like homeless people and drug addicts that they promised a bit of money to) just to be able to chart the exact progress of how it kills them.

Sure, that might slow down our scientific understanding of things, but having ethical standards is not a bad thing.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

Applying ethical constraints to the sciences will always result in the smothering of technological advancement. Many consider the previous sentence to be cruel and questionable, but the only way to know for certain whether or not something truly works would be to do it on the creatures it's intended for: human beings. Yes, there are similarities to be had in other animals, hence why we use them to test upon, but ultimately we need this to work for ourselves.

Anything less than a cold, sterile approach to the facts and accepting reality will prevent this from becoming a very real possibility, so I say godspeed to Valery. Hell, if religion hadn't stunted the sciences and arts years ago (and still does today), we'd probably have already advanced way past this point in medicine and technology, and you'd all find something else to have moralistic concerns over.

I agree that this operation might not be getting debates today if not the dark age caused by Religion.
But I don't think anyone here is really arguing against ever testing it on human, just doing it on a human before it's even somewhat safe/stable with animals.

 

[The Ghost Note]

I don't think this is possible, or that it should even be tried. There's so much complicated shit in the head/spine that even if they did pull it off, there's probably going to be many complications down the line.

 

[Dervish]

Applying ethical constraints to the sciences will always result in the smothering of technological advancement. Many consider the previous sentence to be cruel and questionable, but the only way to know for certain whether or not something truly works would be to do it on the creatures it's intended for: human beings. Yes, there are similarities to be had in other animals, hence why we use them to test upon, but ultimately we need this to work for ourselves.

Anything less than a cold, sterile approach to the facts and accepting reality will prevent this from becoming a very real possibility, so I say godspeed to Valery. Hell, if religion hadn't stunted the sciences and arts years ago (and still does today), we'd probably have already advanced way past this point in medicine and technology, and you'd all find something else to have moralistic concerns over.

So, basically you're saying that the Nazis weren't wrong to have run several inhumane medical tests on concentration camp prisoners because some useful things were learned, because that's basically exactly what you're advocating.

I don't think you really fully appreciate how much technology has advanced the past 100 years.

As for religion being something that stunted scientific growth in years past, yes and no. While the Vatican was accusing astronomers of heresy, Islam was having a golden age of several important scientific and mathematical advancements and progressive thought, and that's not including what was going on in the Far East. Even then, there were some fields that the Christians in Europe were advancing steadily, which tends to get ignored in favour of the sensationalistic idea that because they were ass backwards about a few major things, they were against everything.

 

[Insidious Joe]

So, basically you're saying that the Nazis weren't wrong to have run several inhumane medical tests on concentration camp prisoners because some useful things were learned, because that's basically exactly what you're advocating.

I don't think you really fully appreciate how much technology has advanced the past 100 years.

As for religion being something that stunted scientific growth in years past, yes and no. While the Vatican was accusing astronomers of heresy, Islam was having a golden age of several important scientific and mathematical advancements and progressive thought, and that's not including what was going on in the Far East. Even then, there were some fields that the Christians in Europe were advancing steadily, which tends to get ignored in favour of the sensationalistic idea that because they were ass backwards about a few major things, they were against everything.

Godwin's Law;

I'm under no obligation to humor your asinine response simply from invoking Godwin, but I will anyway. No, I am not advocating Nazis or Nazism, nor am I condoning their actions by simply saying that ethical constraints prohibit scientific growth. There's still the need of consent, I'm merely pointing out that people are having an adverse knee-jerking reaction to the consideration that we ought to be testing these things on the very species it is being developed for rather than monkeys and rats.

I don't think you fully appreciate how much more technology could have advanced in the past thousand years if the above issues had never come to influence growth of science, art, and medicine. And while I have not said that they were 'against everything', I firmly believe that technology would have fared much better without any interference at all. This is merely one facet of said issue, which has bled into why everyone thinks it's so much more horrible to test these things on a consenting, legally adult human than to use it on animals incapable of even saying 'no.', bred specifically for the purpose to be guinea pigs for a product that won't even benefit them.

 

[Dervish]

Godwin's Law;

I'm under no obligation to humor your asinine response simply from invoking Godwin, but I will anyway. No, I am not advocating Nazis or Nazism, nor am I condoning their actions by simply saying that ethical constraints prohibit scientific growth. There's still the need of consent, I'm merely pointing out that people are having an adverse knee-jerking reaction to the consideration that we ought to be testing these things on the very species it is being developed for rather than monkeys and rats.

I don't think you fully appreciate how much more technology could have advanced in the past thousand years if the above issues had never come to influence growth of science, art, and medicine. And while I have not said that they were 'against everything', I firmly believe that technology would have fared much better without any interference at all. This is merely one facet of said issue, which has bled into why everyone thinks it's so much more horrible to test these things on a consenting, legally adult human than to use it on animals incapable of even saying 'no., bred specifically for the purpose to be guinea pigs for a product that won't even benefit them.

When you find people who are willingly going to volunteer to take untested drugs and chemicals, let me know, because an obscene amount of animals die during lab testing before it's considered safe enough for human trials. Saying our ethics are holding us back is exactly why we don't have a mountain of corpses of test volunteers/ convicted felons and legions of crippled and sick survivors. Nothing would sap faith in the development of new pharmaceutical products than reading about how 14 people died during the preliminary trials of a new allergy pill. Animals labs can hide, people not so much.

As for how much progress could have been made if not for ____, it's pointless to speculate or mourn because any number of things could have happened differently for better or worse. For all we know, had various religious institutions not impeded progress then the world could have gone a whole different and possibly fatal direction. Things happened as they did, nothing is going to change that. No sense crying over spilled milk.

 

[Insidious Joe]

When you find people who are willingly going to volunteer to take untested drugs and chemicals, let me know, because an obscene amount of animals die during lab testing before it's considered safe enough for human trials. Saying our ethics are holding us back is exactly why we don't have a mountain of corpses of test volunteers/ convicted felons and legions of crippled and sick survivors. Nothing would sap faith in the development of new pharmaceutical products than reading about how 14 people died during the preliminary trials of a new allergy pill. Animals labs can hide, people not so much.

And so your point is that it's perfectly fine for labs to bury mountains of corpses of animals incapable of consent? Okay, then. The pseudo dichotomy is amusing.

 

[Dervish]

And so your point is that it's perfectly fine for labs to bury mountains of corpses of animals incapable of consent? Okay, then. The pseudo dichotomy is amusing.

Lesser of two evils. Sentient creatures take precedence and it's either that or absolutely nothing medical moves forward. Would I have the heart to work in those labs? No, probably not, but we kill animals for food in mass, so labs really aren't any different.

There's a difference between a human being and a rat. I suspect you know the difference.

 

[Brovo]

You know, I think a key thing here people seem to have failed to read is they're using volunteers. This isn't like some mad scientist "Frankensteining" a couple people he kidnapped off the street. If the doctor wants to do it, and the volunteers want to do it, and the science is there to show it can be done, then why not let them do it? It's really no different than clinical drug trials with potentially life ending medication. It's just got the physical consequence attached to it. Is it grim? Yes. Weird? Certainly. Don't let that stop you from doing the wonders of SCIENCE! Surgery was probably pretty fuckin' weird too when it was first proposed, leave alone heart transplants. "You're gonna cut someone open?! Then rip out their heart like some primitive and violent Aztec?! Then you're gonna put in a different Heart?! YOU MADMAN!"

 

[unanun]

- I don't think there are things that will be legal if people volunteer for them. Euthanasia is such a grey area - murder and snuff definitely errs on the side of 'no'.

- Regardless of the legality of the actions, there must always be a first. Pioneers accept that there will be risks, that is how it has always been.

 

[Space Cowboy]

@Everyone arguing the morality, ethics, and even if this will work...



WHO CARES?! THIS IS SCIENCE.

 

[Quiet One]

Pfft. It'll take a day, tops.

And humans are stronger than animals. The monkeys probably died because they didn't get what was happening. A human mind would.

And cloning's already happening. There's proof.

Wouldn't say I agree with understanding what's going on being that big of a factor in surviving, but that's neither here or there.

And yes, cloning is totally doable now, but it's currently illegal to do with humans.

 

[Brovo]

And yes, cloning is totally doable now, but it's currently illegal to do with humans.

There are currently no federal laws in the United States which ban cloning completely, and any such laws would raise difficult constitutional questions similar to the issues raised by abortion.