#71: Protecting the Innocent / Adoption

This will be a very quick note. I actually just finished some homework in the library at school and happen to have a little time to kill before heading home. (I have to wait for all the traffic to die down before leaving.) So I'm going to explain something that some of my family members and I talked about the other day. They happen to be pro-lifers, and I have always seen both sides as being right in their own ways. However, I definitely lean slightly more to one side of the argument, and if you've ready my notes, "Dodger Logic #52: Lady Problems" and "Dodger Logic #33: The Institution of Marriage," then you can probably guess which side that is. However, talking to my family about it and hearing their side of things has thrown me back through those loops I've gone through many times when thinking on this issue.

The conservative side:
Babies are considered people at conception, and these babies are innocent and can't take up for themselves, so someone has to do it. Every person has a right to life, and no one should be allowed to take that right away. Either way you slice it, we're talking about the life of a human being, and therefore, abortion is murder.

The liberal side:
Fetuses are not considered people until a certain point in their development, such as when they develop a brain, or when they are able to breathe. Each person's perspective on when a fetus becomes an actual person with a life is different. Different doctors say different things about this too. It seems like there may not be a real answer to this - at least not an answer humans will ever find. So until this clump of cells becomes an actual person with rights and an actual life, women should have the ability to discontinue its development. This is an issue of women's rights to their own bodies, as their bodies are forced to change for a fetus's development, and the process is very long and painful. Also, the woman's life is expected to change in countless ways during the development of the fetus, and for the rest of the woman's life, potentially destroying all of that woman's dreams and aspirations, while the life of the man involved is not always expected to change much, if at all.

Now, you can obviously make your own opinion about what you believe here. I personally think each side has a very valid point. However, I guess it comes down to which standard you think is more important (the life of a child or women's right,) and whether or not you believe a fetus is a human being with rights at conception. Anyway, that's not really my focus of this discussion at all. In any controversial topic, a lot of the time no one is right or wrong. A lot of the time, it's just a matter of opinion and perspective. So what do we do about this? We find a solution, that's what. We find middle ground somewhere and make a compromise. This is what governments are supposed to do when coming up with laws that will benefit all people involved. So how in the world could two completely opposite perspectives join in the middle and compromise?

How about we make it easier to adopt babies? I'm not at all saying that we make it EASY to adopt. I'm just saying the adoption process is extremely difficult, so lots of people look at it as being impossible. As the process stands now, if I were to get pregnant, I would never look at adoption as being a possibility, because it is too hard for people to adopt. I would immediately rule that out as a possibility, because my baby would end up being taken by the state and kept in horrible housing conditions, and he/she might end up being put in foster care or an orphanage. That would be more likely than my kid actually being adopted. And to me, putting a kid through that is just not right. So why not make the adoption process easier? If the mom is a little overweight, who cares? Lots of overweight people have their own babies and take good care of them. If the dad's late great grandfather was bipolar, that doesn't mean that dad will develop the disorder, or that the child will be exposed to it (since the great grandfather that actually had the disorder is deceased.) And if the parents are gay, who cares? All kinds of studies have shown that gay parents take just as good care of kids as straight parents do, in most cases - besides the human rights aspect of it (the fact that gay people should have the same rights as straight people, and that includes the right to adopt.) There's actually a quote that I, for the life of me, can't find online, but I saw it somewhere, and it was great. It was something about how straight people who give up their baby for adoption have already failed, so why in the world would we not give gay people an opportunity to make up for it, since every couple that has failed at parenting and given their kid up for adoption is a straight couple? It's also extremely expensive to adopt. I've heard it usually costs between 20 and 40 thousand dollars per adoption, but I've also heard that a lot of adoptions cost well over that. Why is this so? This seems ridiculous. There has to be a way to make it more affordable!

My point is we need some change here. There are too many kids out there who need a loving home, and the adoption process is too difficult. If I were a child with no parents and no home, I'd rather have a family and home than to have the governmentally certified PERFECT home, especially since that would be very unlikely to happen to me, since I would very likely remain in an orphanage or foster care my whole life. So I guess I need to change that statement to: If I were a child with no parents, I would rather have a not-so-perfect family and home than to live on the streets or in an orphanage or foster care my whole life. Besides, all kinds of families that end up passing the adoption process are not perfect. I actually personally know 2 couples that adopted at least one kid and have since divorced. And the other part of my point is that people would probably be less likely to get abortions if they saw the adoption process as being a possibility. So you want a way to give people the rights they deserve, give countless deserving children homes, and keep people from having abortions? Make the adoption process easier - not EASY - but easier.

By the way, I'm just going to throw this out here for what it's worth: I always say people should adopt animals from pounds, rather than breeding new animals, since there are all kinds of perfectly great animals already out there who need homes. Well, the same goes for people. Try to adopt before having your own kids! Or do both! It's a great idea, and you'll make an amazing difference in a child's life. Plus it's less painful.

 I think this was a study done in the United States.

#70: Artificial Intelligence

In my note, "End of Ze World," I talked about how some scientists believe the world will end / how the human population will die out someday. I talked a little bit about the all too common idea of super computers taking over. I know that sounds crazy if you haven't done research on the topic or seen documentaries on it, but it's actually a widely believed view of scientists and a legitimate theory. I want to explain what it really involves, some potential outcomes that could happen should we develop super computers that can think on their own, and some examples from a really cool tv show called Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. I cited this show in my last note, and I definitely plan to continue citing it, since it's a very interesting show.

So how in the world could super computers that think on their own exist? Well, the human brain really is exactly like a computer. I mean, think about it. What are human brains made of? How do they work? Just like a computer, the human brain is an accumulation of tons of atoms that make up matter than has the power of intelligence. Ok, that sounds confusing. How do our brains think? You might say it's impossible for a computer to think, but if you really think about it (pun intended,) isn't it weird that a clump of matter such as the human brain has the ability to think? It's the same concept with computers.

There's this really neat computer that I saw on Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, which I'll call TWMF for short. This computer is told to construct a functional body that can walk across the computer screen. The computer is given specifics about the mobility of the body. For instance, if we instruct the computer to create a body with two legs that can successfully move across the screen, the computer will construct body after body after body until it figures out an efficient body that moves across the computer screen, no matter how awkwardly the body walks. It's kind of like the computer is thinking, since it's trying to figure out how to construct a functional body that can move efficiently. As Morgan Freeman put it, what took humans millions of years of evolution takes a computer only a few hours. (I tried to find a video or, at least, a photo of this computer and what it does, so you guys can get a visual of it, but I can't find anything, so just go watch the artificial intelligence episode of TWMF.)

Many people believe that a person (or computer) must be conscious in order to be able to think. But what does it mean to be conscious? It's open to interpretation. One scientist who spoke on TWMF said that consciousness is when a person (or computer) is able to feel (like with sensory systems) and associate those physical feelings with emotional feelings. This scientist has built and trained a robot exactly in this way as an experiment for this theory. For instance, he placed a green object on a table and allowed his robot to scoot across the table and pick up the object. I can't remember how he said he did it, but he taught the robot to associate the color green from the object with bad emotions. The robot said out loud "Green = Bad." And from then on, it avoided anything that was green in color. Then the scientist placed a blue object on the table and allowed the robot to scoot over to it and pick it up. Then the scientist stroked the top of his robot, giving the robot the feeling that the blue object was favorable, so the robot said "Blue = Good." And that gave the robot a sensation whenever it saw anything blue in color. This is just a small example of how it may be possible to teach computers to associate colors, words, etc. (ideas that it gets from physical feelings and sensory systems) with emotional feelings.

Some computers are even smart enough to learn new languages that we don't understand. I know it sounds insane, and this will blow your mind, I promise. One scientist who spoke on TWMF talked about his robots, which he programs to be able to make up their languages. He programs them with different letters, sounds, and ideas of how they might be able to connect the sounds and letters to form words, and the computers use that new knowledge to create their own language, and then they teach it to each other. On the show, one robot put together a sequence of sounds to create its own word. Then it raised its right arm. It did this right in front of another robot, and when the first robot spoke the word, the second robot was expected to raise its right arm. When it made the wrong movement, the first robot shook its head and then raised its right arm to show the second robot what to do. Then it repeated the word it had said before, and the second robot raised its right arm. Then the first robot nodded its head, because the second robot had done exactly what it wanted it to. The first robot literally taught the second robot a word. And then the first robot then turned to the scientist and taught the scientist the word in the exact same way. Robots can actually use this method to teach an entire language to other robots and to people, and the memory in robots is immense and permanent, so once the robot learns something, it will store it in its memory and be able to use it in the future. So some super computers have already created their own language, and at some point, they may end up cutting humans out of their conversations and language. What if they communicated through languages they created and taught each other, and then refrained from teaching the language to humans, so that their language is their own?

What does this mean for the future? It's true that super computers could really help us out a lot. I mean excel, calculators, alarm systems, etc. already help us out A LOT. So what if we had some super computers to be nannies to our children? What if we had super computers to do chores for us? There are so many potential uses out there for super computers. What if the computers ended up becoming so smart that they take over the world? What if they are the future after humans die out? What if they end up creating their own super computers to continue their race? Could they kill us off or enslave us?

What if super computers and humans end up working together? For instance, there's a super computer that you can actually hook up to a paralyzed person who can't speak that can actually speak for the person. The computer measures brain neurons (or something along those lines) and actually speaks out load what the person wants to say. How incredible is that? There's also this really neat computer that paralyzed people can hook up to their legs and/or arms that do the same type thing as the other computer and can make movements based on what the person's brain tells them to do. Instead of the brain sending messages to the body to tell it to move, it's sending messages to a super computer to tell it to move the body. These machines are super strong too, which could really benefit us. We could potentially use them to be just like the most talented of athletes. What if we could teach them to be incredible artists or builders? There are all kinds of possibilities here.

So I don't really know what the future would hold for the human race or the super computer race if we were to actually figure out a way to make super computers just as smart or even smarter than humans. I mean lots of computers have the capacity to do more than the human brain and to do things faster than the human brain can. So I really have no clue what would become of us if these computers were to become incredibly intelligent. I mean we've all seen movies like I, Robot and AI: Artificial Intelligence. We know what lots of people say could happen when computers become incredibly intelligent. Lots of people say they'll take over the world, and that we will be inferior to them, if not die out. But a lot of scientists say they'll just help us, and that super computers are the future. I mean technology has definitely helped us out in a lot of ways we never dreamed possible. However, technology can also be a bad thing. It can rot the brain, it can keep us from learning how to do things on our own (since we learn to rely on computers to do it for us,) and people can become addicted to it (tv, internet, video games, etc.) It can make people lazy and incompetent, and it can even hurt or kill people (for example, when something malfunctions, and a plane crashes.) Sometimes technology can cause more harm than good. Would super computers be more harmful than helpful? Are we killing our own selves off by creating super computers? Are we too smart for own good? Afterall, we're the only species that is so smart that we're actually killing ourselves with our intelligence. So are we killing ourselves by trying to further our intelligence and our species? By trying to make our lives easier, teaching ourselves more, being curious, working hard to make the impossible a reality, and attempting to make our lives and the world better, are we having the opposite effect and causing harm instead? Or does the future of artificial intelligence really have a place here? Could we use it to our benefit? Could we live and work side-by-side?

Now I encourage you guys to watch TWMF, especially the artificial intelligence episode, so you can get a better idea (and more importantly, a visual) of what I'm trying to describe in writing. All of the episodes are mind-blowing, though, so I encourage you guys to watch them all! Also, check out the movie AI: Artificial Intelligence, because that movie was really great too. It was not only super entertaining, but it was thought-provoking too. It offers an incredible idea of what might be the future of humans and super computers.

 Well, when you put it that way...

 Could we program all of these abilities into a super computer?

 This is the walking machine I was talking about above. It is a NASA invention, and it is actually called an "Exoskeleton."

 Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law did an amazing job as the two main characters in AI: Artificial Intelligence. They played two super computer robots in a future with tons of super computer robots.

Will Smith played in I, Robot. In the movie, tons of super computer robots took over the world. Could that be our future?

#69: A New Age Of Procreation

I just had to share something I saw on an episode of "Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman" the other night - and then of course some comments and questions I have about it. Morgan Freeman explained a new way of procreation that could change the world. Apparently, this kind of technology is coming soon for the world and may be available in the near future.

The first thing Morgan Freeman explained on the show was the possibility for homosexuals to have a baby, using their own DNA. You would have to watch the show to get the best full explanation of how this might be possible, but from what I understood, scientists might be able to take one man's sperm and turn it into an egg. However, scientists are having a harder time taking a woman's egg and turning it into a sperm. But the possibilities are endless, and who knows what we'll see happen in the future. I think it's also a good idea to point out that these babies would have to be grown in an artificial uterus, which is interesting. Apparently, this artificial uterus is supposed to be just as good as a human uterus. But would it be right to grow a baby in one? Would it be just as good as natural child-bearing? Would the child turn out to be normal? Some scientists actually did an experiment to test this theory on sharks. They were able to breed 14 perfectly healthy, normal sharks in an artificial uterus. Why not humans? But I have some more questions. Would the child be accepted in the world? Would all kinds of people end up using these artificial uteri for childbirth, rather than having to endure 9 months of pregnancy and hours of painful childbirth? I mean, if you think about it, that sounds a lot less intensive and a lot more fun. Also, you have to think about all the people in the world who can't have babies. This kind of technology would be great for them, so they could have their own biological children. Would this kind of technology cause a major spike in world population growth? I've talked before about how the world population is at an all-time high, and that there are some serious problems that can come from that in my note "Seven Billion and Counting."

Another thing Morgan Freeman explained was the possibility of creating a splice between humans and animals - not in the sense of what you guys are probably thinking, though. Apparently, scientists think they may be able to take certain DNA from animals and inject that DNA sequence into that of an unborn human baby, so that that baby will be born with certain genetic characteristics that are characteristic of the animal whose DNA was used in the sequence. For instance, scientists actually took some spider silk-forming DNA and injected it into the DNA sequence of an unborn baby goat. That goat was born with the ability to produce silk like a spider. Of course, the goat was not able to spin the silk, but when the goat was milked, a scientist was able to process out all of the milk and find silk in its milk. Even though that is a seemingly useless characteristic for a goat to have, it's interesting and really shows us some scientific possibilities for us. What kinds of DNA sequences could we merge with our own DNA? Could we create humans who can fly? Could we create humans with extremely huge jaws and claws? Could we create humans that can run at the speed of a cheetah? Could we create humans who have gills and can live underwater? What would we need this for? How would that affect competition? Would it create a major "Survival of the Fittest" game, in which people with jaws and claws kill off whoever doesn't have jaws and claws? What kind of superhuman species could we create from this, and would it be good, bad, or necessary? And would it be wrong to do such a thing? And would this be a way to weed out diseases and other unfavorable DNA from our genetics?

Ok, I'm pretty sure everyone's heard about this, but it kind of helps to explain what Morgan Freeman said by explaining this first. Scientists are discovering ways to make babies with multiple parents (as in more than 2.) By this, I mean that it's possible they might be able to take certain favorable DNA from one person, other favorable DNA from someone else, and other favorable DNA from yet another person to form a human that has all of these favorable characteristics. Then, we could essentially make "perfect" humans. We could take athletic DNA from a professional soccer player, math skills DNA from a high-performance accountant, and the beauty DNA from a famous model and put them all together in a petri dish to form a baby that essentially has no flaws and has all these great characteristics. Is this right? Is it a good idea to try to make "perfect" people? If everyone were perfect, I guess there would be no appreciation for anything. Maybe everything and everyone would be efficient, but then there would be no competition, and no one would be special. Is that a good thing or a bad thing, though? Is this "Playing God," so to speak? This could certainly be a way to wipe out unfavorable diseases, such as Down's Syndrome. Well, Morgan Freeman took this to the next level in his third subject of this episode of the show. He explained that lots of diseases arise, because human cells end up having bad mitochondria in them. So if we take the nucleus of a diseased cell and put it into a healthy cell, the disease would not arise. In this case, the baby with these cells would have 3 (or maybe even more) parents, since he/she now has the DNA from more than his/her 2 original parents. But more importantly, this baby will be healthy and survive. This kind of technology is actually currently illegal, but lots of scientists are pushing this, because they say that tons of diseases come from bad mitochondria in the cells, and being allowed to perform these procedures would potentially wipe out diseases such as epilepsy, deafness, dementia, etc. If this were legal, how would this affect the death rate? Along with all over forms of technology that save lives and conquer diseases, we have to think about how the world population will be affected by it.

Technology seems to be taking us a long way, and it really is up for every individual to decide if these new technologies are worth our time and money, if it's right or wrong for us to take technology this far, and if it would overall be beneficial for us to take technology to these insane levels. I mean, we might end up killing ourselves with our own creations. Afterall, people do sometimes say that we're so smart that we're dumb. Technology is great and interesting, but are we going too far? Are we committing a crime against nature by pushing technology to these new and insane levels? Are we setting ourselves up for some crazy technological problems in the future? Are we killing ourselves with our own technology, like Dr. Frankenstein did when he created his monster? That's definitely up to the individual to decide, and it's something we may never know, or maybe we'll only know when it's too late.

Also, I'd like to mention that, if you're interested in talk about whether technologies for genetic engineering are right or wrong and/or talk about ways it can be beneficial for the world, you should check out my note "Does That Sheep Have Three Heads???" (I also just wanted to mention how funny it is that this is the 69th. Dodger Logic note, given the content and name of the note.)

 An example of an animal being grown in an artificial uterus.

 This is NOT what I'm referring to when I'm talking about animal splices. Just because you mix the DNA of a goat with that of a spider does not mean the hybrid will turn out looking like this!

This is where I got all this information, and it's a really interesting show if you want to check it out. Plus, Morgan Freeman is awesome.