One thing I might expect to see is that those who have had enhancing technology for some capability or another are required to be easily identifiable as such by prospective employers, then to enforce rules on the maximum number of "enhanceds" they can employ: affirmative action for "regulars". Of course "enhanceds" might be more likely to become employers themselves, and eventually politicans, and effectively become the ruling elite. Providing it was only their capacity for benevolent intelligence that was increased, this mightn't be so bad, but if their capacity for cruelty and power-lust was similarly increased, it could certainly lead to an uneven uglier world that the one we witness today.

It's hard to see how humanity will not eventually be consumed by its own technology. I'd rather the above-mentioned scenario than wiping ourselves out with nuclear or biological weapons, or having robots or cyborgs turn against us. Either way, I doubt Homo Sapiens as we know it today will survive another millenium.

Wizofaus wrote:

"I doubt Homo Sapiens as we know it today will survive another millenium."

There are only three possibilities that I can foresee.

--Our civilisation collapses and we cease making technological progress; or

--We continue developing technologies that give us the capability of altering ourselves; or

--Both

I doubt it will take a millennium for all this to happen. By 2100 the human condition will be very different to what it is today. For some posters here their children or grandchildren are going to be grappling with the decision: To enhance or not to enhance.

It could reach the point where the "unenhanced: seem like a lower order of evolution to the enhanced.

Or the technologies we develop could have unforeseen side-effects which lead to indescribable misery.

Stevenlmyer,

"foetusus that do not measure up ".

This has in it the big question you don't address .

Who will do the measuring up and what will be the standard?

What's the point - get one out of the Medibank catalogue??

The "chosen children " could well dissapoint their parents as they realise they were [are], only one gene or two away from going down the toilet .

I suggest that when their chosen one picks out an old folks home for them at 150 they may well find themselves in steerage for any number of "valid" reasons.

Then again, when their parents do start to slip, why bother with the trouble ?

kartiya jim,

My guess is it will be an evolving standard.

Right now the standard is to abort foetuses that carry genes known to cause various diseases. That's the limit of our technology.

In fact right now all we can detect in utero is diseases caused by a single gene.

All that is about to change.

The Wellcome Trust in the UK is coordinating a major program to detect in utero congenital problems caused by COMBINATIONS of genes. We shall have the ability to abort foetuses that have a PROPENSITY to develop certain kinds of disease.

Note: Not a disease but a propensity to develop certain diseases.

Over time I think a propensity to lack of intelligence or propensity to lack of sexual attractiveness may come to be considered a congenital problem

All I've said above requires an extension of existing science. We're not there yet be we're moving in that direction. We'll probably get there somewhere between 2020 and 2030. My guess is nearer 2020 than 2030.

The next step seems likely to be artificial sperm made from skin cells.

Here's a prediction.

Before 2020 a mammal will be born that has no father. It will be born to a female who was impregnated with artificial sperm made from the cells of another female.

BEFORE 2030 A HUMAN CHILD WILL BE BORN THAT HAS NO FATHER.

Later we may reach the point of completely artificial genomes constructed from artificial sperm and eggs. I would guess that's about 50 – 70 years away.

We are developing the technology to control our own evolution – for good or ill.

Steven...

After the moon landing, there were all kinds of predictions. It was assumed that by the 90s we'd have moon colonies and holidays off-world.

Didn't happen.

When dolly the sheep was cloned, it was assumed that within a few short years, someone would attempt to clone a human.

Didn't happen.

There are plenty more instances... imagination tends to run riot before the science. Yes, it's moving quickly, but the political considerations often slow things more than the science does, and everything you speak of is totally loaded in terms of controversial movements.
The vast majority of scientists aren't the mavericks you seem to think they are, and it takes a whole team to achieve the breakthroughs you speak of.

You're talking science fiction. With a great deal of certainty, that will leave you red-faced in a few decades.

LOL TRTL,

Given my age if I'm still around and compos mentis in a few decades I'll happily turn "red faced" if I'm wrong.

To address your issues, most serious technology watchers in 1969 did NOT think we'd have moon bases by the nineties.

How did we know this?

What crystal ball did we use?

Simple.

We noted that Nixon was cutting NASA's budget at the time. Most of the cuts were for the human exploration of deep space. It therefore seemed reasonable to infer that, absent funding, super-expensive projects like lunar colonies were unlikely to get off the (earthly) ground.

On the other hand we noted that funding for research on ways of bringing down the cost of computing and networking computers was increasing exponentially. Most of this was private funding.

No, we did not foresee the internet. But we did think that by the nineties we'd have a lot of inexpensive networked computers. And so it was.

"FOLLOW THE MONEY" is not an infallible method of forecasting technology development. Some technologies fizzle. Nuclear power was one.

But "follow the money" is a better method than most. Especially when it's private money.

And right now the funding of the sort of bio-technology I've been writing about is exploding.

So, TRTL, using follow the money I think a lot of what I've written will come to pass and much more besides. There will be discoveries nobody foresaw. There always are.

As for Dolly, the scientific consensus was that it would be a few decades at least before we had cloned humans. The scientists who cloned Dolly wrote a book in which they pointed out the pitfalls of cloning. Most attempts failed. Even when they did not fail the resulting young were often sickly as, so it turned out, was Dolly.

There never was a CONSENSUS among serious scientists was that cloning children would be commonplace in a few years.

We've both made forecasts about the future. We'll both be wrong. We'll have to wait and see who is less wrong.