The Organisation Forums

That was quite a pessimistic reply.

Weapons technology is controlled by supply and demand for the supplies(uranium etc.) and the selling of completed sales is limited by the government, again using a weapon analogy fails. The currency printers are also irrelevant due to the innate barriers a government would project to protect society itself(we need an economy that works

Laser eye surgery again falls through since there is not enough supply or demand for any signifigant cost decrease. Although as it becomes more refined and more treatments occur the price does drop, do not forget this technology has not been around forever either. The same basic argument goes for plastic surgery.

Harvesting leaders? A likely story. The thing is that authoritative governments will do whatever they want unless outside forces interfere, the point does not apply since the policy of the rest of the world decides what they can do, not their own free will.

Sorry about the late reply, I had an urge to watch 19.9 hours of FMA over the span of 3 days.

If, Icmoigigan, a large uranium mine was found within the next few years and the supply of uranium boosted up a staggering 500%+, it would most likely seem only economical that the price cost of creating nuclear weapons would decrease. Now, would you think, in any real situtation, that the weapon technology of nuclear weaponry would actually reach to the public? Just like the technology for genetic modification will not reach the public - it is a technology advancement that would be too dangerous to be given out as open source.

Laser surgery can be dated back to the 1940s, according to my quick research, Icmoigigan. I would not call that a recent advancement. Plastic surgery has been around since the 1800s as a common surgerical technique, additionally!

-Alex

The cost to m,aufacture NUclear weapons would ineed decrease and the general public would see a drop in Nuclear energy prices.

The techniques do not use the same technology or procedures for plastic surgery or laser eye surgery, they both have advanced to levels where plastic suregery is much more versatile and laser eye surgery is safer my magnitudes in addition to being more effective. If it were the same prtocedure and technology the price would be much lower, fortunately todays technology works much better.

So basically neither of those are the same product as they were in the past and the price can not be measured cpomparitively.

If that's the case about lowering prices over time, why does it still cost tens of millions of dollars to pave a road? Or hundreds of millions in some cases when asphalt has been used since 1824 on the Champs D'Elysée in Paris?.

And medications take forever to go down in price. You're only basing your deminishing prices off of tech like computers etc. Take a look at seniors' medications. Take a look at the bills that diabetics have had to pay and their equipment has been out for decades without much decline in cost. Many diabetics struggle to pay for their medications. In the US it costs $15 000 per dose for chemotherapy and it's been out since the 1940s, for example. Imagine the imense cost that HGE would cost when it would first come out to the public. It would only be available to the elite classes, and therefore only the elite amongst society would gain from it and eventually come to control it.

People who are not able to afford HGE, quite a marginal majority of the world, would become a lesser class and there would be elitism and discrimination like we couldn't imagine. Logically, you would pick someone more qualified for employment in your business especially if they were designed for that job or are mentally/physically advanced to that point. Hell, I'd choose someone that was genetically modified to fit a department's need in my company over someone who was not because that person would not be able to contribute as well as the modified person.

So your cost theory, based on historical evidence in the health sector (which is where HGE would fall under, obviously), is quite flawed.

That also relies on raw materials, though, and demand is rising for those, especially as we blaze through our natural resources. Procedures tend to be a bit different, but not always. I think you'd pay the same for a chair (proportional to living cost and wage) now as you would in say, 1855. Unless it was gold-plated. It depends on the complexity of the facilities used to modify something, as well as the availability and demand for these procedures.

It really depends on what the hell it is.

Oh, yes, and subsidization can combat cost anyway, much like our government subsidizes health care to a large degree.

EDIT: Moved to debating due to insanity.

EDIT2: My point still stands after Schmidt's edit.

You can't compare such things to chairs. It makes no sense, really as it's an essential in every home on the planet. HGE is not an essential of life, nor is it necessary in its beginnings and by the time that it is necessary because of the created elite society, it will be just chaotic for those without it.

You just rebutted your own argument. I was comparing chairs to cement, not to genetic modification.

Note the term you yourself used "much" the reason the decrease is not yet Subsdtantial is that they need to fund past and ongoing R&D. New procedures are always being implemented here and a search for better treatments is constantly ongoing.


You also pay hundreds of dollars for simple procedures in the US, mentioning their healthcare in a debate is a joke. Also note that chemotherapy is not something that has a static development, better radiation procedures and new equipment are aquired over time.


Zenithan seems to have mentioned the subsidization aspect and over time subsidization would not be needed as the price dropped.

For somebody who said it was pointless you sure talk a lot.

I'd just like to comment on the following



that is completely untrue, genetic modification is only dangerous if it's not given to everyone.

In my own opinion this kind of genetic modification I personnaly would only see it being good as in the medical field to cure deseases or things such as defects. Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know much on the subject.

Also in such military terms although it could be useful, I wouldn't allow it, just for the fact that it's not really for the greater good of humanity. But over all I don't know how this got started over cement, and chairs? lol WTF?

That's my piece.

If you read the posts maybe you'd get it. And it's not about cement. I don't know how cement came into the picture cement and asphalt are two completely different things.



The point still stands. It's been out for a long, long time. And without a free social healthcare system like our own, such treatments would cost the same for us. In fact, it does cost the same for us except our taxes pay it for us so we don't really notice it. And the newer equipment costs even more.



I'm not saying that subsidisation doesn't happen. I'm saying it's impractical to the fullest. Going the way we are now, chemotherapy as an example along with asphalt, subsidisation of the price of HGE would take forever and it would be dominated by the elite classes to take advantage of it before it could reach the lower upper, middle, and lower classes. That is what would give the elitist attitudes - people wouldn't be able to cope and the elite would dominate the sector and would keep the cost high so only who their friends would be able to access it, patronage at its height.

That's why it's up to use to subsidize it appropriately. Just like any technology, it must be properly regulated. I don't know of many examples of technologies that are used mainly by the elite class in society. I believe many of these thoughts are alarmist reactions caused by the media, which seems to perpetuate the idea that genetic modification is bad. This is caused by the religious undertones in society about the sanctity of life and the "fact" that we are all God's creations.

Also, I forgot that we were talking about asphalt and said cement in one of my comments. The point I made with cement still stands; it really isn't that different from a chair and is thus not a proper example. The procedure used requires raw materials, and the supply and demand of those has risen, as we have seen in the case of oil.

I had just realized that we were all speaking of HGE as if it was a procedure that the average layman would decide to pay for, to either pay for better lifestyles or done so by the forced need of doing so to satisfy the large amount of others doing it (if it does become a public procedure).

Let me take the role of such layman. Why in the hell would I pay for a 50,000 dollar plus procedure (looking at when it first comes out) when it will not directly affect me? It would only affect my children, and my children's children since we are taking about a procedure that must be accomplished BEFORE birth. Thus, any single man out there is out of the question instantly (a large margin if I may say so myself).

Additionally, at first I might predict it might be reacted to as Global Warming is: why the hell do I care about it, and waste away my precious cash, if it will only affect my children? Wow. Look at how people value their cold hard cash today. I don't suspect changes overnight.

Of course there are religious nuts against HGE, that doesn't mean that in this specific debate there are some present. No one had brought up "God's idea" about humanity except for you. No one has mentioned God, in fact I don't even really believe in any God that's portrayed in the world today or before. My ideas on HGE are from my own morals, ethics and beliefs in regards to what would be beneficial and what would not. I am against a society in which there would be the ultimate elite with a strong divide between them and the lower class. There would be a divide like none other ever seen before, and it would be controlled by oligarchies for sure and patronage would be riddled in all companies and governments that hold genetically modified people.

About these "religious undertones" you speak of, I don't appreciate you using them as a quick conclusion as to why I may not agree with your point of view on this issue. Religion has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion. None whatsoever. So, I would appreciate you to not suggest that again because all implications in that sentence point that that is what you meant by the statement.



I never used cement as an example. Where do you come up with the conclusion that I had?