Quote from: Lynn;1123819It is surprising how lacking in vision TNG was in so many ways, but then, they'd have to come up with practical effects to mimic what they could envision. But had they thought about it, you'd have no handicapped people at all, and everyone would be their ideal height and weight, and likely no baldies. Also, they would likely have much improved life spans.

They should have made Picard in the new Picard show 180.

Star Trek addressed this partly in the original series. Humanity had a particular aversion to genetic engineering ever since the apocalyptic wars by genetic supermen like Khan Noonian Singh. So congenital traits like baldness or even congenital blindness are not corrected by genetic engineering, but rather mitigated by technology later. It seems like aging also would require genetic engineering to fully address, so you can have 137 year old humans like Leonard McCoy, but not much older than that.

Quote from: Lynn;1123819It is surprising how lacking in vision TNG was in so many ways, but then, they'd have to come up with practical effects to mimic what they could envision. But had they thought about it, you'd have no handicapped people at all, and everyone would be their ideal height and weight, and likely no baldies. Also, they would likely have much improved life spans.

They should have made Picard in the new Picard show 180.

I allways assumed they did have longer life spans. And overall you do see that most people in ST look pretty good so corrective surgery is probably pretty common. The exceptions are likely people who either have a phobia or aversion to such. But note that the further you get from earth the more mundane folk start to look. Which suggests that such luxuries get harder to come by the further out you get. Which makes a certain sense with colony worlds.

Quote from: jhkim;1123852Star Trek addressed this partly in the original series. Humanity had a particular aversion to genetic engineering ever since the apocalyptic wars by genetic supermen like Khan Noonian Singh. So congenital traits like baldness or even congenital blindness are not corrected by genetic engineering, but rather mitigated by technology later. It seems like aging also would require genetic engineering to fully address, so you can have 137 year old humans like Leonard McCoy, but not much older than that.

Exactly. But then you have the problem of the superscience of TNG where genetic engineering isnt even needed. You just apply whatever corrective medical treatments to brute force fix the problems. Need hair? Use a micro scattering proton beam in the SK range to stimulate the regrowth of hair follicles. Nerve blindness? Use micro neuro surgery and nerve cell replacement with pizo-electric bonding fibers to get the job done. etc. Lost an arm? Vat grow a replacement or assemble one in a replicator and then use a basic neuro stimulator.

ST had grown past the need for genetic engineering really.

Quote from: Omega;1123876Exactly. But then you have the problem of the superscience of TNG where genetic engineering isnt even needed. You just apply whatever corrective medical treatments to brute force fix the problems. Need hair? Use a micro scattering proton beam in the SK range to stimulate the regrowth of hair follicles. Nerve blindness? Use micro neuro surgery and nerve cell replacement with pizo-electric bonding fibers to get the job done. etc. Lost an arm? Vat grow a replacement or assemble one in a replicator and then use a basic neuro stimulator.

ST had grown past the need for genetic engineering really.

Certainly there has been a lot of bad writing in the TNG era - along with some truly excellent writing. It's par for the course in a big series, and it's impossible to stay consistent with all of the premises that were invented.

But I think that the same cultural forces against genetic engineering would also be opposed to other transhuman trends. Yes, cybernetics and surgical enhancement existed, but they were strongly frowned on except as a last resort. The humans of the Federation basically didn't create supersoldiers or cyborgs, or even powered armor suits. Such things were known of and presumably considered, but they weren't seen as desirable.

When I ran an original-series Star Trek campaign, I made this official as a principle that if any tasks *could* be done by a natural person, it was preferred that they do so - rather than turning to automata, cybernetics, or genetic engineering. The justification for this was that transhumanism reduced personal and social drive to expand and explore. Why exercise when you can just replicate new muscles, and why go to the stars if you can send robots instead? As I ran it, the Federation preferred putting some people in harm's way in order to avoid a cultural future where humanity became unrecognizable brains in jars. The limitations of the human body were seen as hurdles to be accepted.

Considering the borderline magic levels of ST:TNG medical science Id have to say that there doesnt seem to be that aversion to non-genetic corrective surgery. Even in TNG they were working on trying to cure Geordie's blindness. There were a few episodes where they were taking someone to a medical station for some manner of ailment.

But yeah they seem really adverse to cybernetics and gene-modding. Probably for good reason too. Both seem to go badly 9 times out of 10.

Interesting how this thread went from "modeling the DSM-V because diversity" to "handling permanent injuries gained doing cool, heroic, and difficult stuff". Quite refreshing.

Probably helps that some of us are disabled. And are pretty much fed up with all this woke nonesense under the guise of "helping" us.

Quote from: Omega;1123936Probably helps that some of us are disabled. And are pretty much fed up with all this woke nonesense under the guise of "helping" us.

The disabled are not even the target audience of this segment of Wokeness, at that. The target is the same as always, in this case described as "the able", who "need to be forced to experience" whatever the Woke see fit to inflict.

Hence my amusement at the thread turning away from all that. No better form of rejection of a bad idea than turning it into its healthy opposite.

Quote from: Omega;1123876Exactly. But then you have the problem of the superscience of TNG where genetic engineering isnt even needed. You just apply whatever corrective medical treatments to brute force fix the problems. Need hair? Use a micro scattering proton beam in the SK range to stimulate the regrowth of hair follicles. Nerve blindness? Use micro neuro surgery and nerve cell replacement with pizo-electric bonding fibers to get the job done. etc. Lost an arm? Vat grow a replacement or assemble one in a replicator and then use a basic neuro stimulator.

ST had grown past the need for genetic engineering really.

Yes, exactly, and they did have cyber improvements such as Picard's artificial heart. It was also established in Star Trek IV that you can regrow a kidney with a pill back in TOS movie days.

Quote from: jhkim;1123852Star Trek addressed this partly in the original series. Humanity had a particular aversion to genetic engineering ever since the apocalyptic wars by genetic supermen like Khan Noonian Singh. So congenital traits like baldness or even congenital blindness are not corrected by genetic engineering, but rather mitigated by technology later. It seems like aging also would require genetic engineering to fully address, so you can have 137 year old humans like Leonard McCoy, but not much older than that.

Yes, I thought of that, and they certainly expanded on that in DS9 when it was shown that the Doctor was genetically enhanced. But even so, it seems clear to me that all the technologies are there without deep gene manipulation.

Quote from: Lynn;1123943Yes, I thought of that, and they certainly expanded on that in DS9 when it was shown that the Doctor was genetically enhanced. But even so, it seems clear to me that all the technologies are there without deep gene manipulation.

Notr that from how they treated it in DS9 the gene modding of dr Bashir was considered potentially unethical.