Limits of genemod improvements of my/other characters?

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer
Super Member
Registered
Temp Ban
Joined
Sep 13, 2012
Messages
2,478
Reaction score
267
Location
Los Angeles
Website
LaerCarroll.com
I'd like to hear some comments from AW biologists and others about some matters. I'm well into the sequel for my latest book and trying to bring some more specifics into my main character.

The original book might be called Superman-lite. The main character is an orphan of a cosmic event some half-million to several million years ago. She's the result of at least a millennia of genetic modification. I'm guessing the genemods were relatively minor, a caution perhaps because of some disastrous attempts to radically change human nature.

PHYSICAL IMPROVEMENTS
What are the limits of increasing the strength of her muscles? Ten percent improvement, one times, two or more times?

What could be done to increase her bone strength and flexibility to match the increased demands of greater strength?

Can nerves be reasonably improved so she has faster reaction times? What are the consequences of increasing them too much?

EMOTIONAL IMPROVEMENTS
From what I can tell from reading the science news some of our emotional problems stem from over or under emotional reactions to events. What changes might be made to our emotional responses to aid us in everyday and emergency events? More calm? But some excitement is necessary to respond to them; perfect calm would be a bad thing.

Would genemod meddlers make us more empathetic, less?

MENTAL IMPROVEMENTS
TV smart people are portrayed as having perfect memories. But studies have shown that that's a liability, not a plus. We need to be able to forget the trivial. What changes might be reasonably made to our remembering ability?

TV geniuses are portrayed as very logical, very critical. But other kinds of intelligence are at least as, maybe more than, important. What are they?

SOCIAL IMPROVEMENTS
I'm positing that, for some reason, my heroine was designed to be charismatic and a leader. What goes into charisma? Do we even have any clues at the current primitive state of psychology?

What makes an effective leader? Fast decisions? SLOWER decisions?

Ability to see the big picture?

Ruthlessness?
_________________________________
Yeah, I know. I'm asking a lot. Maybe just pick one question and give some thoughts on it.
 
Last edited:

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
12,975
Reaction score
4,507
Location
USA
Website
brightdreamersbookreviews.blogspot.com
As a layperson, I'd say the last one - "what makes a good leader?" - would be the ability to read the prevailing winds and get ahead of them. There is no one-size-fits-all leader; some times call for peace, some for war, some for unity and some for division. Look at where we are now, nationally; the kind of leaders who have been elevated are not the kind who might have been elevated fifty years ago, I'd wager, because there were different cultural winds blowing. (Tangentially, "leader" is kind of value-neutral; there are people who lead us to better places, and people who lead us to worse places, though at their root they still had that reading-the-winds ability to speak to some need or want in a populace and magnify it through their words and actions, reflecting back to the audience what they subconsciously send out.)

As for skills that would help this, particularly skills that might be genemodded... how about cold reading? This is something you find in areas like sales, and sometimes in psychics; they start with generalized remarks and questions, and are able to read a person's reactions, often very minute shifts in posture or expression or such, to hone in on what gets the best response. (This can be entirely subconscious, or quite conscious. Con artists are experts at this.) Genemod for enhanced visual acuity (maybe a touch of heat sensitivity, to see the slightest shift of a flush), enhanced olfactory sensitivity to smell stress pheremones/other invisible cues, etc., and you'd have a person who always seems to know the right thing to say and know just what the people are thinking... someone who could read a crowd like reading a book, and find just the right chord to strike for maximum resonance.
 

AwP_writer

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 29, 2017
Messages
177
Reaction score
29
Location
Ohio
Regarding being calm in an emergency being bad, why? The only possible downside I can see to being calm in an emergency is that it could hamper the release of adrenaline. But if they're already super human, is adrenaline all that needed?
 

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer
Super Member
Registered
Temp Ban
Joined
Sep 13, 2012
Messages
2,478
Reaction score
267
Location
Los Angeles
Website
LaerCarroll.com
...cold reading? This is something you find in areas like sales, and sometimes in psychics; they ... are able to read a person's reactions, often very minute shifts in posture or expression or such, to hone in on what gets the best response. (This can be entirely subconscious, or quite conscious. Con artists are experts at this.)

I like it, will use it. Have to be careful how I integrate it into the already established character and the ways I've been representing her.

I've been lucky in the leaders I've had in my 40+ years engineering profession. I've noticed one of several traits of the ones which seemed most effective in getting the most out of their subordinates. They had an almost stereotypically feminine tendency to nurture them: give them credit for good ideas (instead of stealing the ideas), encourage them to develop themselves (take short courses, etc.), and recommend them for higher positions.

I'm not sure how much of that was personal taste and how much was corporate culture. I've only worked in companies that have a big investment in thinking, learning, creating: universities, tech companies, etc.
 
Last edited:

BT Lamprey

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 22, 2018
Messages
63
Reaction score
14
Have you looked at Blindsight by Peter Watts? It discusses in detail emotional, mental, and social differences that might provide both advantages and disadvantages.
 

frimble3

Heckuva good sport
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 7, 2006
Messages
11,574
Reaction score
6,396
Location
west coast, canada
Leadership? Confidence and charisma, I'd say. I've worked under several managers in my 29 years at the same job. The big bosses can make a person a manager, but they can't make a leader.

The current man is firm and fair, and knows the job inside out. He's respected because of his position, and because of his knowledge. The previous man was wary of conflict, easy to manipulate, and sometimes just stared quizzically at what we were doing, as though he didn't really grasp what was going on.

But one of the clerks, let's call him 'X' is a leader!
He's confident, clever, can be funny without being foolish, and is the kind of guy that people turn to in moments confusion.
Once there was a change in procedure, and those of us in prep were not catching on too quickly.
(It was one of those niggling little changes that is so close to the previous that it was hard to remember. You'd get up speed, your hands would go on automatic, and boom, back to the old pattern)
It was slowing down the work in his section. Our supervisor kept 'coaching' us, their supervisor ( a rather fiery woman) kept boiling out of her area to tell us off. Nothing was working.

One day X comes out of the back, waving a handful of incorrect forms and spoke unto us.
"Look, idiots," was his starting point, after which he explained what we were doing wrong (again) and how we were going to do better,in the future, right? And how we weren't going to screw everybody else up, right?
And then it was "Got it? Thank you" and he went back to his work. If anyone else, a supervisor, a manager, etc, had dared to speak to us that way, we would have jumped all over them, not waiting for anything past 'Look, idiots'.
As it was we said, "Yes, X", barely refraining from calling him 'sir', and went back to work without a peep, resolving to do better and make him proud.

And no-one held it against him. He was right, we were wrong.
Leadership.
(Which, as was said in a prior post, can be for good or bad.)
The guy who can handle a group of mail clerks can probably also whip up a mob.
 

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer
Super Member
Registered
Temp Ban
Joined
Sep 13, 2012
Messages
2,478
Reaction score
267
Location
Los Angeles
Website
LaerCarroll.com
Have you looked at Blindsight by Peter Watts? It discusses in detail emotional, mental, and social differences that might provide both advantages and disadvantages.

Read the Amazon sample and bought the Kindle versions. It's only $7.99.

I've been doing some thinking about the issue of using genemod to increase human strength. What do you think?

My "Supergirl-lite" is one end product of over a thousand years of genetic research. My guess is that as we do such research we will find some strains of humans whose muscles are very strong, maybe in some poorly-explored Earthly backwater. But I'd guess we won't find anything beyond twice average muscle-fiber strength. To get more strength we have to bulk up muscles. But increased muscle size comes with liabilities.

Another tactic is to find ways to craft muscle fibers that are unnaturally strong. But as with the increased-muscle-size tactic they will also have to change other aspects of physiology. Super strength would put stress on other parts of our body such as our bones, hearts, lungs, etc. They would have to be modded too.

Why go to all that trouble? Nowadays we're already starting to build useful exoskeletons to increase our muscular strength. Why change our bodies when we can just slip on an Iron-Man suit?

I'd guess someday someone WILL some up with a Captain-America-like super-strong body. But I don't see it as useful for my particular book. I'll stick with my "She was three times as strong as Earth humans."
 
Last edited:

Arcs

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Messages
404
Reaction score
103
A thousand years of gene modification could go a thousand different ways, but whichever way it went would be dependent on the society it came from.

Is genemodding available to everyone, free of charge? Do people change their bodies according to need, or do they stick with what they need for their chosen profession? Do they get the combined hand-me-downs of whatever their parents were gifted by their parents, or whatever their parents were able to sneak past the government/corporations gene scanners? I don't need answers, but these are things to consider.

But as for the limits: IMO, people would probably be able to specialize down certain paths, like heightened reflexes, faster healing, or better brains, but probably not everything all at the same time. But for sure, they would get rid of most/all genetic diseases. And stuff like depression would probably be gone, too.

Is the old society a spacefaring society? Maybe there would be genetic markers to prevent cancers brought on by exposure to cosmic radiation.

There could also be non-usual materials incorporated into a human body adjusted to accept such adjustments. Like, titanium has zero uses in the human body. It's almost completely nonreactive, which is why it's in toothpaste and paints. So having titanium be a component in a genemodded body seems like a logical step for a gene-altering society to take, because adding titanium would not interfere with a current system.

Titanium in the bones? Titanium mesh stored in the fat layer? or maybe just under the skin? Titanium is also minimally reactive with magnets, so no problem there.

You could also have carbon-nanotubes for musclefibers, or maybe ligaments.

And also chlorophyll in the skin, meaning that you wouldn't have to eat food all the time. Just some water and air and a nap in the sun.

After a thousand years of gene modding, people would not look like people, unless there were strict oversight controls put in place by strong centralized powers.
 

AwP_writer

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 29, 2017
Messages
177
Reaction score
29
Location
Ohio
After a thousand years of gene modding, people would not look like people, unless there were strict oversight controls put in place by strong centralized powers.

I agree with this. When gene modding becomes commonplace, one of the first things people will do is mod for beauty. One everyone is at maximum human beauty, people will still want to stand out, and fashion and taste will change. Maybe they start adding elf ears, or colored hair or skin. When everyone has those, what will be the next thing to make individuals stand out? Eventually as they go more and more to extremes, they will start to look pretty alien to standard humans, though probably alien in a still attractive way.
 

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer
Super Member
Registered
Temp Ban
Joined
Sep 13, 2012
Messages
2,478
Reaction score
267
Location
Los Angeles
Website
LaerCarroll.com
I think that pretty much covers PHYSICAL GENEMOD. Next on my list is EMOTIONAL GENEMOD.

I'd guess a thousand years of research and trial-and-error to result in fairly modest changes to our general genetic nature. Including our emotional makeup.

In particular I'd guess my galactic orphan would keep the general xenophobic reaction. This would be especially useful in a universe which contains many different breeds of humans and aliens. A sensible stranger/danger reflex would be pro-survival. On the other hand, it seems likely to me that instant hatred of strangers would come to be judged an illness that needs to be deleted from the general gene pool.

I wonder what other emotional traits would be deemed illnesses, and what would be judged healthy and to be nurtured.
 
Last edited:

sciencewarrior

It's alive!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 14, 2012
Messages
719
Reaction score
71
Assuming you don't have a dystopia where individuals are bred to fill specific roles, from the five personality traits, I would expect Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness to be emphasized and Neuroticism diminished.
 

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer
Super Member
Registered
Temp Ban
Joined
Sep 13, 2012
Messages
2,478
Reaction score
267
Location
Los Angeles
Website
LaerCarroll.com
Thanks, admins, for deleting my ill-considered post.

MENTAL IMPROVEMENTS - How much can we re-engineer our ability to think? I suspect we won't know the answer till brain research improves a lot, but we writers can at least speculate.

IQ tests today are primitive measures of our mental faculties. They are useful as long as we keep in mind their limits. Success in any endeavor requires more than the logical abilities mostly measured by IQ tests. Other important qualities are drive, creativity, judgment, and social "IQ" (by which I mean ability to work with others).

Creativity has been much studied and I've tried to keep up to date for decades on what researchers have discovered. It's not much, as far as I can tell.

One finding is that schizophrenia and creativity share common qualities. If we gene-clean ourselves of the disease will we also harm our ability to be creative?
 

yesandno

stagnationtown
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 19, 2007
Messages
378
Reaction score
71
Location
other.
I think it would make a much more interesting story if the emotional genemods came with/from other unwanted traits. Pleiotropy and spandrel traits would be areas to look into and speculate about.