Rapper, tech entrepreneur, and human URL Will.i.am says the world will need new "codes and morals" to deal with the ethical implications of 3D-printed humans. "If you can print a liver or a kidney, god dang it, you're going to be able to print a whole freaking person," said the Black Eyed Peas founder in an interview with Dezeen. "Now we're getting into a whole new territory. Moses comes down with the 10 commandments and says 'Thou shalt not.' He didn't say shit about 3D printing. So new morals, new laws and new codes are going to have to be implemented."
Will.i.am says he believes that the technology to 3D print humans will be available in "our lifetime," adding: "I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm just saying what's fact based on plausible growth in technology and Moore's law."
Um. Not the same here. We’re talking about cells and tissue, which is infinitely more complex than any computer that we’ve ever built. We’re talking nerves, organs, vains, and much more that computer chips. 3D printing is pretty awesome, Will.i.am, but the likelihood of us printing humans, full humans, in our lifetime is slim to none. Now androids, yes. But we don’t even know what makes life, well, life at this point. What we will see is transplant organs printed, which we’re already seeing. Though, they don’t look like real hearts, real stomachs. No, they are mechanical. Which is fine, as they work. But this, just like normal transplants, creates no issues with the Mosaic laws.
There is no need to rewrite the 10 Commandments. No one pay attention to the crazy rapper with a weird name throwing out random, science-fictiony ideas and trying to usurp religious morality.
Every time I see Iron Man I think about his armor being heavily damaged in a fight and how long it could take to get him out of it. I’m claustrophobic. Not terribly so, but tight spaces don’t play well with me. When I was in a car accident a few years ago, the car flipped and landed on my side. My passenger was the first out, through his door that was pointing skyward. When he removed his seatbelt, he slid down onto me. My heart is skipping a beat right now thinking about it. For anyone with a phobia (not just a fear), you know what it’s like to have that irrational panic take over.
So this image came through my feeds this morning. The Hulkbuster armor from Avengers II. Not only is it a giant armor suit, Iron Man’s normal suit is worn while inside this. There goes my heart again. The hours necessary to get him out… Yeah, phobias suck.
I’m surprised at how fast I’m losing my tolerance to sugar. Not so much that I’m getting buzzed off it now, but I can tell that I’m getting dehydrated from a few sips of Mountain Dew. I used to not notice that until I threw back at least 3-4 cans. It’s good, I guess, but surprising.
For those not in the know: I have lost 20 pounds in the last 2 months (since the start of the year). Most of this is from controlling portion sizes, cutting down from 3-4 cans of pop a day to 2-3 a week, and consuming a ton of water.
Everyone’s biggest question since the Apple Watch was announced last Fall was battery life. During the keynote, Tim Cook said 18 hours. But we all know the asterisk beside that number. Luckily, Apple published a great resource with more details.
People that have worn the Watch say that they take their phones out of their pockets far, far less than they used to. A simple tap to reply or glance on the wrist or dictation is a massively different interaction model than pulling out an iPhone, unlocking it and being pulled into its merciless vortex of attention suck.
One user told me that they nearly “stopped” using their phone during the day; they used to have it out and now they don’t, period. That’s insane when you think about how much the blue glow of smartphone screens has dominated our social interactions over the past decade.
One of my biggest speculations is the change that the Apple Watch and similar smart watches will bring to culture. This article from TechCrunch is stellar, but says exactly what I have been thinking for months. With notifications on your wrist, less things will require your phone to come out of your pocket. A quick raise of your arm and you see what the notification is and you can get right back to life.
Marketing director Robbie Abed said that he couldn’t recall a single client request a smartwatch app before the Apple Watch debut, but some have “already decided” they want an app for Apple’s wearable, while others are asking whether it should form part of their marketing plans.
It makes sense. The only two smart watch platforms before the Apple Watch were Pebble and Android Wear. While Pebble had good sales, Android has not. It’s yet to be seen if the interest in the Apple Watch will be more than that of Pebble and Android Wear, but we’ll know shortly.
Sorry readers, the end of last week didn’t go as planned and the weekend was crazy because of it. So instead of my Top 5 going up Saturday afternoon, like normal, it is going up now. My apologies.
A country that has redefined “bigot” to be anyone that disagrees with someone’s life choices, America needs to look good and hard at what ISIS has been doing through the Middle East. As we bring Christians one-by-one into the spotlight and ask them about their beliefs on sexuality, already knowing the answer they’ll give, and berate them for being so inhuman, so unloving, so intolerant, our fellow humans in ISIS are dragging gay men out of their homes and dropping them off rooftops, stoning them to death, and killing them in horrible ways.
The times that I have been called a bigot are countless. Called so for my faith. Called so because I disagree, silently and vocally, with someone’s life choices. To not see this word used against those that are dropping gay men off rooftops but instead against those that disagree, without even considering violence, shows how ass backwards our country, our media, our fellow men and women have gotten.
A Christian disagrees because he loves you and doesn’t want you to continue on a path he knows leads to Hell. To quote Penn Jillette, reknown atheist:
If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell—or not getting eternal life or whatever—and you think that, well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward. . . . How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?
This is how the Christian thinks, how the Christian lives. While many in America are getting more and more hostile towards us. While it is becoming more and more unpopular to share our faith. While we know that our livelihood is on the line, we share our faith because we believe that, through Christ, eternal life can be had. To not share that would be hate. I would die to see a gay man come to Christ.
But these radical Muslims of ISIS are killing everyone that disagree with them and doing so without shame. They are taking gay men to the rooftops and dropping them to their deaths in front of an adorning crowd below. They are chopping the heads off of Christians and Muslims that don’t agree with them. And while doing so, they are documenting it all on video and in photos and sharing it online.
I have seen ISIS called many things in the media, but it seems that one word is reserved for Christians alone: bigot.
