Yuval Harari makes an interesting point in one of his books: that many kinds of these inventions always start as a way to treat people with some kind of a medical condition and bring them into the "median" spectrum, but there's no stopping there and the same inventions are then used to bring "median" people into the "super-human" spectrum.
What happens next is that the "regular" humans have to compete with these "super-humans", for example on a job market, or in Olympics.
I can't think of a medically relevant example except maybe stimulants and painkillers, but outside of medicine, this definitely is the case with technology: many inventions have a ratchet effect - they start as gimmicks, but when they reach a critical mass of users, they confer so much competitive benefits that they rapidly spread everywhere, and eventually become required to function.
Examples range from agriculture to the Internet; currently, smartphones seem to be hitting this threshold, as more private and public services become designed primarily with smartphones in mind.
I found it enlightening to ponder the history of clocks. There was a time nobody needed one; it wasn't actually useful for anything[0], because nothing in agricultural societies happened fast enough to require hour or minute accuracy. Some people eventually found use for more accurate and precise time tracking, then more, then those people realized they're able to coordinate better when they have synced clocks, which made new things possible, and few centuries later, our entire civilization runs on clocks, and it's near-impossible to live without minding what time is it.
> those people realized they're able to coordinate better when they have synced clocks, which made new things possible
The development of clocks is related to industrialization and opening of plants that need all the workers to be there at e.g. 8 am for the shift to start. If you have to be at the factory at 8 am you'd better know what time it is. It's not that the development of clocks has brought us factories; rather, the development of factories has brought us clocks.
It's a feedback loop; manufacturing couldn't scale without clocks, and neither transportation - think e.g. train time tables. Once it became possible to keep people in sync down to minutes, it immediately became popular, and those who avoided it were increasingly left behind.
FWIW, I'm not saying it's a good development. I'm torn on this. Outside of direct progress, we seem to be running in Red Queen's races quite a lot, as improvements turn into baseline.
> I found it enlightening to ponder the history of clocks. There was a time nobody needed one; it wasn't actually useful for anything[0], because nothing in agricultural societies happened fast enough to require hour or minute accuracy.
This seems a rather dubious claim, for something invented and used for more than 3000 years (see sundials and water clocks - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock). Uses mentioned incidentally in that wikipedia article seem to include religious observances, astronomy, astrology, watches (as in “night watch”).
Also, as I understand it, the navigation use wasn’t really practical until precise clocks were developed in the 18th century.
You say that as if this has happened before ("many kinds of these inventions always start as..."), but what conditions have actually had this happen?
I can't think of anything that started as something to help bring people up to a median level, to then end up bringing median people into a super-human level. Everything we've done so far have all been ultimately limited by the human body, so things that bring people up to the median level ultimately have diminishing returns such that they don't benefit median people so much.
Think of e.g. the development of optics that brought us the eyeglasses first, and the telescopic sight on a sniper rifle second. Now imagine an army of median humans that need to fight the army of genetically-modified humans that can see in the dark.
It's hard to know how many people are getting away with cheating. I'm more familiar with it in the context of cycling, where performance-enhancing drugs have long been a thorny issue.
> In 2004, 4.6% of the anti-doping samples tested were positive, and that is taking into account that there were many dopers who never tested positive.
You could say the same for plastic surgery in general. Techniques developed to restore injured faces (e.g. of soldiers) are now used for cosmetic purposes.
As was mentioned in another comment, breast augmentation and other forms of body modification in the context of influencers, broadcasters, actors, models, etc.
Prosthetics may not quite be there yet, but do you seriously think they won't get there?
Military is actively investing in exoskeleton R&D. Whether it's currently accessible to the median person is sort of besides the point.
Re-read my comment, I haven't said anything about the future. My point was just that it seems weird to talk about it as if it has already happened.
It might happen in the future, but it's worth considering that a powerful prosthetic limb or exoskeleton that is superior to the biological version in every way makes both the disabled person and the perfectly healthy person equally superhuman.
I re-read your comment, but I still disagree that the evidence provided by myself and others in response, as well as evident near-term future advancements, are irrelevant to the comment you responded to.
> a powerful prosthetic limb or exoskeleton that is superior to the biological version in every way makes both the disabled person and the perfectly healthy person equally superhuman.
I think I'm not following, or else failing to see the relevance to this comment. This is essentially what the GP was getting at: these advancements can/will lead to anatomically "correct" humans failing to compete.
>I think I'm not following, or else failing to see the relevance to this comment. This is essentially what the GP was getting at: these advancements can/will lead to anatomically "correct" humans failing to compete.
I suppose this is just down to interpretation/point of focus.
I was focusing on the 'levels' being referenced. A 'perfect' prosthetic allows all people to be able to reach the same level, while the GP was talking about things that bring below median people to median level only, and previously median people to super-human level.
If we interpret this to refer to competition against people who aren't using any augmentation, it covers even just the act of practicing. Which in my opinion, kind of defeats their point by making it excessively broad.
Imagine that a gene modification is discovered that allows a significant breakthrough in human memory. First, people with Alzheimer would undergo that treatment, to the cheers and applauds of virtually everyone (including me and you). Then the people with a risk of Alzheimer would undergo it, then it would be cheap enough that anybody rich enough could do it. Then imagine that e.g. I undergo that treatment and am now able to memorize all of Wikipedia, GitHub, and Stack Overflow. Then imagine competing against me for a job opening. You can practice all you want but never able to reach that level, because you're limited by genes while I've got rid of that limitation.
The Google guys are extremely well-invested in the bio-tech startups, and Larry the Oracle Guy puts all his money into an "institute for prolonging of human life". No bonus points will be awarded for the correct answer to the question "whose life exactly that institute is working to prolong?"
A gene can be expressed but from what I rember from my college classes....the epigenetics can determine if the gene actually works correctly and how effective it is.
Think of it as the ability to lower the overall expression of the gene
Isn't that already the case? Genetically the average Olympian is definitely super human compared to the population. Unless we start adding novel genetic data to humans I wouldn't be too worried.
I wouldn't say superhuman - just better than the "average" athlete who trains by maybe 5-10%. But when the difference between finishing first and last in a race is that 5-10%, thats huge.
The Theory of Bounded Rationality tells us super humans are over rated.
There will always be problems you throw in the lap of a super human, that they wont be able to solve cause of lack of time, or cash, or personality or missing info, or conflicting needs, or their belief system etc etc.
I mean this isn't really a novel point, this is true of everything not just biological enhancements, but technological enhancements as well. The privileged will always have first dibs.
But historically the wealthy/first adopters help fuel the continued development of said inventions, which helps drive down the price, eventually allowing the larger public to have access to it.
What happens next is that the "regular" humans have to compete with these "super-humans", for example on a job market, or in Olympics.