Re: [GZG] Troop potential

Answering a couple responses at once:

Indy:
> How did Lucas handle this in Star Wars?

Answer: the handwaving solution of soldiers with limited imagination,
etc etc that John mentions next. Though for all its flaws, Lucas does
bring up the essential point that I hinted at by calling them Genetic
Janisaries: that if you outsource your security you outsource your
liberties. In other words, gene-tailored soldiers are a tremendous
threat to your political stability.

John Atkinson:
> Oh, yuck.  That's lovely.  Please tell me your idea of the genetically
> perfect Soldier isn't limited imagination, blind obedience, and great
> physical strength.  Most of the authors that play with this theme
> seems to think that's the goal.

It isn''t. Though physical strength might have a specialist role in
certain situations (police, for example).

> Unless you can gene-engineer attitudes, a good long-service
> professional is not going to be something you can breed for.	And I'll
> take attitude any day.

Actually, engineering attitudes is precisely what I'm talking about.
Or at least 3/4ths of it. Heightened alertness. Less disfunction under
stress. Reduced reaction to fatigue. More aggressiveness. Probably
some kind of social adaptation to improve teamwork (though, along with
increased creativity and intelligence, you'd likely see most people
already have those adaptations).

Basically, any trait that you can screen for now, you will someday be
able to manufacture in a test tube or indoctrinate in a school.

That has strong implications for the society that employs them. John
raises the possibility of a coup; either a hard coup like we've seen
in the 20th century or a "soft coup" as slowly happened with the real
Janisaries. Most of the PSB protections you could imagine (drugs the
soldiers must use, etc etc) aren't really that viable unless they're
so effective that you've created a glaring, easily exploited weakness
that your enemies can take advantage of. More likely, you create that
weakness AND leave open the coup threat, plus you create the grievance
that kicks off the coup.

Now, the Janisaries were more than just soldiers. They were an entire
slave bureaucracy that became the trusted administrators of an empire.
Would something similar happen? Yeah, it probably would. On the other
hand, if the entire population is being genetically manipulated for
their roles, then the questions become: "how tolerable is genetic
predestination?" and "what roles can and can't compete?".

OK separate point, related to predestination: some of these
adaptations will have physiological or psychological costs to the
person being engineered, who of course doesn't get a vote. Let's say
that maturation in 10 years instead of 18, complete with accelerated
learning to get their training done in time, requires changes that
leave your life expectancy around 30 years old. That's a fantastic
deal for the policy-maker who engineered you. For you, the engineered,
it sucks. You could imagine other tradeoffs (impotence, for example)
but they all embody the same idea: that you're "parents" have
fundamentally different motives and goals than you, and though you
have to live day and night with the consequences, by definition you
don't get any say whatsoever.

It's a horrifying and very common theme in transhumanist science
fiction precisely because it makes for interesting plotlines.

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