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Apr. 15th, 2017 02:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSo I watched those nature documentaries today, including ones about speciation and weird bird shapes and so forth
and then I was looking at tumblr with all these pictures of all these humans
and I'm like
woah
all one species
so varied!
Like, we are smol and tall and skinny and wide and round and doritos and all sorts.
which is pretty cool
but then I start wondering what our weird beak equivalent would be
or our fancy tailfeathers
and exactly which niches we'd specialise into that would lead us away from each other
like it's probably not jocks and nerds or trek and wars, but, you know
something that could fundamentally divide us
... except I have met humans and if the internet teaches us one thing it is that somebody somewhere would shag that.
... so maybe humans are too varied in desire to become new species like that.
I mean we descend a bit from neanderthals, we do the opposite of dividing into species, we just... gather.
... now I'm thinking Ringworld...
*sigh*
And now I'm thinking I should have gone to sleep hours ago.
But really, it would be totally rude to speculate on new humans not being one homo sapiens any more, marvel style mutants are still humans, but at some point it's scientifically possible to just have so much variation we start being different. Like, not any time soon, not without a lot of mucking about with biotech, but having met humans I also confidently anticipate a lot of mucking about with biotech.
Possibly in a plumes sort of way.
Or weirder. I'm thinking girl thing that went out for sushi again.
But it would still be super rude to say not human whatever the science reality could become.
Probably we need to work on the category sapient sentient people, so not human doesn't mean nonperson.
... still rude, but possibly not catastrophically so.
... though the problem is basically that it defines other people as well as oneself, whichever way up one says it. call yourself a new species and tell everyone in the before one who they're not. call someone else a new species and rudely boot them out of the group. rude most.
I don't think I would want feathers, even awesome paradise ones.
Or monkey parts; tails are cool, but no.
For a while I was thinking tentacles, but like removable cybernetic ones, like a bustle or train that could be all curly attack limbs if you needed it.
Wings are super nifty but probably a lot of work and it's not like I even run to get places.
I think I like my current range of parts, on the whole.
It would make a mess of laws because if new category then prior law doesn't apply, have to start again. like with aliens. or demons. or animals. there's definitions for some words and laws that won't apply to others.
is why metahuman is a dangerous label to invent, because temptation is to think all them human rights don't apply.
But probably it would be more like, humans decide to make themselves pretty with the bits of other species all the time, future does it via dna, oh look they're a whole new sort, but on a weirdly stretchy continuum of variation instead.
metahuman and mutant stuff loops back to disability eventually too.
but we are very varied and very inventive and historically very much inclined to try and borrow the good bits of other species
we're going to do weird things to ourselves
and it'll be interesting to see.
and then I was looking at tumblr with all these pictures of all these humans
and I'm like
woah
all one species
so varied!
Like, we are smol and tall and skinny and wide and round and doritos and all sorts.
which is pretty cool
but then I start wondering what our weird beak equivalent would be
or our fancy tailfeathers
and exactly which niches we'd specialise into that would lead us away from each other
like it's probably not jocks and nerds or trek and wars, but, you know
something that could fundamentally divide us
... except I have met humans and if the internet teaches us one thing it is that somebody somewhere would shag that.
... so maybe humans are too varied in desire to become new species like that.
I mean we descend a bit from neanderthals, we do the opposite of dividing into species, we just... gather.
... now I'm thinking Ringworld...
*sigh*
And now I'm thinking I should have gone to sleep hours ago.
But really, it would be totally rude to speculate on new humans not being one homo sapiens any more, marvel style mutants are still humans, but at some point it's scientifically possible to just have so much variation we start being different. Like, not any time soon, not without a lot of mucking about with biotech, but having met humans I also confidently anticipate a lot of mucking about with biotech.
Possibly in a plumes sort of way.
Or weirder. I'm thinking girl thing that went out for sushi again.
But it would still be super rude to say not human whatever the science reality could become.
Probably we need to work on the category sapient sentient people, so not human doesn't mean nonperson.
... still rude, but possibly not catastrophically so.
... though the problem is basically that it defines other people as well as oneself, whichever way up one says it. call yourself a new species and tell everyone in the before one who they're not. call someone else a new species and rudely boot them out of the group. rude most.
I don't think I would want feathers, even awesome paradise ones.
Or monkey parts; tails are cool, but no.
For a while I was thinking tentacles, but like removable cybernetic ones, like a bustle or train that could be all curly attack limbs if you needed it.
Wings are super nifty but probably a lot of work and it's not like I even run to get places.
I think I like my current range of parts, on the whole.
It would make a mess of laws because if new category then prior law doesn't apply, have to start again. like with aliens. or demons. or animals. there's definitions for some words and laws that won't apply to others.
is why metahuman is a dangerous label to invent, because temptation is to think all them human rights don't apply.
But probably it would be more like, humans decide to make themselves pretty with the bits of other species all the time, future does it via dna, oh look they're a whole new sort, but on a weirdly stretchy continuum of variation instead.
metahuman and mutant stuff loops back to disability eventually too.
but we are very varied and very inventive and historically very much inclined to try and borrow the good bits of other species
we're going to do weird things to ourselves
and it'll be interesting to see.