Dexedrine is sooo last century! Can't wait to hear about Borne Legacy [1] like things like using viruses to fix/improve one's genes. Though considering the rightful medical uses of such technologies, having them and keeping them secret considering military applications would kind of count as... genocide!<p><i>The worst thing of this bio-enhancement arms race will probably be that dozens of technologies with medical applications that could save millions of lives will end up being kept secret due to their military applications. This could be the true main cost of such an arms race!</i><p>[1]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bourne_Legacy_(film)#Plot" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bourne_Legacy_(film)#Plot</a>
They've been using metamphetamine and dexedrine since at least the 1940's. Over 200 million pills were given to soldiers during WWII.<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371512/Nazis-fed-speed-infantrymen-tested-cocaine-like-stimulant-concentration-camps.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371512/Nazis-fed-sp...</a><p><a href="http://www.narconon.org/drug-information/methamphetamine-history.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.narconon.org/drug-information/methamphetamine-his...</a>
Not a great choice of title given to apes and monkeys we look like mutants.<p>But the article is about artificial enhancments and perhaps the bongionic(Bong+Bionic) man may have been a better choice, even if it is a made up word (all words start somewhere). I say bongionic as it is about `enhancment drugs` (all drugs enhance, some enhance drowiness or lower states of mind, just some positive definition used for sheep fashion) and borg like augmentation and the ethics and moral aspects.<p>Given we have some standards even in war like chemical weapons are bad and torture of prisoners being bad. Also the aspect of a soldier surrendering in a posion cloud would kind of break both those standards. In general we have certain weapons that we agree should not be used on each other. Sadly thought that does not stop them being done in secret or in other forms and `tested` on our own people, as highlighted about the testing of LSD in the article.<p>That all said, dispite the morals, this type of finance of research projects does have a positive outcome for the populus. It's just at what price we think is right.<p>But researchers are great at telling you that they want the next set of research funding targeted at, subliminal meme selling at its best even. I do wonder if you realy want to win a war, just send them lots of researchers to help them and after a few years they wont be able to afford a war, win win <i>chuckle</i>.<p>But the old saying about how war advances technology, it is also the possibilities of war that help keep some extra momentum. They also say it was war technology that put a man on the moon; Though they never mention the technology that got them back.<p>Bottom line, they may not create a superhuman they want, but they certianly will create some cures for other now and happening issues in health as a sideline.<p>I'm also reminded of a Star Trek TNG episode <a href="http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Hunted_(episode)" rel="nofollow">http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Hunted_(episode)</a><p>The question from that is can you restore the soldier to normal and with that we have a track record of being very slow to spot and treat the signs of even mental negative changes of ex soldier (though getting better every day). Not sure how you can improve some aspects behind having a heads up display and enhanced vision turning all hostiles into mario or the like to obviscate the emotional impacts later on. Does raise many question, but these are in many ways issues we have today still and with that we will just end up building nanobot armies in the end, too what end I'm not sure anybody knows or wants to find out. But they want to do it, that war technology research and costs, both fiscaly and moraly have a very undefined standard which we can only guess upon.
The article's main point (emphasis mine):<p><pre><code> > “With military enhancements and other technologies, the
> genie’s already out of the bottle: the benefits are too
> irresistible, and the military-industrial complex still
> has too much momentum,” Lin says in an e-mail. *“The best
> we can do now is to help develop policies in advance to
> prepare for these new technologies*, not post hoc or after
> the fact (as we’re seeing with drones and cyberweapons).”
</code></pre>
To get a sense of the kind of moral and ethical issues raised by new combat technologies and techniques, I recommend watching the documentary "The Fog of War"[1].<p>[1] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgA98V1Ubk8" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgA98V1Ubk8</a>
>>Tweaked troopers could run afoul of international law, potentially sparking a diplomatic crisis every time the U.S. deploys troops overseas. <<
Err.. Because US troop deployments are usually incident free?
asside from the ethical concerns, we're not actually as near to achieving this as the article seems to suggest, at least from my undergrad studies in chem/bio (not an expert, I'd like to hear what a researcher in this field has to say). The problem with gene inhancement is the off switch, we can inject a virus and overwrite some DNA that tells muscles to grow more, but containing it or making it stop is the problem, also the massive array of side-effects and unforeseen outcomes of altering specific DNA sequences is still a concrete problem.
I guess the future really will be just like Star Trek.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunted_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunted_(Star_Trek:_The_Next...</a>
Eh. I've been using magnets to mitigate PTSD and other persistent pains. LSD and shrooms have been instrumental in the development of many of my psionic abilities.<p>It wasn't until I tripped methylone that I realized that I probably shouldn't share my gifts with too many people.<p>But now they're labeling "HPDD": persistent hallucinogenic experience surely must be a bad thing. This country is buggered. Period.