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Shasta's avatar

Re: gene editing and mundane utility, we are there! At least technologically. For instance see the YouTuber who goes by ThoughtEmporium curing his own lactose intolerance. There are many similar things you can do. Unfortunately any use of (human) gene editing that qualifies as mundane utility is by default illegal, and to make it not illegal you have to spend tens of millions of dollars, at least, and probably fail anyway because the FDA hates progess

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Brian Moore's avatar

re: "You work on the fusion program and everything is passively done for you."

I think this is A) something that does actually happen in a lot of ways, we just use terms like "secretary" or "spouse" or "part of the package they give to American doctors who go to Dubai for a few years" or "what they do for NBA/NFL stars", and also B) something that would make a good business, with not only fusion researchers as clients - call it "Ask Jeeves" and market as full service/pick-your-modules butler/maid/financial/everything solution. The market niche here is the one occupied by "house stewards for nobles, 250 years ago", "servants/butlers/maids 150 years ago" and "homebound wives 50 years ago".

Speaking personally, I am the person in my household that does a lot (not all) of that, and I kinda enjoy optimizing it, but I know tons of people who just Do Not Care. They want everything in their life - other than the things they want to focus on - to be on autopilot, and I can't blame them! I would love to see something where you deputize a professional with some kind of low-impact (and bonded) version of power of attorney and then they just .... take care of everything for, I don't know, some % of your income.

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