Ask Lemmy

Isolate a bunch of babies together, with food etc, and see how they develop their own language and society.

It may not be possible, but I want to gradually replace a person's brain piece-by-piece with the same areas from other brains and see if they retain their sense of self when none of the original brain remains.

Raise a kid in a sensory deprivation chamber, with one exception: a monitor that only shows gen alpha brainrot videos. When they're like 14 drop them off in a populated area and see what happens

I want to totally impoverish the 50 richest capitalists to see if they could "bootstrap" themselves out of it for real.

Okay, so there's nothing unethical or dangerous about that (they are capitalist parasites, not humans), but it would still be interesting to see.

Cyborg-like implants. I want titanium joints and UV vision and magnetic field sensors and charging my phone by laying it on my belly. Uncap each finger to reveal a small tool: screwdriver, USB key, cutting blade, etc.

Note that none of that includes or requires a constant connection to a network/internet. I want to augment my interactions with the real world, not replace them with a virtual world.

How far can you strip down the human body until it can't survive anymore. Assisted feeding and breathing is okay. Adjustable room temperature too.

Arms, Legs? Gone. Can we get rid of the skin? Probably, if the room is the right temperature? Bones? Most of them aren't needed, are they? Some organs surely can go too.

Basically, what is the bare minimum needed so the body and the mind still more or less work.

I want to see how far you can push performance of the human body, and make the results compete against each other. All the bonkers whacky surgeries you can think of: limb lengthening, bone strengthening, replace their organs with bigger, stronger versions.

All the drugs: hgh, steroids, any performance enhancing substance you can pump into an athlete.

Have sports scientists raise children so that they're born into a dedicated training regime for running or swimming.

Then make them compete against each other in the trans-human olympics. I want to see someone do the 100m in 3 seconds, I want to see someone not have to come up for air during the freestyle, I want someone to throw a javelin 2 miles, I want bioengineered mutants doing gymnastics routines

Gorillas on steroids. How bulky can these magnificent already bulky beasts get?

I’d give everyone a device that allows them to take photos of themselves and their lives, and then instantly post them online. Other people would be able to rate and comment on how well or badly they think someone is doing, based on these curated snapshots of their existence. In this experiment, people could also scroll through endless streams of these 'highlights,' constantly comparing their lives to others. To spice it up, I’d introduce a feature that allows people to see how many likes or comments other posts are getting, so they can feel great or miserable about themselves in real-time.

A bit contemporary, but I'd like to have studied what it takes to break someone of illusions that were fed and forced on them externally, e.g. schooling, TV, social media and other forms of cultural imprinting and propaganda.

We've all had that "what would it take to get this person to realize how far off base they are?" question, it would be fascinating, in a no-holds barred experiment testing various solutions and combinations to find out which is the most effective.

E.g. someone believes climate change isn't real because (x,y,z irrelevant). No amount of written evidence is effective to people who don't understand the scientific method, so would it be videos, traveling to acutely affected places, having polar bears removed from all zoos, baseball bats on their knuckles when they make a logical fallacy?

It would be interesting to then categorize the types of delusions or illusions and then prescribe treatment based on these results.

I'd like an extensive dietary breakdown of the potential benefits or harms of eating the flesh and organs of humans with net worths of over 10 million, 100 million, 1 billion, 10 billion, 100 billion dollars.

Tons of drug tests on children to know the exact effect they have on development. Also anti-aging research to see how much you can potentially slow down aging and how the self repair mechanism of children works with respect to aging. The results could really give us a great insight into aging well and being healthy later in life.

To clarify, I don't want to see them done, performed, do them myself or anything adjacent because they're deeply wrong and dangerous.

What happens when we reverse Earth's rotation.

It would also require centuries, so it's not as possible, but breeding people for very specific traits and features. Whether appearance, physical strength, overall intelligence, specifically being great in mathematics, great smell, great sight.

Basically, control the evolution by favoring very specific features and outright disallowing others (like hereditary diseases/disorders) that would be unacceptable in the mix.

Since this requires a lot of time which I'd somehow theoretically have (I know, this wasn't in the post, but anyway...), I'd want to try yet another thing. Breeding at the most late age possible, then continuing with that and extending it. Perhaps it would lead to increased lifespan, or at least lesser effects of aging in the far far offsprings. At least physically. These experiments don't exactly favor mental health of the subjects.

I've broken traffic laws most of my life, and I still have a driver's license. So, you can drive like a partially reasonable asshole indefinitely if you have the skill to pull it off.

I'd like to see GMO humans. I want to see how far we can elevate our species using science. It's completely unethical, but there it is.

Genetic engineering. We have the technology at this, point. What's getting in the way are some very dated ideas of ethics.

I'd like to experiment with other non-capitalist based systems in various points of infra-structure of my country.

I don't think this "only make money in all things, all the time" shit is a smart way to manage numerous complex systems.

I don't have all the answers on how that shakes out, but I think the first move would be to only allow professionals experienced in respective fields to set up these experiments. Existing profitable systems and overseeing corporations be damned.

make a fallout shelter and have some isolated communities there live off purely of either one of meta, apple, or alphabet products (or any large enough multinational like nestle).

all for the science of understanding addiction and brand cultism.

Raise a child on their own without any exposure to language. Could be interesting to see how their perspective on the world develops.

Human genetic engineering. I'm sure governments are already doing this, because the technology is already here.

You could create super soldiers or very intelligent people. You could then copy them in cloning vats and have an army of people you could shape and mold to your will.

Could experiment with all sorts of stuff. For example they've put biiluminescent genes from certain fish into frogs to make glowing frogs. Now imagine giving humans the raw power of chimps. Or the ability to see UV light like birds. Or venomous spit. Or the power to smell like dogs.

Eugenics taken to their logical conclusion.

As the parent of a child on the spectrum that is very aware of what such practices would mean for him, I would never agree with it in real life. But I do have a fascination with what we could do if we just said the hell with ethics and started trying to breed "perfect" people.

Eugenics. Not the racist BS that was done in the past, but really pushing the limit to see if we can breed super humans. Genetic editing to make humans immune to cancer or disease. Increased lifespan. Resistance to radiation. Smarter. Stronger. Better.

Arguably, this kind of thing is actually somewhat of a necessity if we ever want to explore the stars. We are far too fragile in our current bodies to survive the difficulties and vastness of space.

Testing a ton of medication for pregnant/breastfeeding women. So much medication I couldn’t take, simply because it’s not considered ethical to have the studies done, since it could affect the baby in all sorts of ways. Which we can’t clear up without the studies. So annoying.

Nice try Elon