Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.gurps (
More info?)
On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 18:32:12 +0000 (UTC), mlush@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Mr.
M.J. Lush) wrote:
>In article <4212851a.41201118@news.telusplanet.net>,
>David Johnston <rgorman@telusplanet.net> wrote:
>>Assume a future where many different stellar systems are being
>>colonised by slower than light vessels, many of them containing
>>dissident religious and political groups. Most of them use genetic
>>engineering to adjust the human form for local conditions, and to
>>better fit the society they are creating. Suppose you were such a
>>genetic engineer. What personality trait would you try to instill?
>
>Am I a sane genetic engineer or do I work for the dissidents?
You can be any kind of genetic engineer you can imagine, provided that
he or she is unable to entirely resist playing god to some extent.
>
>If I were sane I would not touch the personality traits at all!
>giving a whole sociaty the same traits could seriously
>warp it perhaps beyond viability.
Well, you won't be giving the _whole_ society the same traits as such.
They'll still be intelligent organic beings mostly reproducing
sexually and the traits you try to encourage will be modified by
random variation, learned behaviour and developmental influence. You
can shift the bell curve but you can't fix everyone at a given point
on it. But you will be making a given trait more common. Thus there
would be no "taboo traits" as such but you could reduce the number of
people who are Hidebound to a tiny minority by making the average
person more imaginative. Of course you'd probably be increasing the
number of Absent-Minded people.
>
>For example Ingo suggested "Common Sense and Strong Will" good choices
>just the sort of thing to get you through those early years of colony
>building.
>
>But if everyone has Common Sense where are the dreamers going to come from?
>For artists, scientists and inventors 'Common Sense' is the last thing
>sociaty needs them to have.
>
>If everyone has Strong Will its going to negotiation and compromise
>between factions much harder perhaps leading to fragmentation and
>conflict.
>
>Perhaps it would all work out fine I don't think I could take the
>risk, physical alterations are easy to test and debug, psychological
>ones can work fine in isolation its hard to predict how they would
>work on a large scale over hundreds of years.
>
>
>Now....
>
>
>If I'm working for the dissidents, I'd go for Fanaticism and a bit of
>Weak Will or perhaps mild Gullibility, we want them to keep Believing the Creed
>don't we??
Interesting. You'd end up with the typical personality type being a
fervent but brittle believer, prone to sudden, wild enthusiasm for
newly encountered doctrines.
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