Rosalind English asks: If science was able to resurrect Neanderthals, would they have human rights?
I think yes, due to the likely way in which such a resurrection would come about.
Consider the way in which gene enhancement techniques will work, when scientists perfect their methods. They will fertilise an egg by means of IVF, and then test the DNA of the petri-dish embryo for whatever it is they are concerned about. They will isolate undesirable genes (such as, a predilection for cancer, green eyes, low IQ, &ct) and replace them with desirable genes (cancer resilience, blue eyes, high IQ, lizard skin, &ct). Then they will put the resulting embryo back into a womb, in the expectation a baby will grow as a result. Such a child (hereafter referred to as an Enhanced baby) will undoubtedly be considered to have human rights… even if a portion of its DNA is from elsewhere in nature. Continue reading
Category: Diary (Page 95 of 300)
Things that happen to me, or things I do
Two is a trend. Vine, the new social media app that allows you to post 6 sec video clips, has a square format. The videos are in a 1:1 aspect ratio. This follows Instagram, the popular photo sharing app that gives the user focus and colour filters to improve their images.
This trend arrives just at the time when wide-screen has become the standard, default aspect-ratio of choice for both video and TV. The footage generated by Apple iPhones, other cutting edge phone technologies, and the latest video cameras, all seem to be on the 2:1 ratio. Before the move to High Definition, TV and camcorder footage was all 4:3.
Why the change to 1:1 for Instagram and Vine? Perhaps because the ratio evokes Large Format photography. This conveys a seriousness, a permenance, and a respect for the art of photography… a useful quality to communicate in the ephermeral, digital world of online image sharing.
Grand Central Station and Hotel Manhattan, New York, 1900 (Library of Congress)
Image from the Library of Congress, found via the NYC Past Tumblr and Kottke.org.
I hear that over the weekend, Teresa May reaffirmed her pledge to abolish the Human Rights Act if her party wins the next General Election.
When Mrs May and Chris Grayling made similar remarks about the Human Rights Act and the ECHR earlier this month, I recorded a few thoughts to YouTube. The Home Secretary’s doubling-down on Saturday is enough of a reason to post my video here:
I watched Charlie Kaufmann’s Synecdoche, New York the other day. It is at times compelling, hilarious, and mysterious.
The story follows a theatre director, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Awarded a grant to produce a expansive artwork, he recreates scenes from his own life inside a huge warehouse. But of course, after a while, his own life revolves around producing the theatre piece… So that gets recreated inside the warehouse too. He has to recruit an actor to play himself, and eventually an actor to play the actor that plays himself! Likewise with the other important people in his life and the production. The play becomes more and more recursive, in the manner of Borges’ The Circular Ruins (a dream within a dream).
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I have only just got around to reading John Lanchester’s delightful meditation on the London Underground. I missed it when it was published in the newspaper, but enough people shared it on social media that Twitter saw fit to e-mail it to me as a recommended story.
The essay deals with the rich topic of how we manage to be ‘alone’ in public places. Lanchester describes of the masques we wear and the techniques we use to create mental space to dwell within even though our physical personal space is invaded by other people at rush-hour.
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