January 18, 2004
Immortal Pets
Given the steady pace of advancements in medical technology, suppose that at some point in the future, deaths due to old age and illness was no longer common, if even possible.
Suppose that technology was then applied to pets. This seems reasonable to me, since people love their pets. Also, a lot of times medicines are tested on animals before humans, so the treatments might be easier to apply to pets.
I wonder, how smart could a dog or a cat get after it had lived for 100 years or more?
Our pets could be 'upgraded' to perform roles their physiology could never have handled in the past. Imagine having a dog that also acts as a trusted, intelligent advisor, that has been genetically engineered to act as both pet and PDA. Forget your PC, how about the new iDog?
Posted by Eric at January 18, 2004 05:47 PMThat is a scary, scary thought.
Posted by: Joni at January 19, 2004 07:08 PMHaving just lost my beloved 16.5 year old cat, this sort of technology sounds pretty damn good to me right now. Of course, the implications are scary, but I'd risk it to have my sweet boy back.
As a matter of fact, I've been pondering this very question for several weeks now. We already know that cloned pets do not exhibit similar personalities to the progenitors, so what's the point in that... But having a pet that lives as long as we do would open doors unheard of before. We wouldn't need to engineer them, I'd just be happy to have my sweet little cat alive and well.
Not having to go through the loss would be worth the risk of technological abuse of power, IMO.
Angela
(Nick and I bought your iPod, remember?)