Super Strength Substance Approaching Human Trials 425
kkleiner writes "You may remember Liam Hoekstra, the baby apparently born without the myostatin gene, and consequently sporting 40% more skeletal muscle than his peers. Using gene therapy, NCH scientists have been able to get follistatin (a myostatin blocker) to promote phenomenal muscle growth in macaque monkeys. NCH is now working with the FDA to perform the preliminary steps necessary for a human clinical trial. Is this the prelude to a super-strength gene therapy for all of us?"
Classic Super Villain Birth (Score:5, Funny)
Is this the prelude to a super-strength gene therapy for all of us?
No, the clinical trials will begin but one of the test subjects will realize that they are now stronger than his fellow man and the only thing keeping him a cut above the rest is the drug. So he (or she, both sexes are equally evil) will taint the other subjects' follistatin with cyanide, killing them all. Then the super villain transformation into The Sinister Strength will be complete and they will emerge from the carnage at the clinic to hoard all the remaining follistatin. We have only one hope, that our hero Liam Hoekstra arrives on the scene early enough to put an end to The Sinister Strength ... refresh Slashdot next week to find out.
Re:Classic Super Villain Birth (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Classic Super Villain Birth (Score:5, Funny)
trying to muscle in with a star trek reference, eh?
I don't think you khannnnnnnnnnnn!
I was more thinking (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Classic Super Villain Birth (Score:5, Funny)
Did someone call me? ;-)
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Well at least all those spams I get saying "Make you stronger in bed!" may actually be true for once.
Re:Classic Super Villain Birth (Score:5, Funny)
If I refresh Slashdot next week the only thing I'm going to see is a dupe of this story.
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If there is anything that being a punching bag taught me, it is that you don't need muscle mass to be a dangerous, angry asshole- a temper and a set of abusive parents is quite enough.
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Right, because the only reason people aren't being the crap out of you now is because you've never bumped into anyone bigger than you.
You know what would happen? People would do this, and have the body they want. That's it. There wouldn't be any more people running around beating people up than there are now.
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Obvious (?) question (Score:2)
And what would we do with this super strength? Personally, the heaviest thing I ever need to lift is the occasional DB server.
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What, you don't think it would be handy to be able to move a car without starting it?
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don't move it... just smash it.. until it fits in one space...
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:4, Insightful)
This is my reaction too. Also, what is the cost of having to maintain all these muscles? Do you have to eat more than the normal person? Do you lose all your fine motor control?
The human is the best animal in the brain department. Why don't they try to improve what we're good at? Why compete with the Gorilla?
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Funny)
We would need to eat a lot more than the normal human needs to.
The diet of the average American should just about cover it.
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That's true but unfortunately you would probably have to eat a lot more protein. The diet of the average American is heavily weighted towards sugars, fats and starches since that's what our overdeveloped brains tell us we need. So we have naturally used those brains to develop mechanized agriculture that can produce those foods most efficiently. This has basically turned us into highly-intelligent blobs.
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Are you entirely sure about that? I've been home a couple of weeks from a trip to a country with a much healthier diet than that of the USA, and I've been craving their food (mostly vegetables, beans, and wholeish grains) ever since I got back.
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beans, grains = sugar/starch
The reason you crave those foods over our refined foods is that your body detected that that form of sugar/starch also contained more vitamins and was tastier.
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Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Insightful)
Muscle burns more energy than fat, both at rest and during physical activity.
An effective oral myostatic blocker would enable a lot of people to reduce their body fat levels with minimal lifestyle change.
For those who are severely obese, this would be a godsend since for many of them they weigh so much and have such small muscle mass that physical activity can be dangerous.
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It would also be a god send to us 40 something with a pot belly thatw ant to look like they did in high school without the pesky being active all the time part.
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And if this promotes muscle growth where it is used most, most of us Slashdotters will end up with just one Superhuman Arm.
"Hello, I am the Mega-Baiter!!"
Disclaimer: I am married, so my arms would remain the same, but my wife would (through associated absorption) develop some massive jaw and tongue muscles......
I love her....
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because you named your computer does not make it your wife, and I don't even want to know what you consider to be its jaw and tongue muscles. This drug will not work on your computer.
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Funny)
Yours never shuts up either, eh?
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:4, Interesting)
Fat people mostly have quite a bit of muscle in the legs and lower torso, because they have been building it moving their mass around, even if they are not very active. They don't tend towards muscle in the upper torso and arms. Going on a diet to lose weight usually results in loss of both fat and muscle mass. I've seem a few cases where a fat person managed to lose weight mostly by exercise, and it can be remarkable - i.e. a sedentary 260 lb. middle aged woman who could do 320 on the leg press machine from her first day at the gym. She didn't have a lot of endurance, dexterity, or upper body strength when she started, but legs? Yeah, she had those, and after eight months, she was down to 180, and could leg press over twice her weight, and kick higher than her head. I hope she's kept up with it since I saw her last, but even in the still chunky range, I'd estimate she was seriously lethal with those kicks if she ever needed to be.
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Ligaments will usually thicken up if you use the muscles, but there's a lag of about 4 to 9 months. The point where a ligament attaches to bone actually has to gain cross sectional area more than the rest of the ligament does. That will grow in most young adults, and probably grow somewhat even in older persons with the right exercise. Jack Lalanne claimed ligament growth eventually caught up even for people who started serious exercise in their 70's. So, my guess would be that this treatment could put peop
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Insightful)
The human is the best animal in the brain department
Which we are using to (attempt to) become better than everything at everything.
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first off, you would have 40% more muscle with no effort. The ladies will be a callin'
Second off, you cold intimidate someone else to lift the DB server
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Funny)
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Big muscles used to be considered undesirable, since they were an indication of low social status. If it gets cheap and commonplace to get big muscles, they'll go out of fashion again. Their value as a signal is that they require dedication, time, and resources.
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Funny)
End result: Women stop liking big muscles. Slashdotters become the most desirable men on the planet. Cowboy Neal ends up on the cover of "Playgirl". Geeks begin outbreeding other social groups. They ultimately inherit the Earth.
I, for one, welcome the very brief reign of our muscly overlords.
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Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Insightful)
I would imagine that this would be incredibly useful to those with muscle wasting diseases.
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Interesting)
And astronauts: the muscular atrophy they experience at zero gee is quite profound, and is a real risk to extended space station or possible Mars missions.
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In order to work, the spacecraft needs a radius of rotation of at least tens of meters, otherwise the term "vomit comet" gets a whole new meaning. You also need some way to keep the thing balanced as people move around. Finally, all that rotation induces stress on the structure, so it needs to be thicker and heavier to withstand it.
In other words: not anytime soon.
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Funny)
The same thing we do every night Pinky; try to take over the World!
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Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Insightful)
I would guess the researchers are interested in the multi-billion-dollar weight-lifting supplement market.
There...
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Informative)
"The National Children's Hospital interest in myostatin is not to create super strong children, but to help those children whose muscles have already atrophied. Muscular Dystrophy (MD) affects thousands of children in the US who slowly lose muscle and rarely survive into adulthood. Follistatin gene therapy could serve as a method to extend their lives or perhaps even reverse the symptoms of their conditions. Likewise, the eldery are susceptible to several diseases that lead to a loss of muscle strength and coordination. By blocking myostatin, we may all be able to live with the strength of our youth even as we age into our 80s."
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Informative)
My research focuses almost exclusively on muscular dystrophy(MD) and I can tell you, with near certainty, that this approach will not help these patients. The problem with MD is that the whole regenerative process breaks down. Follistatin only acts within the framework of normal muscle regeneration. The problem is that these kids exhaust their normal regeneration abilities at an early age.
Muscle has remarkable regenerative potential due to a population of muscle stem cells. Follistatin enhances the regenerative response of these cells. The problem with MD is that these cells lose their regenerative potential as these patients approach adulthood. Instead of differentiating into muscle tissue, muscle stem cells turn into fibrotic scar tissue. These patients don't need an exaggerated stem cell response, they need something that promotes the normal regenerative process. On that front, therapies that antagonize TGF signalling are showing far more promise.
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:4, Insightful)
Likewise, the eldery are susceptible to several diseases that lead to a loss of muscle strength and coordination. By blocking myostatin, we may all be able to live with the strength of our youth even as we age into our 80s."
Get off my lawn or I'll THROW you off!
Re:Obvious (?) question (Score:5, Interesting)
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Those already exist, just google "belgium cows".
Conceptually the thing as the kid, cows born without the gene so they basically are giant masses of muscle.
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Super mutants going cheap (Score:2, Insightful)
Now I'll never finish my fortress! (Score:5, Informative)
My dwarves are going to be 100% more terrified when the monkeys have super strength!
Great, now I will beaten to death by my girlfriend (Score:2)
At least she won't smell musky and have a 'stache.....
No (Score:5, Funny)
No, not all of us.
Just soldiers and government agents.
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Fun at the Olympics in 20 years. (Score:4, Funny)
If you thought the German swimmers looked like men during the 80's and 90's just wait till this kicks for human use.
Helpful for the Obese... (Score:2)
One of the problems with wanting to lose weight is by the time you become a large tub, you no longer have enough muscle to move around and exercise. Now you can take this drug, have enough power to start working out and not feel like you are dying when you are starting out, which may increase the positive feedback effect.
Fastest way to burn calories is to gain musclemass (Score:4, Insightful)
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That would be awesome.
Also, getting modded so you absorb a small % of fat.
SO many great ways we could modify our bodies. If only I can be modded to generate electricity for my mobile devices*.
Please spare me the obvious matrix reference.
Re:Fastest way to burn calories is to gain musclem (Score:4, Funny)
The article also stated that Liam had to have a lot of protien, which makes sense if you are building excess muscle mass. Unfortunately your dream of converting Big Macs to bulging biceps is only 1/2 complete unless you can get extra beef rather than special sauce as part of your calorie intake. Empty calories alone probably aren't going to work.
Now then, your Whopper with a Protein Shake rather than that chocolate shake may do the trick.
Beefcake. BeefCake! BEEEEEEF CAKE!
Um, there are not-unforseen problems (Score:4, Insightful)
We have a world food distribution/shortage problem as it is. Imagine SUPER STRONG STARVING Humans.
http://www.ashtreehill.com/the-hungry.html [ashtreehill.com]
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Darn (Score:4, Funny)
consequences (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems like there is probably a reason we have myostatin and if you disable it, other health problems may result. We're just don't know what they are yet.
Further, it seems like the people most interested in taking this drug would be bodybuilders who already have a low body fat percentage...they have little fat to burn and now this reduces the ability to metabolize their muscle tissue. I could foresee that a small medical problem involving the digestive tract could turn into a complete crisis if they cannot get the energy they need to fight an infection from their own tissues when they need it most.
Re:consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
> Seems like there is probably a reason we have myostatin and if you disable
> it, other health problems may result.
You'll need to eat more.
And no, that isn't a joke. There is strong evolutionary pressure for nutritional efficiency. Carrying around muscles you don't need uses up calories you could have used to live through the drought. Not a problem now for most humans, but it really mattered for all animals until fairly recently.
Re:consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
Elephants have been larger in the past, the big ones are now extinct. Besides food inefficiency, cooling is a problem.
Re:consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know what a Mamut is, but it sounds like something that is pretty much impossible to kill with bare hands. Therefore there wouldn't be any large groups of humans who would battle Mamuts in hand-to-hand combat on a regular basis, thereby making those humans who are capable of winning in such contests the primary breeders and thus promoting those genetic traits that provided the necessary advantage to win. Similarly, no human has ever been able to build a structure using one ton stones by themselves, except through the use of tools. That would actually promote the evolution of tool-using capabilities rather than brute strength, which is the trait that I presume you were alluding to given the subject of the article. Similarly with the beheading of saber tooth tigers.
The human body is an astounding machine, but it has a lot of "disadvantages" that have been necessitated for efficiency, such as limiting mass for the sake of greater fuel efficiency and mobility. A vastly increased muscle mass is only viable as long as nutrition is readily available, which it just so happens to be in most industrialized nations right now. However, widespread scarcity has been the rule for most of humanity throughout the ages so there is no reason why anyone should have expected that such development would have taken place before now. Even now with the huge caloric availability that we have, there is still no reason why this sort of extreme increase in musculature would be naturally bred into humans since raw strength is even less of a major measure of fitness as it pertains to evolution than ever before.
Point being that just because we haven't evolved the massive strength gains sought by the product being tested, it doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't biologically viable. We just haven't had an evolutionary need to do so the slow, natural way.
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There is a theory that early human hunters would spear a big, strong, fast furry critter and then just keep following the thing at a steady pace until it collapsed from exhaustion. We seem to be built for the long run instead of the short sprint.
Personally I'm looking for the genetic modification that lets me get by on about an hour of sleep a night.
Re:consequences (Score:4, Interesting)
I think I read something (in the same article as I read about the endurance hunting you reference) that humans already deal with sleep deprivation better than most of the animal kingdom. It's one of the reasons that endurance hunting works for us but other predators can't do it.
I don't think knowledge workers like slashdotters would want to go without sleep long-term. Sleep is when learning happens (moving memory traces from short-term into long-term memory). Even if you could, why would you want to kick your cognition in the teeth like that?
Re:consequences (Score:5, Interesting)
I may be completely wrong, but I would definitely want to see the long term effects of something like this before I start injecting myself with water from the wrong cup [youtube.com]
Super Soldiers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Super Soldiers? (Score:5, Interesting)
The military has been working on what I'd call troop supplement vehicles. Basically, they are small cart vehicles able to carry a couple thousand pounds. They can follow a soldier around, or manually controlled to perform delivery tasks during a fire fight. Beats a 40% increase in strength by far.
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I am pretty sure they could find a use for both.
Re:Super Soldiers? (Score:5, Funny)
The military has been working on what I'd call troop supplement vehicles. Basically, they are small cart vehicles able to carry a couple thousand pounds. They can follow a soldier around, or manually controlled to perform delivery tasks during a fire fight. Beats a 40% increase in strength by far.
They'll need those to carry all the food the new super soldiers will have to eat.
Re:Super Soldiers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Law enforcement already have a problem with 'roids. Even if the new drug doesn't directly affect moods, it could cause harmful or fatal overestimation of strength and ability.
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Re:Super Soldiers? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can imagine he probably goes through a crapload of toilet paper too.
Being muscular might not be worth spending half your life eating, not being able to sleep because you have to eat, and then the rest on the crapper.
Re:Super Soldiers? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Super Soldiers? (Score:5, Funny)
But now we can have soldiers that go to eleven!
~X~
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Can you provide a reference for that? I was under the impression we had around a 25 hour cycle, and my single data point agreed.
Help for the Elderly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Help for the Elderly? (Score:4, Interesting)
Come to think of it, the elderly also have weakened joints and tendons, and that might be an even bigger problem. You would need extra strength in the bone-bone and bone-muscle connections to handle the extra muscle.
Skeptical about significant increase Caloric Needs (Score:5, Informative)
While true that muscle burns more calories at rest and that a more heavier, more muscular person needs more calories than a lighter, thinner person I think most slashdotters are overestimating the effects. I mean the little hulk kid is growing too. All toddlers eat like little monsters. Anyway, a pound of muscle at rest burns 35 to 50 calories a day, so up to 500 calories for ten pounds of new muscle per day. So lets do some quick math. The average American male is made up of about 42% skeletal muscle, which at 185 lbs that is roughly 75 pounds of muscle. If you increase the muscle mass by 40% (Yes, I RTFA) that is about 30 lbs of new muscle. Pretty awesome when you think about it, but that still only burns an extra 1500 calories a day max. Most Americans overeat that amount anyway. I don't think anyone would be starving, they would just be harder and fitter. A big mac has over 500 calories to put that into perspective.
I think a more interesting question is what do you do if this is readily available, cheap and easy to use? Would you do it? What if you are an active amateur cyclist working your way up the local ranks? They guys are gonna love you coming in with your extra 30 lbs of muscle and storm by them up the local hill. Do we start over with all the record books? This isn't exactly roids but it isn't exactly a tough training plan that you earned your fitness with either.
Re:Skeptical about significant increase Caloric Ne (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Skeptical about significant increase Caloric Ne (Score:5, Informative)
Ah, the old 'lactic acid' canard. Lactic acid as a cause of muscle fatigue was debunked years ago. Get with the program people.
http://www.mensfitness.com/fitness/203 [mensfitness.com]
Lactic acid does not cause muscle fatigue.
"How It Started: Research conducted nearly 100 years ago (on frog muscles, no less) suggested that lactic-acid levels within muscles increased with fatigue.
The Truth: "Lactic acid increases with fatigue because it's fueling your muscle contractions," says Chad Waterbury, a strength coach in Los Angeles. It causes the painful burning sensation in your muscles that makes you want to stop lifting, but your liver is also converting lactic acid into more energy, so it's actually helping to offset fatigue. Muscle fatigue is prompted by an accumulation of protons within the muscles, which is caused by the breakdown of glycogen, the stored carbohydrate that helps to fuel exercise."
In one study, animal muscles were injected with lactic acid and actually performed longer with less fatigue, thoroughly and forever debunking the idea.
I always wondered... (Score:4, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fitting quote from the incredibles (Pixar) (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember super-baby... BAD idea (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the details I recall from the story and discussion about super-baby was that if there was a way to make this happen in normal people, that it would be a bad idea because there is a limit to the amount of muscular growth possible and would result in a premature exhaustion of that potential. And I don't recall what the consensus actually was on the effects it could have on bone development and maintenance, but I can't imagine it would be good either.
The body is the way it is for good reasons. You can thank "god" for it or you can thank evolutionary forces. Whatever the case, I can't imagine that this is a favorable mutation to induce.
On the other hand, if it helps muscular dystrophy kids, I'm completely for it being tested on humans.
Of intense interest. (Score:3)
My career in the Army left me with a damaged back and knees, making it difficult for me to engage in meaningful exercise (or even stand for more than fifteen minutes). Among other complications, like joint stability, this also leave me fighting to control my weight.
Anything that can give me a leg-up on overcoming these problems would be welcome.
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In this case, it's not even a banned substance, it's a banned gene therapy treatment -- at least it should be easy to detect. Guess we need to start rewriting the rules now to deal with athletes with modified DNA.
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http://www.steroid.com/ [steroid.com]
Hey, yeah, that'll probably work!
Re:I hope it never becomes available to normal peo (Score:3, Interesting)
So your argument boils down to "I worked hard and now there's an easy solution, it should be banned to make me feel superior."? I guess your really hate that using a computer no longer requires programming knowledge as well?
Also, what about the kid who grew up with parents who fed him/her shitty fast food every day and by the time he/she was old enough to realize it was the crappy diet turning him/her into a fatty he/she was already at that point where exercise was a lot harder than it would've been for som
Re:I hope it never becomes available to normal peo (Score:4, Insightful)
Well also consider this. What happens when everyone is either nice and skinny or super ripped? Our human nature is still to be competitive, so there will be plenty of us still striving to be physically better than the guy standing next to you. When does it end?
Another possibility is that when/if it becomes easy for anyone to be healthy and fit it will no longer be a major source of "competition" and people will focus on other factors (although the initial reaction will probably be that some people will take the fitness thing too far in order to outdo everyone else).
Your argument about how children are raised is pretty weak. There was always junk food available in my home growing up, and I turned out fine. My brothers on the other hand are morbidly obese. I chose to ask my parents to let me play ice hockey, and they did. Several players from my team came from the forceful parents who only served healthy food types of homes, and they all turned into fat slobs when they left for college. I know dozens of people who were terribly fat as children, and made the conscious choice to change themselves for the better. It's all about personal choice once you become an adult. Blaming your parents for making you fat once you've passed the age of 25 is complete and utter BS.
No, it's not weak. Research has shown that obese children are a lot more likely to end up as obese adults, and a lot of obese children are obese because of their parents (what five year-old knows enough about nutrition to understand that candy bars are unhealthy if no one tells him/her this?).
And an individual with parents who made him/her stay fit up to age 18 has a "running start" compared to someone who was always "that fat kid", staying fit is a lot easier than becoming fit, so most likely there are lots of fat people out there who are a lot more motivated and try a lot harder to get into shape than you think, especially compared to those who were basically forced to stay super-fit by parents dreaming of their child becoming a world-class athlete.
I suppose I just don't like the idea of fat, lazy people sitting around thinking "Oh I can have another dozen donuts, it's ok, smart scientists will figure out a way to make me skinny." It's like not working because you know you can get welfare from the taxes of the people who do.
The "oh I can just get welfare" attitude is a lot less common than you think, and it's not like most of those with that attitude started out with it, from what I've seen it's something that comes with the 100th or so rejected job application, people just give up and say "fuck it, if no one wants me to work then I'll just sit here and watch TV".
/Mikael
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I hope mass-production never becomes available to normal people.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see it available for people with a legitimate medical need. I would just hate to see just anyone get things.
I'm probably going to get modded flamebait for this one, but here goes...
I work hard to make everything in my house. I practice carpentry and woodworking every day. I choose how I spend my time very carefully, and I don't give in when I'd rather do something else, like work on my physique. I have earned the
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Have you ever seen the episode of Futurama where Fry starts dating a Lucy Liu robot? They show an educational film titled "Don't Date Robots!" that explains if you could just hook up with a beautiful robot woman all day who didn't care what you looked like, what your personality was like, how smart or successful you were, or what your hygiene habits were like, you wouldn't be motivated to ever do anything else. Hell, if