Project: One Tough Bastard.
Jan. 8th, 2005 11:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynGOAL: The Ultimate Survivable Human.
Phase 1: Using only DNA from people currently alive, or with known, verifiably preserved body samples in existence, build the most survivable human possible. Sources must have demonstrated a genuinely outstanding, verified act of physical survival and/or stamina that did not leave them genetically altered (radiation survivors are going to have a hard time making the cut). The use/assistance of medical technology is permissible.
EXAMPLES: Viktor Yuschenko, survivor of world's second highest recorded dose of dioxin. (No name currently available for survivor of world's highest dose, a woman poisoned in 1997 in Vienna, but she's on the list too.) Jeanna Giese, first human being to survive rabies without the use of vaccine. Any one of the Kenyan prostitute cohort who exhibit resistance/immunity to HIV. Professor Stephen Hawking, diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1963, still alive. Jackie Chan, who by all rights ought to be dead of repeated breaks, tears, rips, and strains but instead continues an action-and-stunt-based career. The unnamed man in Bulgaria who recently survived a blood alcohol level of 0.914 percent. Lance Armstrong. Martin Markwell, a British surfer who was caught unawares by the Boxing Day tsunami and was forced to ride the wave to shore; while he was not physically harmed, the sheer level of luck demonstrated by Mr. Markwell's act cannot be seen as anything but a survival trait.
Further suggestions happily being taken. Please present documented examples not debunked by snopes.com, James Randi, or similar.
Phase 2: Raise the resultant child in a fashion designed to bring about maximum long-term survivability through inner strength, resiliency, ethics, morals, and independence. 'Survival of the fittest' ideologies not welcome on the grounds that the vast majority are little more than justification of 'me first, everyone else gets the pieces' and rarely produce genuine long-term viability in those who bear them or their successors. The child's home should be one that establishes both a physically and a mentally healthy foundation for it to draw upon, while at the same time inculcating them to dangers, hazards, and the thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to- but not excessively so. Long-term stress is bad for body and psyche alike and too likely to render the child unviable as an adult. For preference, the child's moral and philosophical exemplars should be drawn from the ranks of human beings who have endured terrific trauma / horror / upheaval and remained both sane and decent. Particular emphasis to be given to those who went through Hell and came out still themselves, rather than walking masses of mental/emotional scar tissue.
Suggested examples to include in the curriculum: Terry Anderson, Dietrich Bonhoffer, Elie Wiesel, his Holiness Tenzin Gyatso (the current Dalai Lama), Sojourner Truth.
Further suggestions happily being taken. As the curriculum is not being limited to those who wrote about themselves, feel free to point in the direction of others you consider appropriate, giving a link to some example or a title of some work of theirs not available on the Net.
ETA: Phase 2 is to include: a full-spectrum set of immunizations (preferably delivered one at a time where possible, and confirmed with blood titers afterwards- I was vaccinated against measles THREE BLOODY TIMES because #1 and #2 could not be demonstrated to have worked). Also, the child is to be raised in the presence of: dirt, legumes, a wide variety of foods, and at least two fur-bearing pets. Feather and scale exposure also a good idea. I am NOT going to have the OTB felled at age eleven due to peanut allergy and/or weird dander problems.
Phase 1: Using only DNA from people currently alive, or with known, verifiably preserved body samples in existence, build the most survivable human possible. Sources must have demonstrated a genuinely outstanding, verified act of physical survival and/or stamina that did not leave them genetically altered (radiation survivors are going to have a hard time making the cut). The use/assistance of medical technology is permissible.
EXAMPLES: Viktor Yuschenko, survivor of world's second highest recorded dose of dioxin. (No name currently available for survivor of world's highest dose, a woman poisoned in 1997 in Vienna, but she's on the list too.) Jeanna Giese, first human being to survive rabies without the use of vaccine. Any one of the Kenyan prostitute cohort who exhibit resistance/immunity to HIV. Professor Stephen Hawking, diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1963, still alive. Jackie Chan, who by all rights ought to be dead of repeated breaks, tears, rips, and strains but instead continues an action-and-stunt-based career. The unnamed man in Bulgaria who recently survived a blood alcohol level of 0.914 percent. Lance Armstrong. Martin Markwell, a British surfer who was caught unawares by the Boxing Day tsunami and was forced to ride the wave to shore; while he was not physically harmed, the sheer level of luck demonstrated by Mr. Markwell's act cannot be seen as anything but a survival trait.
Further suggestions happily being taken. Please present documented examples not debunked by snopes.com, James Randi, or similar.
Phase 2: Raise the resultant child in a fashion designed to bring about maximum long-term survivability through inner strength, resiliency, ethics, morals, and independence. 'Survival of the fittest' ideologies not welcome on the grounds that the vast majority are little more than justification of 'me first, everyone else gets the pieces' and rarely produce genuine long-term viability in those who bear them or their successors. The child's home should be one that establishes both a physically and a mentally healthy foundation for it to draw upon, while at the same time inculcating them to dangers, hazards, and the thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to- but not excessively so. Long-term stress is bad for body and psyche alike and too likely to render the child unviable as an adult. For preference, the child's moral and philosophical exemplars should be drawn from the ranks of human beings who have endured terrific trauma / horror / upheaval and remained both sane and decent. Particular emphasis to be given to those who went through Hell and came out still themselves, rather than walking masses of mental/emotional scar tissue.
Suggested examples to include in the curriculum: Terry Anderson, Dietrich Bonhoffer, Elie Wiesel, his Holiness Tenzin Gyatso (the current Dalai Lama), Sojourner Truth.
Further suggestions happily being taken. As the curriculum is not being limited to those who wrote about themselves, feel free to point in the direction of others you consider appropriate, giving a link to some example or a title of some work of theirs not available on the Net.
ETA: Phase 2 is to include: a full-spectrum set of immunizations (preferably delivered one at a time where possible, and confirmed with blood titers afterwards- I was vaccinated against measles THREE BLOODY TIMES because #1 and #2 could not be demonstrated to have worked). Also, the child is to be raised in the presence of: dirt, legumes, a wide variety of foods, and at least two fur-bearing pets. Feather and scale exposure also a good idea. I am NOT going to have the OTB felled at age eleven due to peanut allergy and/or weird dander problems.
