And I'd say your description of the communication issues the autistic face is a definite disadvantage. The intelligence boost in 50% of mild cases isn't worth it.

You've never actually met an autistic person have you? It is NOT an advantage in 99.99999% of cases, A few people with mild cases can live normal lives, but this is the exception. Most autistic people cannot live on their own and require close supervision 24x7. Most people, even saintly social workers, find it extremely unrewarding, frustrating, and generally unbearable working with autistic people.

Autism is a horrible affliction.

Companies are "persons" only for the purpose of applying a few laws, not in a general legal sense, even in the USA.

No, limited liability corps limit the financial liability to the company, and prevent the owners from being personally responsible for DEBT the company racks up.

Limited liability companies were invented to encourage investment in risky ventures, like buying a ship and sending it to India for the spice trade. If the venture failed creditors could only go after the companies assets, not your personal assets.

Limited liability companies have no affect on criminal responsibility. It is hard to sue individuals in companies for criminal acts because it is generally very hard to determine which individual is responsible. Who knew, who decided? It can be very hard to prove.

You are confusing the term science and secular.

There are lots of secular charities, and they do a lot of good.The modern welfare state is one form of very well organized secular charity.

1/3 of American Christians do think the bible should be taken literally, according to various polls. 56% think the bible should "have a greater role in society", yet - 57% didn't read the bible at all the year the poll was taken. 75% of people in the USA think the bible is the word of god, or inspired by god.

If you accept the Bible to be the "word of god", and most Americans do, then you are NOT taking it metaphorically. But, on the other hand most Americans haven't actually read the whole bible and only hear the "good" parts in church, as selected by their pastor. The evidence is overwhelming that most USA christians have a simple, literal, or almost literal, belief in the bible. They are not taking it metaphorically.

Once you decide that the bible should be taken "metaphorically" how does one decide what it really means? How does one decide which parts should be ignored? How does one decide which parts are good? It appears that most theologians are using rational, post enlightenment ideals, to cherry pick the good parts from the bible, and explaining away the parts that are evil, or contradicted by science as metaphor. Once you start down this path you are pretty close not needing the bible at all for your moral outlook, and discarding the iron age myths in favour of modern secular morals will seem a sensible step.

Actually all rich countries birth rate is too low to support the current population and would be shrinking if not for immigration.

Life extension would just accelerate this trend.

Contraceptives make your perpetual war unnecessary

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Since when has being beyond an evolutionary incentive had anything to do with morality. We vaccinate our children, wash our hands, build sewage treatment plants, etc... all of which subvert evolution. If you can make peoples lives better and longer it is right to do so.

"Death is wrong" is a silly thing to say philosophically because wrong and right only apply to the actions and decisions of sentient being, like humans, not the actions of natural forces like earthquakes and senescence.

I DO want to beat death because I like living and experiencing. If I could live forever I would. I'd settle for a few thousand years.

Why is transhumanism a fantasy? Our consciousness arises from the functioning of our physical brain and if we can duplicate that functioning in a machine then we can live much, much longer than we live know.

I concede we are a long ways from the technology to duplicate human consciousness in a machine, but it isn't a fantasy.

Divisive? If your neighbors were trying to teach everyone that children should dress in black and play on highways at night would you call it divisive to point that isn't a good idea?

All the benefits of religion can be had from secular means that don't encourage magical thinking, which has a long track record of having numerous bad side affects.

Ignorance is easily cured in people without faith by teaching them. Ignorance in the faithful is often immune to any teaching that contradicts the person's faith.

Thus, faith is the enemy of science, not ignorance.

Even thinking that having faith is a good idea means that your whole outlook on the way the world and reality works is at odds with science.

..that electronic crap...

Well, I haven't seen such a proud display of ignorance for quite some time. Modern cars are so much more reliable, powerful, fuel efficient and safe due to all that "electronic crap". Fuel, injection, engine timing, gear shifts. etc... are all control electronically on most new cars. You can make an automatic transmission a lot smarter if you have software determining shifts instead of fluid pressure.

The average driver isn't that good, and the computer driven car only has to be better than how people drive. In the USA about 30,000 people die each year in car accidents, and many more are injured. I'm betting driver error was the cause of 90% of these accidents.

Computer driven cars are going to save lives, reduce congestion, and save money.

Man, the USA is weird. All this talk about freedom, but you allow, nay demand, to live in a police state. The police in Canada would not arrest you for an un-returned video no matter how long you had it because it is an obvious civil matter to be resolved by small claims court. It isn't theft, it is breach of contract. In Canada if you rent something and keep it too long it isn't theft. Yes, you have broken the law, and the owner of the video can take you to court, but you can't go to jail unless you fail to return the video after losing your small claims case, and then you would be going to jail for contempt, not theft.