this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2025
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So if I understand you correctly, if I remove my lungs, I’m a bee? My aunt had lung cancer, so they’ll probably kill me, anyway. I’ll report back on the results.
No because you’re likely too big (no offense) :(
I think insects have little holes all over their bodies, in which air gets inside by itself through some physics shenanigans. It doesn’t need to be actively sucked in like with lungs, it just happens because they’re so small.
This method doesn’t scale up though since if you’re bigger, you need more air, and having little holes all over your body won’t cut it. Thats when you know you need lungs, and that’s why you don’t see insects the size of a dog these days (thankfully).
There used to be times in the Earth’s history (Carboniferous) where the air’s composition was different though, and since it had more oxygen in it, insects could grow a lot larger.
So theoretically if we terraformed the Earth we would be free to genetically engineer humans to survive without lungs?
They wouldn't be human. So much of us is built around our lungs, including our ability to speak that anything adapted to survive without them would be as different from a human as a human is from other lung-less animals. Even if they were more intelligent, they would not look or act remotely like a human.
Keyword suggestion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
Okay, first of all, how dare you bring evidence and reason into this.
On a more serious note, I agree with the position mentioned in the second paragraph that transhumanism results in a posthuman being, that is, a species that is not human.
Human is such a flaky word, and species isn't much better. I'd bet there could be a situation in which they can successfully interbreed with relatively modern humans and still produce viable offspring, so still the same species. Human doesn't even require homo sapiens though. It can include other species that have the traits of humans.
You're not wrong. One group will displace the other, though. Some of us Homo Sapiens still have genes from Homo Neanderthalensis. Neanderthals aren't around anymore, though. Also, archeological evidence suggests they didn't spend much time together.