The Na'vi, Humanity, and Post-Technologicalism

[Tsyal Makto]

1. The Na'vi language has names for illness or disease so it cannot be true that they never suffer illnesses and the reason why we probably don't see any birth defects is because most likely they just abandon imperfect newborn children to the jungle. Yes I am talking about infanticide of those that do not meet their survival criteria, sounds horrendous from a moral and ethical point of view but from a bare bones survival point of view it does make sense.

IIRC it says in the Survival Guide that there is no (or little) disease on Pandora (something to do with the plants). If there is disease it is probably the occasional infected wound or parasite. And even then, they probably recover a lot quicker than humans would. The Na'vi don't suffer from things like the common cold/flu, and aren't dropping dead en masse due to things like plagues.

Given the advanced biology of Pandora, I bet the rates of birth defects are close to, if not zero. The Na'vi are much more evolved than humans

2. There is no way we could possibly bio-engineer immunity against all possible pathogens but they could make bodies heal faster and definitely become stronger, I see no need to be taller though nor to make one;s skin blue.

Again, while a few diseases might slip under the radar, we should have the ability to bio-engineer away the majority of diseases like most bacterium, viruses, and genetic disorders (scientists believe we might be able to do that within our lifetimes!).

Being taller would probably benefit humanity (I'm short, so I guess I'm biased), because, well, it would extend the benefits of being tall to more people. Obviously not Na'vi height (that would be uncomfortable on Earth), but maybe increasing the average height to the high 6' to low 7'. Though I wouldn't mind having a tail, for the obvious performance benefits (plus they look cool).

LOL, I don't know how many people would go for being blue (I would, but I digress), but we could increase the effectiveness of melanin to increase vitamin D production, as well as further reduce the risk of skin cancer.

3. The movie Avatar was never about starting a crusade to get rid of all technology and go back to live in caves as many all over have mistakenly assumed.

Depends on who you ask. A lot of people in the transhumanist community thought it had a strong transhumanist message.

James Cameron's Avatar is about Transhumanism | Second Tense

I personally feel it criticizes an overuse of technology. Look at humans today, we're soft. We live in climate-controlled, secure shelters, eat prepared food from the grocery store or resturaunts, and can go days without walking a mile. Honestly, it would be a disaster if a massive solar storm hit, no one would be able to survive. A little more nature would do us good IMO, we could use a little sculpting as a species.