This of course brings us to the issue that is at the root of some of our biggest fears, and perhaps some of our biggest hopes- the genetic modification of humans. Transhumanists see this as a good thing- granted, the tools currently at our disposal are crude, but they are there, and with them is the potential to make humanity greater, to make us genetically "perfect," and so much more. Imagine clinical immortality, the ability to live forever and be all but invulnerable to the dangers one might face in everyday life. Sure, we'd end up with a population problem, but that gives us all the more reason to expand out into the stars and institute global birth-control restrictions. More realistic, imagine an end to diseases and the afflictions of humanity- through Nanotechnology and retroviral engineering, the genetic modification of humans has the potential to make our immune systems invulnerable to anything that might try to compromise them, even age itself. Perhaps even closer to home would be the ability to choose what genetic traits your children will have- Reprogenetics has already given us the ability to more or less choose the sex of a baby through artificial insemination, and everything else is only a handful of steps away. But can we really achieve this post-human condition in our lifetimes? The answer is likely a hearty yes, but then again, do we really want to? It all comes down to asking ourselves if we're really ready to take the chances, shoulder the burden and raise the technological stakes again, double or nothing. Are we ready to open up a whole new can of worms and utterly redirect the course of our own evolution as a species? Are we competent enough to play God in such a profound way, following a path that could lead to something glorious, as well as those things that plague the appearance and practice of every other revolutionary technology, a whole new slew of dilemmas and moral issues, and there are some very serious dilemmas- consider the fact that everything genetically engineered has a patent. Do we really want our children, our bodies, and practically everything else in our lives to be owned and controlled by corporations? Cash is king, and the potential to profit from the evolution of humanity is great indeed.

So, where will the future take us? Like all those dreamers of the past, we can only speculate. Will laws become lax enough to bring us a morally questionable future of human hybrids that are traded and treated as livestock or slaves? Will we see a future of ageless and genetically "perfect" clones, or will our careful footsteps into this daunting field result in something more sinister? Perhaps something grand? But even these dreams may merely be dust in the wind, something to be laughed at decades down the line, looked upon much the same way that we look upon the dreamers of the early twentieth century, predicting a flying car in every garage, or a culture of toga-wearing philosophers carefully cared for by sentient machinery that measures its processing capability in kilobytes. Who knows? Only time will truly tell for certain.