Thanks for these comments, Claudia. I originally thought this might be a 
Swiftian "modest proposal" as well. But then I recognized the name of August 
Sandberg, a prominent Trashumanist: 
http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/our_staff/research/anders_sandberg
and looked up Liao and Roache and found that they are also philosophers in 
the transhumanist Future of Humanity Institute, though Liao seems to have 
moved to NYU. They're not kidding.

Transhumanism is easy to ridicule, but it is an extension of 20th century 
eugenics, which also looked like a crackpot venture, until it was not. 
Transhumanism has gained some traction at the Google-sponsored Singularity 
University in California. I've written a bit about the history of these 
movements in the attached article.

Stuart


On Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:01:59 -0700, Claudia Pine 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>To be honest, after the first few paragraphs I concluded it is a
>tongue-in-cheek satire on all of this expensive, techno-driven chatter
>about how we should change the planet - or here, the people - rather than
>take the simple solution of changing our stupid, shortsighted, ethnocentric
>and profit-driven behaviors.
>
>After all, their proposals that we genetically and pharmaceutically alter
>human size, appetite, etc., on a massive scale are no more ridiculous
>("worthy of ridicule") than the equally massive geoengineering proposals
>that the authors are ridiculing.  Either approach would require so much
>money, so many kinds of complicated and untested technologies, so much
>coercive and centralized government, compared to the simple solution of us
>just stopping any substantial combination of the ridiculous overpopulation,
>overconsumption of resources, and overproduction of waste that we now
>engage in, for few reasons other than careless habit and thoughtless greed.
>
>But then, I kept reading their carefully laid-out arguments. They seem to
>be serious! They advance various examples or experimental data that they
>suggest backs up the feasibility of their proposals. Of course, the work
>referenced is heavily cherry-picked. It's highly selective, and ignores
>many, many other considerations, requirements, and implications, that would
>come into play if you started giving people a drug that causes them to eat
>less beef because it makes them nauseous when they smell it.  Needless to
>say, few current hamburger fans would agree to take this drug - and even
>fewer fast-food chains would agree to add it to their beef!  Talk about pie
>(or beef pie) in the sky.
>
>So I'm torn. Do these authors realize they've written a total farce? Is
>this article meant as a complete, Jonathan Swift-style satire of the whole
>techno-optimistic silliness that has so many scientists and politicians
>constantly proposing trillion-billion-dollar engineering fixes to far
>simpler problems of everyday human behavior?
>
>At the end, I have taken it as a brilliant satire, whether it was intended
>as that or not.  It's like Mitt Romney saying "and my wife drives a couple
>of Cadillacs" thinking that this shows he understands the ordinary
>wage-earner. Whether the speaker is aware of it or not, his words
>demonstrate how out of touch with reality he is.
>
>I'm absolutely delighted Stuart Newman posted the link - thank you, Stuart!
>
>Claudia Pine
>Idaho, USA
>