If you could add, remove, or alter one single bodily function, what would it be?
I'll start by saying that I'd get rid of the need to shit. I'm pretty sure everyone can agree that it's unpleasant.
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I'll start by saying that I'd get rid of the need to shit. I'm pretty sure everyone can agree that it's unpleasant.
needing food. that would free up a lot of time and money, no input = no output. no dishes, no stove or fridge, no need for a dishwasher, then on the other end, no need for TP, or even a toilet!
This was my comment. My dad and I felt that same way but my grandmother just couldn’t understand how we could.
If I never needed to eat, that’d be wonderful. No more getting fat ever again and I’d probably be 100 times healthier.
If you're still regenerating tissue, your body is still producing weight. Drastically reduced (I'd guess by 75% total, of which 2/3 is dead digestive bacteria you'd no longer need), but still existent.
Fun fact, you don't defecate out weight loss, either. You exhale carbon in CO2
If I breathe more, would I lose more weight?
Not effectively. You'll just have a lower concentration of CO2 in your exhaled air. Maybe it'll stay the same with the increase in exertion by breathing more, but that'd be a good way to estimate how little energy your breathing consumes compared to proper exercise. And after all that, exercise is pretty slow to burn calories as well. The good news is your brain burns calories by thinking harder, an activity we're both now involved in
This guy thinks so, but you also have to do cold plunges. And is more about converting your fat into a better kind of fat.
https://www.wimhofmethod.com/
I'm just gonna learn from you and fart glitter. I'm pretty sure I can lose weight that way..
Fat contains long hydrocarbon H-C-H chains (with other stuff at the end). When it's broken down to release energy, it combines with (3) oxygen O2 molecules, making H=O=H (water, H2O) that you sweat, pee or breathe out, and O=C=O (carbon dioxide) that your breathe out. Carbon accounts for significantly more of the weight than the hydrogen and it's in this sense that you breathe it out.
If you breathe significantly more without exercise, you'll hyperventilate, which I'm sure is even less fun than the exercise in lengthy doses, and I don't think you'll lose weight.
I would eliminate the ability for humans to reproduce.
Have you SEEN people?
Have you seen a birth? Not fun
Honestly, I have. Not in person though, but on PBS Public Television.
I do not have the parts to experience child birth, but indeed it does not look like a fun experience.
Yeah so my partner gave birth to twins in a c-section.
I also do not have the parts but hoo-boy that was the experience of a lifetime, and not necessarily all fun / happy joyous.
Basically the pregnant person is on the table and they erect a sheet vertically just below her arms. Then dad (me) sits by her head and holds her hand while the magic happens.
It seemed like there was about a dozen people in the theatre, the kids each having their own team of pediatrician and nurses.
It was a complex pregnancy and while everyone is fit and well now the 48 hours following that operation were pretty terrifying.
As long as we can still practice.
LMFAO! Touché salesman!
I wanted to say allergies, but I am not sure you mean abnormal stuff too.
Breathing otherwise. Annoying + can't stay underwater for long enough.
Though if add, direct thought + feeling sharing. Current communication is way too inefficient.
Pretty much all answers here should be valid, have an upvote 👍
Another thought, it would be nice if our hair didn't grow like any longer than an inch or so, where people wouldn't need regular haircuts or complicated hair styles.
I mean sure, ladies wouldn't be able to grow their hair out as is fairly common these days, but if our hair always stayed relatively short, it would be perfectly normal, and would save us the hassle of going to the barber.
Or just have the ability to control how fast it grows.
On/off switch
There was a sci-fi book a while back where all humans were gone, and all that was left was a thriving android civilization expanding across the solar system. The main character was built on the base of a sex bot, and had the ability to set the speed of her hair growth, and color. At one point she gets tied to some tracks (a city on Mercury that traveled around the planet) to be eliminated (she was a spy) and ends up getting away by forcing her hair to grow at a rate so fast it came out weak and easy to tear. Super weird book, but I thought of it when I read the comment I was responding to. And yes, on/off was part of it.
Surprised nobody said cell degradation.
You now can live for as long as you're not killed whilst physically keeping an appearance of an ~30 y.o. This also technically prevents cancer.
In the end there can be only one!
I like this, but you can't have kids and be immortal, that's a recipe for overpopulation.
Would enjoy not aging past adulthood (or not past 45, that was my "vampire age"), but life has to end unless you want all the same people around forever and no or very few new ones.
Everyone's saying the need to sleep. That goes a bit too far IMO. Who knows it would work out as we think it to be? Maybe the 33% we sleep will just be reduced off our lifespan with nothing won.
Also, honestly, even if that wouldn't be the case - I wouldn't want to not sleep at all. It's like a regular break from life. Even if employers wouldn't exploit this, I don't want to be awake forever.
Now, here's my proposal: We still need to sleep, but we can control falling asleep and waking up like it's a muscle. Lay in bed and fall asleep anytime. No more falling-asleep issues for anyone, no more sleepless nights.
And also, we'd have a perfect inner clock and the ability to choose when we wake up. Fall asleep at 11 PM, have to get up at 7? Great, you know exactly when 8hrs are over and are able to just wake up, no alarm needed.
Remove need to sleep. You would get ~33% more time every day.
I can't wait to work 24 hours a day! No pesky sleep getting in the way anymore.
Sleep's the only thing stopping you from working 24 hours?
It's the only thing stopping the people in charge of our society from mandating 16-hour days
We’d just be exploited for our labor 33% more.
There’s only one good answer to this question period.
Toenail growth.
Cutting nails is annoying, and toenails are awkward and stupid.
Required to grow so they recover from damage.
Following the spirit of my post, I would assume that toenails would no longer receive damage and would hopefully last through a person's lifetime.
Side thought, it would be nice if teeth didn't rot...
That thing when you accidentally swallow the smallest amount of spit the wrong way and start coughing like mad
Biting my cheeks or tongue while eating
Oof, I can totally relate 👍
I would like to correct the gut-brain connection. 95% of the time our gut tells our brain that it wants something, and it's trying to say it wants water, but the brain hears that the gut is hungry.
My gut just wants beer right now.
Have an upvote 👍
The "loosing hair where I want it to grow and growing it where I definitely don't want it to grow" thing.
Remove the need to exercise, like an anaconda. The ability to just lay around doing nothing and still be ripped to the max. That would be cool!
˙˙˙ǝɹǝɥ uᴉ ƃuᴉɯᴉɥɔ ɐɔᴉɹǝɯ∀ ɥʇnoS
Add Wolverine/Deadpool healing factor.
I'd like to urinate from my thumbs at will.
Who is Will, and what did he do?
😂🤣
Can I add wings? I wouldn’t mind being able to fly around!
You can absolutely add wings!
Have an upvote 👍
Yeah not too many people in this thread have considered the “adds” it seems! Do you have an add?
Awesome question!
I would add a stem cell gland to help with healing injuries and stuff.
Whoa you just took it to another level. I think I like yours better!
Sneezing/snot production. Sure, it can feel amazing. But the sudden urgency to stop everything I'm doing and focus on my nose or risk a disgusting eruption of green mucus all over my face in a public setting is something I could do without.
Also, I'm waiting for someone with medical knowledge to come in here and mention Prions or something else silently devastating to the body.
Shitting feels good... I would just alter it so it doesn't smell bad, tastes like brownie batter, and isn't toxic.
Excuse me, I just farted. What the fuck did I just read? 😂🤣
Our dog is named Brownie, I'm not in any hurry to taste his batter.
Anyways, free upvotes for everyone today 👍
Sleep.
Welcome to 22 hour work shifts, with twenty minute breaks.
Twenty minute whats?
Idk sounds like commie talk
Haha. Not what I meant but I guess it works too.
Am salaried and also had the exact same thought. I haven’t had a work break in … 10 years at least. My fault, yeah.
Make everyone shit rounded rare earth metal cylinders. Suddenly we don't need Cobalt and Lithium mines any more and the worst aspects of having to poop are solved too. It's dry and doesn't stink, so no need for the toilet, just poop in your little collection bucket, no need for wiping and then you go on with your day.
Squeezing a metal cylinder out my chute sounds a lot less pleasant than just pooping poop.
Haha fair enough, I was thinking of multiple little ones not singular big ones. Think of bunny droppings or something.
Sweating. I wanna be exclusively water cooled. None of this evaporative cooling BS. Just swap fluid every six months to a year. I always need moving air anyways…
To be water cooled we would need some kind of radiator, I guess moving blood through your extremities could work but seems risky from an evolutionary perspective. Like if you're hot from running from a predator your hands and feet would be flush with blood.
Also I think evaporative cooling could help you maintain a body temp of 38 when the ambient temp is somewhat warmer than that like 45 or so. I don't think a radiator could do that.
Sorry to get all practical in this thread about not needing to poop. I was just kinda thinking out loud.
All answers are valid here, we're all basically thinking and daydreaming out loud.
Have an upvote 👍
Eliminate the need to sleep.
As others have mentioned:
Welcome to 24 hour work days...
Have an upvote regardless 👍
Well you didn't say for everyone... So maybe he meant just for himself :)
Dangit!
Have an upvote 👍
Surprised nobody's mentioned adding a 2nd penis yet...
You say that like you never logged into Reddit and saw the pre-Ai pics of the guy.
What ever did happen with the dude that had an artificial replacement penis made on his left arm anyways?
Shit, it looked like it was totally ready for transplant to its final destination, but then COVID lockdown came along and surgery was postponed...
🤷♂️
I never saw that one ; just two-penis guy (and a host of other unexpected stuff because #internet).
Yeah, I saw a video clip of him on that other site years ago. Apparently he had lost his penis due to some sort of infection, so he had doctors reconstruct a very spot on penis-like member using the skin on his left arm.
Sure enough, by the time it was fully formed and ready for transplant, COVID lockdown came along and his surgery was postponed.
From what I recall, dude at least seemed to have a pretty good sense of humor about the whole situation.
Some people don't even have a first penis ☹️
Have an upvote 👍
Back pain is not painful anymore, but rather pleasant now
You could pre-empt the need to shit by not having to eat or drink. Honestly, when I lament humanity's weaknesses I eventually always come back to the fact that we're creatures in this universe that can only persist if we kill and eat other creatures. How would we be fundamentally changed if that were no longer true?
Um, you know that your body expels more than digestion by-products through defecation, right? Where do you think dead blood cells go?
The other "noble ape" shit I'm not touching.
I agree. Let’s not go apeshit.
All genitals have eyes now.
And teeth and a nose and all?
Why did you curse my imagination?
Fuckit, have an upvote 👍
They already got mouth, just need eyes.
Look up glorp. Nsfw
Nails. I think we could go without nails. Specially toe nails. Finger nails could be an optional add on.
I don't mind shitting, it feels good. We could probably absorb more of it so we have less shit to do? Seems so inefficient.
Eh, I think I'd rather keep the nails for protection and to open soda cans and whatnot, but yeah it would be nice if they weren't continuously growing and need regular trimming.
Have an upvote 👍
OK, we can compromise and keep your index finger and thumb nail. But they grow at 1/10 the speed.
I strongly disagree.
Personally I'd remove the need for sleep and effectively increase my lifespan by 3rd.
It's selfish, but hair growth. Hair removal steals so much of my limited time.
Consciousness
Good news, we can actually do all of the above already!
add consciousness have kids
remove consciousness die
alter consciousness do drugs
Does the need for particular hormones count as a single bodily function? Asking for a post menopausal person.
Sure, why not? I guess you might as well just say you would like to do away with menopause if you could, that works 👍
Senescence maybe?
Hear everyone's thoughts at will so I can hear anyone's thoughts if I want to.
Sleep. It used to take up nearly a third of my life. Since having Long COVID, it's closer to half my life.
Honestly, think of what we could get done if we had all that extra time...
Remove sneezing. If only because I find people wishing me "bless you" to be the most useless & meaningless human interaction I can think of.
How about your bless my farts, Ryan, you purposeless dingbat.