If we don't ever go extinct, there's no reason to think that we won't be able to manipulate almost anything you can think of that exists in reality. We'll one day be able to 3D print people, life in general. We'll one day be able to easily alter ourselves to better survive any environment, including other planets. We'll one day be able to perfectly clone ourselves, everything from our memories and consciousness. If someone in the future wanted to, they'll be able sneak around and scan and 3D print a clone of people in their sleep, murder the original, and the clone would wake up and actually be that person and know no different nor ever have a thought in the future that was different than the original would. The future will be crazy. So long as it's based in reality, anything you can think of will be possible in the future. Shit, we'll probably reach a point where we can create life from virtually nothing and someone will probably make a dragon..

Of course. It's not like there isn't a lot of things that could be improved on. I say go for it.

Dude, I just want to live through fake 45 and hope that democracy and America survives. Interesting thought though.

Without doubt it will happen but maybe not in my lifetime.

I think it has already happened, that is why there are 7.5 Billion now of us with the vast majority of us suffering mental and physical conditions but with a life expectancy of almost a century when until the time of the industrial revolution the world population had been fluctuating between 1 and 3 billion for pretty much 2 millenia with only the strongest and most resistant to illness surviving to adulthood or past 45 years old.
Survival of the Fittest has been replaced with survival of those with access to medicine and sanitation.

I suspect that already there is medicine capable of prolonging human life since so many rich people seem to live so much longer than most of us and stays so much more active and capable.

It is to be hoped that we will find some way to genetically control ourselves. Because at this time all the selective forces that come from increasing civilization will only have a negative effect on us. Somebody once said that our next step forward in evolution is to become too stupid to use contraceptives, because then we breed faster. Civilization also removes most of the selective dangers which helped design us and made us social animals, leaving only sexual selection to act on our evolution. That will increase sexual dimorphism. (We will get larger more aggressive males and smaller more passive females, the feminists nightmare.) Until eventually we are too stupid and and socially disorganized to feed ourselves or repair our machines. Then we go extinct. The machines do not have to make war on us like the "Terminator" or other machine monsters of science fiction, they have only to break down or stop feeding, the by then helpless humans, and we die.

We, as a species may indeed impact the course of human evolution. Perhaps at times for the betterment of the species, and at times to the detriment of the species. Ultimately, evolution will direct the course the species takes. Regardless what we think and attempt. the process will have the last word.

We already changed the path of our evolution starting with control of fire and creation of tools. Then there was medicine, shelter, and weapons. It is definitely happening.

We already have. We don't die of smallpox anymore. We don't even get smallpox anymore. So there's no natural immunity to it anymore. That's just a low-tech, early example.

I think this phenomenon is a lot more widespread and basic than people tend to think. Things like agriculture, nutrition, hygiene, and medicine probably account for a lot of it.

Yup. We never have been able to leave well enough alone. And I’m not entirely convinced that we haven’t done this for millennia and May it’s what evolution actually is.

If we do, we'll be speeding up our own extinction even faster than we already are now.
Fine by me, actually. The planet has a better chance of surviving longer if we're not on it. Other species will be much better off without humans mucking up everything.