4 ms·

I feel enraged that option NOT to enhance humanity is even in the picture. I guess that's the inevitable part of any new medical advance, be it vaccines, anaes

I feel enraged that option NOT to enhance humanity is even in the picture. I guess that's the inevitable part of any new medical advance, be it vaccines, anaesthesia or even washing hands when dealing the pregnant women after working with corpses.

rubidium 11y ago
Please consider that a decision NOT to change genetic material of "germ line" cells may be because humanity decides it would actually cause a decline of humanity, not an enhancement. Real social, economic and political factors are going to come into play here. As the author concludes: "Gene editing raises the spectre of parents making choices that are not obviously in the best interests of their children. Deaf parents may prefer their offspring to be deaf too, say; pushy parents might want to boost their children’s intelligence at all costs, even if doing so affects their personalities in other ways. And if it becomes possible to tweak genes to make children smarter, should that option really be limited to the rich?"
- guylhem 11y ago
  Let selection and mating sort it out. Maybe very intelligent deaf humans would outcompete the rest of mankind in a few generations? You may not like that, but why exactly should I care? Parents do have the best interest of their children in mind. Let them be free of making the best choices instead of government imposed ones.
  - ashark 11y ago
    I think one of the more realistic fears of this technology is that there won't really be a choice. The option "remain unmodified and live an OK life" simply won't exist. Moloch[1] may demand sacrifice. [1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
    - vectorjohn 11y ago
      If that is the case, that it's so successful you pretty much have to do it, that sounds like an absolute success. Sounds like the process pretty much works and is good.
      - ashark 11y ago
        The tricky bit is that "successful" does not necessarily have to mean "makes people happier".
  - clort 11y ago
    Why do you suppose that children with edited genetics would be a result of parents wanting the best for them? I think it vastly more likely that (lets call them East German) government agents would be impersonally having children edited, so that their country would win more medals at the olympics. These supposed government agents wouldn't care that these adults would burn out and die of terrible diseases in their mid-lives. They wouldn't care that there might only be a 5% success rate, and that the other 95% had terrible lives. Thats why the option to NOT edit the human race is on the menu, but I am confident that that option won't be taken, except officially by the nations which are bothered by ethics. We as a race will tinker.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Parents get to bias their children from the moment they are born, and for decades after. This is unavoidable. Doing it with genes is probably no more invasive, and probably a whole lot more scientific.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

rubidium 11y ago

Please consider that a decision NOT to change genetic material of "germ line" cells may be because humanity decides it would actually cause a decline of humanity, not an enhancement. Real social, economic and political factors are going to come into play here. As the author concludes: "Gene editing raises the spectre of parents making choices that are not obviously in the best interests of their children. Deaf parents may prefer their offspring to be deaf too, say; pushy parents might want to boost their children’s intelligence at all costs, even if doing so affects their personalities in other ways. And if it becomes possible to tweak genes to make children smarter, should that option really be limited to the rich?"

guylhem 11y ago
Let selection and mating sort it out. Maybe very intelligent deaf humans would outcompete the rest of mankind in a few generations? You may not like that, but why exactly should I care? Parents do have the best interest of their children in mind. Let them be free of making the best choices instead of government imposed ones.
- ashark 11y ago
  I think one of the more realistic fears of this technology is that there won't really be a choice. The option "remain unmodified and live an OK life" simply won't exist. Moloch[1] may demand sacrifice. [1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
  - vectorjohn 11y ago
    If that is the case, that it's so successful you pretty much have to do it, that sounds like an absolute success. Sounds like the process pretty much works and is good.
    - ashark 11y ago
      The tricky bit is that "successful" does not necessarily have to mean "makes people happier".
- clort 11y ago
  Why do you suppose that children with edited genetics would be a result of parents wanting the best for them? I think it vastly more likely that (lets call them East German) government agents would be impersonally having children edited, so that their country would win more medals at the olympics. These supposed government agents wouldn't care that these adults would burn out and die of terrible diseases in their mid-lives. They wouldn't care that there might only be a 5% success rate, and that the other 95% had terrible lives. Thats why the option to NOT edit the human race is on the menu, but I am confident that that option won't be taken, except officially by the nations which are bothered by ethics. We as a race will tinker.
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Parents get to bias their children from the moment they are born, and for decades after. This is unavoidable. Doing it with genes is probably no more invasive, and probably a whole lot more scientific.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]