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Genes are not like points you can spend in a game to upgrade stuff. Editing them is a two edged sword. Sure... but relative to the objective function that o

by saulrh 8y ago

Genes are not like points you can spend in a game to upgrade stuff. Editing them is a two edged sword. Sure... but relative to the objective function that our genes currently optimize. All bets are off once a different objective function gets involved. Given that our genes are currently optimizing something like "reproductive fitness for pre-writing tribes circa 500ky BCE", and that that environment is completely different from what we're dealing with right now - no drug-resistant pathogens or globe-spanning plagues (hell, not even any antibiotics in the first place), low or negative value on longer lifespans, massively lower rewards for cognitive capabilities especially in comparison to the rewards for physical power, no surgery or vitamin supplements or blood testing, surprising (and tragic) lean toward r-selection over K-selection, quite a lot more - I would be surprised if we were unable to find some wins that are, relative to our current objectives, major, obvious, safe, and free.

Amezarak 8y ago
The objective function currently in effect has kept us going through an extremely wide variety of environmental and cultural conditions. Will the new one? Suppose the current civilization doesn’t last forever? We have a responsibility to people a thousand years from now, not just the people of tomorrow.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
hell, not even any antibiotics in the first place No man-made antibiotics. I assure you, Mother Nature was way ahead of humankind there and, in fact, a lot of our drugs are based on things already found in nature. We have a want center. We tend to like the taste of things that benefit us. There is research on such things. If you are sick and you respect your cravings, it's possible to find yourself consuming a thing that contains a natural form of medication that addresses your issue, and doing so in sufficiently high quantities as to hit a medicinal dosage of it. This is likely a root cause of the idea that "god" made someone better: We don't know what they were sick with or what cured it, so it seems miraculous. That doesn't mean there wasn't something in specific that they did or that simply happened that fixed the issue. We are swarming with billions of microbes at all times. Some are beneficial and we can't digest our food without them. Some are harmful. Low levels of harmful microbes are a routine norm that the body deals with daily. It's only when it gets beyond a certain threshold that it becomes identifiable sickness. I would be surprised if we were unable to find some wins that are, relative to our current objectives, major, obvious, safe, and free. When antibiotics first came out, the world announced the end of disease. It's a few decades later and we are dealing with the rise of super bugs instead of living in the predicted disease-free utopia. You and I fundamentally don't see this problem space at all similarly.
- saulrh 8y ago
  There's a huge difference between "you can give yourself an extra two percent by gnawing on a tree" and "if you follow orders we can wipe out almost every single-celled organism in your entire body within twenty-four hours". It's a few decades later and we are dealing with the rise of super bugs instead of living in the predicted disease-free utopia. You're cherry-picking, so I'll do a bit of that myself too: We eradicated smallpox. Tangled bedsheets kill more people than polio. Norman Borlaug saved a billion lives. Malaria will die with Anopheles gambiae. People once knew that flight was impossible. Not just hard, but impossible, prevented by the laws of physics and not meant for mankind. I flew home from my holiday vacation yesterday. It cost me as much as a good pair of shoes. Less than two days' pay at minimum wage. "We can never know enough to be safe" is simply and obviously false. Crab-bucket thinking at its finest. We can improve the human condition. We can know enough. Even better, we're getting to the point where we know enough to also recognize that we do or don't know enough. If you really believe that single bad actors will inevitably ruin everything good and we cannot ever make anything better, well, good luck to you. I submit that, with that point of view, you're better off quitting now so you don't have to experience the doomed future you propose.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    We can never know enough to be safe" is simply and obviously false. Crab-bucket thinking at its finest. Way to go to wildly twist my words out of shape. I submit that, with that point of view, you're better off quitting now so you don't have to experience the doomed future you propose. I'm quite open about my struggles with being suicidal. But let's give the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't actually know that. As kindly as possible, actively encouraging an internet stranger to off themselves because you don't agree with what you imagine they said has got to be one of the absolute ugliest tactics I've ever seen in an internet argument. So I'm done here. That's not something I consider to be remotely within the realm of a good faith argument. Note to self: Suggest to my would-be co-founder that such a thing should be a bannable offense on his forum. Cuz: Ew!
    - saulrh 8y ago

by saulrh 8y ago

Amezarak 8y ago

The objective function currently in effect has kept us going through an extremely wide variety of environmental and cultural conditions. Will the new one? Suppose the current civilization doesn’t last forever? We have a responsibility to people a thousand years from now, not just the people of tomorrow.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

hell, not even any antibiotics in the first place No man-made antibiotics. I assure you, Mother Nature was way ahead of humankind there and, in fact, a lot of our drugs are based on things already found in nature. We have a want center. We tend to like the taste of things that benefit us. There is research on such things. If you are sick and you respect your cravings, it's possible to find yourself consuming a thing that contains a natural form of medication that addresses your issue, and doing so in sufficiently high quantities as to hit a medicinal dosage of it. This is likely a root cause of the idea that "god" made someone better: We don't know what they were sick with or what cured it, so it seems miraculous. That doesn't mean there wasn't something in specific that they did or that simply happened that fixed the issue. We are swarming with billions of microbes at all times. Some are beneficial and we can't digest our food without them. Some are harmful. Low levels of harmful microbes are a routine norm that the body deals with daily. It's only when it gets beyond a certain threshold that it becomes identifiable sickness. I would be surprised if we were unable to find some wins that are, relative to our current objectives, major, obvious, safe, and free. When antibiotics first came out, the world announced the end of disease. It's a few decades later and we are dealing with the rise of super bugs instead of living in the predicted disease-free utopia. You and I fundamentally don't see this problem space at all similarly.

saulrh 8y ago
There's a huge difference between "you can give yourself an extra two percent by gnawing on a tree" and "if you follow orders we can wipe out almost every single-celled organism in your entire body within twenty-four hours". It's a few decades later and we are dealing with the rise of super bugs instead of living in the predicted disease-free utopia. You're cherry-picking, so I'll do a bit of that myself too: We eradicated smallpox. Tangled bedsheets kill more people than polio. Norman Borlaug saved a billion lives. Malaria will die with Anopheles gambiae. People once knew that flight was impossible. Not just hard, but impossible, prevented by the laws of physics and not meant for mankind. I flew home from my holiday vacation yesterday. It cost me as much as a good pair of shoes. Less than two days' pay at minimum wage. "We can never know enough to be safe" is simply and obviously false. Crab-bucket thinking at its finest. We can improve the human condition. We can know enough. Even better, we're getting to the point where we know enough to also recognize that we do or don't know enough. If you really believe that single bad actors will inevitably ruin everything good and we cannot ever make anything better, well, good luck to you. I submit that, with that point of view, you're better off quitting now so you don't have to experience the doomed future you propose.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  We can never know enough to be safe" is simply and obviously false. Crab-bucket thinking at its finest. Way to go to wildly twist my words out of shape. I submit that, with that point of view, you're better off quitting now so you don't have to experience the doomed future you propose. I'm quite open about my struggles with being suicidal. But let's give the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't actually know that. As kindly as possible, actively encouraging an internet stranger to off themselves because you don't agree with what you imagine they said has got to be one of the absolute ugliest tactics I've ever seen in an internet argument. So I'm done here. That's not something I consider to be remotely within the realm of a good faith argument. Note to self: Suggest to my would-be co-founder that such a thing should be a bannable offense on his forum. Cuz: Ew!
  - saulrh 8y ago