I think it's somewhat interesting to consider this issue while thinking about the history of medical developments. Many things we now take for granted are the r

I think it's somewhat interesting to consider this issue while thinking about the history of medical developments. Many things we now take for granted are the result of extremely unethical scientific work that often involved literal torture. For instance in World War 2 Japan operated Unit 731 [1]. This unit was basically war crimes incarnate. That page has plenty of sordid details so there's no need to repeat them here. But the most interesting thing is that rather than being punished for some of the most heinous crimes committed against other humans, the scientists were secretly given immunity by the US in exchange for the data they gained through human experimentation. Victim accounts were then publicly dismissed as communist propaganda. We did something similar with Germany and the Nazis. Operation Paperclip [2] involved the US recruiting some 1,600 scientists, engineers, and technicians that were involved in weapons development for the Nazis. Interestingly enough one man, Werner von Braun would go on to become the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle that sent us to the moon. It led to an amusing satirical quote, "I aim at the stars, but sometimes I hit London." Granted weapons tech development is hardly in the same realm as human experimentation (even if the former is responsible for far more death than the latter), but it's kind of interesting that the people who created the weapon systems were immensely rewarded while nameless recruits who played no particularly unique or meaningful role were castigated as the irredeemables. The point of this is that whichever nation, group, or individual achieves progress on positive and clearly productive human genetic modification will likely receive immense accolades and support, even if in secret, regardless of what our public stance on the behavior may be. It's interesting to consider the somewhat bizarre system of motivations and consequences/rewards that we create in the pursuit of the appearance of morality. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip