3 ms·
The gene mutations are going to be found eventually while searching for other things, so at best it’s delaying the inevitable. By identifying the gene mutation
by cjbgkagh 5y ago
The gene mutations are going to be found eventually while searching for other things, so at best it’s delaying the inevitable.
By identifying the gene mutations it can make treatments much easier to find as you can often see which exomes are effected and thus which proteins may be missing. Could give rise to an effective peptide treatment similar to an insulin injection.
- wpietri 5y agoThe knowledge may be inevitable, but the eugenics isn't. It's perfectly plausible that as a society we are not ready for knowledge yet. Look, for example at the plague of sex-selective abortion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-selective_abortion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-selective_abortion It's perfectly possible that knowledge of and tests for, say, genes related to homosexuality would currently result in a huge eugenics campaign in many places. The same could well be true of all sorts of cognitive "deviance", which could be not only a moral horror, but cause long-term damage to the fate of the species.
- cjbgkagh 5y agoImho eugenics is already inevitable. It can confer too great of an advantage and the technology is already eminently accessible. People already do it on the small scale with discretionary abortions for various genetic defects. Going from that to pre selecting IVF embryo candidates is a minor detail of a relatively small amount of money. It can also be done in secret so it’s perfect for a black market. And there is a first mover advantage so maintaining an anti-eugenic cartel would be impossible in the long term. I do agree that it could result in the nightmare scenario.
- wpietri 5y agoWill some number of people do it on a black market? Possibly! But I think that's worlds away from broadly accepted eugenics for non-dangerous characteristics. So I think eugenics is only inevitable in the same sense that slavery is inevitable: we may not be able to eliminate it totally, but we can certainly keep it very much to the margins.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cjbgkagh 5y agoI don't think the taboo of eugenics has any particular durability to it. I think it'll flip rather quickly. You'll get places like Eastern Europe, Russia, and China doing it and all of a sudden we'll have to do it to in order to 'remain competitive'. Weaponizing drones was taboo for about a nanosecond, now we can look forward to a future WWIII with flying robots raining down death from above, all because it was more convenient at the time.
- wpietri 5y agoThat one taboo falls quickly is not proof all of them will. The eugenics taboo has endured for more than a century, which sounds like particular durability to me.