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Traits are advantageous until they are not. Consider the shift of the US economy from blue collar work toward knowledge work over the last 100 years. Those ty
by pfisherman 4y ago
Traits are advantageous until they are not. Consider the shift of the US economy from blue collar work toward knowledge work over the last 100 years. Those types of work favor different traits and types of people.
I don’t think that would stop people from foolishly altering their germ line to chase trends. But the reduction of entropy / diversity in the gene pool caused by that would represent an existential threat to humanity.
My guess is that the germ lines of people who tried to outsmart evolution would get weeded out pretty fast.
- deathclassic 4y agoEveryone says germline editing would reduce diversity in the gene pool, and I can see validity to that argument. But, could it not do the opposite when people start altering their children to align with their own values? I could see the loss of some universally "bad" genes, but a lot of the judgement on this sort of things gonna come down to who does the gene editing and how they exactly implement it. When multiple groups start doing this in practice, I could see it fracturing the species more than homogenizing it. Especially when combined with something like iterated embryonic stem cell selection when you can jump several generations at a time. That would result in multiple post-human species derived from baseline humanity with their own specializations, talents, etc. Which would be more diverse.
- pfisherman 4y agoEhhh… all you have to do is take a look at instagram or TikTok to yourself convince yourself otherwise. Humans are pack / herd animals and we tend enjoy the safety of crowds.