5 ms·
I think it's pretty easy to get behind disease elimination in principle. >90% of people would be thrilled to use crispr to edit a congenital disease out of an e
by bloppe 11mo ago
I think it's pretty easy to get behind disease elimination in principle. >90% of people would be thrilled to use crispr to edit a congenital disease out of an embryo assuming it were as safe as any reasonable medical procedure can be. I think that ship is getting ready to set sail, probably not in the US at first, but the US will probably catch up eventually.
I think the more controversial conversation around human improvement needs to happen at some point as well. There's a fundamental problem with the modern world. It has changed over the last ~1000 years so much faster than our evolution could possibly keep up with, and we are now woefully unfit for it. There are so many life-threatening diseases (obesity, tribalism, depression) that are due to our behavior. To speed up and guide human evolution to make ourselves more empathetic, more reasonable, better physically suited to lifestyles revolving around thought instead of physical work, would be a huge long-term win for our species.
Of course there are inevitably a bunch of assholes trying to inject racialized agendas into this conversation, and that understandably poisons the very concept of genetic betterment for most people. But those racist tendencies are exactly the kind of outdated human nature I'm talking about eliminating.
- oulipo2 11mo agoDefine "improvement"... Here lies the crux of the issue For some people in the past (eg 1939 Germany), or some people now in power in the US, "improvement" might not be defined as you'd like...
- sothatsit 11mo agoThe difference to 1939 Germany is that individual people can choose the traits, instead of a top-down authority. I think this makes a rather big difference, even if it does not remove the ethical concerns.
- oulipo2 11mo agoRich people with access to the tech can do it now... who tells you that once this matures, Government is not going to "mandate" some "improvements" over wide swath of the population... Also guess what, once we have discovered the "gene to increase IQ" (if that exists)... we will also be able to wilfully build "artificially low IQ" people who will never complain, and never be able to defend themselves because they won't have access to an education... guess who will be interested in being able to create such a big population and will force people to have that free labor workforce... If history told us one thing, is that we shouldn't play "magicians"
- sothatsit 11mo agoThere will definitely be negatives to technology like this. But the negatives are not going to be these ridiculous scenarios... It might be stuff like an increased cultural focus on some genetics being "better" than others. Or an increased genetic divide between the rich and the poor over generations. Or unintended consequences where we make mistakes and cause new diseases or problems for the people that are being genetically modified. But the chance of governments intervening in this seems low, other than maybe to require people to not select for bad traits or to put more restrictions on this technology (as many have already done). And the idea of genetically engineering an under-class is equally absurd. Who would buy-in to that? It’s so obviously ethically evil. If we live in free countries with free press, this is just not going to happen.
- bondarchuk 11mo agoIt won't happen explicitly of course. The root comment mentioned "depression", for example, which is at least in part caused by inadequate work-life balance, poor quality of life in general, lack of social fabric, etc... So if you would genetically engineer people to be less depressed, even if you just empirically looked at what genes depressed people have in today's world (as the root comment is proposing), you could end up engineering people that are OK with working long hours for little pay, eating slop, sitting at home doing nothing, never socializing with anyone, obedient to their boss, etcetera etcetera. This would be, in effect, "genetically engineering an under-class", yet it would be easy to defend in the newspapers by just saying "we're only getting rid of depression, how can you be against it?" It's just a logical conclusion if you can think more than two steps ahead.
- sothatsit 11mo agoI agree that this could happen, but this is more unintended consequences and less specifically genetically engineering an under-class.
- bondarchuk 11mo ago
- bondarchuk 11mo agoNote that kids can't choose for themselves, only their parents. How parents define "improvement" might not always be in line with what the kids would want for themselves either.
- sothatsit 11mo agoYeah, this is one area where I find the ethics especially confusing. If you try to make your kid taller, and end up giving them bad joint problems, who is to blame? Does the kid have the right to sue their parents? There are already "wrongful life" lawsuits after all. What if their parents are really proud of their red hair and then give their kid bright red hair that their kid wished they didn't have? It becomes weird when you can no longer point to luck for the reason you are a certain way, but instead have actual people that you can blame. And that becomes especially weird when you are talking about preferences that are not inherently good or bad, like height, hair or eye colour.
- xvector 11mo agoTotal non-issue. Parenting has never been about what the child wants, only what is best for them.
- fruitworks 11mo ago> more empathetic, more reasonable, better physically suited to lifestyles revolving around thought instead of physical work, Behold! The perfect man: A simpering, oversocialized, impotent, obedient nerd!
- lunar-whitey 11mo agoThis and your comment upthread read like a textbook example of the naturalistic fallacy. The environment that produced your apparent masculine ideal was not permanent, nor was all of what it produced ideally suited to it. If you really believe in naturalism, you believe that bacteria and insects are (presently) ideal forms of life. However, I suspect you do not believe this, and are instead arguing from an untestable value based position, as nearly everyone in this discussion is.
- fruitworks 11mo agoI am not a naturalist. I simply believe that the industral revolution and its consequequences have been a disaster for the human race.