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You haven't thought it through. Try to visualize how such a program would be implemented. You run into intractable problems. One: who defines what traits are un
by fernly 14y ago
You haven't thought it through. Try to visualize how such a program would be implemented. You run into intractable problems. One: who defines what traits are undesirable? (Do you imagine this would ever be uncontroversial? Aggression, for example, is needed -- sometimes.) Two: who determines how future behavior is linked to genes; and how is it ever proved that future behavior is only and certainly genetically-based and in no part linked to upbringing? Three: what if a genetic pattern associated with unwanted behavior turns out to be linked with another trait that is desirable (e.g. the subject of this story is both violent and highly intelligent; what if both traits come from the same genes?). Four: by what means do you coerce parents into not breeding? Is deliberate breeding a crime? Punishable by what? Five: what do you do about accidental children? Execute them? And so on. No democracy would ever install such a scheme.
- joonix 14y agoYou're not understanding me correctly. I'm not saying it will be a government mandate or coercion of any kind. I'm saying cultural attitudes will change on their own as "genetic awareness" becomes more mainstream. I'm making predictions about the future here and you are looking through modern day eyes. Twenty years ago people would be appalled to see the kind of things we openly share on Facebook with our friends today. In the future people may have no qualms about sharing their genetic profiles. There very well may be an eHarmony type service that matches based on potential offspring rather than answers to a questionnaire.
- dinkumthinkum 14y agoThe problem with what you're saying here is that many people TODAY, myself included, are appalled and what people naively share on Facebook today, and most probably this too will change in time. I think this is more of a boyish fantasy or the landscape of a sci-fi novel, which by the end people will inevitably reject. It's not like this is some thing that will be instituted in a vacuum.
- javajosh 14y agoThis is a very confused comment. Parents make these kinds of choices all the time, albeit on much coarser grounds (bring the down syndrome baby to term, or not?). If we started doing finer-grained genetic screening, clearly the choice would be the parents, and the question of "accidental children" doesn't even make sense: by default, the kids we make will be 'accidental' just more thoroughly, optionally, screened.