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I'm convinced nothing can stop genetic engineering in humans in the long run. The question is what goal the genetic engineering will have, what ideal will take

I'm convinced nothing can stop genetic engineering in humans in the long run. The question is what goal the genetic engineering will have, what ideal will take the place of natural selection? This article suggests we will engineer away negative, selfish and competitive traits, but my guess is it will go the opposite direction. There will be an arms race where people improve themselves and their children to learn faster, excel in school and at work, be competitive and selfish. Parents already do whatever they can to give their kids a competitive advantage, pay tens of thousands of dollars for private school (even kindergarten), pay for expensive tutors so they excel at all the standardized tests etc. Globalization has created an environment where winner takes all, so few parents with a choice would deny their kids the advantages that some of their peers get. Unless we're all in on it, we can't engineer towards happiness because there will always be some group of people that will take advantage of the situation.

sneak 13y ago
Uhh, this is Earth, and we are all organisms competing for resources. You can't legislate or contract away nature, once you zoom out to the scale of "species" or "planet".
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  Uhh, this is Earth, and we are all organisms competing for resources. This is Earth indeed. Some dimly lit gravity well at the edge of our smallish galaxy, with no reasonable plan as of yet to get away. But hey, let's just burn everything on being better than the next guy, because just being happy for someone else, much less supporting them, isn't even an option. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality
  - sneak 13y ago
    > But hey, let's just burn everything on being better than the next guy, because just being happy for someone else, much less supporting them, isn't even an option. I think that's a good way to live, as an individual. I don't think there is any way to ensure that all of (or even a majority of) the species does that, no.
    - PavlovsCat 13y ago
      There is no way to ensure anything, ever. But there are directions to work in.
sliverstorm 13y ago
It would definitely be the latter. Once upon a time the context for evolution was nature- surviving when nature was trying to kill you. We no longer struggle much to survive, so now it is about compete- against eachother, naturally.
loup-vaillant 13y ago
> I'm convinced nothing can stop genetic engineering in humans in the long run. Note: the article talked about human enhancement in general, and mentioned cyborg-esque options like titanium bones. It didn't mentioned the most radical option of all, mind uploading, but I guess that was to avoid scaring readers away. (Mind uploading also have this minor "will it be really me?" problem.) > This article suggests we will engineer away negative, selfish and competitive traits (Emphasis mine.) Err, I didn't read that. From what I read, the article said that we probably should engineer away such traits. And again, if a parent can enhance her child's school results by buying her the best arithmetic implant from Texas Neuro-Instruments, she will not limit herself to mere DNA modifications. Many of us already wear glasses, for instance. I do agree with your main point though: technology-aided evolution will probably take a sharp and nasty turn, if ran unchecked.
- XorNot 13y ago
  Nasty turn how? It's only a problem when combined with allowing other, existent problems to go unchecked - i.e. the stratification of wealth. Presuming the problem is that it's being done at all is fundamentally asking the wrong questions, not to mention strays far into violating rights like habeas corpus which creates a much bigger problem.
  - loup-vaillant 13y ago
    Technology can create new problems by itself. The most obvious ones are Risks of Blowing Ourselves Up (or existential risks). Drexlerian Nanotechnology? Gray goo accident. Strong AI? Skynet, only it'll kill us all before we even realise it. Biological research? Pandemic disease from the lab. And of course the more mundane World War III and environmental collapse, from which it is unclear our civilization can ever recover. The difference with the last two is that it can run on current technology. We could also create a universe that we wouldn't like at all, like Robin Hanson's vision of the future after mind uploading. We could also modify ourselves for the sake of competitivity alone, or pleasure alone, or anything that doesn't encompass all that we want to do and be. Sure, technology is only a catalyst. But it's one hell of a catalyst. Aim a knife in the wrong direction, and you might hurt someone. Aim a nuclear warhead in the wrong direction, and you might obliterate a whole city. In both cases, the root of the problem is that you aimed in the wrong direction. But technology makes quite a difference in terms of consequences. By the way, we're already aware of that to some extent: nuclear warheads tend to have more security around them than knives.
ggreer 13y ago
Is such an outcome so terrible? Yes, it will be unfair if some humans are smarter, stronger, and healthier than they otherwise would be. But these people will be a massive benefit to the rest of humanity.[1] We'll end up with smarter doctors, lawyers, scientists, and (gasp) politicians. If you think at the margins (would it be better if people were smarter or dumber, on average), the answer is clear: Human enhancement is almost certainly a good thing. Anyone who says otherwise is in the same boat as those who worried about the implications of vaccination, antibiotics, and stem-cell therapy. These technologies do have downsides, but the benefits are so much greater that we're all glad they were invented. Personally, I'd rather live in a world where more people were smarter than me. While it would diminish my own status, humanity would be able to solve more of its problems. Finally, you assume that enhancement technology will remain expensive indefinitely. Historically, new technologies have gotten cheaper over time. While not everyone will be able to afford enhancement at first, it seems likely that it will follow the same trend as Internet access, smartphones, gene sequencing, and countless other technologies once reserved for elites. 1. See http://www.iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde_issue_1-2009_03_rindermann_et_al.pdf http://www.iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde_issue_1-2009_03_rind... for a study of the effect of high IQs on economies.

sneak 13y ago

Uhh, this is Earth, and we are all organisms competing for resources. You can't legislate or contract away nature, once you zoom out to the scale of "species" or "planet".

PavlovsCat 13y ago
Uhh, this is Earth, and we are all organisms competing for resources. This is Earth indeed. Some dimly lit gravity well at the edge of our smallish galaxy, with no reasonable plan as of yet to get away. But hey, let's just burn everything on being better than the next guy, because just being happy for someone else, much less supporting them, isn't even an option. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality
- sneak 13y ago
  > But hey, let's just burn everything on being better than the next guy, because just being happy for someone else, much less supporting them, isn't even an option. I think that's a good way to live, as an individual. I don't think there is any way to ensure that all of (or even a majority of) the species does that, no.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    There is no way to ensure anything, ever. But there are directions to work in.

sliverstorm 13y ago

It would definitely be the latter. Once upon a time the context for evolution was nature- surviving when nature was trying to kill you. We no longer struggle much to survive, so now it is about compete- against eachother, naturally.

loup-vaillant 13y ago

> I'm convinced nothing can stop genetic engineering in humans in the long run. Note: the article talked about human enhancement in general, and mentioned cyborg-esque options like titanium bones. It didn't mentioned the most radical option of all, mind uploading, but I guess that was to avoid scaring readers away. (Mind uploading also have this minor "will it be really me?" problem.) > This article suggests we will engineer away negative, selfish and competitive traits (Emphasis mine.) Err, I didn't read that. From what I read, the article said that we probably should engineer away such traits. And again, if a parent can enhance her child's school results by buying her the best arithmetic implant from Texas Neuro-Instruments, she will not limit herself to mere DNA modifications. Many of us already wear glasses, for instance. I do agree with your main point though: technology-aided evolution will probably take a sharp and nasty turn, if ran unchecked.

XorNot 13y ago
Nasty turn how? It's only a problem when combined with allowing other, existent problems to go unchecked - i.e. the stratification of wealth. Presuming the problem is that it's being done at all is fundamentally asking the wrong questions, not to mention strays far into violating rights like habeas corpus which creates a much bigger problem.
- loup-vaillant 13y ago
  Technology can create new problems by itself. The most obvious ones are Risks of Blowing Ourselves Up (or existential risks). Drexlerian Nanotechnology? Gray goo accident. Strong AI? Skynet, only it'll kill us all before we even realise it. Biological research? Pandemic disease from the lab. And of course the more mundane World War III and environmental collapse, from which it is unclear our civilization can ever recover. The difference with the last two is that it can run on current technology. We could also create a universe that we wouldn't like at all, like Robin Hanson's vision of the future after mind uploading. We could also modify ourselves for the sake of competitivity alone, or pleasure alone, or anything that doesn't encompass all that we want to do and be. Sure, technology is only a catalyst. But it's one hell of a catalyst. Aim a knife in the wrong direction, and you might hurt someone. Aim a nuclear warhead in the wrong direction, and you might obliterate a whole city. In both cases, the root of the problem is that you aimed in the wrong direction. But technology makes quite a difference in terms of consequences. By the way, we're already aware of that to some extent: nuclear warheads tend to have more security around them than knives.

ggreer 13y ago

Is such an outcome so terrible? Yes, it will be unfair if some humans are smarter, stronger, and healthier than they otherwise would be. But these people will be a massive benefit to the rest of humanity.[1] We'll end up with smarter doctors, lawyers, scientists, and (gasp) politicians. If you think at the margins (would it be better if people were smarter or dumber, on average), the answer is clear: Human enhancement is almost certainly a good thing. Anyone who says otherwise is in the same boat as those who worried about the implications of vaccination, antibiotics, and stem-cell therapy. These technologies do have downsides, but the benefits are so much greater that we're all glad they were invented. Personally, I'd rather live in a world where more people were smarter than me. While it would diminish my own status, humanity would be able to solve more of its problems. Finally, you assume that enhancement technology will remain expensive indefinitely. Historically, new technologies have gotten cheaper over time. While not everyone will be able to afford enhancement at first, it seems likely that it will follow the same trend as Internet access, smartphones, gene sequencing, and countless other technologies once reserved for elites. 1. See http://www.iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde_issue_1-2009_03_rindermann_et_al.pdf http://www.iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde_issue_1-2009_03_rind... for a study of the effect of high IQs on economies.