51–60 of 178 posts
Good! For too long, we've been hampered by the limitations of a human nature evolved millions of years ago for a very different environment. All previous attempts at changing human nature have failed. Activism does not work. Grand social movements do not work. Policing language does not work. We now have a chance to succeed in improving ourselves using tools that actually work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaver_(Firefly)#Origin
>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…
I prefer the Star Trek view of gene-editing, for genetic diseases, ok. Otherwise, no. Arguably, there is nothing to make better, or faster than what evolution is naturally doing.
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GRRM framed Qyburn negatively. You could view him from a positive angle instead: he's a brilliant scientist who left the scientific community so he could pursue groundbreaking research without being slowed by obsolete and conventional ideas. That's a heroic narrative, not a sinister one. ASOIF is fiction. We live in reality. The problem is far more often that we're held by obsolete and suffocating rules than that we'…
> GRRM framed Qyburn negatively. You could view him from a positive angle instead: he's a brilliant scientist who left the scientific community so he could pursue groundbreaking research without being slowed by obsolete and conventional ideas. I think GRRM very carefully made by both the positive and negative parts key to the framing of Qyburn; he's quite clearly both a brilliant scientist who rebelled against obsole…
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What's the gene for racism you plan on editing? The human body isn't a config file
Yes it is. We're not born blank slates! What we call human nature is largely determined by the physical architecture of our minds. Guess where that comes from.
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I'm not seeing the consistency in your arms race argument. I don't have a lot of hope that the more intelligent children will decide that war sucks - odds are at least 1 country in this hypothetical arms race would spend significant resources on more aggressive, order-following soldiers to do the bidding of people who still want war. It's nothing to do with religious reasons for me - I just categorically reject the i…
Down's syndrome usually isn't a trait, it usually is a result of a second copy of a chromosome being included in a sperm or egg cell.
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I don't like it, but I have to admit you're most certainly correct that it's only a matter of time before human genetic-enhancement is commonplace. Best case, we'll be living in a Gattaca -esque world before the end of the century.
I don't see why that has to be best case. My best case scenario is that humankind has overcome tribal instincts, united around common causes, overcome arbitrary prejudices, and... well basically Star Trek.
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Yes it is. We're not born blank slates! What we call human nature is largely determined by the physical architecture of our minds. Guess where that comes from.
Choices, the answer is people choose to behave as they do, when they do and how they do.
>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…
So what? They win more Olympic medals? Or what, they invade like in Red Dawn? Or they take all the places in our elite colleges?
While its not an argument against, fear-mongering a ludicrous, purely hypothetical bioengineering arms race is not a particularly good argument for.
> I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exert control over their environment, it's inevitable that we also learn to control our own evolution.
If something is inevitable, it's irrelevant whether you want it or not.
> But I get that huge swathes of the population reject it for religious reasons or what have you.
I honestly don't think you do get it. I think you accept your own moral imperative naively and uncritically without even a casual attempt to understand the thought of those who are a little more circumspect.
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Down's syndrome usually isn't a trait, it usually is a result of a second copy of a chromosome being included in a sperm or egg cell.
I don't see how the ethics of "fixing" that defect is any different from the therapy discussed in the article.
I suppose one difference with the article is that pregnancies are actively being terminated based on the presence of Down's Syndrome in the fetus.
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So what? How are we going to learn unless we experiment? I detest the precautionary principle. If we'd followed it in prehistory, we'd have never left the trees: who knows what might be down there?
How would you like to be born a mistake in such experimentation. That's why the ethical issues are serious. If it's not safe, the mistakes will be paid for by utterly innocent and unwilling participants.
We are all utterly innocent and unwilling participants in being born. You can either take the random cards that nature deals you, or we can try to act to have better outcomes. Just because you refuse to take action doesn't absolve you from taking a suboptimal action.