A Future I Don't Want: A Rant by Connor

[Holdek]

The situation of genetic superiority already exists. People who have inherited traits of intelligence, athletic ability, beauty etc. already have an advantage in a competitive society.

Also, forced euthanasia (in Nazi Germany) and forced sterilization (pretty much most of the Western world) of people who had inherited mental illness was conducted throughout the 20th century, and civilization made a moral correction away from that practice. So it's not predetermined that "average joes" are going to be slaughtered in the future regardless of whether or not designer babies become reality.

If you have a child you hope for him to be the smartest, handsomest, most talented possible. You take the time to read to him and make him wear orthodontics and send him to sports camps etc., so why wouldn't you also try to give him good genes? At its base level, that's the foundation of how we choose our mates.

 

[Watcher]

The situation of genetic superiority already exists. People who have inherited traits of intelligence, athletic ability, beauty etc. already have an advantage in a competitive society.

This is inherent though. What he means is the ability to say, alter a person's genes while they're in the womb so they come out looking like this

Spoiler

With the intelligence of this

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Who can do math problems like this

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At the age of 8

Like I used the Star Trek example for a very specific reason because of how the episode trailer I linked has Khan Noonien Sing, who is the villain and is an augment. The character is a natural leader, he's intelligent and understands 20th century literature better than Kirk does, he can overtake 10 men in physical combat, and women are naturally drawn to him and don't understand why. Yet because of all this he feels so superior to everyone in almost every way he feels the need to subject themselves to his wishes entirely because he's still a human being. Khan's first inclination upon learning he's in the 23rd century is how he is going to take it over and bend people to his will. And his plan at the end is so foolproof

Spoiler

the only reason it's foiled is because the person who set it up for him betrays him.

Like today nobody is perfect. Even the most intelligent people are likely frail physically or have massive gaps in their knowledge. Like a person who can recite calculus off the top of his head probably has problems with women, or cannot play sports.

This isn't so much an argument as to who is better than others as much as people creating others that are superior in every single way you can think of. And this will one day become a potential subject of debate as to whether this technology is worth researching due to the inherent problems that people cause when they feel superior to each other.

This also opens up a potentially tragic alternative in that having a society of perfect people could kill art entirely.

There's an episode of the Twilight Zone that features a premise where people at a certain age are forced to undergo a surgery that makes them look beautiful. The main character in the episode points out famous artists that had physical disabilities that allowed them new perspectives and inspired them in different ways. And that if everyone is the same there's no need to be subversive or to make anything original. That there is no beauty without ugliness.

This sort of thing also has the same problems as Eugenics in that it promotes racism and bigotry to others based on things they are born with.

 

[Holdek]

...What he means is the ability to say, alter a person's genes while they're in the womb so they come out looking like this

Spoiler

With the intelligence of this

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Who can do math problems like this

Spoiler

At the age of 8

Wouldn't that be good, though?

...Even the most intelligent people are likely frail physically or have massive gaps in their knowledge. Like a person who can recite calculus off the top of his head probably has problems with women, or cannot play sports.

This isn't really true, though. Sure, by odds of probability it's rarer that one individual is superior in several traits than just one, but there's nothing to suggest that an individual starts out with a cap of points that must be balanced among various abilities. And the fact is that large swaths of humanity don't even have one great skill.

We've already largely done away with cultural attitudes that being born into nobility, or a Hindu caste, or money, or a certain race, entitles one to feel that their rights and concerns are elevated above others, so I'm unpersuaded that we need to preemptively declare that we will be bereft of moral agency in our attitudes about this hypothetical future development.

 

[Watcher]

Wouldn't that be good, though?

Would you enjoy a future where inorder to run for office you must have been genetically altered? Because your charisma cannot match a person who hadn't been. A future where you cannot become a scientist because the organization you are trying to join only hires augments because "normals" cannot compete mentally? A future where you're not allowed to breed with an "augment" because you might "taint" the genepool with your "normal" genes? These are all things that occur now with things like race and human history is full of instances of this occurring. The only issue if what if this occurs with a needle as opposed to something a person cannot change.

 

[Holdek]

...The only issue if what if this occurs with a needle as opposed to something a person cannot change.

Really, the only difference is whether a particular genetic makeup occurs because one sperm beats the other or if it's done with a needle. I don't see the sperm race as being any more virtuous.

 

[Watcher]

Really, the only difference is whether a particular genetic makeup occurs because one sperm beats the other or if it's done with a needle. I don't see the sperm race as being any more virtuous.

Right but there are inherent flaws with human beings. I mentioned a few above. There are no selectively "perfect" people who have the greatest body, have untapped knowlege and can do things like learn languages on a weekly basis or study calculus in their spare time while having the natural hand-eye coordination to kill a person in Counter Strike with a pistol as soon as his head comes into view.

There are individuals that can do these things but at the expense of something. Like I mention the learned languages bit because I knew a psychology teacher who met a person who knew 37 languages, and could learn a new language and speak it fluently in a week. But it was caused by a specific mental disorder that greatly increased his capacity to retain specific kinds of knowledge, but he couldn't say remember his mother's name. Or what the color orange was, or what a "cat" was. He could say the cat perfectly clearly and string it together in a sentence but he would forget what a cat was in a week.

Now imagine if you could cut that gene out for that mental disorder, remove all the negative aspects, and put it into your neighbors child down the street for 5 million dollars. We can clone sheep now and implant genes from fish into plants in order to make them glow. It is within the realm of possibility for this to happen to humans.

 

[Holdek]

Right but there are inherent flaws with human beings. I mentioned a few above. There are no selectively "perfect" people who have the greatest body, have untapped knowlege and can do things like learn languages on a weekly basis or study calculus in their spare time while having the natural hand-eye coordination to kill a person in Counter Strike with a pistol as soon as his head comes into view.

There are individuals that can do these things but at the expense of something. Like I mention the learned languages bit because I knew a psychology teacher who met a person who knew 37 languages, and could learn a new language and speak it fluently in a week. But it was caused by a specific mental disorder that greatly increased his capacity to retain specific kinds of knowledge, but he couldn't say remember his mother's name. Or what the color orange was, or what a "cat" was. He could say the cat perfectly clearly and string it together in a sentence but he would forget what a cat was in a week.

Now imagine if you could cut that gene out for that mental disorder, remove all the negative aspects, and put it into your neighbors child down the street for 5 million dollars....

This is just one circumstance of a guy with a mental disorder. Again, there's no biological requirement that just because you are born with a great language ability that it has to be offset by an inability somewhere else. There are polymaths throughout history. Leonardo DaVinci was valued and admired for excellence in numerous fields but he wasn't worshiped as a god.

 

[Watcher]

This is just one circumstance of a guy with a mental disorder. Again, there's no biological requirement that just because you are born with a great language ability that it has to be offset by an inability somewhere else. There are polymaths throughout history. Leonardo DaVinci was valued and admired for excellence in numerous fields but he wasn't worshiped as a god.

Right but what I am saying is, imagine if there wasn't a requirement to be offset by something else. Imagine if you could piece together a person's genetics to the point where there were no required offsets. It could not happen naturally but imagine if you strung together a genetic code that was essentially a "perfect" person with absolutely no offsets and injected that into an embryo. And imagine you could purchase this for a large price tag only a rich parent could afford.

 

[Holdek]

Right but what I am saying is, imagine if there wasn't a requirement to be offset by something else. Imagine if you could piece together a person's genetics to the point where there were no required offsets. It could not happen naturally but imagine if you strung together a genetic code that was essentially a "perfect" person with absolutely no offsets and injected that into an embryo. And imagine you could purchase this for a large price tag only a rich parent could afford.

That's my point. Abilities aren't necessarily offset now. There are smart athletes and handsome geniuses being born today without any kind of artificial genetic manipulation going on.

Access to genetic customization being based on lots of money is a legitimate social concern. But so is the fact that some people are born to wealthier parents than others which affords them better education opportunities, development environments, better career connections, etc.

 

[BT 075]

I honestly don't see the big deal? Some children are born with horrific coI nditions, with brittle bones, a skin that feels like it's on fire constantly, or the inability to communicate. Some have genetic defects that can be passed on from generation to generation. Things like heart conditions that kill the men of one family for several generations in a row at the age of fifty, give or take a few years. All these things I have seen happen and read about and it's horrific.

Am I saying these people should not have been born? No. It has nothing to do with eugenism or nazism. But genetic testing and embryo selecting can create healthier offspring for people who would otherwise not have been so lucky, and can be used to eliminate certain diseases and issues from the human genepool. It's not about creating "super people", it's about simply creating people who are healthier then they would be without the scientific options we now have.

It's like what Holdek said: those of us who have children want those children to have the chance to enjoy life to the fullest, and be as succesful in life as they wish to be, within the bounderies of reason. We all would rather have Chad Thundercock for a son then a Wizard.

I don't foresee a future of superhumans, rather I expect a future in which a lot of diseases and genetic defects can be eliminated from existance. I myself might carry a defect involving the arteries of my heart. I'll likely make it to fifty, sixty, maybe even seventy regardless, but that's about it. If science will one day allow my sons and daughters to have children who do not carry said gene (provided they do), why would I object a little genetic engineering that will make the lives of my grandchildren happier?

You seem to focus on some sort of dystopian doom scenario, Connor. And imaginative as it may be, I don't think there's much reason for any of us to fear. In the end all I expect is improvement. We have two options here, one is to embrace advancement the other is to reject it. Either way, science isn't asleep and technology marches on. Maybe a hundred years from now, long after I'm dead and buried, my great-great-grandchildren will be born healthy, strong and intelligent with zero chances of ever developing cancer or heart disease. If so, I for one would be thankful for science to have made this possible.

 

[The Dude]

This is why we must stop the rich from becoming this rich. A socialist future is a safe future. If we ever see the day that a eugenics child is made they'll be thrown into a river and their parents burned on a religious symbol!

Seriously though my thoughts are normally about preventing your vision of dystopia.

Socialism is my EXACT vision of dystopia.

 

[A-Stump]

Believe it or not but the most valued of human traits aren't born of genetics. You could remove all genetic quirks and still be left with someone who is cowardly, introverted, or foolish.

You also seem quick to forget just how unforgiving your fellow human can be. If there was some sort of modified wunderkid, there'd be ten more religious or social extremists waiting to splatter him across the room with a homemade bomb.

The true dystopia will be social in nature rather than born of a mad scientist's dream.

Here in the United States we have a prison system which is profitable for third parties. These third parties have and still lobby for harsher punishments for mediocre offenses. This is why a guy trafficking in marijuana can get a dime and someone who kills another guy can get up to two years minimum. We have a system currently designed to imprison the common man and hold them in bondage so these corrupt motherfuckers can collect and keep on collecting.

A lot of you might not care because you don't do anything wrong. Well, the law has a mighty funny way of changing itself to throw you right in the clink. Never trust law enforcement, never trust the legal system. It's all a web of deceit.

 

[Holdek]

People often point to the movie Idiocracy and lament about how our society is going to end up. I think we'll be able to stake out a ground somewhere between that and Gattaca.

 

[The Dude]

People often point to the movie Idiocracy and lament about how our society is going to end up. I think we'll be able to stake out a ground somewhere between that and Gattaca.

I'd like to see something more along the lines of a cross between Mad Max and The Postman.

 

[An Ounce of Vagina]

Genetic technology is really no different then any other technology that changed human society. I'm sure there were ancient Luddites warning about the evils of say, fire and the wheel.

 

[Connor Bible]

I'd like to see something more along the lines of a cross between Mad Max and The Postman.

Mine's pure Orwell.

 

[Hasharin]

Socialism is my EXACT vision of dystopia.

Production organised in order to fullfil human needs instead of making profits for a minority of society. Worse than fuckin' Orwell indeed.

 

[Bgheff]

I see nothing wrong with this. I do think the thought process the normal humans will be exterminated to be a bit silly though. If you have the money I see no issue with making sure your child gets the very best shot at their genetics.

 

[The Dude]

Production organised in order to fullfil human needs instead of making profits for a minority of society. Worse than fuckin' Orwell indeed.

And who dictates the "needs" of the people? What about individual freedom and liberties? Also, please point to a socialist country in history that didn't have a totalitarian government and where the people were not completely oppressed. Speaking of Orwell, the society in 1984 can very easily be classified as socialist. Socialism is stagnation and oppression. People who cry for socialism are simply bitter have-nots who are deeply jealous of the haves.

 

[Carlson]

And who dictates the "needs" of the people? What about individual freedom and liberties? Also, please point to a socialist country in history that didn't have a totalitarian government and where the people were not completely oppressed. Speaking of Orwell, the society in 1984 can very easily be classified as socialist. Socialism is stagnation and oppression. People who cry for socialism are simply bitter have-nots who are deeply jealous of the haves.

You have noticed how much modern capitalist countries are influenced by socialism, right?