The Rights of GM Humans

An anonymous submitter writes "Some of the powers that be -- not just talking heads -- go on record about our genetically enhanced future in this Village Voice article. The anti-doping watchdogs of the Olympics say they'll ban GM athletes, and even athletes who have a grandparent with an enhanced germ-line. Would Ivy League schools slap a quota on these people to fend off the enraged parents of the "normal majority?" Imagine how a politician would fare if it became known she'd been tweaked in utero. Human history is rife with aristocide and mob attacks on perceived elites. Today lawmakers and regulators are eager to ban the technologies that would be needed to create a new breed of intellectually and physically superior people. But who's willing to stand up for the rights of this future generation? Environmentalists already deride GM crops as "frankenfood," so how far behind could the demonization of GM people be?"

Comments

Assertion of control.

[sekensirazu]

This story and all the responses are indicative of an attitude so transparent to you guys that I doubt anyone even pays attention to this post.

Humans of industrialized societies--actually, it goes back to the beginning of totalitarian agriculture 10,000 years ago--view themselves as being in direct competition with natural process. It's a logical conclusion: whenever you try and control your food supply and nature f's up your harvest, what are you gonna think?

This is a recent development (oh... 5% of the time humans have been here with our capacity for intelligence) and we are already trying to control the processes that allowed us to even come into existence!

I reject this idea as belonging to a philosophy which tries (and fails) to put humans at the top of the evolutionary pyramid. Comparitively we are more advanced, but for us to try and control these processes is like a branch trying to control a tree... we can't do it to any successful degree. It might work right now, but it isnt sustainable.

And what of these people when we do modify them? What of the discrimination that will ensue? (For chrissake we still have our own people starving in this country... if we cant allow blacks and gays and other minorities equal opportunities... ... what do you think will happen?) BTW, if it isnt obvious to you by now, we cant legislate happiness or fairness into existence.

I can already tell you. The same people who feel they have a right to use this technology will offload the consequences onto "human nature" (whatever the fuck that is). If we want to make any progress that really helps humans we _have_ to stop doing MORE of the same thing. In other words, give up trying to control things here. To attempt to control ensures our death.

I would love to hear thoughts on this :)