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We Risk Programming Inequality into Our DNA (vice.com)
An anonymous reader writes:Imagine having a chip in your brain to boost your concentration, or pumping artificial blood into your veins to improve stamina. With gene editing, this may be possible. Scientists are pioneering the ability to tweak our DNA to wipe out disease and maybe even allow us to choose desirable traits in our unborn children, like height or intelligence. None of these technologies have moved out of the lab, but Americans are already uncomfortable with them. In a survey from Pew Research Center, almost half said they wouldn't want to edit their baby's genes -- whether it were to combat disease or shop for traits. Nearly 70 percent of survey participants also said they were more worried than enthusiastic about the possibility of synthetic-blood and brain-chip implants. They saw these options as "meddling with nature," even though we've been using technology to enhance our lives for thousands of years.
EOM
love is just extroverted narcissism
for hundreds of millions of years.
We generally call it "evolution" round these parts.
Huh, the writeup doesn't bring up the "inequality" boogeyman. Wonder how that got inro the title.
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humans have inequality programmed into their DNA. that's why for example average strength of women is less than 2/3 that of men. that's why I can get a sunburn in less than third the time as someone whose ancestors are from some other places, so unfair I demand sunshine time equality!
we have evolved to Trump2016 maybe evolution needs help!!
and if you believe in creationism... the devil is winning and god needs help.
We already have inequality in our DNA, and not just the *ist kind. Some people are inherently susceptible or resistant to certain diseases, more likely to live longer and so on. The very nature of DNA is to be unequal and provide genetic diversity. Species that lack enough diversity in their DNA have a habit of going extinct.
Parents will decide to look out for the best interest of their child and enhance their child's opportunities in life. The body, can and will be hacked, get over it.
Being afraid or even being offended by new technologies is the usual thing to expect. When people heard that they could go 30 mph on a train many insisted that death would be the consequence of moving that quickly. Now we have people scared to death over drones. If you build it they will fear it !
Given "nature's" obvious shortfalls, and the resounding success that our "meddling" has yielded so far -- clothing, farming, animal husbandry, domesticated fire, water purification, and so on -- I find it a bit depressing that the "meddling with nature" trope still gets any traction at all. I rather wish that those who oppose "meddling with nature" would pull themselves away from this globe-spanning communication network and go become wolf food, rather than bothering the rest of us.
I have family histories of both hypertension and arthritis. If it was possible for me to prevent my children from developing these diseases, I would have to think long and hard about it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
We should program all humans to be equal by design. Therefore, all babies since now on should be clones. We just need to find the perfect template.
While it's a nice thought to say that everyone is equal, in reality some are stronger, some are smarter, some are more persistent, some are more creative, some are more empathic, some are more willing to take risks to improve their condition... and what is even less fair, some of that you can't change much beyond what you were born with. Of course, with more advanced technology it may be possible for people to choose whatever genetics they want for themselves, or at least for their children. But then, some people just don't want that sort of responsibility.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
No wait... I meant "Gattaca! Gattaca!"
We may enact some legislation to "prevent" this sort of thing, but it's going to happen anyway, because there will be a demand for it.
Prohibition simply doesn't work, whether it's prohibition of drugs, prostitution, alcohol... or genetic manipulation. One way or another we're going there. Perhaps this is a chance to "get it right" for a change, and educate the public about this emerging technology, rather than the usual FUD tactics.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
We do not have the wisdom, let alone the knowledge, to be directly editing out genome.
FUD.
Trial and error served humanity well up to this point, there is no reason to expect that it won't work in this case.
Humanity survival depends on us becoming recursive and self-correcting, as environmental pressures that drove evolution up to this point are addressed/mitigated. Alternatively, our future is Idiocracy of breeders - whoever can push out most babies and consume most food will inherit the earth.
Frankly I do not see why anyone in the world getting Artificially inseminated is not insisting on Dean Karnazes's sperm.
Frankly, I am surprised people aren't hunting him down and getting sperm at gun point. At the age of 54, he can't run very fast, even if he literally does not need to stop EVER.
He once ran for over 80 hour straight, without sleep.
Worse than the Terminator.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
There's always a BUT.
There comes the issue of balance. When there's something good, there's something negative/bad to counterbalance it. It happens in every part of our lives. Everything biologically (chemically, physically, electromagnetically) must find balance and is always striving to do so. Heck, that's what the universe operates on with everything we've found so far; something got screwed up and things went BOOM, this way, that way, or didn't...but what's always been observed is energy of all types converting, exchanging, repelling, attracting, you name it. Our entire existence is the result of imbalance and everything trying (unsuccessfully so far) to find balance.
Having said that, it's just plain scary to think that there's even a remote possibility that a genetic change can offer something of awesomeness and not have a major negative to counterbalance it. e.g. "I'm 7'2" tall now and have massive muscles. Downside is that I'm lacking calcium and my center of gravity is off."
To try and meet the demand of maintaining balance, more muscle need to be used. Since the rest of the body's components haven't been accounted for when it comes to an imbalance, it's quite possible that one of those imbalances will destroy or injure other parts of that body. It's a complicated mess (and a beautiful one), but we have become what we are today due to accidents (oops, just had sex with a different species of human, but look how tough my kid is), disasters (big rock hit, make everything cold, body must adapt and pass genes on with adaptations), and so many others. Heck, why do we have butt hair? It doesn't really do anything but get in the way as far as we can tell, but the body hasn't mutated it away over time, so it does something, right?
Back to the topic.. If I volunteer to have my kid (don't have one, just saying) given an advantage in advanced brain development with an emphasis on the pre-frontal cortex, perhaps it will trigger a dormant gene somewhere around the age of 25 that breaks down neural connections and causes brain cells to trigger death so it doesn't, you know, explode. I'm stating something that can be argued to death (no pun), but it's just food for thought.
It comes back to what I said in the beginning - everything finds balance, and usually good is just a swinging level of imbalance from the bad which normally causes something else good to cancel it out, but the extreme bad used to cancel out the good might be TOO MUCH for the good to counteract, hence problem. I don't need to state the obvious about not knowing how bad it is until it happens.
So, who wants to sign up as a 100% committed test subject and relieve the testing company from all legal recourse if something goes wrong? I'm not quite there. Need to see more examples where I can ask questions and have the questions answered along with a demonstration of the outcome or a new example with a modification that helps to cancel/counteract something I find wrong. I'm still talking rats at this point. Seeing other humans who have committed to the project and seeing their failures and successes just leads to more questions. I guess I still have something to live for (though I have no idea what it is). I guess it's "I want to see what's gonna happen next".
Unfortunately, any kind of evolution is an adversarial process. For example, people who weren't somewhat resistant to plagues were left behind. So far, super-rich are the same species as the rest of us, so their success in gene editing will also be humanity's success.
The fact that paranoid, credulous, and superstitious people will avoid genetic therapy is a feature, not a bug.
The only real risk is that their numbers become too large and they become an unsustainable burden on society as the human baseline leaves them far behind. Their own sense of entitlement might very well create the sci-fi dystopia they're currently whining about.
You're right -- we don't have enough wisdom and knowledge yet. Wisdom, the ability to make good choices, comes from experience.
Experience, of course, comes from making bad choices.
I'll say it again, LOUDER for the benefit of the usual internet idiots who can't be bothered to read:
WAKE UP SHEEPLE!
from the ./ summary:
That is a rather stupid take on the issue for at least two reasons:
First, the situation at present is that humans already have unequal genetic gifts. Genetic engineering will enable us to help those who are deficient, to aid those (or the children of those) who suffer from from lousy genetic makeup. Think of it as eugenics done right; We do not exterminate or sterilize the genetically deficient, instead we enhance the genes of their offspring and let them carry on. That would increase, not decrease equality.
Second, we should be concerned with improved well-being of society as a whole, instead of (as appears the poster to be) obsessed with a perverse desire to make everyone equal. Making just only one person in the world better off is always a Pareto improvement but can either increase or decrease equality.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
You're right -- we don't have enough wisdom and knowledge yet. Wisdom, the ability to make good choices, comes from experience.
Experience, of course, comes from making bad choices.
Experience comes from making choices, not just bad ones. Wisdom comes from learning not just from your mistakes but the mistakes of others.
It's an interesting question; where should we draw the line? Obviously, if your embryo/fetus is destined for cystic fibrosis, we would all cheer for a genetic intervention. But if you just think it would be cool if you kid would glow in the dark, it may be quite reasonable for the rest of us to resist allowing those "imported" genes into our collective gene pool.
I think a key concept to consider in all genetic modifications is the difference between vertical gene transfer and horizontal gene transfer. The former is manipulation of genes within the same family tree, whereas the latter involves importation of exogenous genes from other species.
If you ask me where I would draw the line, in terms of legislation, this is it: endogenous (vertical) vs. exogenous (horizontal) gene transfer. Do whatever you want within the human genome, but don't import any genes from any other genome.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
It's an interesting question; where should we draw the line?
Most people want to "draw the line" just a little past what they are used to, so "the line" slowly creeps forward. Back in 1978, the first test tube baby was born, and people worried that we were playing God, and whether the resulting creatures would even be accepted as "human". Today IVF is mainstream, and no one gives it a second thought.
A decade from now, it will be common to correct genetic disorders in embryos, and it may even be considered child abuse to refrain from doing so. Today's moral handwringing will be long forgotten.
This is atomic-scale stuff. Do you really think that the number of errors by gene-splicers will be so low that diversity is reduced?
There are a great number of risk-takers in the world who would be willing to experiment with their children.
Year after year more diseases are discovered that are caused by genetic flaws that have no plausible compensating advantages. This aspect of "genetic diversity" is in no way an advantage for humanity. It lowers lifespan, reduces quality of life, and places a burden on those who help the sufferers.
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There is and will be a wide range of opinion about what the best genes are. Consider those perverted blind parents who want their children to be blind also.
Tetrachromacy in women, arguably a genetic advantage, is correlated with color blindness in men. Where does that stand in the ordering of "best genes"?
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Every Western country will ban it completely. There will be much debate about medical cases and, eventually, that will be allowed -- and at-risk parents will get help via socialised medicine. But it won't be germline alteration. It will be embryo gene therapy.
There may be some non-religious govts that embrace it. Rich parents will fly out to get inseminated. It may start off with medical cases but it will soon be designer babies, with or without your line in the sand.
In the West, public attitudes will be very important. The US may be the last to adopt designer babies, though if China or Russia start breeding genetically-engineered soldiers, it will become a national security issue.
I suspect it will be 20-30 years before most Western countries allow more than embryo gene therapy.