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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
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
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.
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?
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.