I wonder if the problem is cultural. Go with me on this... I'm American, work hard, and worry frequently. If I became secure without work, would I quit? My current job, if I didn't like it, certainly, but then I'd be trying to find a different job if that were the case. Some would, some wouldn't. However, our culture here measures money as a success bar, not sure if Finnish culture does the same. And maybe that's the problem... But is it our end that has the problem, or the Finns? I sincerely don't know the answer, but we need to get ideology out of the debate and read the facts. Numbers are NOT the only concerns, here.
Seriously... LIterally anything can be used for illicit purposes if it can be used for legitimate purposes. This is no different from when smartphones became a thing... "Your kids could be watching PORN on their phones!" No shit, news person, it plays video.
I agree 90%. Another thing that would help would be to reduce pressure to always get a solid result at the end. "We did the experiment as designed and approved and we got very little to show for it," needs to be acceptable to avoid fraud, as well as to improve processes. "This experiment fails because 'x'," is a beautiful thing, since it has value: This experiment for this purpose doesn't work, so skip it or improve on it, please.
Well, that's the rub, isn't it? Rare is the experiment that proves an idea true. Most experiments are designed to falsify an hypothesis. Statistical noise comes in and complicates this, and can't always be accounted for. Hell, there's a philosophical case to be made that reality is the result of noise and its cancellation.
It all really comes down to acknowledging that there's always some uncertainty to any measurement, whether due to limits of the measuring device, random noise, or previously unknown variables. This is normal. This is life. Acting like science happens in a vacuum (the quantum physics and astronomy crowds will love that metaphor) is missing the point.
The big problem is we don't talk about degrees of uncertainty in the core research. The next big problem is our focus on positive implications as opposed to negative results, especially as publications go. And it would probably help if we eliminated the stigma attached to retractions. "We found a problem with the study," isn't supposed to be shameful, it's supposed to improve the process. Even in science, shit happens.
As awesome as this may seem, it's not that simple. Which piece gets your data? Do all of them? With no real limitations on data usage and sale, this will very likely result in a vast dissemination of your data with no controls. If laws were passed which strictly controlled that data, on the other hand, this would rapidly become far more attractive. The same goes for Facebook.
Amazon and Apple are different in so many ways, which would require a much more careful approach on the business unit side, I would think. And from a management perspective, Amazon would likely be spinning off different units anyway. In short, no part of this is simple.
This could well be true... But we need to be honest here: There's no solid evidence for your assertion regarding shills (at least paid shills). There is a strong bit of evidence for a coordinated hit job (whether the cause for the hit job is valid is its own debate). Either practice harms the review process generally and needs to stop. I don't care about Ms. Larson's politics in general. I do have concerns as to her acting skills, but I'm reserving judgment given the franchise's relatively decent showings so far.
It really comes down to if there is something special about meat-based brains, which is possible. I can think of at least one way it could be, at least relative to silicon-based chips, still based on low energy physics. As to whether this qualifies as a "special spark" is a fair question.
But your point is valid. In truth, a friend of mine (a clergyman) argued that AI could never be alive because it has never done something we have seen not attributable to its programming. I pointed out we've never proven that human has ever done something not attributed to its programming.
In fairness, we are so far from AI waking up as far as we know right now, it might never come to pass. On the other hand, since we don't know what it takes to wake up an AI, we could accidentally do it tomorrow. We honestly don't know. This philosopher's error is he's assuming he knows what that "spark" is, even assuming it exists.
Foster kids don't belong to the foster parents. That's adopted kids. Foster parents are generally working for the state to provide a home environment for the kids in that system. Depending on the situation, they're in and out of said homes frequently.
Over-zealous policing of individuals has generally been a Republican Party thing during my lifetime. Policing of business has been a Democratic Party thing. And here's the thing: Businesses have never shown the ability to be responsible when not regulated. Unfortunately.
That said, both parties like to ban various things. Republicans ban drugs of any recreational use as a reflex on the (often correct) grounds they cause societal harm. Weapons also cause more harm than good, but that's somewhat intentional in their purpose, and therefore the Dems go after that.
Put another way, Dems usually want to tax your money and provide services (of variable efficiency) in return. Republicans want to take the leash off of money and put it on your neck. Both do so in the name of public safety. I'm not seeing how the potential abuse of this system as stated doesn't outweigh the theoretical benefit of having it.
Perhaps the problem is a failure of either side to see a basic truth: Freedom ain't free. It's an old trope, but history suggests it's usually true.
The First Amendment doesn't protect against threats. Now here's where it gets interesting: Is this a threat?
Without context, this as a post strongly suggests an intent to do harm to a specific class of target. Now, was it specific enough to qualify? I'd say no, generally. However, that's not the only consideration. First, the full protection of the First Amendment doesn't apply to minors; whether it should is a related but separate debate. Second, First Amendment protection isn't absolute. If the speech was intended to cause panic, similar to the classic "yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater", it's still not protected. Is this somehow on that level? Probably not.
This type of thing is why I really despise the current approach to the juvenile system in the US. Kids are not adults (some adults are barely adults) and the criminalization of stupid behavior in kids is destructive to society. This type of post creates a need for a response because of what has happened when no response was forthcoming. This isn't the type of problem the Founding Fathers foresaw, and I'm not sure how you even write an amendment to clarify this.
No. It's context. One is an explicit comedic parody done with a puppet on stage. The other is a context-free posting. If the kid had explicitly presented it as a commentary on Siri, I submit this would be completely unconstitutional prosecution. However, without context, this has to be treated as a potential threat. It's shitty, but nonetheless true. That we don't have a good corrective paradigm for handling kids being stupid is a problem, too, however.
I fully agree with your post. On the flip side, I submit that being a kid is in fact the process of wising up. He needs a good scare, but given the apparent lack of harmful intent, that should be sufficient for a first offense (assuming this is, in fact, a first offense). A slap on the wrist with the explicit warning that future errors in judgement will be more seriously prosecuted seems to be the correct response to me.
Drop hammer on table. "So, kid, here's the deal. This is your warning. If there's a next time, we drop a bag of these on your head. Let's not go ruining your life, shall we?" If he doesn't get the message, follow through.
Between it's different versions, the security problems this brings, etc., it's dying fast in the professional environment. Browser APIs pretty much dropped most support. I don't see a lot of JSP servers, either. I don't know if it's truly dead, but unless it finds a deep specialty application I don't know about, Java is going away. And based on my experiences as a user and such, it should.
Access to information can feed intelligence. I submit that's not the real concern here (though it's a reasonable question). What concerns me is that the human brain did not evolve to be secure from editing and control. Essentially, it is an open system as far as we have any way to know. I'm not worried about the chip(s) being hacked per se, I'm worried about the chip being used to hack me.
Unlikely as this may seem, can you imagine a world where people had their most cherished memories held hostage to a cryptovirus? Your memory of your children potentially blocked unless you pay $100k to some hacker in the ether? Governments "pacifying" their populace? Elon may be generally correct, but this needs intense scrutiny.
Okay... But if you didn't have the choice on setting up that deterministic system, then you still end up back to the beginning. The philosophical implications of consciousness being deterministic are vast. Depending on viewpoint, it could be argued you have returned to the notion of essentially being a biological robot. None of your choices were really choices. Free will itself is relatively poorly defined, which muddles things a lot as well. But as soon as determinism comes in, you have no real choices, regardless of beauty of the illusion to the contrary. Determinism, by definition, implies a predetermined outcome.
Non-deterministic doesn't mean random, though. If a study finds under a specific condition 75% of people will do a thing, that implies that there is a choice. 25% of people make a different choice. This isn't inconsistent with QM (though that by itself is almost meaningless). But randomness is rare at best in nature. So the first thing we need to do is truly define what is meant by certain terms: Deterministic, non-deterministic, free will, choice, random, etc.
You used the phrase, "Something is free when it is controlled by itself and not restricted from the outside." Except there are physical laws that will always operate on the thing controlling itself. To be honest, your definition of free will could be considered a minimal definition of omnipotence. I think I understand your intent, and I don't precisely disagree. I just think none of us knows really what the nature of the thing is we're trying to test for. It makes designing a good test nigh impossible.
Agreed. However, there is a modicum of logic to the notion of looking for a possible connection. Free will by definition has to be at least partially non-deterministic. As quantum mechanics is the only realm of physics which is non-deterministic, if one presumes free will exists, it suggests (weakly) there may be an aspect of consciousness which is driven by a mechanism which draws on uncertainty principles.
The weakness of the above proposition is that the logic is inductive, not reductive. While inductive logic is horrible for judging evidence, it has often yielded fruit when used to suggest places to look for evidence. The appropriate place for this hypothesis until experiments which can accurately test what to look for is, "Interesting but unlikely idea". Deriding the idea, until ruled out, is just as erroneous as embracing it before supporting evidence exists. Lack of an immediate test doesn't make it pseudoscience. Let some experimental specialists put together a plan, test it, and let the evidence decide.
I'd frankly love it to be true. I don't expect it to be, but it would be helpful to know if it is true or false to a higher degree of certainty. One thing is certain: Evolution has come up with ingenious solutions to physical problems. If such a mechanism exists to make use of this phenomenon in non-laboratory conditions, this could be how we find it (or rule out it's possible).
Ooh... We need to be careful not to make Penrose's mistake, though. Free will is a dangerous topic for so many reasons, including how the debate is framed. Free will in the moment may be very different than what happens under careful deliberation. One is based on heuristics and instinct, the other on deeper mental states.
Microtubules as a path for coherent electrons is pretty unlikely, yes. One would have to first explain how one maintains a coherent state in such a noisy environment, then they'd have to explain how such a phenomenon results in a biologically relevant computational output. Finally, you'd need to be able to explain why we haven't clearly observed it, and figure out a way to do so.
Let's be clear: It hasn't been ruled out, but what little evidence there is for quantum phenomena in biological systems is equivocal at best for most purposes. Superposition was looked at as a possible mechanism for photosynthetic energy transfer, but the experiments are not conclusive, as the results point to other, less "quantum" mechanisms being at least as likely.
Quacks have hijacked the debate, yes. Absolutely. But how neurons make decisions about when and how to fire is still not clear. What may have driven Penrose to look at microtubules may in part relate to the extremely fine control apparent in nervous system development. And on the face of it, the interiors of the tubules themselves are about 12 nm in diameter, so one could see the logic applied (even if incorrectly).
So could consciousness be a phenomenon leveraging quantum processes? Sure. But there's no evidence, and the necessary experiments have never been designed to test it. Though I admit... I'd love to see it.
When I say "taken too far", I mean where we start changing what it is to be human. Or letting fashion dictate baby appearances. And this isn't a purely moral consideration. Our variability and plasticity is a lot of what allows us to specialize in different facets of life. I don't want a homogeneous society where everyone looks and acts the same. It would weaken us greatly. Now, if you wanted to eliminate various functional issues by correcting them this way, I'm all for it. Editing future generations to be immune to flu, HIV, tuberculosis... Hell, add Ebola while you're at it, I'm okay with it. There's a mutation out there for stronger bones. If it's a good fit, use it. But let's not tinker with race, eye color, etc. It's our diversity which minimizes the odds that any SINGLE thing could wipe us out. I like Humanity most of the time, and would like to see us live long enough to get things right.
Well, you would want to check if it took before you used the sperm, ideally. But with most genetic diseases, you need to both cut AND paste, meaning you need CRISPR for any editing you want to do where a bad gene is replaced with a functional one. This gets complicated, but extra genes are relatively rare in genetic disorders from what I've read. It's usually genes where a bad codon is in place, so an incorrect amino acid is used to generate the protein. Usually, you still get a protein, but it's ill-suited or useless for its function.
'
So, basically, you need to add the correct copy for all edits. However, CRISPR isn't perfect, either. In cases where they have been researching for HIV, they've seen removal of parts of the virus's genome from living cells, and then the virus mutates. The technology needs a LOT of work before I would ever recommend using it on humans. Our genetic code seems to be fairly optimized for function and compression, with a lot of recursive compression if an article I read ten years ago was right. This last bit makes edits risky.
First, your assessment of CRISPR is incorrect. It can remove, replace, or add genes. It is one of the enzymes used by bacteria to remove viral DNA. This is a discovered thing, not an invented one. It can also cut and paste, which is how it can be used to remove known bad genes with good copies. This is also why it has been used in research to combat latent HIV infections.
Next, you're talking about discarding fetuses. This leads to WAY more ethical issues. And that's before you get religion involved (which always seems to happen).
Additionally, IVF has its own risks and is extremely expensive even today. CRISPR would use artificial insemination, which is generally far cheaper.
Finally, it may be possible some day to use CRISPR in combination with various viral therapies to correct genetic conditions in adults, possibly correcting sperm and eggs in the body of adults. This is unlikely within the next decade, but similar therapies are being used to program white blood cells to kill cancer. Next step is genetic editing of the cancer to restore normal cellular behavior.
To the average human palate, meat tastes good. Our entire physiology is adapted to accept meat as nutrition. The ethical arguments against cruelty are the strongest vegans have, and I generally agree with them. However, a lot of animals are killed to allow our crops to grow, so that argument is not absolute. However, matching a lot of the nutritional profile to meats is useful. If you can make a vegetable based thing that actually tastes like meat, has the texture, etc., I'll happily transition my diet. But no one has made it (I can tell the difference with nigh 100% accuracy still). And it doesn't taste or feel good to me. Our survival pre-civilization was augmented by meat. Hell, chimps hunt for meat. This is part of our general nature.
Lab grown meat avoids the vast majority of ethical considerations, but isn't quite ready for prime time. If you go veg for your reasons, I respect that. I despise the factory farming system, too. But the concentrated nutrition in meat is something we evolved to crave to a degree. That some people reject it is to be expected. But for those of us who can't quite do that, give us a desirable alternative.
The question isn't whether a university degree is worth it or not. The proper question is, "For which fields is it worth it?" Some fields demand it because of the expertise. Some fields don't pay enough to really cover it, though, despite this demand. Certs and apprenticeships are definitely appropriate for many fields, even highly professional and specialized fields. We need, as a society, to review what we're doing, and why we do it. This would require critical thinking, and that is something we have stopped teaching at the primary and secondary levels, which I think is a lot of why we are having many of our problems, both on this issue and so very many others.
The part about fixing things like Huntington's and such isn't a moral debate. If we can, we should. Eliminating genetic disorders is to our general benefit. I'm worried about taking it too far. For example, I'm ADD (quite seriously so). Medications are not helpful to me because of side effects. However, in some ways it's a superpower. I have a knack for spotting the holes in plans at work because I draw on all of the odd things I picked up because of random curiosities. I can get multiple specialists involved because I draw on their various backgrounds, which means I get teams to talk to each other. Is it really a disorder?
Sort of, because it sometimes gets in my way. But if we edit to the point our minds form with less variation to avoid "disorders" we may be damaging our potential. My inability to mentally stand still has made me an odd success, but it took a long time to find a good niche for myself. Our society is bad at managing differences well, which is a shame. In tribal days, those differences allowed specialization which allowed the tribe to grow. Our society still needs these differences to thrive.
I don't think editing eye color is really a moral issue. Skin color might be because of society's racial issues, however. We're going to be running up against some tough questions very soon.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if the problem is cultural. Go with me on this... I'm American, work hard, and worry frequently. If I became secure without work, would I quit? My current job, if I didn't like it, certainly, but then I'd be trying to find a different job if that were the case. Some would, some wouldn't. However, our culture here measures money as a success bar, not sure if Finnish culture does the same. And maybe that's the problem... But is it our end that has the problem, or the Finns? I sincerely don't know the answer, but we need to get ideology out of the debate and read the facts. Numbers are NOT the only concerns, here.
Seriously... LIterally anything can be used for illicit purposes if it can be used for legitimate purposes. This is no different from when smartphones became a thing... "Your kids could be watching PORN on their phones!" No shit, news person, it plays video.
I agree 90%. Another thing that would help would be to reduce pressure to always get a solid result at the end. "We did the experiment as designed and approved and we got very little to show for it," needs to be acceptable to avoid fraud, as well as to improve processes. "This experiment fails because 'x'," is a beautiful thing, since it has value: This experiment for this purpose doesn't work, so skip it or improve on it, please.
Well, that's the rub, isn't it? Rare is the experiment that proves an idea true. Most experiments are designed to falsify an hypothesis. Statistical noise comes in and complicates this, and can't always be accounted for. Hell, there's a philosophical case to be made that reality is the result of noise and its cancellation.
It all really comes down to acknowledging that there's always some uncertainty to any measurement, whether due to limits of the measuring device, random noise, or previously unknown variables. This is normal. This is life. Acting like science happens in a vacuum (the quantum physics and astronomy crowds will love that metaphor) is missing the point.
The big problem is we don't talk about degrees of uncertainty in the core research. The next big problem is our focus on positive implications as opposed to negative results, especially as publications go. And it would probably help if we eliminated the stigma attached to retractions. "We found a problem with the study," isn't supposed to be shameful, it's supposed to improve the process. Even in science, shit happens.
As awesome as this may seem, it's not that simple. Which piece gets your data? Do all of them? With no real limitations on data usage and sale, this will very likely result in a vast dissemination of your data with no controls. If laws were passed which strictly controlled that data, on the other hand, this would rapidly become far more attractive. The same goes for Facebook.
Amazon and Apple are different in so many ways, which would require a much more careful approach on the business unit side, I would think. And from a management perspective, Amazon would likely be spinning off different units anyway. In short, no part of this is simple.
This could well be true... But we need to be honest here: There's no solid evidence for your assertion regarding shills (at least paid shills). There is a strong bit of evidence for a coordinated hit job (whether the cause for the hit job is valid is its own debate). Either practice harms the review process generally and needs to stop. I don't care about Ms. Larson's politics in general. I do have concerns as to her acting skills, but I'm reserving judgment given the franchise's relatively decent showings so far.
It really comes down to if there is something special about meat-based brains, which is possible. I can think of at least one way it could be, at least relative to silicon-based chips, still based on low energy physics. As to whether this qualifies as a "special spark" is a fair question.
But your point is valid. In truth, a friend of mine (a clergyman) argued that AI could never be alive because it has never done something we have seen not attributable to its programming. I pointed out we've never proven that human has ever done something not attributed to its programming.
In fairness, we are so far from AI waking up as far as we know right now, it might never come to pass. On the other hand, since we don't know what it takes to wake up an AI, we could accidentally do it tomorrow. We honestly don't know. This philosopher's error is he's assuming he knows what that "spark" is, even assuming it exists.
Foster kids don't belong to the foster parents. That's adopted kids. Foster parents are generally working for the state to provide a home environment for the kids in that system. Depending on the situation, they're in and out of said homes frequently.
Over-zealous policing of individuals has generally been a Republican Party thing during my lifetime. Policing of business has been a Democratic Party thing. And here's the thing: Businesses have never shown the ability to be responsible when not regulated. Unfortunately.
That said, both parties like to ban various things. Republicans ban drugs of any recreational use as a reflex on the (often correct) grounds they cause societal harm. Weapons also cause more harm than good, but that's somewhat intentional in their purpose, and therefore the Dems go after that.
Put another way, Dems usually want to tax your money and provide services (of variable efficiency) in return. Republicans want to take the leash off of money and put it on your neck. Both do so in the name of public safety. I'm not seeing how the potential abuse of this system as stated doesn't outweigh the theoretical benefit of having it.
Perhaps the problem is a failure of either side to see a basic truth: Freedom ain't free. It's an old trope, but history suggests it's usually true.
The First Amendment doesn't protect against threats. Now here's where it gets interesting: Is this a threat?
Without context, this as a post strongly suggests an intent to do harm to a specific class of target. Now, was it specific enough to qualify? I'd say no, generally. However, that's not the only consideration. First, the full protection of the First Amendment doesn't apply to minors; whether it should is a related but separate debate. Second, First Amendment protection isn't absolute. If the speech was intended to cause panic, similar to the classic "yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater", it's still not protected. Is this somehow on that level? Probably not.
This type of thing is why I really despise the current approach to the juvenile system in the US. Kids are not adults (some adults are barely adults) and the criminalization of stupid behavior in kids is destructive to society. This type of post creates a need for a response because of what has happened when no response was forthcoming. This isn't the type of problem the Founding Fathers foresaw, and I'm not sure how you even write an amendment to clarify this.
I feel like the terms are wrong. "More educated" vs. "better educated" is a thing.
No. It's context. One is an explicit comedic parody done with a puppet on stage. The other is a context-free posting. If the kid had explicitly presented it as a commentary on Siri, I submit this would be completely unconstitutional prosecution. However, without context, this has to be treated as a potential threat. It's shitty, but nonetheless true. That we don't have a good corrective paradigm for handling kids being stupid is a problem, too, however.
I fully agree with your post. On the flip side, I submit that being a kid is in fact the process of wising up. He needs a good scare, but given the apparent lack of harmful intent, that should be sufficient for a first offense (assuming this is, in fact, a first offense). A slap on the wrist with the explicit warning that future errors in judgement will be more seriously prosecuted seems to be the correct response to me.
Drop hammer on table. "So, kid, here's the deal. This is your warning. If there's a next time, we drop a bag of these on your head. Let's not go ruining your life, shall we?" If he doesn't get the message, follow through.
Between it's different versions, the security problems this brings, etc., it's dying fast in the professional environment. Browser APIs pretty much dropped most support. I don't see a lot of JSP servers, either. I don't know if it's truly dead, but unless it finds a deep specialty application I don't know about, Java is going away. And based on my experiences as a user and such, it should.
Access to information can feed intelligence. I submit that's not the real concern here (though it's a reasonable question). What concerns me is that the human brain did not evolve to be secure from editing and control. Essentially, it is an open system as far as we have any way to know. I'm not worried about the chip(s) being hacked per se, I'm worried about the chip being used to hack me.
Unlikely as this may seem, can you imagine a world where people had their most cherished memories held hostage to a cryptovirus? Your memory of your children potentially blocked unless you pay $100k to some hacker in the ether? Governments "pacifying" their populace? Elon may be generally correct, but this needs intense scrutiny.
Okay... But if you didn't have the choice on setting up that deterministic system, then you still end up back to the beginning. The philosophical implications of consciousness being deterministic are vast. Depending on viewpoint, it could be argued you have returned to the notion of essentially being a biological robot. None of your choices were really choices. Free will itself is relatively poorly defined, which muddles things a lot as well. But as soon as determinism comes in, you have no real choices, regardless of beauty of the illusion to the contrary. Determinism, by definition, implies a predetermined outcome.
Non-deterministic doesn't mean random, though. If a study finds under a specific condition 75% of people will do a thing, that implies that there is a choice. 25% of people make a different choice. This isn't inconsistent with QM (though that by itself is almost meaningless). But randomness is rare at best in nature. So the first thing we need to do is truly define what is meant by certain terms: Deterministic, non-deterministic, free will, choice, random, etc.
You used the phrase, "Something is free when it is controlled by itself and not restricted from the outside." Except there are physical laws that will always operate on the thing controlling itself. To be honest, your definition of free will could be considered a minimal definition of omnipotence. I think I understand your intent, and I don't precisely disagree. I just think none of us knows really what the nature of the thing is we're trying to test for. It makes designing a good test nigh impossible.
Agreed. However, there is a modicum of logic to the notion of looking for a possible connection. Free will by definition has to be at least partially non-deterministic. As quantum mechanics is the only realm of physics which is non-deterministic, if one presumes free will exists, it suggests (weakly) there may be an aspect of consciousness which is driven by a mechanism which draws on uncertainty principles.
The weakness of the above proposition is that the logic is inductive, not reductive. While inductive logic is horrible for judging evidence, it has often yielded fruit when used to suggest places to look for evidence. The appropriate place for this hypothesis until experiments which can accurately test what to look for is, "Interesting but unlikely idea". Deriding the idea, until ruled out, is just as erroneous as embracing it before supporting evidence exists. Lack of an immediate test doesn't make it pseudoscience. Let some experimental specialists put together a plan, test it, and let the evidence decide.
I'd frankly love it to be true. I don't expect it to be, but it would be helpful to know if it is true or false to a higher degree of certainty. One thing is certain: Evolution has come up with ingenious solutions to physical problems. If such a mechanism exists to make use of this phenomenon in non-laboratory conditions, this could be how we find it (or rule out it's possible).
Ooh... We need to be careful not to make Penrose's mistake, though. Free will is a dangerous topic for so many reasons, including how the debate is framed. Free will in the moment may be very different than what happens under careful deliberation. One is based on heuristics and instinct, the other on deeper mental states.
Microtubules as a path for coherent electrons is pretty unlikely, yes. One would have to first explain how one maintains a coherent state in such a noisy environment, then they'd have to explain how such a phenomenon results in a biologically relevant computational output. Finally, you'd need to be able to explain why we haven't clearly observed it, and figure out a way to do so.
Let's be clear: It hasn't been ruled out, but what little evidence there is for quantum phenomena in biological systems is equivocal at best for most purposes. Superposition was looked at as a possible mechanism for photosynthetic energy transfer, but the experiments are not conclusive, as the results point to other, less "quantum" mechanisms being at least as likely.
Quacks have hijacked the debate, yes. Absolutely. But how neurons make decisions about when and how to fire is still not clear. What may have driven Penrose to look at microtubules may in part relate to the extremely fine control apparent in nervous system development. And on the face of it, the interiors of the tubules themselves are about 12 nm in diameter, so one could see the logic applied (even if incorrectly).
So could consciousness be a phenomenon leveraging quantum processes? Sure. But there's no evidence, and the necessary experiments have never been designed to test it. Though I admit... I'd love to see it.
It should be rejected for the following reasons:
It should be rejected out of hand.
When I say "taken too far", I mean where we start changing what it is to be human. Or letting fashion dictate baby appearances. And this isn't a purely moral consideration. Our variability and plasticity is a lot of what allows us to specialize in different facets of life. I don't want a homogeneous society where everyone looks and acts the same. It would weaken us greatly. Now, if you wanted to eliminate various functional issues by correcting them this way, I'm all for it. Editing future generations to be immune to flu, HIV, tuberculosis... Hell, add Ebola while you're at it, I'm okay with it. There's a mutation out there for stronger bones. If it's a good fit, use it. But let's not tinker with race, eye color, etc. It's our diversity which minimizes the odds that any SINGLE thing could wipe us out. I like Humanity most of the time, and would like to see us live long enough to get things right.
Well, you would want to check if it took before you used the sperm, ideally. But with most genetic diseases, you need to both cut AND paste, meaning you need CRISPR for any editing you want to do where a bad gene is replaced with a functional one. This gets complicated, but extra genes are relatively rare in genetic disorders from what I've read. It's usually genes where a bad codon is in place, so an incorrect amino acid is used to generate the protein. Usually, you still get a protein, but it's ill-suited or useless for its function.
'
So, basically, you need to add the correct copy for all edits. However, CRISPR isn't perfect, either. In cases where they have been researching for HIV, they've seen removal of parts of the virus's genome from living cells, and then the virus mutates. The technology needs a LOT of work before I would ever recommend using it on humans. Our genetic code seems to be fairly optimized for function and compression, with a lot of recursive compression if an article I read ten years ago was right. This last bit makes edits risky.
First, your assessment of CRISPR is incorrect. It can remove, replace, or add genes. It is one of the enzymes used by bacteria to remove viral DNA. This is a discovered thing, not an invented one. It can also cut and paste, which is how it can be used to remove known bad genes with good copies. This is also why it has been used in research to combat latent HIV infections.
Next, you're talking about discarding fetuses. This leads to WAY more ethical issues. And that's before you get religion involved (which always seems to happen).
Additionally, IVF has its own risks and is extremely expensive even today. CRISPR would use artificial insemination, which is generally far cheaper.
Finally, it may be possible some day to use CRISPR in combination with various viral therapies to correct genetic conditions in adults, possibly correcting sperm and eggs in the body of adults. This is unlikely within the next decade, but similar therapies are being used to program white blood cells to kill cancer. Next step is genetic editing of the cancer to restore normal cellular behavior.
You spelled "omnivore" wrong.
To the average human palate, meat tastes good. Our entire physiology is adapted to accept meat as nutrition. The ethical arguments against cruelty are the strongest vegans have, and I generally agree with them. However, a lot of animals are killed to allow our crops to grow, so that argument is not absolute. However, matching a lot of the nutritional profile to meats is useful. If you can make a vegetable based thing that actually tastes like meat, has the texture, etc., I'll happily transition my diet. But no one has made it (I can tell the difference with nigh 100% accuracy still). And it doesn't taste or feel good to me. Our survival pre-civilization was augmented by meat. Hell, chimps hunt for meat. This is part of our general nature.
Lab grown meat avoids the vast majority of ethical considerations, but isn't quite ready for prime time. If you go veg for your reasons, I respect that. I despise the factory farming system, too. But the concentrated nutrition in meat is something we evolved to crave to a degree. That some people reject it is to be expected. But for those of us who can't quite do that, give us a desirable alternative.
The question isn't whether a university degree is worth it or not. The proper question is, "For which fields is it worth it?" Some fields demand it because of the expertise. Some fields don't pay enough to really cover it, though, despite this demand. Certs and apprenticeships are definitely appropriate for many fields, even highly professional and specialized fields. We need, as a society, to review what we're doing, and why we do it. This would require critical thinking, and that is something we have stopped teaching at the primary and secondary levels, which I think is a lot of why we are having many of our problems, both on this issue and so very many others.
The part about fixing things like Huntington's and such isn't a moral debate. If we can, we should. Eliminating genetic disorders is to our general benefit. I'm worried about taking it too far. For example, I'm ADD (quite seriously so). Medications are not helpful to me because of side effects. However, in some ways it's a superpower. I have a knack for spotting the holes in plans at work because I draw on all of the odd things I picked up because of random curiosities. I can get multiple specialists involved because I draw on their various backgrounds, which means I get teams to talk to each other. Is it really a disorder?
Sort of, because it sometimes gets in my way. But if we edit to the point our minds form with less variation to avoid "disorders" we may be damaging our potential. My inability to mentally stand still has made me an odd success, but it took a long time to find a good niche for myself. Our society is bad at managing differences well, which is a shame. In tribal days, those differences allowed specialization which allowed the tribe to grow. Our society still needs these differences to thrive.
I don't think editing eye color is really a moral issue. Skin color might be because of society's racial issues, however. We're going to be running up against some tough questions very soon.