When rich people can edit their kids DNA won't that just lock everyone else out and create a new class?
-
CRISPR and other tools aren’t science fiction anymore. If the wealthy get there first, what happens to everyone else?
Future Man, anyone? This is Biotic shit.
-
Excerpt from the book Accelerando
Free Chromosome Foundation has already published a manifesto calling for the creation of an intellectual-property-free genome with improved replacements for all commonly defective exons.
If you would like to read more...
Accelerando is a great sci-fi novel from Charles Stross, touching upon the theme of technological singularity. It is available as a free ebook, under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License!
Thus, I can legally reproduce parts of it here. This is the collected chronology of the future, found throughout the book (minus spoilers):
I wish I could read books. Only read like 5 books as an adult.
-
Future Man, anyone? This is Biotic shit.
Once again reference to a book?
-
I doubt any more or less than people here do
C'mon man, really?
-
Once again reference to a book?
Nah, a pretty silly comedy tv show. It explores this exact thing. Natural born people are forced to live in the sewers and survive on rats while the Biotics scour all time and space to destroy them.
-
C'mon man, really?
Yeah, really.
I'm more concerned about the abuses of the government and billionaires in my own country. Why should I get my panties in a twist about a country on the other side of the planet in a language I don't speak? That's on their citizens to worry about. Me as a yankee and you as canuck worrying about the other side of the pacific is wasted effort at best, and buying into the military industrial complex at worst.
-
Yeah, really.
I'm more concerned about the abuses of the government and billionaires in my own country. Why should I get my panties in a twist about a country on the other side of the planet in a language I don't speak? That's on their citizens to worry about. Me as a yankee and you as canuck worrying about the other side of the pacific is wasted effort at best, and buying into the military industrial complex at worst.
But our side has rules, you assume they play by the rules. You should worry about countries that don't follow international rules.
-
Yeah it’s a cool movie but the message of systemic disadvantages don’t matter if you try hard enough is a little questionable at best.
For the kinds of class based gene editing we are likely to see, it kinda isn't. More attractive, bigger boobs, better predisposition to fitness, etc. That is all surmountable.
Where it falls apart are "goofy" looking people likely Michael Phelps who are straight up genetic freaks. But those aren't the kinds of genes the rich want... For themselves.
-
If I'm thinking like them with a huge ego I think they will go and make variants of themselves trying for perfection. Just a guess.
If they live forever, they would likely prefer to reshape the world to fit the parts of themselves they can't change, rather than passing the opportunity to gratify themselves forever, to someone else, even their own children. Rich and powerful people are absolutely terrible parents. I think their egos are big enough that children are just the best solution when they can't live forever.
-
If they live forever, they would likely prefer to reshape the world to fit the parts of themselves they can't change, rather than passing the opportunity to gratify themselves forever, to someone else, even their own children. Rich and powerful people are absolutely terrible parents. I think their egos are big enough that children are just the best solution when they can't live forever.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I dont think people will live forever. 300 years yea but not forever. Unless you are talking about replacing everything that fails with something new, then how much of you is the original person?
-
But our side has rules, you assume they play by the rules. You should worry about countries that don't follow international rules.
But our side has rules, you assume they play by the rules.
China academia has the same problem that US academia has: publish or perish.
And seriously, you can't say something like that and ignore all the BS the US government has been pulling internationally for decades. Trump murdered 14 random people on boats that weren't even in US territory, and seemingly no one on the international stage gives a shit
-
But our side has rules, you assume they play by the rules. You should worry about countries that don't follow international rules.
The "rules" allowed for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. My government is arming and funding a genocide. Our rules are a pretext for the powerful and wealthy to do as they please, while constraining smaller countries.
-
CRISPR and other tools aren’t science fiction anymore. If the wealthy get there first, what happens to everyone else?
Let them pick their own damned cotton.
-
Can’t wait for them to make their kids super smart and then their kids call them idiots.
I'm thinking there are dominant and latent effects to any development, natural or engineered. This tech could have latent effects similar to uhh pedigreeing.
-
But our side has rules, you assume they play by the rules.
China academia has the same problem that US academia has: publish or perish.
And seriously, you can't say something like that and ignore all the BS the US government has been pulling internationally for decades. Trump murdered 14 random people on boats that weren't even in US territory, and seemingly no one on the international stage gives a shit
Oh theres a shit ton of BS. but you are trying to deflect to the US. no one has ever given a shit, look at Israel. What does that have to do with the context of the dicussion?
-
CRISPR and other tools aren’t science fiction anymore. If the wealthy get there first, what happens to everyone else?
That's a worry, but also there's still a lot of stuff we don't understand about genetics, and a bunch of grifters who'll fleece the super wealthy
-
The plot of the film Gattaca explores this, the idea of what society looks like when there's a class of genetically engineered, "superior" people, vs. the naturally born, "inferior" class.
Okay, but the moral of the story was that "superior" people weren't actually superior. They were just racist.
The protagonist outwits and outperforms them all.
-
Yeah it’s a cool movie but the message of systemic disadvantages don’t matter if you try hard enough is a little questionable at best.
The issue wasn't "try hard enough". It was how systematic disenfranchisement hobbles people far more than their genetics.
Once you brand someone as "lesser", their actual capacity is irrelevant. They won't be given the opportunity to succeed (much less to fail and try again) while the presumed-superior cohort is offered advantage after advantage in order to prove they are better.
-
Not just education, but what really matters- social connections. The wealthy only want to socialize with other wealthy people, so when their kids begin entering adulthood they’ll give them a leg up. Wealthy people control access to many high-paying jobs; the classic example is wall st, where unless you’re a rocket scientist your daddy has to know someone to get an internship.
Lets hope they dont weed out empathy.
-
Oh theres a shit ton of BS. but you are trying to deflect to the US. no one has ever given a shit, look at Israel. What does that have to do with the context of the dicussion?
You brought it up, you specifically said "our side has rules". It's not a deflection to point out that "our side" violates those rules whenever it suits them.
