An interesting article about the future coming of designer babies and a start of a discussion on the ethics of designer babies. Personally I see no problem with it at all. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30742774
Well, normally I wouldn't have a problem with it either, but I think I'll play devils advocate here. Obviously this is going to be available only to the rich so they can breed a super race that only sleeps 3 hours at night and is virtually resistant to all diseases. They'll live for 300 years and be able to work until they're 200 years old. It's going to be an ugly, ugly existence! Especially when they start to get consumed by cancer in their old age. That's how they're going to die. They won't die peacefully in their sleep.
The whole problem is unexpected consequences. Creating a baby for x may cause problem y. We don't know the interactions of genes well enough to safely do things like that, IMHO. - - - Updated - - - The other problem is that that super race may also have some kind of problems. For example, they may be more susceptible to auto immune diseases (since they have such an amped up immune system). They may be able to live for 300 years, but will have RA or Lupus for most of those years and live them in agony.....
I don't have a problem with it either but I imagine that it will be illegal in much of the West when the science gets there, My guess is if you want to breed a super baby you'll have to go to China to do it.
Nope. The rich will have access even if it is declared illegal. Will work just like abortion when abortion was supposedly illegal.
Designer babies is currently possible or at least almost possible while human cloning may be possible but has not yet occurred or at least has not been admitted. If cloning does become possible it won't matter to the rich if it is illegal in the US. They will just travel to another country to have it done. This was how the rich delt with abortion being illegal in the US. I had a couple of friends who went to study abroad for a year in high school and managed to come back un pregnant.
I am not worried about a "eugenics war" (Star Trek) scenario. The machines will rise up long before that happens. The upshot is that the entire world is basically going to be like me so I won't have to look at ugly fat people anymore. This also means that over half of WalMarts customer base is also going to disappear.
Well that's what I said in the first place, that you seemed to disagree with: that if you want a designer baby you'll probably have to go to China. Not sure what that has to do with your friends who like to party though.
The Eugenics War ended in 1996. Don't you remember the big peace treaty with the Augments and then we exiled them into space?
Great. Now if they can design babies that are not infected with such self centeredness, and selfishness, perhaps we can finally get enough people of the same mind, to solve the age old problems and man's inhumanity to man, which self centeredness and selfish behavior has created and sustained for thousands of years. So, perhaps now we finally have a chance to lose our barbarism, and our stupidity, and allow intelligence to flower, and not be ruled over by these selfish egos. But I bet people would be more concerned with eye color, beauty, physical build, things like that. The superficialities of human existence.
I'm not worried that a "master race" of genetically superior people will happen, I'm concerned that we will produce kids that have major problems due to unexpected interactions of the genes.
Has to do with the way the rich will get around laws making cloning illegal which is exactly the same way the rich got around laws making abortion illegal. And it is the same way designer babies will happen for the wealthy if laws are passed restricting that option.
I think you are making the assumption that intelligence and selfishness are mutually exclusive. My guess is that intelligence has a large genetic coefficient while selfishness is more a product of nurture.
Both intelligence and selfishness are genetic. One, is the consequence of a change of diet (and yes, genetic), and the other, is a consequence of being animals. We are not selfish only when we are with friends or family.
I'll be the first to buy one – in fact I'll probably take 6. Unless there's some terrible unforeseeable risk of horrendous mutations. Outer Limits episode "Unnatural Selection"
No assumption involved here. Selfishness, the psychological kind is a lack of intelligence, an utter lack of it. Do not confuse the needs of the body for food, physical security, shelter, with the psychological selfishness that has created almost all age old problems in society. Intelligence would destroy psychological selfishness if the illusory ego was not more powerful than intelligence. But the ego is the most power brain created illusion that ever existed in human existence. Consciousness itself, what we know as consciousness is ego consciousness. So, sure its the most powerful thing in humanity. This consciousness is responsible for all of the evil that has ever existed, or will ever exist, for evil is the ego seeking self gratification. It is gratifying for some to steal what others worked for, gratifying to kill someone who insulted your ego, your highly exalted self image created by your brain, gratifying to screw your neighbors wife, if she will let you, gratifying to wage war on another people, either to take what they have, or for an ideological belief that you have which you think is the best, the only belief to have, and so on and so forth. So selfishness and the ego are the same, one doesn't exist without the other being in control of the body. The men who use the work of others to create a great wealth for themselves, is all egocentric behavior. The man who will do anything to get a position of power, is exalting and self gratifying his self image, an image created by nothing but accumulated memory. Created by the brain, as an idea, as thought, as an image. And this self image is what we call "our self" And we protect it, and we will get angry in protecting a damned self made image. So, if one could genetically get rid of the power of the ego, so that one still had a very small one, just for the sake of being able to do technical things, but not strong enough to completely rule the person, we could solve every problem that has plagued humanity since he developed the ego in mythical eden. For all of our great problems, are created by all of these individual egos, self images, that we love do much, with some of us believing in religion so that it does not end when the body dies. It really is the most nefarious thing the human brain ever created.
Way to many assumptions with no evidence in science to back them up. Just as a simple example why do you think eliminating ego would have any impact on the world's overpopulation problem which could only get worse if wars were eliminated and wealth was shared more equally.
