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Hello, everyone! I was unable to post for a while due to connection issues, but now I can. Here's something I meant to post months ago:
I think people who are worried about genetic engineering tend to be worried about all the wrong things. Often, someone says that in the future it might be possible to increase IQ or athletic ability and everyone else is worried about "playing god." But neither of those is particularly worrisome. I in fact agree with Scott Alexander that making hundred clones of Von Neumann to combat global warming might be a great idea. Dunno if it would work, but worth a try. What we should be worried about instead are attempts to alter human personality.
We know that personality is to a worryingly large part genetic. Also, I am getting the sense that pretty much no "side" that exists today is satisfied with people as they are. Nearly everyone will have interest in replacing vanilla humans with something more pliable.
Woke west will be interested in altering men to remove "toxic masculinity." Islamic countries might want to make women more submissive and thus prevent any possible future feminist rebellion (i wrote this before disturbances in Iran, so i guess I predicted something). Chinese might want to make everyone more obedient to the State.
In the west, there probably won't be any laws mandating genetic modifications of humans, but there won't be much need to be. Western helicopter parents are already looking for every advantage they can possibly get. They will pay for whatever genetic improvements necessary. And when improvements in IQ get maxed out, they will look for ways to make personality more competitive. Reducing libido is a no-brainer, not only will it make him pay more attention in school, it will also make him less likely to get in trouble with HR.
And in authoritarian countries, it will be even more simple.
This will likely be disastrous long-term. Progress happens because people are dissatisfied with the way things are and put in an effort change things. But once governments can simply replace discontent people with content ones, we'll likely see less progress. In fact, I have seen theories that proliferation of psychiatric medications is basically a weaker version of this. Some psychiatric medications are necessary, but the role of other seems to be to placate people as it costs the fraction of what an actual solutions would. Much cheaper to alter people's brain chemistry to be satisfied with depressing wagie environments than to change their depressing wagie environments. And generic engineering is potentially even more powerful.
Gestures desperately at government-encouraged mass immigration and demographic replacement
This horse bolted in 1965, and you're positing "Hey maybe we should start thinking about closing the stable door" in 2023. Suffice to say, I think your concerns are obsolete, not because the solution has been found, but because the problem is a fait accompli. The Faustian Man has already been driven below replacement level, by people who cheer his demise as progress in and of itself.
I think that's apples and oranges comparison. Those immigrants still have standard human hardware, so are capable of becoming discontent (or their children are) I am not worried about that. But when you create people with customized personality, you can remove any possibility of rebellion forever.
The entire concern is rooted in disagreement over how much of our human hardware is in fact standardized.
It's standard enough. Or at least it is more standardized than it is gonna be when genetic engineering comes.
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