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When genetic modification of humans is discussed, it is typically in the context of individual modification/augmentation. Whether in early embryonic stages or on fully developed people via gene therapy techniques, the goal is normally to modify outcomes for the specific individual in question.
Probably the reason we don’t discuss society-wide modification much (except in the context of huxly-esque dystopias) is that its proximity to eugenics makes it unpalatable to western society’s current ethics framework. But thinking in the longer term, I find it highly unlikely that future societies wouldn’t utilize this tool given the potential advantages it offers, especially in terms of group cohesion. This of course comes with the caveat that modeling the large scale implications of a small genetic change would be next to impossible. There would likely have to be a lot of trial and error, with some of the errors being quite horrific.
So in this context, I was thinking about what we could potentially modify that would have an out-sized impact on society with relatively little change on humans’ current genetic makeup. And the answer that seemed the most interesting is to modify the rate at which men are born relative to women. What would a society with far fewer men than women look like? As far as I can tell, there is very little data to go on (maybe USSR after ww2?). There are examples where there are fewer women than men (ex china), but I’ve struggled to find the opposite. Also, most scientific literature about “gender imbalances” is mostly just ideological fluff.
So anyway, the question I guess is what does this look like, and does it actually lead to a more stable/cohesive society.
Arguments in favor:
Arguments against:
-Susceptibility to military conquest by external groups with more balanced gender rations assuming this isn’t implemented everywhere.
Edit: Formatting
Genetic modification seems so obviously to be progress but I am starting to expect it to face a great deal of political backlash.
Let’s say we are in a Cold War with with China. In order to defeat the US they begin with their ideal Chinese man but then change the genetic code so that they create Shaquille O’Neill physical traits plus 250 IQ. These guys crush the US. But then the super humans end ruling China too. And they are so modified they are more different from Han Chinese than European Americans.
You don’t really need War for this timeline as simply doing it in peace time would end up creating humanoids completely different to current humans and basically a mass extinction even or at a minimum making human existence void of any meaning a second tier species watched over by their better.
Same thing of course applies to AI.
Did you miss GATTACA? Beggars in Spain? Hysteria around designer babies when Dolly was cloned, or the human genome draft was published?
That's just not anywhere close to realistic with our current level of technology and understanding. You could try cloning Shaq or whoever you think is smart, but we're laughably far away from editing your fertilized embryos for traits in that way. Like, it wouldn't happen in your lifetime even if the FDA were nuked tonight and we just did whatever we want to embryos for the next couple decades, ethics be damned.
With no ethics, and a big budget you could go very fast.
Females develop eggs after 20 weeks so you could make 1000 per generation, polygenically screen them all, pick the best and iterate.
In just over a year you have 3 generations and the pick of 1 in a billion (of descendants of your starting stock)
Those eggs are immature. I'm not a developmental biologist, but would you expect in vitro maturation protocols to work on eggs forcibly harvested from a 20 week old fetus?
I'm also not confident that there's enough genetic diversity starting from one person to get a true 1 in a billion; won't there be a bunch of alleles where neither parent has what you want? I admit that this may be a nonissue if most of the alleles you want are relatively common, I don't have a good handle on the numbers here.
Put it a different way - Do any of us have a 1 in a billion chance of giving birth to Shaq? I would tentatively guess no, modulo some genetic conditions like acromegaly. Do you have evidence that this is true?
But what then? You have one embryo. Somatic cloning? Things are getting pretty complicated my man.
Oocyte in vitro maturation (IVM) is a thing. I am not sure if anyone has used it on foetal eggs, but it is likely possible.
You aren't restricted to the original stock you can introduce new sperm each generation
To scale it up, you could potentially encourage eggs to divide (like identical twins) then sequence one, and if its the one you want, keep splitting
I think these things are not too hard to solve, you just need time and money, and the will (and lack of ethical restraint)
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