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by guylhem 3953 days ago
Let selection and mating sort it out.

Maybe very intelligent deaf humans would outcompete the rest of mankind in a few generations? You may not like that, but why exactly should I care?

Parents do have the best interest of their children in mind. Let them be free of making the best choices instead of government imposed ones.

2 comments

Why do you suppose that children with edited genetics would be a result of parents wanting the best for them?

I think it vastly more likely that (lets call them East German) government agents would be impersonally having children edited, so that their country would win more medals at the olympics. These supposed government agents wouldn't care that these adults would burn out and die of terrible diseases in their mid-lives. They wouldn't care that there might only be a 5% success rate, and that the other 95% had terrible lives.

Thats why the option to NOT edit the human race is on the menu, but I am confident that that option won't be taken, except officially by the nations which are bothered by ethics. We as a race will tinker.

I think one of the more realistic fears of this technology is that there won't really be a choice. The option "remain unmodified and live an OK life" simply won't exist.

Moloch[1] may demand sacrifice.

[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

If that is the case, that it's so successful you pretty much have to do it, that sounds like an absolute success. Sounds like the process pretty much works and is good.
The tricky bit is that "successful" does not necessarily have to mean "makes people happier".