Topic: Genetic Engineering of Humans (Read 519 times)

Genetic engineering is already happening in plants and animals. You can't stop it. However when the life cυcle of the organism is short and something goes wrong, you can easy terminate the experiment and kill the animal. You can't do it to humans, and if it is happening it is a crime. Probably in the future, when the technology will mature, it could be safe to apply it to humans too.

Who is this guy and where's the proof? Might as well have claimed to have invented a time machine.

I think this is actually a serious issue and not one where we can say just let people do what they want as there is seriously ethical issues here. Would you want to be one of these new genetic freaks? What happens when things go wrong and people turn out horrendously deformed or ill? What if these super-intelligent people are also super-evil or despicable. Sounds like it could be some sort of real life X-Men type situation. I'm not saying genetic engineering is bad, but it certainly can be. I'm sure we'll make lots of good progress with it like eradicating illnesses and diseases but some states or powers are obviously going to use it for their own nefarious purposes and science fiction-like weapons and so forth.

That's precisely why fire weapons prohibiting fails. I never thought much about bioweapons and GE weapons,but that's the same case.

We live this is Brazil now.

Criminals are armed and using assault weapons, while the population is unarmed... As a result, 70homicides per year, more than Syria civil war.

We don't really want a super AI. All we want is robots that can do all the jobs. Then we can all go on welfare, collect 10 times as much, do what we want, travel the world, live where we want, etc.  Robots doing all the jobs will free us all up. AI robots might turn against us.

Who the hell knows maybe sentient AI is the next evolutionary leap for humans.  We could go from being a biological species to the first "mechanical", "digital" or some integrated combination species.  If we can reverse engineer the brain and genetically alter it at birth to "read and write" to a computer or network we might not even need genetically engineered bodies anymore!

It is curious what we would look 4 billion years from now


We should create super AI to completely replace humans at work (as suggested by someone in the other thread).

GE will be part of our species evolution and the only thing that will stop evolution of our species is extinction. Humans will do it if we can and if we don't all do it someone will get a major head start on it and could be used for really really bad shit. 

According to evolution and our understanding of the Earth if humans are alive in another 4 billion or so years those humans will look as much like us as we do to our 4 billion year old amoeba ancestors.

I wonder if big corporations will genetically enhance humans to not require sleep anymore so people can work 20 hours a day for them?

Perhaps with the integration of genetic engineering and technology a person might be able to transfer his conscious anywhere in the world immediately to a genetically engineered "host body/container"! I would like my host bodies to look like Scarlett Johansson pls!

Thank for your the recommendation, I like Sci-Fi

If genetic bioweapons are illegal, only criminals will have genetic bioweapons. We need widespread genetic engineering so that we can improve our own defenses against such things, including attacks by governments against their citizens: a more literal form of anti-virus.

Oryx and Crake is a good piece of fiction featuring a world with highly-accessible genetic engineering where it's as easy to make a custom bioweapon as it is to make a computer virus nowadays. The author clearly wants to ban all genetic research or something like that, but I still highly recommend the book for anyone interested in this topic, since it's very thought-provoking. (It's the first in a series of books, but I've only read the first one.)

Fixed.


That's obviously the concern about allowing genetic research without regulations, in my opinion.  Not that regulations or sanctions can stop a despot from weaponizing genetics.  I mean, Britons did it in Scotland for generations. 

No matter how noble the intentions of the scientists and researchers might be, someone will use the technology for nefarious purposes. 

genome based bio weapons gonna be fun  

Very right. I believe so too. First of all secret Gov projects do not really need the public opinion. They would already have done that to actual humans.

Perhaps like what we see in movie Bourne Legacy. Meds that permanently alter the capacity of human physiques and cognitive enhancements... are probably real and tested already.

Much like how advanced mobile technology were actually existed at least 3 decade before public get hold of them.

As far as I know, he and his research institute are being investigated by the Chinese government, and he has to admit that he "made a mistake".

He is now very pitiful. The government is investigating him. Most Chinese people do not understand him and regard him as a devil. The university that funded him announced that it had terminated cooperation with him. Even his friends and colleagues are now accusing him.

Many times science requires great courage.

I totally support this guy. Scientists have become cowards. Everything here was voluntary, and the possible benefits are enormous. While the entire rest of the world is doing unending long-term studies on incremental bits & pieces which even in the best case might show marginal benefits after many years, this guy took one giant leap for mankind. We need more mad scientists in the world...

The poll doesn't have a no-regulation option. I'm all for it without regulation. I hope that eventually at-home genetic modification becomes as common as 3D printing today, and the fact that this apparently "rogue" scientist was able to pull it off gives me a lot of hope in that area. If only governments end up able to do this sort of thing, then I'm nearly certain that eg. China will pursue genetic modification aimed at making people more docile; we need bottom-up countermeasures.

I sometimes wish that I had gotten into genetic engineering as a field rather than computers. It'll probably be the next massive technological revolution.


Agreed. People often have an irrational conservative bias when it comes to this stuff. If a race of super-humans is created, then they should dominate most things (based on their increased merit, not automatically). And it's not like there's eugenics against stupid/sub-optimal people today, so I'm not worried about some non-modified-genocide situation.

I think that many of these modifications will eventually be possible on adults, too, though, delivered via injectable viruses.

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Modifying the genes of a human is good in terms of health, we can avoid diseases that has no cure. But genetically modifying humans to become a "God" is not a good idea in my own opinion, because if we talk about modifying the genes of human, there are danger that we are facing that can also lead the human race to extinction. But if the scientist can use it in a good way, it can help us to survive in a very long period of time.

In other fiction; I'd like to point out "Squabbits" from Brickleberry won't really help.

The only reason I bring up the fictional story is because it drives society to decision making. If people were entirely rational, we'd be burning nuclear ore for our fuel instead of coal.

I was merely painting a hypothetical, and not suggesting that the only potential outcome is unmodified humans going extinct.  Certainly, over time the possibility does now exist.  And, one can argue the basis for that assumption also exists, and is displayed all around us.  We are currently the only surviving member of the Homo genus.

I'm in the "it's inevitable and should be regulated" camp. I believe that it is the present and future of science. To create a future society where there is less disease and illness.

Why is that a bad thing? If my son is twice as smart and twice as strong as me, that'll be a very good thing. What people need to realise is that if genetic engineering is illegal then that just means it'll only be accessible by the rich. The rich will be even more powerful than before.

His reason is to stop HIV and create a person who can be born with immunology of HIV. But editing human genes is a recognized area in the world. Maybe we can call him a devil, but he can also be called a pioneer, it depends on whether his experiment will lead to some unknown and terrible consequences.
In my opinion, the consequences of genetic editing may be:
1. Interfering with the way of human natural evolution, may cause some unknown genetic variation.
2. May lead to some new unknown genetic disease in the future.
3. Clones humans are smarter and stronger than natural humans, and maybe planned extermination of natural humans.
As a traditional person, I believe that we should follow the laws of nature and avoid all risks that may lead to human extinction.