Update: CRISPR
radiolab.org
radiolab.org
That said, the first thing that came to my mind when they mentioned putting the CRISPR engine in new cells so they make more of the same and spread kind of like a virus... They mentioned they tried it and it worked first time. So, unless I'm missing something, it's only a short matter of time before some disgruntled person could try to destroy the world's food supply or cause many other large scale issues.
Maybe that's harder than it sounds but it just seemed like a crazy amount of power for any one person with access to the tech to have. And, unlike nukes there's really no way to prevent this power from getting stronger, easier, and more accessible. Nukes you need the fuel. This you mostly just need the knowledge.
Sorry I'm not suggesting any course of action. It's just I believe we won't make it past The Great Filter because as tech progresses it gets easier and easier for a single person to destroy the world. Embedding the CRISPR engine so it spreads seemed like a step in that direction.
You've been fooled by hype. There is a big marketing effort behind CRISPR for some reason, watch out.
The clock is ticking, and we might not make it
How?
Also, maybe with personal space travel, comes an extension of the usual 'air'-space.
That said, 9/11 shows how both easy, and how hard something like this might be.
Just a little time reading about this is sobering. There is certainly the potential for profound nefarious acts. However, also consider that you could have 'gene drive warfare' in which you release constructs that attempt to override the malicious ones.
Ultimately, while doing something like this is within reach of most moderately talented graduate students in molecular biology (and perhaps some remarkable amateurs), it does require a fair bit of infrastructure. Doing this as a 'black ops' project would require you to get together a good deal of laboratory equipment - especially things like Sanger sequencers - and oligonucleotides that are reasonably tractable. At least for now.
How does this fare for bio-weapons?
It's more correct to say you can't control 7+ billion people now. A few WMD attacks later, maybe the incentive to find ways to do so will come about.
Also, I thought it was interesting when they talked about "who would turn down the ability to remove diseases for $x?" My answer would be people who simply don't have that kind of money.
This makes things complicated.
I'm not even close to an expert in this area, but I don't think it's too far a stretch to consider that having technology like this where you can theoretically pick and choose "add ons" for set prices would lead to class divides that are clearly visible when these add ons stop being just internal changes and start including exterior traits.
[0] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2123973-first-results-o...
If there is an insurance mandate for individuals, then actuaries who work at the payers (insurance companies) will absolutely fund CRISPR on embryos to reduce future costs.
Yes, we can eliminate many classes of disease with genetic engineering. But as you allude, it won't stop there. People will pick and choose external characteristics for their children. The idea that doctors will somehow be able to keep this in check is to ignore history and the huge incentives that are set up here. First, it will be diseases. Then it will be, for instance, the genetic propensity to obesity. Then 'disadvantages', like being too short or a little too dull. Then it will be external traits, like blue eyes or blonde hair. Then it will be mental traits and personality characteristics. And where it will end will be totally inhuman and beyond our present comprehension.
The result will be massive suffering, inequality, and possibly even the extinction of humanity as human genetic diversity is replaced with an ever-accelerating social competition that ends in a monoculture that will probably be ill-suited for survival the same way modern dog breeds often end up unsuited for survival.
Yes, it would be lovely if we could use genetic engineering technology safely and responsibly. We can't. That's to say nothing of the risks inherent in the technology if it became simple and cheap for anyone to use even on non-humans.
We can eliminate many classes of disease with genetic engineering
Sounds good enough for me. Fuck cancer, fuck heart disease, fuck diabetes, fuck obesity. Full steam ahead!
The weaponry cold war did happen: how do you feel about a genetic enhancements cold war?
Then of course the risk is that a lack of genetic diversity wipes people out all at once, so some care is needed.
Also there already is a competition to become super beautiful, it's called sexual selection.
Five decades is nothing in historical terms, and it was by no means a foregone conclusion that nuclear weapons would not be used in that time period. The reason they have not has been due to extraordinary effort, chance, and non-proliferation efforts. The future decades and centuries look much grimmer unless we can dismantle existing stockpiles and do what we can to enjoin future generations to not create them.
> The Cold War is over.
The Cold War is over, but the Pax Americana enforced by American hegemony will not last forever. If history teaches us anything, it is that all peacetimes eventually end.
> Sounds good enough for me. Fuck cancer, fuck heart disease, fuck diabetes, fuck obesity. Full steam ahead!
If eliminating heart disease means the extinction of human beings, or the death and suffering of billions of others, is that really worthwhile to you? What if heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity can eventually be dealt with through other, safer, means?
> Who knows where it'll go, but homo sapiens isn't equipped to be space-faring or even survive on this planet beyond a few billion years.
So? I don't see how that's an argument for human genetic engineering. If we want to perpetuate life throughout the universe for some reason, we can send probes loaded with microbes, maybe even advanced probes that can incubate more advanced animal and plant species to create an ecosystem. In your scenario, humanity is presented with its extinction through either natural causes or by being the architect of its own destruction. I'd prefer the former.
* Made entire species extinct through hunting and deforestation
* As a side effect of industrialization, dumped enough CO2 to change the climate and will probably keep it up
* Domesticated multiple other species into being dependent on us, from crops to farm animals to dogs
* Started work on AI and machines which might even replace us one day
Genetic modification isn't a one-way street to destruction as much as AI is, or industrialization.
Also regarding perpetuating life: the one thing life has in common is that it perpetuates itself. We'd be a shitty species if we perpetuated machines or microbes instead of ourselves.
When I visited hawaii, I noticed that there were large trees all growing on one of the oldest islands. Due to erosion, the island will eventually submerge back into the sea, and all those tress will be dead. Those trees don't know it, but their time will be up soon.
I don't know what the future holds, but shying away from technological development means that we as a species are like the trees. At least venturing to other planets would be like if the trees could send seeds across the ocean.
As far as escaping the heat death of the universe, who knows.
welcome to the new arms race.
In an ideal world, humanity would be scattered and numerous enough that the engineering of any one population would leave the others unaffected. But as it is, we're all stuck on Earth in a global, interconnected civilization without central authority, so once this technology is introduced, the incentives are aligned against us.
But I don't know what else to try.
> even if that class lacks genetic diversity, that seems like exactly the kind of issue that genetic engineering exists to solve.
Why would anyone choose to have genetically diverse children if that diversity led to immediate short-term problems? Who would bite the bullet and have 100IQ child who had to compete in a world of 150IQ children for the sake of genetic diversity?
I am sure you would agree that if science, say, discovered a simple way to make large amounts of antimatter at home, it would be better to suppress that knowledge by whatever means necessary so that one crazy guy somewhere doesn't decide to obliterate the European continent.
I personally don't think we'll tend toward monoculture. Different needs, goals and cultural biases will promote different people toward different genetic ends.
The editing has errors, but we have the technology to detect those, so it's really only a cost increase.
The more concerning issue for anyone who might want to do this is that AFAIK our understanding of what these edits do is pretty limited, so for things like known diseases it may be worth the risk to choose embryos or make edits, but for things that are more marginal, the risk might not be worth it and this may have a drag on people wanting to use the tech, even when it works great.
I disagree that editing viable human embryos is unethical.
"The latest study is the first to describe the results of using CRISPR in viable human embryos, New Scientist can reveal."
Presumably the wealthy will have not only potentially negative traits removed but positive traits added where missing. And given that there will likely be a reinforcement effect where people with unfortunate or fortunate genotypes run away into two distinct populations, given the way wealth inequality is growing.
Living in sci-fi times...
If we have the ability to knock out breast cancer or heart disease it'll happen just like polio. Cosmetic stuff will probably always have a $$$ above and beyond "normal" however and I'm fine with that
CRISPR is cheap.
1) it's not a luxury 2) that medical providers will pass the savings on to consumers
Of course maybe people will want to use it for more zero-sum things like height or looks, so maybe you ban or don't subsidize that, but inequality in more positive-sum traits is unlikely.
What if someone doesn't have the money for them?
Engineer a relatively benign gene edit that makes life a little more annoying for someone and offer to send them the fix for 1 BTC. And actually deliver on the promise.
But you are correct that a class divide could be created. Perhaps a solution would be to class all the possible fixes people can get and have some that are considered "elective" and other that are deemed "critical". The state covers the cost of critical fixes (e.g. remove genetic diseases) but you can pay to have elective updates (e.g. vanity related or doesn't severely affect quality of life).
Just some thoughts. I'm sure there are better ideas out there to regulate this.
― Peter Watts, Echopraxia
The emergence of gene drive resistance in modified mosquitoes might help relieve some of the fear expressed in this thread: http://www.nature.com/news/gene-drives-thwarted-by-emergence...
It's cool you could encode your name into your genes and then it would live on as long as humanity.
Even lobotomies kind of made sense, although thankfully far better treatments were invented at roughly the same time, so they were short-lived.
A nice book on the history of psychiatry: https://www.amazon.com/History-Psychiatry-Era-Asylum-Prozac/...