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Comment by laydn | Hacker News Reader

I like how you portray the US to have a higher moral standard for this subject matter. I wonder if there's a Chinese guy who read the article and said:

If China doesn't do it, USA will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the Chinese standing toe-to-toe laughable. If USA doesn't, Russia will.

Maybe it is time to start thinking about an international agreement to limit unethical genetic engineering. A "Paris Accord" for "Genetic Engineering" if you will...

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Apologies, I'll need to re-read my comment and account for that perhaps in an edit. I don't mean to cast any country in a "better" light - I'm only speaking from the perspective of an American. Basically I'm saying if "we" don't do it, "they" will.

The endgame of my argument is that I hope EVERYONE will do it, and I frame it as "us" vs "them" as an attempt to find a way to overcome typical ethical concerns about genetic engineering, most of which I disagree with (so I myself don't need convincing).

My objective is a united human race. Whoever takes us there is fine by me.

It's not moral standards we have, it is ridiculously parochial notions of purity and natural-is-better attitudes. If we fail to free our children from stupidity and ill health, we are the moral imbeciles. If Asian nations increase health, IQ, and happiness through genetic selection and engineering, this will speak of higher moral sophistication. We have right-wing religious conservatives on one side and on the left a sort of Lysenkoism that pertains to all mental traits. I fear this will prevent us from implementing this technology.

If you outlaw genetic engineering, only outlaws will be genetically engineered. Then they'll take over the world.

That's a paradox since a genetically improved species would abhor violence. They would have no ability to take over the world. They would become subservient like the Eloi in The Time Machine.

> a genetically improved species would abhor violence.

On the other hand, humans are the apex predator of the known universe, the output of 4.5 billion years of evolution driven by relentless, unceasing violence. It's not clear that a genetically improved species would abhor violence.

> That's a paradox since a genetically improved species would abhor violence.

Bold claim.

I share some of your frustration about the irrational preference for "natural" things. Too often these attitudes result in the rejection of critical advances like GMOs and vaccines.

But I also have to preach some caution about meddling with human genetics. At this point we have what I think you can agree is a relatively poor understanding of the potential consequences of splicing DNA in a human zygote. Crashing headlong into an age of careless modifications could be disastrous for the survival of the species.

I just finished reading the Firefall duology by Peter Watts (http://rifters.com/) and one of the themes in the second book is that "baseline" humans are in some ways hardier than modified transhumans. Natural selection has fixed a lot of the bugs in us baselines over millions of years, and that's a hard-won legacy that we shouldn't be too quick to discard for barely-understood alterations.

It's not necessarily just about moral standards. China's government has a recent history of strong policy on matters of population and birth, the One Child Act being the most well-known. There are still regulations on reproduction in the name of population control, such as making it illegal for unmarried women to freeze their eggs:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/31/world/asia/china-us-women...

> According to the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China, assisted reproductive technologies are denied to “single women and couples who are not in line with the nation’s population and family planning regulations.” Even married women must provide proof of marriage, a license to give birth and evidence either of infertility or of medical treatments that could impair fertility, such as chemotherapy.

America, historically, has been defined by a Protestant culture which places a lot of religious and moral significance on conceiving human life, and on God's role in creation. Chinese culture does not, as far as I know, have the same stigma against genetic engineering (I admit that while I have traveled for some time in China, I am relatively unfamiliar with any moral, religious, or cultural issues they may have on this topic).

It's natural for the GP to assume that his or her morals are the most correct. How could they behave be otherwise? If they believed that Chinese morals were a higher standard, they would adopt them. Everyone reads the article from their own perspective.

What Chinese Govt. says is much more important than Chinese morals and culture.

> a Protestant culture which places a lot of religious and moral significance on conceiving human life

Er, that would be more characteristic of Catholicism. There's a reason for this Monty Python skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifgHHhw_6g8.

Francis Galton, a product of a thoroughly Protestant society, was already worrying about the negative correlation between socioeconomic status and fertility very shortly after the Industrial Revolution.

> I like how you portray the US to have a higher moral standard for this subject matter. I wonder if there's a Chinese guy who read the article and said:

It's just the nature of where we live and our propaganda.

We have been told over and over that we are the light of the world and we represent good. China/Russia/Muslims/others represent bad.

> If China doesn't do it, USA will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the Chinese standing toe-to-toe laughable. If USA doesn't, Russia will.

I'm sure there is. Human beings are human beings.

In the future, maybe instead of national/racial demarcations, we'll have "valid" and "invalid" demarcations a la "Gattaca".

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