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Other people have mentioned the risk of class distinctions being codified at birth. I worry about that, but I think there is also a larger concern that we still don't really know what we are doing here yet, and we can be selecting out traits that are beneficial for Human flourishing (in the species sense) in our ignorance. There are plenty of examples of disease resistance that look maladaptive, sickle cell and malaria being the classic one. We have no idea what we're doing and we need to take this cautiously.

Due to the inequality of the world, it is unlikely we would rid ourselves of something entirely before we realise we need it.

You're betting your species on it though, so it better be some pretty ironclad inequity.

Right. Clones are good for business, but long term can have disasterous consequences.

There is a potential for human mono-culture just like in agriculture.

"I for one welcome a world of universal access to genetic improvements"

The stuff that's scary is not that there is universally accessible genetic improvements.

The fear is that these improves are not universally accessible.

What if they were part of universal healthcare?

Every one of the above improvements started as not universally accessible. Knowing that they're improvements and available is how we start down the path of making them universally accessible.

Demanding perfection or nothing is perhaps only an ideal approach in scenarios where nothing is, in fact, an acceptable answer. In a world where Tay-Sachs exists, I think that would be an ethically abominable outcome.

Unfortunately, Ladder-kicking is a pretty common thing in modern society. So is seeking profit at all costs.

In medicine we already see this where companies continually make new drugs that aren't always much better than the old one, but is 'better enough' that their salespeople convince doctors to use that one instead of the old one that has a generic.

What could we do to ensure that from day 1 this is universally accessible? This is VERY dangerous territory, we are talking about potentially bifurcating the human race here.

I don't think that's a good example. The medicines are only marginally better than the last, but are sold because they are profitable.

But the whole debate around genetic engineering is that it isn't marginally better. The fear is that it is so supremely powerful it will dwarf all other interventions.

And I don't think ladder kicking is particularly true. Once education was only for the elite. But we have seen it get more and more popular, to the point it's about as universal as possible now.

I'm taking the position that fewer children dying of avoidable genetic diseases is a strict improvement. I am personally unwilling to insist that extra children should die because we cannot be completely sure that every child on the planet can benefit from the same treatment.

I understand if some take a different perspective on the matter.

Even if they were universally accessible, you don't want your kid to be stuck with "last year's model" so to speak.

Today's genetically improved babies could be sub-optimal by the time they hit kindergarten and just plain old obsolete before they go into high school. And the bad news is, I could see the rate of improvement increasing over time. So that material improvements are being made year to year.

Doesn't bode well for when you're going to look for a job at 29 and you have to compete with 28 year olds. Even worse if you're 29 and you have to compete with 25 year olds. And heaven help you if you're 29 and you have to compete with a 20 year old.

Ask yourself what happens with that process when you're 53.

That is taking such a utilitarian approach to the extreme. It goes into the reason why people have kids - and it shouldn’t be (although regrettably, it is sometimes) I’m having kids because he/she will be better than everyone else.

This is a fixed-pie fallacy.

Someone of mediocre intelligence is not harmed by being in a society of people much smarter than him. On the contrary - he benefits greatly because smarter societies are safer, fairer, and take care of citizens (including the dumb ones).

This is revealed by real-life preferences: People from low IQ countries consistently try very hard to migrate to societies of smarter people. People from low IQ regions try to get into neighborhoods and schools of higher IQ people.

It's like complaining that Einstein existed because my grandpa didn't get to invent relativity. Well, my grandpa was never going to invent relativity. The fact that Einstein existed just means that the rest of us now get to enjoy the positive externalities created by his ability.

It's true that if everyone else is smarter, your relative social status would be lower. But this isn't an argument that scales up, since relative social status is in fixed total supply anyway.

Can you give any examples of "low IQ countries"?

Lots of data here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nations_and_intelligence

So... if people getting smarter every year is bad, does that mean people getting dumber every year is good?

Or am I making a mistake by trying to apply logic here?

You are making a mistake.

Mother Nature has no logic. Or rather, if she has logic, it's the logic of simple chromosomal propagation on galactic timescales. She just keeps propagating different combinations and permutations of genes blindly. Then, for instance, if some cataclysmic environmental change happens she ruthlessly culls all of the gene combos that are not able to survive the new environmental reality. Or it could be a new predator. Or a new asteroid strike. Or a new bacteria. Or what have you.

Point is, in the case of our species, she doesn't make people "dumber", or "smarter", or "faster", or "stronger", or "slower", or "darker". She just blindly makes people. Of as many kinds as she possibly can. So that when the change roulette wheel spins, she's already laid bets on every number on the table, black and red alike. Thus giving her the best chance at a win. If I believed in this sort of thing, I might say that Father Time has taught Mother Nature that the shotgun approach is the best survival bet she can make. (And he probably taught that lesson the hard way.)

Contrast that blind propagation strategy against what we would be doing, which is laying odds on certain, but not all, numbers on the hypothetical roulette table. You can kind of see why people might question the wisdom of such a targeted strategy.

Of course, name me one thing artificial that is universally accessible? Why should we fear that? How is it different from hating the rich?

K-12 education, and in many developed countries, healthcare and basic housing.

Sure, but what about the history of technology leads you to believe that would be the case? Are smart phones only owned by the super wealthy? Computers? Antibiotics?

> - Pre-K programs

> - Kindergarten enrollment

> Every single factor listed above is demonstrably correlated with lifetime intelligence

I thought that pre-k and kindergarten programs (along with essentially all education) were not correlated with IQ when measured later in life? Part of how most "shared environment" influences decrease as people age. (The two remaining factors would be "nonshared environment" and "genetics", each at ~50%)

There is a correlation between "years spent in school" and IQ, but that's typically thought to go the other way. (Higher IQ causing more years in college - grad school, PHD programs, etc)

EDIT: I should add that there are still correlations that go the other way - more intelligent, wealthier parents are more likely to enroll their kids in pre-k programs and/or kindergarten, and are also more likely to have more intelligent, wealthier children. But intervention tests - where entire regions are enrolled in preschool, for instance - don't show the improvement you'd expect.

> universal access

HAH. Not even close, and not never, probably. That's what people are concerned about.

The lack of universality is the problem.

The government should just step in and make this available to everyone that wants it. It would lead to a rapid improvement in the quality of its populace.

Making things available universally have already been tried in USSR. What it leads to is everyone being equally poor. And it also disincentive hard work, because most of the fruits of your labor will go to equality, instead of going to you. And because everyone gets things equally you might as well as work as little as possible - you will get what you want in any case.

Meanwhile, many European countries also make things available universally, without making everyone poor.

Not on the same scale as USSR. The less you do it the farther you are away from making everyone poor. Europe still has a lot of capitalistic elements to counter the equality plague.

You pive in a bubble of people who went to university. A lot of people who attend in the US wouldn't be able to go in a lot of EU countries due rationing.

> I know this stuff scares the heck out of everyone, but how is this really different from: [...]

For once, these items are not eugenics, and people try to provide their kids with what's best for them.

You can deplore that it's easier for rich parents than for poorer ones, and we should try to improve it; but it's really different from selecting genetics traits before implanting an embryo.

I'd have no problem banning genetic profiling until every kid has access to pre-k and development specialists, that actually sounds like a good plan to me. Okay, you're rich and you want to genetically enhance your stock? Help us provide these basic provisions to the poor first and then we'll let you do it.

This is actually a really interesting idea. Although I think it would fail if any single part of the world allowed genetic profiling, because then the rich would just go there to have their babies' conception.

There’s just not enough resources available to do that for every kid out there. We would have to impose strict population limits to achieve this.

I agree, these things should not be banned but they also should not be for the super rich only, this should be standard options on a child.

Big difference

"The twist would be to decide, on the basis of their dna, which of a group of available embryos should be implanted and brought to term."

In this case you are deciding which group of cells to implant. In your examples you are effecting a specific person. Not choosing them out of a group and discarding the others.

Personally I don't know. But your comparison isn't fair.

They're all correlated, sure, but how well have we determined causation for these? Childhood nutrition I'll grant: it has big, well-established long-term effects on a lot of things. The rest look more shaky. Pre-kindergarten education, for example, has effects that look to be somewhere between tiny and nonexistent:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/11/13/preschool-much-more-th...

... which hardly seems cost-effective.