Hacker News Reader

Comment by xeornet | Hacker News Reader

And at what point does "problems that they were unfairly born with" stop?

Nowhere! Why draw the line right beneath yourself, we could all be better and it sucks that we aren't

If parents could get their children cured so they don't turn into borderline-autistic weirdos, where would we get our tech company CEOs? :)

Of course, it's not like society has any choice - if rival nations are willing to genetically engineer humans, can we afford to fall behind?

If parents could turn their children into tech company CEOs, how could we get non-borderline-autistic weirdos? That's the real question lol. But honestly, I'd expect that the actual result would be that severe autism which results in disability could largely be selected out, but neurodivergency would mostly fade into the background of the data. It's still around for a reason, and I personally am thankful even if I do have trouble with eye contact. If my sensory sensitivities were significantly worse though, or I had co-morbid epilepsy, I might want a tweak or two.

For too long, the children of the rich have been denied their rightful genetic advantages. We need a ruling class we can really worship with a straight face.

It is called education and has been around for millenia. If somebody suggested limiting education due to offering "unfair advantages" and contributing to inequality they would be considered absolutely bonkers. Yet with genetic engineering it is somehow completely different.

Compared to the advantage of "has more money", I really could not care less. Either better genes actually increase standing, in which case it would disproportionately help the lower class (which in this world would have "worse" genes), or they don't, in which case every person helped on the margin is great and it doesn't effect inequality at all. That's a silly reason to cripple the species.

Why should we stop improving?

Who defines improvement?

A dictionary, I guess?

I don't see what's so hard about it. When something gets better than it used to be, that's an improvement. Better eyesight, hearing, intelligence, endurance, strength, etc etc - improvements.

I won't get into any argument that "less is more". I don't believe that crap. We shouldn't stop until we find the limits of the universe.

How about gay vs straight? Being gay used to be classified as a disorder. That has changed in time, many (most?) now understand it as something different but not better or worse than being straight.

When it comes to differences between people, there are a lot of traits that we should be careful about categorizing as better or worse. Especially if it leads to us essentially eradicating the trait via eugenics.

Can you reference a credible study that links sexual orientation to genes? I've never thought of that as something inherited.

I don't think we're anywhere near genetic manipulation of human mind, if that's even a real thing. Perhaps we could manipulate behavior driven by hormones, but I don't think we could do too much there without breaking the whole system.

I wasn’t saying that there is a gay gene, just explaining there are cases where differences in human traits are deemed “better” by some governing body but aren’t actually better.

And I'm saying that you're presenting a non-problem. Traits such as gay/straight won't be changed by genetic engineering, probably ever, so there's no need to have this discussion.

Improvement is just when you make a change and you subjectively think the positives outweigh the negatives.

If the negatives subjectively don't outweigh the positives, that's usually considered "deal with the devil" territory and is the kind of thing sci-fi writers love.

Different people define it differently for themselves, if as a result of these definitions one of the groups grows exponentially and others don't then that group had the correct definition.

Empirical observation and scientific measurement.

... of what?

Of humans and their performance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com