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If some genes really are so much better than others, why not use CRISPR to give more people the best mix of genes? Actually, beyond obvious cases like single-mutation diseases, attempts at finding out which genes are associated with what have not been very successful.

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Has CRISPR been successful on mammals yet? Once its widespread enough for someone without ethical constraints to have a try it seems like an inevitability.

I've seen papers where CRISPR was used to modify mouse embryos so the mice grow up to express certain proteins in certain organs (the proteins were useful for modeling disease). The differences between this and human modification are probably that nobody minds losing a bunch of mouse embryos, and that a lot of human traits are polygenetic and thus not a simple matter of adding a single protein. That said, it's only a matter of time until someone unscrupulous demonstrates human gene modification in some poorly regulated polity.

Why even go that far? Why hasn't nature spread them on its own?

Honestly this whole topic reeks of social hierarchies (which are entirely malleable) being applied to other aspects of life. After all, when you are convinced of a social hierarchy, you are going to try to find or manufacture evidence and if it can be explained by genes you have the ultimate excuse for racism.

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