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Comment by _trampeltier | Hacker News Reader

In sport, are such super-humans allowd to play with normal people.

In society, i guess, if such super-humans are designed to have a 500 year life, they have automatic adusted there pension age to something like 450 years.

In law, because such super smart super-humans allways know things better, the fines are 100 times higher.

On the other side, of course, who would not choose the best for the best for the own child. Why should a person wear glasses the whole life, if it is possible to switch a few genoms.

So many difficult questions ..

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A lot of elite sportsman are already genetically blessed. They just got there randomly instead of by design.

I would imagine this debate depends a lot on 1) how many people have their genes edited, and 2) how big of a difference that can actually make.

I mean if we look at the athletes around before the invention of steroids, they weren’t genetically blessed at all.

Is Usain Bolt actually superior, or is it purely the drugs? It’s difficult to say, because the drugs don’t exist and nobody ever takes them and it’s all skill and talent.

> I mean if we look at the athletes around before the invention of steroids, they weren’t genetically blessed at all.

What are you talking about? If they had no steroids, and their training was far worse than what we have now (running on wood chip tracks), and they were still the best individual in the world at doing their thing, they were definitely genetically blessed.

>In sport, are such super-humans allowd to play with normal people.

There are already prohibitions on allowing transgender people to participate in some sports. It seems unlikely that the children of ordinary people will be allowed to participate in sports with children who are known to be genetically enhanced so that they are more powerful, etc. It is an interesting question though.

These rules are all made up anyways. The answer is if the people with influence over the decision want it to be the case.

I agree. I could see an opportunity for a future entertainment network or sporting competition where the only participants allowed to compete are those who can document their own genetics. One set of games for ordinary people and another for those people whose parents chose to try to engineer a result. All of this is so new that it may not happen in my lifetime but I'm not prepared to say that it can't.

Like most things it'll be the self-interest of the majority disguised as the "right" decision. If a small fraction of the population are genetically engineered to be more physically capable, the "right" decision will be to exclude them. Once they're a significant fraction of the population, the moral consensus will suddenly shapeshift.

It’s surely not just (or even mostly) a moral decision but a practical one too. Superhumans that dominate mere-humans would make that sport de facto superhuman-only, so if mere-humans want to enjoy competitive sport (and we do!) we’d organize a league of our own. Pretty much exactly what happens with sex and weight categories today.

Sports already select for genetic lottery winners

A lot of elite athletes already select their partners from their peer group. NFL football has examples of second and third generation players trying to make it big in the league since the financial incentives are so huge. It's a lot like antique royalty marrying distant cousins in order to avoid marrying down into the "commoner" ranks. Controlling the bloodlines in order to have kids who can meet or exceed their parents' accomplishments.

Just for womens so far. There are some men athletes for ex. with Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy.

How would you test it anyway.

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