Sammael

Well, before we start adding things, I expect a decades long if not century long project to take place to map out what does what. I don't expect any individual to be able to predict what changes in genes lead to what effects, but that was never the way forward anyway. We have billions of human beings on this earth. Why can't we just feed their dna into computers and couple that data to phenotypical observations, like appearance, health issues, profession, disease, longevity. You don't need to predict or needlessly worry about what altering a single gene does because with a sample size of billions of humans, there are probably plenty of people with similar gene clusters where the alternations in question are already there where you can compare and contrast differences. Using the sickle cell example, you can look at african populations without the mutation and notice in increase in malaria rates and deduce from that statistical likelihoods of some benefit that would be lost by stripping that away (still worth it in that case because we can solve malaria in other ways like changing the environment). If we feed enough data into computers, a lot of this missing data will fall out of it naturally, you will get signals that suggest that certain gene clusters provide x benefit and perhaps their inclusion increases the risk of y malady. We need the data, and so how about we start thinking about how we ought to collect it and cross reference it so we can start to get some useful and prescriptive information out of it.

It's moot to speculate on the details of how to improve people now, it is NOT moot to start the vast project of trying to tease out and catalog how gene combinations and interactions effect things. It is PRECISELY because we know so little, that we ought to start large scale projects to figure this kind of stuff out. As for low genetic variability, I assume there is not just a single genetic peak of particular traits to get a desired result. I imagine a sea of genotype combinations on a plane that lead to different peaks and valleys, there is not likely to be a single peak or valley, but multiples of each. There could easily be hundreds of different gene combinations that boost the aptitude of people, plenty of biodiversity there. But if you are worried, I suspect not all people would choose to have their children modified. And for those that do, I also suspect we will be much more competent at engineering around some of the roadblocks viruses use to target us and take us out, or bacteria, or fungus. Health concerns are not enough of a reason to stall this research, and delay the project of lifting people out of the muck. We will not all be the same, there are innumerable different combinations of genetic and environmental influences that make us who we are, focusing on a single aspect like peoples native intelligence and boosting that up across the board will not remove differences, it will just give the people who got unfortunate combinations of genes a leg up. Right now, they are at a disadvantage. Look at yourselves, you don't give a damn if someone tries three times harder than another person, you don't give a damn if they put in more hours and effort, at the end of the day, when it comes to college admissions, you are looking for test scores and results. This is the inevitable result of a meritocracy, the problem is that a large portion of the outcome is based on something that is completely outside the persons control, what gifts they are born with. Raising the baseline ability gives more people options. There will still be poor people, through random chance and circumstance, but we will be able to DIMINISH (not eliminate) the number of people living a lower quality of life because they don't have the aptitude to get the skills that are more in demand in society. Do you honestly think if we were able to raise the floor of iq for 80% of the population, that would not have a positive effect overall? Because I think it would, ethics and morality are beyond the scope of my discussion, I have no clue what we'd do to measure such things, I suppose some of you are worried of creating some army of Khan Noonien Singh's. I'm not worried about that. But then I am less cynical and pessimistic than is common these days. I still kind of believe that we are more likely to be able to build a better world, something closer to the utopian vision of Roddenbary than the world of Hunger Games or Elysium: The goal is not to have no problems, but fewer problems, and having a higher baseline level of aptitude seems to me to be more likely to lead to that desired result than leaving it all to chance where people are being increasingly filtered into separate segments of life based on things outside their control. That is NOT the future I want to just allow to stand. Why are any of you sated with such things? There is this apathy that pervades so many corners that seems to suggest.. don't even bother looking to try and tackle these realities. Here is a dark truth to ponder. The more fair and just and meritocratic and equal a society is in terms of its external impacts on its populace, the more the INTERNAL aspects of the individuals influence outcomes. And when that is the main thing left, the answer can't just be... never mind, nothing to see here. We don't currently know enough, sounds too hard, don't even bother. Quitter talk. That's a reason to want to figure more of this out. Your genetic makeup makes you more prone to Alzheimer? Not anymore. You have a recessive gene for Sickle Cell? You'd child won't be carrying it. Genes more prone to breast cancer? Let's replace those with some that make you more resistant to it. There is no reason this kind of project needs to stop at health. It won't. So let's cut the pretense and get on with this work.

I think the key now is that with lower iq they are less likely to feel fulfilled going forward. Automation is increasing, the demand for many less skilled labor jobs is likely going to decrease, up to this point the answer has always been increasing education to move more people higher up the chain, but that is much more difficult for those not so gifted genetically. We've all seen cases where some kid in class or being tutored works twice as hard to get less results from a smarter but lower effort peer. My goal with all of this is not to flatten out all ability and aptitudes, it's to raise the baseline for people enough that should they choose to go into a field that requires more aptitude and technical skill, they are not constrained by natures lottery. I want to get more and more of humanity to the point where even IF there are plenty of people smarter than they are, they are smart enough where their own effort can still allow them to function well and succeed. This is the perk of raising the baseline, it opens up avenues for people that are not available to them. And right now this kind of selection is ALREADY engaged in through proxies, female sexual selection in universities, college grad? good job? Decent income prospects? Put that on lock down with marriage, there is a magnetism with high status females and males in part because of the sorting process of universities and grad school and professional fields. What about the people not already in that class? They have a harder time competing for those genes that are more beneficial, and if they don't have the same frequency of beneficial alleles, their offspring will have a harder time in the modern world, because we do NOT reward lower skilled people with greater rewards en masse. Those spoils go to a cognitive elite, through college admissions, through higher earning professions, etc etc. It's not quite as dire and deterministic as it comes across from my words here, but natural gifts matter, and it is past time we give people the option to boost themselves higher, especially if they were not as lucky as others. It's an empirical question whether people are happier and more content in life without higher intelligence, I suspect really high iq could make you less satisfied, but really low iq? or iq low enough to make your job prospects lower? And as a direct consequence make you less marriage material as a man? Have less capacity to earn enough to be comfortable? These are cascading effects and negative consequences from not having the aptitude to do as well in the modern world, and we now have the power to alter that, why NOT work to boost people higher?

We have CRISPR now, and more refined variations and techniques are being developed with more to come, some to improve accuracy, others to not so much cut and modify dna but target it instead. But this tools is LITERALLY like being Prometheus unbound, we now have to prime tools of our own alteration, so... shouldn't we vastly expand research into what makes humans tick, so we can enhance ourselves? We all know nature is a massive drag on the fates of mankind, the genetic lotto is a cruel task master to a great many people. Some people are born gifted, intellectually, physically, the latter in both health and appearance, while others are born dullards and worse, squat, grotesqueries that make quasimodo shudder in horror. THAT is the genetic lotto, THAT is what all of mankind has been yoked to for their entire history, but now we have the tools to alter this! But we lack the knowledge. And here is where the rub is, there is a VAST frontier of undiscovered knowledge about what makes human beings tick, what leads to what. Everyone wants to strip away genetic diseases, but we should go further. We KNOW that how smart you are has major role in your fate in life in the modern world, we can lift the entire baseline if we only knew what to alter. It is not one gene of course, it's likely hundreds and THOUSANDS of gene interactions and protein interactions with the environment, no human being is going to be able to figure this out, but we have computers, where we can feed vast quantities of individual human dna into, then find statistical signals that get stronger with some gene combinations. WE have a planet of billions of people, we must be able to figure out some of this given enough data and enough corresponding information on how people turned out in life. Ultimately, we might even get to a point where we can feed in a dna combination from a zygote, and simulate the appearance of the eventual person with enough knowledge. Then humanity would be fully in control of directed evolution. Am I going mad? This is not crazy talk is it? And I am not wrong for wanting us to move in this direction am I? Because as much as people deride this as morally suspect, it does not hold a Candle to the genetic lotto, where in a world of increasing demands on peoples aptitudes and physical attributes to get ahead in life and prosper, some people roll snake eyes in the stats of life. We don't have to let that stand for people who do not wish it.