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Kharin
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Making the Future Safe
« on: 2003-07-03 14:57:27 » |
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Notes from the World Transhumanist Association's annual conference
Ronald Bailey
"The job of bioethics is to be the French letter on the prick of progress." So said University of Queensland bioethicist William Grey, during the June 27-29 World Transhumanist Association (WTA) annual conference at Yale University. Grey's pungent comment came from his presentation on "Design Constraints for the Posthuman Future," during a session dealing with Reproductive Technology and the Rights of Future Generations. More on that another time.
So what is transhumanism? The WTA defines it as "the intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities." Such enhancing technologies include: genetic engineering, longevity therapies, integration of human biology with computer technologies, and new psychopharmaceutical treatments to improve cognitive capacities and mood states.
It's fair to say that most of the 130 or so people who gathered under the banner of transhumanism were enthusiastic about scientific and technological advances, and don't think that humanity needs much prophylactic protection from the fecundity of progress. In other words, while insisting on the maintenance of standards for safety and efficacy, in most cases transhumanists are happy to ride the prick of progress pretty much bareback.
The conference was a protean affair, with a wide range of sessions on topics such as "Why Not Re-Invent Humans? Is This the Best We Can Do?," and "Forseeable, Radical Life Extension: The Biology to Inform the Philosophy." So, today's column is just the first in an occasional series that will report and analyze issues discussed at Transvision 2003.
The conference kicked off with a debate called "Should Humans Welcome or Resist Becoming Posthuman?" The debaters were Gregory Stock, director of the University of Calfornia's Program on Medicine, Technology and Society; and bioethicist George Annas, a Boston University professor of health law, bioethics and human rights. Essentially, Stock is against French letters, while Annas strongly favors them.
Stock began by noting that answers to all kinds of questions, including technological ones, generally arise from small populations. If a new technique works and is beneficial, it will multiply and expand to other groups; if not, it fades away. He sees this as a model for how humanity should proceed with new technologies, like genetic engineering and longevity treatments. Global bans on new technologies, therefore, are bad. "The only way that wise policies will emerge is to allow different policies to emerge from around the world," Stock said. This process of trial and error will show us which ones work, and which ones should be discarded.
Why are some people so afraid of the new technologies, Stock asked? "What they fear is that the technologies will work and work gloriously," he declared. "Some will see them as an invasion of the inhuman, and others see them as the greatest expression of humanity; the opportunity to transcend limits that previous generations could only dream of." Stock concluded: "The next frontier is not space, it is us." It's a foregone conclusion that "we're going to go on this adventure," and we should "not just accept, but embrace" the new technologies, "because they're filled with promise and because we can."
Annas started his presentation with the lament, "it's hard to be against the future"; still, he managed to soldier on. For him, being a "cheerleader for the future" is less interesting than concentrating on the "dark side of science." In other words, being a bioethical French letter. Annas believes today's hype over genetic engineering mirrors the gee-whiz enthusiasm for the 1960s Space Age. Man was supposed to go to the moon, Mars, and then the stars, but that turned out to be "bullshit," he said. "We were very naïve then, and I suggest that we're just as naïve now."
Then Annas turned his attention to some problematic biotechnologies. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis of embryos for genetic diseases, for example, is a "non-issue," he declared. Similarly, reproductive cloning is also a "non-issue." But hold on a minute. Annas has promulgated a model global treaty that would ban all reproductive cloning and germline genetic engineering (that is, inheritable genetic changes). If reproductive cloning is a non-issue, why bother trying to get all 200 or so of the world's nations to ban it? "I thought cloning would provide an opportunity for the world to find something to agree on," he said. A symbolic treaty, in other words. By the way, Stock said that he, too, thinks that reproductive cloning is a non-issue, but for a different reason: "It would have far less impact on us than, say, cell phones," Stock said, because so few people would want to use it.
In any case, Annas wants to apply the Precautionary Principle to technological innovation. One canonical version of the Precautionary Principle reads: "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof." Another way of putting this pernicious principle is: "Never do anything for the first time."
The Precautionary Principle is the moral equivalent of taking birth control pills, using an IUD, applying spermicidal jelly, having a vasectomy, and pulling on a French letter, all at the same time. Annas would like to set up a regulatory Precautionary Principle body that would have to be convinced by innovators that any new technology is safe enough to be permitted. He wants to establish this system of pre-clearance because "the technologies we have now aren't only going to become more powerful, they are going to become more dangerous."
Annas is "worried about the future of the species," and therefore wants to shift the burden of proof onto those who propose "species-altering or species-endangering experiments that put the whole of humanity at risk." What can this mean? Clearly, he wants to apply it to the genetic engineering of humans. But can that really be conceived of as species-altering, much less species-endangering?
First, what about reproductive cloning? It is hard to see how cloning technology that nearly everyone agrees will be used only rarely could either alter or endanger the species. After all, a clone bears a human genome which has already come about naturally once before. It's like saying that twins who, after all, share an identical set of genes are a danger to the human race. Looking further down the road, parents and physicians might be able to someday change little Johnny's genome so that he doesn't suffer from diabetes or cystic fibrosis. In fact, little Johnny may someday have his IQ or his immune system boosted via genetic engineering, but is that really species-altering or species-endangering? After all, lots of kids already have such genes, and they are still members of homo sapiens.
In fact, if you think about it, our current medical advances have already altered our species in numerous ways. It may well be that genes that predispose people to diabetes are now more common because their carriers no longer die in childhood and adolescence, as they did before the discovery of insulin in 1921. Similarly, cures for diseases like tuberculosis have undoubtedly also altered the distribution of genes for resistance to many diseases. Is that species-altering? You bet it is, and it's no big deal.
What about species-endangering? Annas declared: "No human being has the ethical standing to let loose a new virus. Neither does any government or corporation." Assuming he meant disease viruses, he's certainly correct. But what does that have to do with banning, or applying the Precautionary Principle? After all, no person, no corporation, and no government has the ethical standing to release any old-fashioned un-genetically engineered disease such as smallpox or plague, either. However, it is unlikely that a would-be bioterrorist would stand before Annas' Global Biotechnology Regulatory Authority to ask for permission to release his new strain of anthrax.
The better way to counter future bioterrorism is to allow the relatively unfettered development of biotechnology, so that researchers can devise tools for quick diagnosis and defense, now. In other words, there doesn't seem much for Annas' biotech authority to do other than get in the way of the quick development of beneficial technologies.
Annas is also against allowing parents to use genetic engineering to benefit their children, because the kids aren't able to give their consent for the genetic modifications. Of course, no one alive today gave their consent to being born with the randomly acquired set of genes they bear, either. Stock responded that Annas' requirement for consent would mean that children couldn't be treated with drugs, or receive vaccinations. Indeed, just how silly Annas' consent requirement would be is obvious when one considers the case of pediatric surgery and fetal surgery. A fetus can't give permission to have its spina bifida corrected while in the womb, yet it is certainly the moral thing to do. As Stock also pointed out, it is unlikely that parents who treasure their would-be offspring would rush out to use any treatments, much less genetic ones, that they didn't think were fully validated and safe.
Stock argued that proponents of the Precautionary Principle know that it is just a way to "blockade research without admitting that that is what they want to do." Stock also rejected Annas' species-level concerns. "I don't care about the species, I care about individual people," he said.
In his response, Annas left a tiny opening for the future approval of genetic engineering in people. It might be OK with him, he said, after it had proved safe "in 20 generations of primates." Annas then brought up egalitarian objections. Genetic engineering has the potential to create super-wealthy and strong people who might regard us unmodified humans as prime candidates for slavery. He analogized the situation of biotechnologically improved people to the case proposed by Hans Moravec, founder of the robotics institute at Carnegie Mellon University, who argues that if we make people or machines (or a combination) too powerful, they will pose a danger to humanity and would have to be outlawed or exiled. Moravec believes that transhumanism must answer the question posed by Harvard law professor, Martha Minow: "How do you create a world where difference is respected and not a grounds for extermination?"
Stock replied that the divisions over the use of enhancing biotechnologies would not break down along lines of wealth, but along lines of philosophy. People in the developing world, eager to catch up with rich countries, would resort to enhancing technologies before the complacent peoples of the already industrialized world. Annas responded that it was ludicrous to think that poor countries would use biotech enhancements first; after all they can't afford medicines to cure malaria or HIV right now. Stock pointed out that there are many rich people in poor countries, and that various polls already found that majorities of people in Thailand and India would be happy to try genetic engineering as a way to improve their children's chances of success in life.
During the question and answer period, Eliezer Yudkowsky asked Annas "What makes you think that government is good enough to not get us all killed?" Annas' nonresponse was that we need a world government (that's really putting all your eggs in one basket!), while admitting "there's certainly no certainty to this." Indeed not.
Stock closed by warning that Annas' "vision of the global good" felt "like those sorts of great goods that were used as justifications for ... a lot of the evils in the world." For instance, communism. He argued that "the least likelihood of abusing this technology and protecting ourselves is to allow individual choice." We will learn the wisdom of how to use the new advances properly only through experience. Delaying technologies can kill people. Stock pointed out that if a cure for cancer that would otherwise have been available in 2020 is delayed to 2030 because of the application of the Precautionary Principle, that means tens of millions of people who would otherwise have been alive would be dead. He predicted that future humans will look back at this glorious moment, when all these things to alter humanity were being developed, and marvel. It's an enormous privilege to be alive at this time, he declared.
Annas ended by warning that we are not very good at preventing the harms to the environment, the harms of poverty, and the harms of genocide. Thus he recommended that we use the Precautionary Principle as our guide to preventing future harms, including those posed by biotechnology. Of course, we are even worse at foreseeing the benefits of technological developments. Thus Annas ignores the harms that come from not expeditiously proceeding with the development of new technologies.
So that was the debate whether or not humanity should wear a French letter or go bareback. I say that individual people are wise enough to decide for themselves.
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David Lucifer
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Alive and Ticking
« Reply #1 on: 2003-07-07 17:55:33 » |
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Title: Alive and Ticking: The engineers of human souls at a Yale conference on Transhumanism
Author: Patrick Rucker
Source: Hartford Advocate
Imagine this. Waking from a coma, a man learns that his twin brother has been killed in the same car accident that destroyed his own face. Yet, the image he sees in the mirror is familiar -- a face transplant from his dead twin has meant he can continue a normal life but with his deceased brother's features.
Or this: Completely paralyzed by a degenerative neural disease, a mentally alert woman becomes a prisoner in a lifeless body. Then doctors install "neural prosthetics" that translate her brain waves into letters of the alphabet -- she thinks "move left index finger" and the implant translates that thought to the letter "A" which flashes on a computer screen. Soon the woman is "speaking" freely, again able to communicate.
Or this: An immune deficiency leaves an infant defenseless against infection. The prognosis is grim until doctors inject a molecular-sized robot that alters the child's genetic makeup so that she is practically invulnerable to illness.
If these medical breakthroughs seem distant, they shouldn't. The first two are possible today and the third might not be so far off.
But while modern science offers advances into the realm of the possible, it provides no guidelines as to when tinkering with the human person is morally acceptable, and when it isn't.
At the World Transhumanist Association's conference at Yale this weekend, over 130 scholars from around the world will discuss The Adaptable Human Body: Transhumanism and Bioethics in the 21st Century -- a major gathering of those who want life-altering science to change the very nature of human existence.
Among the ideas they will consider are ethical questions, like will the artificial intelligences of the future have legal rights? And what about the dilemma of self-identity after a brian transplant? -- thinkers from many fields will consider the implications of such a brave new world.
Artist and conference participant Natasha Vita-More, for instance, will present a paper on her creation, which she calls "Primo Transhuman" -- her model of a transhuman organism with uncommon physical strength, restorative health powers, natural anti-aging properties and computer-like intelligence.
"Primo shows the kind of human upgrades that will soon be possible," says Vita-More. "Some people will want to hold onto their good-old American bodies but others will want something more."
This weekend's conference is largely a gathering of enthusiasts for transhuman advances rather than the technicians who will bring it about. Still, organizers see their work as an important step in preparing the world for the dawn of a trans-human age.
"Transhumanism is the belief that it is possible and desirable to use technology to transcend the limits of the human body," explains James Hughes, a professor of public policy at Trinity College and secretary of the World Transhumanist Association. "We look forward to living in that age."
Conventional thinking has always considered medicine a tool for improving human health -- finding miracles to fight cancer, heal the lame and restore wellness, and so on. But what if today's technical leaps can do more?
What if this new technology could be harnessed to increase brain power, promote athleticism, even agelessness? Then couldn't today's medical technology be considered an evolutionary advance -- a transition between a human and a post-human species?
Hughes and other transhumanists think so -- and they imagine a day when human biology and modern technology combine to radically improve the human form.
This new being would be as intellectually superior to any current human genius as a modern man is to the other primates. Its body would be resistant to disease and immune to aging. It would control its own desires, moods and mental states so that it can experience levels of consciousness that today's human brains may not even be able to access.
"This sort of technology is already being developed, marketed and sold to us," Hughes says. "What are contact lenses and breast implants if not an attempt to improve our physical form? As transhumanists we are here to scrutinize the technology, embrace the good and criticize the bad. These issues are just too important to be rejected for the sake of a neo-Luddite fear of change."
In other words, Hughes and his transhumanist colleagues believe that we have already entered a period where our evolution as a species is being extended by technology -- We are engineering ourselves -- and there's no point in pretending that isn't what we are doing.
Instead, Hughes argues, what the world needs are philosophers, artists and policymakers to imagine a transhuman world and to ease us all into the age of transhuman discovery.
But there are those who say that morally, as humans, we need to reject the transhuman vision before it gets out of hand. These enemies of transhumanism can be found in some expected corners. Religious fundamentalists, biological purists and social apocalyptics are but a few.
But along with them are many hard-headed thinkers who warn that transhumanists are dabbling with powers they cannot fully control and so could unleash consequences far more damaging than any benefits.
"Transhumanists insist that their ideas will improve our lives," allows professor George Annas, chair of the Health Law Department at Boston University's School of Public Health. "But when it comes to questions like DNA splicing and other gene engineering, the real question is who should carry the burden of proof as to whether these advances will do more harm than good?"
Since the final impact of the sort of profound genetic engineering espoused by many transhumanists can never be measured, Annas says, it has to be prohibited.
"Adults can decide on their own lives but what about unborn babies?" Annas continues. "What about their right to live a normal life?"
At this weekend's conference, Annas will explain why he believes the genetic engineering espoused by many transhumanists should be considered a crime against humanity.
"What alarms me is the ethos that science should aim to create a new species or subspecies of humans," Annas says. "International anti-cloning treaties should be expanded to control that kind of engineering. Before anyone changes the nature of what it means to be human, they should at least have to solicit permission from the humans that exist now through the United Nations or another international body."
Still, Annas knows as well as other critics that the transhuman promise of increased mental and physical prowess is tempting.
In his recent critique of the transhuman vision, Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age , author Bill McKibben recalls a 1995 survey that asked 200 Olympic hopefuls if they'd take a drug that would guarantee them a five-year winning streak and then kill them. Almost half said yes.
For McKibben, that survey points to the need for more stringent anti-doping screening and the need for modern culture to stress the merits of natural human achievement.
For Trinity professor Hughes, that natural ambition to improve performance points to the need for a fair-minded debate about the benefits of the transhuman vision.
"Consider space," Hughes offers. "One of the biggest constraints to space exploration is that the human body does not travel well. But what if a more robust, transhuman pilot were used. The kind of space exploration we can only imagine now might be possible."
Debate and discussion is fine, says Annas, a participant in the opening debate of the conference -- Should Humans Welcome or Resist Becoming Post-Human? Still, he harbors deep suspicion about transhumanism.
"What really gives me pause is whether we can control the technology," Annas says. "I'm not the only one who worries that this all ends like a scene from Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle with the technology mastering the inventor."
Quote:
Anyone hoping to stand in the way of the technological advances that the transhumanists are so keen on will be disheartened by the tale of King Ludd and his 19th century saboteurs.
When a revolutionary device in the English woolen industry eliminated the need for croppers --craftsmen who sheared the edge of wool bolts -- the displaced workers went on a rampage against the cause of their obsolescence.
During midnight raids over several months in early 1812, croppers raided wool mills across the Yorkshire countryside and ritually smash the new cropping device. The workers took the moniker Luddites.
The workers had broad support until Luddites killed a defiant mill owner and the authorites cracked down. Seventeen confessed Luddites were hung, and the job of cropper passed into extinction.
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David Lucifer
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Re:Making the Future Safe
« Reply #2 on: 2003-07-07 17:58:50 » |
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Quote:
It's fair to say that most of the 130 or so people who gathered under the banner of transhumanism were enthusiastic about scientific and technological advances, and don't think that humanity needs much prophylactic protection from the fecundity of progress. In other words, while insisting on the maintenance of standards for safety and efficacy, in most cases transhumanists are happy to ride the prick of progress pretty much bareback.
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As one of the 130 attendees I guess I sort of agree with the sentiment but I certainly would not phrase it that way. 
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David Lucifer
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Re:Making the Future Safe
« Reply #3 on: 2003-07-08 18:29:48 » |
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I generally agree with Bailey's characterization of the debate described in his article (original format with extra links). I have to give Annas some points for having the courage to take the con side in a forum such as this. I discussed the debate a bit with Stock over dinner the next night. The two had met in a similar debate once before and had covered much of the same ground. Stock was surprised that Annas conceded that reproductive cloning is a non-issue. I would have to agree, but for reason different than theirs: I think many people will avail themselves of the technology as soon as it is safe, but no one will care once it becomes common much like IVF today. The clones will grow up in an environment very different from their parent and they will be similar in some ways and different in many others, just like normal children.
During the Q&A many of the questions aimed at Annas were trying to nail down exactly what he thought was acceptable and what was not. Did he have any problems with destroying fetuses with genetic defects? None at all. Is it OK to correct a gene defect in a fetus? Absolutely not! And what is the difference? He paraphrased many times, but seemed unable to convince the audience that he was being consistent. He finally said "You can HAVE a baby but you can't MAKE a baby" as if that put an end to the debate. I interpret that to mean that in his view you aren't allowed to make any choices that have an affect on the child's genes. If Annas really believes that then I want to ask him if people should have a choice over who they mate with. Certainly that is a choice that determines half the child's genes. I suspect he would see the question as irrelevant for some imaginary reason. At dinner I suggested that Stock ask him point blank if they meet again but Stock didn't think that would be likely.
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Kharin
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Re:Making the Future Safe
« Reply #4 on: 2003-07-09 05:29:25 » |
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I find myself rather bemused by the argument from Annas that unborn children cannot be offered the right to a normal life, if only because his argument implies that they should not be offered the right to an 'abnormal' life. Philosophically, applying arguments of self determination to the genetic lottery is meaningless; chance has nothing more to do with that human design does (less, if anything).
On the other hand, I'm not sure the Luddite parallel is meaningful. At that time political elites were strongly committed to the ideal of progress in economic and technological terms. I don't think this can be said of any Western government at the present time, though other governments may differ.
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lotusfox
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Re:Making the Future Safe
« Reply #5 on: 2003-07-16 05:45:22 » |
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i don't fear humanitarians bent on bettering the world by curing diseases or improving man by genetic engineering. in fact i think that the people who engage in the research are actually quite noble.
what i do fear is what corporations in the western world will use this new found knowledge for. each health insurance corp. will do everything it can to increase it market share. it's a common misconception that these companies compete by offering consumers the best possible service for the lowest possible price. they compete for more market share using their weight to influence laws and regulations to further there own interests at the expense of the individual and the innovative. leaving consumers to choose between the lesser of the two evils. yet our government has very little in the way of administrative capabilities to deal with this problem as they are already influenced by corporate lobbyist and large campaign donations. and despite some voice in the news challenging our election process, i see little public interest in changing this in the near future. i'm not campaign for socialism, just honor and honesty. corporations have rights too, but they don't include discrimination based on genetic makeup.
the eastern worlds people will probably have it worse. in their society, information about a persons genetics will be used as a factor in determining what schooling they receive and what type of work they will be offered.
basically, just as Einstein never foresaw his theories being used to build an atomic bomb, todays researchers don't realize just what people will use their discoveries for once that knowledge is out of their hands and into peoples who don't know any better. this isn't to say we should stop research in genetic engineering. in fact i support it. however, based on what i know of man's history of using new technologies, people will have to go though a period of decadence and oppression before they wake up.
in fact i would go so far as to say that many of the very same people who now oppose genetic engineering will one day be the same people who will perfectly willing to go along with policies that will lead to so much trouble in the future. people who are easily frightened by change are easily fooled into letting other people make selfish decisions and policies under the guise of maintaining the status quo.
sorry, hopefully i didn't come off as TOO much of a dooms day crier
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Hermit
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Re:Making the Future Safe
« Reply #6 on: 2003-07-16 11:07:10 » |
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[radicaledward] i don't fear humanitarians bent on bettering the world by curing diseases or improving man by genetic engineering. in fact i think that the people who engage in the research are actually quite noble.
[Hermit] Part of the trouble is that few non-bright people recognize scientists as "humanitarians". Which is, when you think about it, quite funny.
[radicaledward] what i do fear is what corporations in the western world will use this new found knowledge for. each health insurance corp. will do everything it can to increase it market share. it's a common misconception that these companies compete by offering consumers the best possible service for the lowest possible price. they compete for more market share using their weight to influence laws and regulations to further there own interests at the expense of the individual and the innovative. leaving consumers to choose between the lesser of the two evils.
[Hermit] Which two evils?
[Hermit] The problem, as I see it, is that "health insurance", as currently established, is not "insurance" at all. Insurance is a way of spreading the cost of catastrophe and disaster across a large group who will not all suffer in the same catastrophes and disasters. Instead, while arguably a disaster, "health insurance" is distributing the cost of everyday expenses across a fairly narrow band of people, penalizing the healthy, subsidizing those less so, and massively distorting the marketplace by making it a waste of time for consumers to seek cost effective solutions to normal medical expenses*; then, when disaster and catastrophe really happen, the "insurance" runs out, and the patient is left reliant on ever declining government or "charity" handouts.
[radicaledward] yet our government has very little in the way of administrative capabilities to deal with this problem as they are already influenced by corporate lobbyist and large campaign donations. and despite some voice in the news challenging our election process, i see little public interest in changing this in the near future.
[Hermit] What would it take to make "the public" want to change this? Americans have less access (as a percentage of population) to medical facilities (although they are better) than they had a century ago - and the difference between the haves and the have-nots is increasing at a phenomenal rate (e.g. "medical insurance" costs for an "ordinary" but healthy middle-class couple have escalated from $270/month in 2001 to $700/month in 2003 - which most "ordinary middle-class couples" cannot afford - or why some 60% of Americans have no medical insurance). If it continues this way, we are going to need a very much larger number of "hospices" to house those dying unnecessarily).
[radicaledward] i'm not campaign for socialism, just honor and honesty. corporations have rights too, but they don't include discrimination based on genetic makeup.
[Hermit] Why not? Life discriminates on a genetic basis. And if there are real costs involved in this discrimination, then why should the "good genes" be forced to subsidize those "less good"? Are you arguing that evolution should no longer operate in this "best of all possible worlds"?
[radicaledward] the eastern worlds people will probably have it worse. in their society, information about a persons genetics will be used as a factor in determining what schooling they receive and what type of work they will be offered.
[Hermit] I'm not sure how this argument works? Are you suggesting that "information about a persons genetics" is not used (more) in the West to determine "what schooling they receive and what type of work they will be offered"? I suggest that we already do so (but not enough) and with reason. Just as weightlifters don't become jockeys, and quadraplegics don't become construction workers; IQ 70 people are not typically offered engineering courses and seldom or never become "rocket scientists" - and IQ 140 people don't tend to take secretarial positions (spread over a desk) or become "Walmart Welcomers".
[radicaledward] basically, just as Einstein never foresaw his theories being used to build an atomic bomb,
[Hermit] He did.
[radicaledward] todays researchers don't realize just what people will use their discoveries for once that knowledge is out of their hands and into peoples who don't know any better.
[Hermit] You are far too generous to the media moguls and politicians. I suggest that they do know better - and just don't care or have their own agendas to which anything else is subordinated. But then, how exactly is this news?
[radicaledward] this isn't to say we should stop research in genetic engineering. in fact i support it. however, based on what i know of man's history of using new technologies, people will have to go though a period of decadence and oppression before they wake up.
[Hermit] Again, I'm not sure what you are advocating? On the one hand, we have a vast population being fed by the results of genetic engineering (and the fruits of other much protested bio and life sciences) and a slender possibility that the descendants of homo sapiens sapiens will remain relevant. On the other hand you seem to be suggesting "waking up" after "a period of decadence and oppression". What are you trying to imply with this comparison?
[radicaledward] in fact i would go so far as to say that many of the very same people who now oppose genetic engineering will one day be the same people who will perfectly willing to go along with policies that will lead to so much trouble in the future. people who are easily frightened by change are easily fooled into letting other people make selfish decisions and policies under the guise of maintaining the status quo.
[Hermit] Probably and definitely. So?
[radicaledward] sorry, hopefully i didn't come off as TOO much of a dooms day crier
[Hermit] If I knew whether you were arguing for research on the grounds that it is the only path that is proven to offer us a desirable future, or against it on the grounds that it is too expensive and selfish, I might be able to figure out if you were a "dooms day crier" and attempt to determine whether or not you are "Too much" of one or not. As it is, that evaluation will, it seems, have to await clarification of what it is you are attempting to say.
Regards
Hermit (who suggests that you try to work out what point you want to make (what story you want to tell) before you start writing. It will be much more persuasive.)
*And absolutely insane administrative expenses, required because it would be very difficult to deliberately design any system more inviting to active and passive fraud than the health system as currently constituted.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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