Genetically engineering

Great Debates
1

If you’ve seen the movie Gattica then you have an idea of what I’m talking about. In the film, the people of the future don’t make babies the old fashioned way they go to special doctors to make “super” babies. It works as follows: a genetic scientist hired by the prospective parents gets a bunch of eggs from the mother, a bunch of sperm from the father, combines them to create a bunch of embryos and does genetic testing on these embryos to find the ones with the fewest detectable genetic flaws. In this manner, all forms of KNOWN genetic defects can be weeded out before an embryo is implanted in the mother’s womb. The result is a subset of society which is of “superior” genetic stock compared to most people and they receive lots of preferential treatment from prospective employers, police, everyone. The rest of the movie was boring and stupid IMHO.

Given the following conditions:
If we had the capability to do what the scientists in the movie did and create genetically perfect people. That is, they are all tall, handsome, intelligent, have superb immune systems, great longevity, and have no known genetic defects like Down syndrome, a predisposition to cancer, an extra y chromosome, a third eye on their ass…
If the resulting race of people could be kept separate from the rest of society so as not to become a plutocracy or a “master race”. (I don’t want to argue the same old crap about Hitler-esque eugenics.)
If they could be segregated into their own little country with their own economy. If in this economy the bottom wrung of the social ladder, i.e. the toilet scrubbers, the burger flippers, the gas station attendants, the sneaker makers, would all be automated machines (some of these machines already exist). That is, there would be no under class, everyone would be some kind of “knowledge” worker or artist or small business owner etc.

My question is this:
Would the creation of such a race of “perfect” people with their own little “perfect” world be a good idea? Is the continuation of the same old flawed human species with all its diseases and wars and stupidity and racial hatred really the best we can do? Would the “perfect” people be content in their own nation or would they try to dominate the world? IMHO they wouldn’t give a rats ass about us losers as long as we kept our distance. I think that if you are going to do something (i.e. bring a child into this world) you should do it right and not allow any known genetic flaws to be passed on to your children. Opinions?

2

While I think the separation of the populations is extremely unlikely and unworkable, I’ll go with the OP.

For myself, I would have to answer “No.” While I have no moral qualms against genetic engineering, I would be too selfishly interested in knowing and raising my child to hand him/her over to some isolated super society, (which IMHO would eventually come around to put us in our places.) If it were simply a matter of weeding out the known defects before birth (Downs, Parkinsons, the gene that makes you like rap) with me still raising the kid, then I would absolutely go ahead with it. If in fact such technology existed, not availing myself of it would almost assuredly put my kid on an uneven competitive footing, in addition to risking his/her health.

3

The title of the thread seems to have been truncated. It was supposed to be Genetically Engineering “Perfect” People.

To further clarify the OP the normal people who choose to have “perfect” children would raise them to adulthood. The separate society is based on my assumption that these perfect people would want to live amongst each other and leave behind all the annoying losers vying for their attention. That is, no one would be forced to abandon their parents at an early age. Once the kid grows up he/she will be allowed admittance to the sub-society of “perfect” people. Is this a bad assumption? Would tall handsome intelligent people choose to remain amongst the rest of society when they could surround themselves with beauty? Would they even be tempted to dominate the rest of society when they could spend their lives in the ease and security of the sub-society? I think they would want to rule over the rest of us about as much as you or I would want to displace the dominant male in a colony of chimps and reign in his place.