So sometime in the near future you or your baby mama is planning on having a baby. Your doctor says that if you provide the necessary bits he and modify the embryo before implantation to eliminate some genetic issues or make some enhancements. He asks you to choose between the following for your baby.
Aside from the weird choose-their-sexuality ones, these are all pretty uniformly desirable traits, so I assume there’s a limit to how many we get (aside from having to choose between speed and endurance)?
Immune to cancer seems the one easiest to give up. Despite it’s popularity as a killer (number 2 after heart disease, I think), it’s almost always an old person’s disease – I read somewhere a while back that if cancer were eliminated in the population, it would raise life expectancy less than a year.
20/20 vision would also be an easy discard, since for almost everybody vision is correctable to that without the need to gene tinker.
I chose immune to cancer because while it may kill older people more frequently, I have known too many kids who have had cancer. I have lost a lot of people to cancer- and not all were elderly (my mom was in her 40s) and I chose never get fat primarily because of Type II diabetes. I have wretched vision, though it corrects to 20/20, and I am blind as a bat until I put on my glasses.
I picked raise iq. The additional points will open up endless career options if the child wants to pursue them.
I saw no options for ‘happy and emotionally resilient’. If I had I would pick that instead.
Maybe you’re right I should have said pick 3
What? No option for a cannon in his chest so it could crush all those that oppose it?
I went with Endurance as opposed to Sprinter (maybe because I used to run cross-country?), and I didn’t express a preference about sexual orientation. Everything else got a check-mark. Of course I want my child to be smart, to never get fat, to be immune to cancer, be creative and analytical, and have perfect vision.
That is why I picked an IQ 30 points higher, so the kid is clever enough to build one.
Post-Humanism, yes! All of the actual enhancements (and, if I had to choose, I preferred endurance to sprinting, just because it’s closer to what I actually enjoy.)
And why just 20/20 eyesight? Let’s go with 20/15 or 20/10. Splice in some Eagle genes!
Human re-definition! We can make ourselves better, stronger, faster! And best of all, smarter! (Of course, we could do that via education, but let’s not get weird or anything…)
Don’t be so quick to kick out perfect vision. I wore glasses for 50 years*, and though my vision was always corrected to 20/20, there were always things other people could see that I could not. For example, I could never spot a deer in a field from a moving car, see the spin of stitches on an approaching baseball, spot details of faces 100 feet away, spot the shape of a plane in the sky, or have any idea where a batted ball was going to land.
*When cataracts forced me to get lens implants, I could finally ditch the glasses.
I’m thinking that we are more than my lifetime away being able to do that by genetic manipulation.
I’m surprised so many people picked IQ. Most dopers are plenty smart as it is. Given there doesn’t seem like there’s a positive correlation between extremely high IQ and happiness, I skipped that one.
Cancer, on the other hand, has laid waste to my maternal side for generations, so my hypothetical kiddo gets to be cancer-free.
Will he come with Wonder Dog? Do we have to supply the Capes…?
Doesn’t picking “sprinter” pretty much get you a free pass on “obesity”?
Amen. I think this is my 50th year of glasses. Sometimes I like them for protection and excellent near vision without them but generally it’s limiting. My myopia was described as “20/400? I can’t really put a number on it” and means I can’t drive safely without glasses or swim.
Surgical correction may not last into older age and I don’t want contacts. My wife has similar vision and I see her as handicapped with all of her daily contact maintenance. There are experiences we can’t share because of dust, wind, etc. affecting her contacts.
I thought you could only pick one, so I chose “raise IQ thirty points”. None of the other options strike me as all that important, at least compared with that.
Regards,
Shodan
You have nothing about being deaf or hard of hearing ! I was so worried my baby would be HOH like me ! Thank goodness she and her daughter are not HOH or deaf. I would pick this b/c it sucks being HOH !
Just as I don’t want an exceedingly happy spouse I do not hold happiness as paramount for my children as some do. I went with IQ because it will make their life “better” in a multitude of ways, if you want them to be happier might as well have offered a -30 IQ option.
Full disclosure: I do not have any kids.
Edit: interesting quantitative social commentary granted by this poll: Being fat and having cancer are equally undesirable.
I don’t have kids or plan to and I picked the following (assuming no risk and that it will work):
Immune to Cancer (one less thing to worry about)
Raise IQ 30 points (probably an advantage as my child is unlikely to be bumped into “super genius who can’t relate to people” territory).
Never get fat (a plus on numerous health effects of getting fat and how we’re judged on appearance - I’m presuming it won’t lead to starvation in lean times, but I’d take the risk anyway because I think food shortages are less likely than the continuing of availability of cheap empty calories).
20/20 Vision - mine was -7.5 before LASIK. It was annoying not to be able to read an alarm clock in the middle of the night (couldn’t read the big “E” on chart, even). Post-LASIK it’s still not quite 20/20 and I get dry-eye more often. Only way it wouldn’t be an advantage was if my child would have natively had better vision.
Didn’t vote on any of the others. Sprinter v. Endurance and Gay v. Not Gay weren’t important to me and I wasn’t quite comfortable picking personality aspects (Analytical v. Artistic). Making them better at being what they are seems like a plus to me, but right now I’m just not comfortable with deciding what their personality would be. May change mind at a future time; who can say.
All those things you listed above in poll are science fiction and not even talked about in popular science or popular mechanics.:(:(:eek::eek:
They changed the skin color and eye color with animals even made eye that glows. They have done cloning and change the sex.
But it will probably be time before clinical trials start on people than monitor them for 50 to 100 years to prove they are healthy and don’t get some problem before the public and government is okay with designer babies.
It is awesome you can changed the skin color, eye color, sex and make eyes that glow in dark!! But now prove that 50 to 100 years down road the person is healthy and don’t have medical problems. And prove when they have kids those kids are healthy and don’t have problems like more cancer or autoimmune disease so on!!
When you can prove over 100 to 200 years plying around with genetic manipulation is safe than general public will be okay with it.
Same with cloning, GMO food and lab grown food!! Yes prove over 50 to 100 years down road the person is healthy and don’t have medical problems like more likely to get cancer or autoimmune disease .
Than the general public will be okay with it.
I don’t have problem with genetic manipulation, cloning, GMO food and lab grown food but 5 to 10 years of clinical trials is not enough. We don’t know over 50 to 100 years down the road the person is healthy and don’t have medical problems like more likely to get cancer or autoimmune disease or when they have kids those kids are healthy.
The 5 to 10 years of clinical trials is not enough. We need long term studies on generation of people when comes to genetic manipulation, cloning, GMO food and lab grown food that this is safe. This all new stuff and we don’t know what could happen to the person long term out or their kids.