Pretty much ever since the realization that humans weren’t divinely created in their present form, people have been speculating on what the future might hold; and even more popular have been suggestions for deliberately guiding this process to create an idealized, or “improved” or “superhuman” specimen.
Of course this entirely depends on just what you consider desirable, or “better”. I’ve come across references to some suggestions that to be charitable I’ll describe as “short sighted” or “naive”. For example, since bigger is better one common suggestion is to make humans taller and bigger; seven feet tall sounds majestic, although anyone familiar with foot, leg and back problems might appreciate the engineering challenges.
Then there’s the obsolescence problem: apparently creating entire lineages of humans to solve a temporary challenge is a theme. Brave New World postulated that we would create a class of idiots who would not be bored with performing repetitive chores all day like working as elevator operators. (Personally I wonder if BNW was intended to be a parody rather than serious science fiction).
So what really poorly thought out ideas have you encountered on this subject?
The book was a savage satire of the eugenics movement, socialist utopias, and modern morality. Huxley would have been horrified to have anyone refer to it as serious science fiction. Fortunately, nobody did until much later when it was retrofitted into the field as a “good example.”
Interesting book. I can’t see where we would be able to have Epsilons [I think that was the letter?] other than perhaps as manual farm hands pulling weeds or other tasks, many factory jobs now are moderately complex [I mean mrAru does QA for a fuel cell company, and he is always fighting with the machine he is using for measuring - he jokes he should just bring me and my tool kit in to do it manually, it would be faster than fighting with the machine] I could see it sort of. My interpretation would be Alphas are genetically cleaned up of physical defects, and the genes that express in the detectable gene sequences that are for certain emotional and mental issues. Boost the IQ to universally 120 or greater. Betas are cloned in groups of say 12, mentally about 100 IQ and they do factory work, house servants and ‘personal servants’ [ladies maids, valets, personal shoppers] and anybody you normally see as employees [waiters, kitchen staff, bar staff - basically many jobs we unmods do today] and gammas - 80 IQ, and anywhere we need basic manual labor that doesn’t require much thinking - weeding, painting, and that sort of really dumb manual labor.
Though honestly I really really dislike the idea of an entire class of bred for it slaves. Hell I really dislike the idea of slaves outright.
I would like to genetically remove many of the really bad generic issues. [I am seriously cancer prone right now, 3 bouts in under 6 years] Maybe remove the wisdom teeth and appendix [is it still considered not used by humans?] Lose the menstrual cycle, or at least some of the nasty crap like endometriosis and PCOS. Lose astigmatism and cataracts.
There was the Norman Spinrad novel “The Iron Dream”, which had a story-within-the-story called “Lord of the Swastika”, supposedly written by an alternate history Adolf Hitler in which the Nazi Party never arose and Hitler became a pulp science fiction writer. The plot of “Lord of the Swastika” parallels the real-life rise of the Nazis and their obsession with eugenics, including the expy-Himmler planning the next generation of supermen:
These marvelous specimens will be a full seven feet tall, with fair skin, golden hair, and the physiques of gods, and an average intelligence surpassing that of present-day geniuses.
If you go by the pre-industrial notion of physical size and strength as an inherently superior thing, this is the sort of thing people who didn’t know better might value.
I think a good look at how irrational the human take on genetic engineering can be found in the Star Wolf Sci-fi series.
“Voyage…” explains that while a rational mind would have tried to improve rationality in genetic modifications, humans improved self-preservation and physical attributes. Sociologically, they were educated not to be a subspecies, but a superspecies of humanity. Their name is a neologism from “more-than”. 1,500 years prior to “Voyage of the Star Wolf”, the most aggressive and highly evolved Morthans broke away from the human sphere and invented a highly ritualised culture far from human-inhabited space, genetically improving every generation in comparison to the last.
It does not go particularly well for ‘traditional’ humanity.
I always thought the whole idea of mutants being “genetically superior” to humans in the various X-Man properties just plain stupid, since you basically have all sorts of useless/dangerous mutations being touted as the “next stage of humanity”. The idea that humans should go extinct to let these new Homo Superior to take over is just so dumb.
Plus the fact that every mutant is different. It’s not like they all are psychic or can manipulate metal. How do you create a “next stage of humanity” when every mutant mutates in a totally unique way? Do these mutations even breed true? And if they breed true, won’t you just have Mutant Type A fighting with Mutant Type B over who gets to be the new Ubermensch?
one common suggestion is to make humans taller and bigger; seven feet tall sounds majestic, although anyone familiar with foot, leg and back problems might appreciate the engineering challenges.