[extropy-chat] Eumemics

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, Adrian Tymes wrote:

Ok, Mark has laid out a rather large swamp and I may
get to his post at some point but here I'll deal with
some of Adrian's points...

> Technical understanding.  The state, having evolved
> through memetic influences, has at least a rough
> understanding of beneficial vs. non-beneficial memes.

Ha!  Lets see -- we have the Greek, Roman and southern
U.S. cultures that evolved through a number of memetic
influences and yet all had slave based economies.
Beneficial? yes. Morally correct? probably not.

> On the other hand, genetic engineering is very much in
> its infancy, so imposing genetic solutions at this
> time - prior to a better understanding of what genes
> do what - is likely to cause more problems than it solves.

Well... it seems likely that the insights are going
to come quite quickly (within 1, certainly 2, decades
for most complex traits).  Why should a state allow
the birth of less than average intelligence individuals
or individuals with genetic defects that may pose a
health care burden upon the state (and the shareholders
of the state -- i.e. the taxpayers) at some future date?

> (Note that this does not apply to, say,
> state-mandated treatment of genes that are well
> understood to be desirable or not; for instance,
> correcting the gene that gives cystic fibrosis or
> certain other diseases.  But in these specific cases,
> there is not much debate anyway: what parent wants
> their child to be born sick?)

Oh, no Adrian you don't get away with that.  There is
a very active "classic" debate within the bioethics
community that uses the example of deaf parents who
want their child to be born deaf when presented with
a proposal by the medical community to use genetic
engineering to reverse the child's deafness.  It
gets into very sticky issues that involve the
presumption that to exist as a deaf person is
somehow less valid than existing as a non-deaf person.
Once you make the assumption that people should
be non-deaf you are on the slippery slope that
would argue that everyone should be superintelligent
rather than simply of average intelligence.

> Perhaps a better way to put it: both memetic and
> genetic engineering are allowed when it is widely
> known what memes/genes are good and what are bad.

Subjective.  What is good and bad are entirely context
dependent.  There are contexts where Vulcan logic
and disinvolvement are the best way to go and there
are contexts where the the Klingon perspective that
"Today is a good day to die" are on the mark.
Didn't you learn anything from Star Trek??? :-)


> Not just a simple democratic majority (although it may
> come to that in some cases), but closer to universal
> consensus levels.

But the consensus can be quite wrong (perhaps as the
slavery example cited above may indicate).

> Without that knowledge, attempts to
> impose solutions have historically just caused damage
> without achieving the desired results; the limits on
> government impositions in this case are there to
> prevent a repeat of that mistake.

But do such limits accomplish this?  I once dated a woman
who used to joke about the fact that if her son could
grow up and become a basketball player then her life
would be golden.  With her this type of conversation
was simple fantasy -- but one has to suspect that there
are parents out there that would be willing to pay
megabucks to have children who would be well suited
for the NFL, NBL, WWF, Fear Factor, etc.  Given the subtlety
of various genetic interventions from a strict health vs.
enhancement to excel in sports, beauty, etc. it is going
to be very difficult to get the damage v. benefit equation
correct at either an individual or societal level.

I can easily make an argument that the right of a parent
to enhance their child to be an ideal physical individual
for the NFL directly harms me as a parent who does not
choose to enhance his child to that level.  Furthermore
the enhancement of such individuals may contribute to
their being violent megalomaniacs which are certainly
a threat to society.

I don't think one gets out of this box easily.

Robert