[extropy-chat] Eumemics

[Robert J. Bradbury]

Rather than do a point by point, I'll simply offer some
impressions on comments by Emlyn and Mark.

First, with regard to Emlyn disliking parents doing anything
other than fixing diseases in potential offspring until some
type of agreement can be found with respect to generally
accepted modifications that are known to work.  The problem
with this is that 18 years in our environment is a very
long time.  One runs the risk that if one waits too long
to enhance oneself one may be too late.  (For example
consider Robin's paper on uploads coming first.)  In
this situation *not* enhancing ones children may be
considered a form of "child abuse".  I.e. one has not
sufficiently prepared ones children to survive in the
environment that is likely to exist when they are able
to make informed decisions.

Second, the adding or removal of genetic characteristics
will be relatively easy in 15-20 years.  There are very
clear methods now to augment genomes and probably even
replace defective genes.  They aren't well developed
or generally available at this time however.  But I
don't think arguments should be premised on this because
it is rapidly shifting ground.

Third, much of the learning and development of an
individual meme set probably takes place before the
ages of 12-13 -- this is when one starts to lose the
ability to learn languages easily (i.e. brain plasticity
starts to decline).  Once this meme set/learning is
in place it is *much* harder to modify.  (It probably
requires robust nanotechnology at the level of
uploading/downloading.)  So by not making the choices
early on you may be setting individuals on paths that
are not easily changed.  This could be considered a
problem with Greg Stock's perspective of allowing one
to enhance an individual with potential genetic
modifications but only activating them when the
person is qualified to make a judgement about whether
or not they want them.  By the time they make that
choice it may be too late.

With respect to Eumemics one has the problem that a
potential set of memes that may be useful for one
generation may be either benefit or harm survival
chances for another generation.  So one can look at
public education as helping survival probabilities
(public education vs. extremely conservative and narrow
minded religious groups) or harming survival probabilities
(public education in the face of extremely rapid societal
changes -- politics works slowly...).

Even in the case of private education there is no
assurance that it will be optimal.  As a parent I would
tend to seek out teachers (my generation) that tend to
teach my perspective.  It would be difficult to seek out
teachers to teach things (e.g. how to juggle currency futures
in a role-playing game environment) that are alien to me
but which may be essential to the survival of my child.

Robert