[ExI] Limits of human modification

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sun, Nov 22, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Chris Hibbert <hibbert at mydruthers.com>
 wrote:

Hmm. These seems like reasonable things to think about before you unleash
> something on your progeny and the world, but they seem extremely difficult
> to measure in an objective way by a global police force (or even a benign
> scientific overseer). Even trying to distinguish the econometric as
> objective and the well-being as subjective seems fraught with problems.
> It's somewhat true that we have instruments for measuring these kinds of
> outcomes across societies, but I don't think anyone has done anything
> approaching a respectable job of analyzing them prospectively for proposals
> that haven't been implemented yet.
>

### You can't produce a precise prediction of GDP for all actions but we
can make reasonably confident estimates for many actions. In fact, it's
done all the time, and it is the basis for both national policy and
individual business decisions. One point that I am trying to make is that
human eugenic modification is not substantially different from other
actions that have impact on the future, and therefore the same general
tools we use for business forecasting are, with modifications, appropriate
for eugenics. I would disagree with saying that applications of such tools
to eugenics is "extremely difficult", in fact, it should be no more
difficult than predicting the impact of e.g. trade barriers or building a
power plant.

Also, such calculations should not be done a police force, since these are
enforcers, not creators of law, and I would be appalled at the idea of a
global eugenic authority - but these are issues only indirectly related to
constructing the permissibility test.

------------------

>
> So, as I said, it seems reasonable, so ask someone who has developed
> germline techniques, and is considering applying them to himself or to
> paying customers or volunteers, to consider the plausible consequences out
> to the third or fourth generation at least. And perhaps this is a
> reasonable approach to recommend that institutional review boards take, as
> long as they have the ability to consider such questions in a civil manner.
> But hoping that this will be done in a way that politicians or the public
> can agree on the outcome seems unlikely to be fruitful.


### Can you point to a better alternative?

Rafał
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