[ExI] Limits of human modification

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 10:50 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:

> The subjective measure would be a test of well-being.
>
> How about using happiness as a test of gene modification?  It can be
> predicted well.  Just add a chromosome 21 and you have Down's Syndrome.
> Happiest people in the world - sunny.  Average IQ = 25.
>

### This is why the GDP test comes before the well-being test. First you
need to show the mod is good for the rest of us, only then you can go to
point its non-inferiority from the point of view of the individual who is
being created.

Using genetic engineering to make happy idiots would fail the overall test,
no matter how potentially happy the idiots might be. Nozick's experience
machine comes to mind as a related thought experiment. Eugenically creating
extremely productive and yet happy geniuses would obviously pass the test.
Creating manic-depressive geniuses would pass the test only if their
well-being was on average no worse than the well-being of the unmodified
parental strain.

Rafał
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20151124/2f40a7cc/attachment.html>