[ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 11:59 AM Keith Henson via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Low fitness should lead to elimination of
> the responsible alleles. Keeping deleterious alleles artificially protected
> from extinction only adds to misery. Deleterious alleles have a cost to the
> filial generation and a cost to non-carriers, a cost paid in
> perpetuity when evolution is thwarted.
>
>

> What you say is true.  It's also a really bad path to take.
>

### Why?


> Fortunately, we stand on the edge of taking control of our DNA.  It
> will be possible to eliminate the deleterious alleles in one
> generation, a huge improvement over discovering that the kid you
> raised at great effort and cost has serious genetic problems and
> should not have children.
>

### Yes, absolutely! But please note, to eliminate the deleterious alleles
by genetic engineering there has to be a force, an influence of some sort,
that would incentivise parents/society/government/everybody to actually
implement the process. How is that going to happen unless the social cost
of deleterious alleles is somehow allowed to influence behavior? Without
incentives hardly anything happens. Somebody needs to feel the sting of
making the wrong decision, like giving your child deleterious genes through
negligence or intent, to be persuaded to make the right decision. In terms
of incentives this is not that much different from what I suggested above,
to allow low fitness alleles to be eliminated by natural selection.

Rafal
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20200111/a35d5890/attachment.htm>