[ExI] video games take 2 billw again

[William Flynn Wallace]

OK, I'll respond to my own with more ideas:

You can't help the genes you got from your parents.  Except that in the
future you can - we hope.

Parents can't help the genes the pass on to their children.  Except that in
the future you can hurt or help them.

Interesting moral issue:  in the future a person gets warnings about their
lifestyle such that if they act in certain ways, they will pass on
maladaptive genes to their offspring, but they ignore them.  Now can their
children blame them for passing on bad genes?  I think so, though if the
future holds what we think it might, then all the kids have to do is get
the gene clinic to reverse the mutations their parents caused.

All of this is assuming that everyone has free access to these gene clinics
- probably not an assumption that will turn out to be true, though I hope
differently.

On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 7:19 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> keith wrote -  When we do, we expect to find out that an awful lot of a
> person's place in society depends on traits that are rooted in their
> genes
> .-
> ​---
>
> In the future behavioral problems will be treated with genetic
> manipulation​, perhaps turning off or on genes that were changed by your
> ancestors' behaviors (changed epigenetically in your parents, etc. and then
> restored to the original on or off position).
>
> Will people accept that as a substitute for putting people in jail for
> antisocial behaviors?  I hope so.  Punishment often doesn't last very long
> but changing genes will. However, there is a very powerful belief in the
> majority of people that things from failing to take out the garbage to
> serial killing, deserves punishment whether or not the punishment is
> associated with improvement in behavior.
>
> The typical murderer has killed someone he knows, often a family member.
> The likelihood of his doing it again, with or without punishment of any
> kind, is very, very low.  But he needs to be punished, according to this
> belief.
>
>  Will people accept adding genes to newborns or even fetuses to avoid
> fatal diseases?  I hope so.
>
> Now for the big news!!!  Since epigenetics involves the changing of the
> genes by the experiences of the person, how about future research that
> shows how to do that?  That is, by doing certain things or being exposed to
> certain things, it is found that the genes that are causing the problems
> are changed in a beneficent way.  This way a person can change his genes
> AND those he/she passes on to the children.  Isn't this fantastic?  (Well,
> yes, of course it is, since it is my fantasy, right?)
>
> Of course to this we have add behaviors and experiences that are known to
> have a maladaptive effect on the person's genes, and he/she is warned to
> avoid those to avoid the problems they will certainly cause.
>
> bill w
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 13, 2017 at 12:01 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Aug 12, 2017 at 6:59 PM,  BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote>
>>
>> snip
>>
>> I started to reply, and then picked up from your distortions what the
>> objection is.
>>
>> Eventually, every human trait is going to be understood from the gene
>> level up.  When we do, we expect to find out that an awful lot of a
>> person's place in society depends on traits that are rooted in their
>> genes.
>>
>> This is not a politically correct position.  However, I hope there are
>> people somewhere who value reality over such memes.
>>
>> Keith
>> _______________________________________________
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>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>
>
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