[ExI] article about Rafal and his daughter

[Bryan Bishop]

On Fri, Jun 24, 2022 at 9:46 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> 3. It will reduce the number of unique people and genes that will exist
> across the multiverse.
>

I strongly doubt that. Humans are very diverse and have a variety of
opinions, religious beliefs, and preferences. Believe it, there have been
attempts to install global monocultures and they have all failed. Humans
are wily like that. They rebel, they get tattoos, they dye their hair, they
take uNrEgUlAtEd hormones, they do all kinds of stuff.


> If the same deterministic algorithm is used to find the best sperm and egg
> sample between any two parents, it drastically shrinks the diversity of
> unique individuals who will be born somewhere in reality.
>

I'm not sure what you mean. In a free society, you can't force parents to
have exactly the same preferences. Suppose you install a totalitiarian
state and say that all reproduction must be based on that algorithm you've
proposed. I think that it would be obvious that the totalitarian state is
responsible for the monoculture outcome, not the technology. That outcome
would have been achieved by other simpler means even absent genetic
engineering; totalitarian states have all kinds of violent ways of
enforcing their preferences on others.


> Gene manipulation of our own species is an area where we must tread
> cautiously as our power vastly outstrips our wisdom in this area, and some
> bells can't be unrung.
>

Make freedom and human flourishing a priority, and while you're at it, try
not to ring the
totalitarian-i-know-better-than-other-people-precautionary-principle bell.

- Bryan
https://twitter.com/kanzure
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