The Gene Editing Question

I returned to one of my favorite activities; public philosophical debate. I debated the subject of transhumanism and human gene editing.

Here's the crux of the debate as I see it; gene editing could do all these fantastic things for society; defeating genetic diseases and mitigating mental illness, increasing the IQs and general intelligence of humans along with eliminating genes like the MAOA warrior gene that many violent criminals have — it could mitigate quite a bit of human suffering. How long will it take humanity to start colonizing the solar system if we have +200 IQ babies being born every day?

The significant downside to this is that it will result eventually in a phenotypic revolution, where AI takes over control of our genes and eventually engineers us into an enslaved species, not exactly like in The Matrix, but we will become totally subservient to an AI lifeform the same way that RNA became enslaved by DNA billions of years ago.

I've made some harsh criticism of transhumanism; in my article Transhumanism is Trap, I expose how transhumanists are succumbing to a very tyrannical political impulse. They are very motivated to violently impose their vision for the future upon the entire world population. They have also begun to lobby the state to instill an absurd bill of rights for all sentient entities giving very hard-won human rights to computers and AI.

In politics there's this concept of driving a wedge, creating a division in a monolithic and powerful political movement. I feel that transhumanism can be redeemed and actually do a lot of good if some more friction can be stimulated between the libertarian-leaning transhumanist humanists who just want science to save us from involuntary death and the leftist, postmodern authoritarian transhumanists.

Transhumanism is not a fad.

It's a radical ethos that's going to impact our society and politics. The disturbing thing is that when presented with these criticisms many transhumanists respond like the most dogmatic of religious zealots.

In the debate, I took the position that human gene editing and the inevitable phenotypic revolution is probably the lesser evil compared to the status quo mainly because of the time scale involved. The enslavement phase of the phenotypic revolution would likely be ten, fifty, or a hundred thousand years in the future. Whereas the benefits of human gene editing would start to positively impact humanity within our lifetimes. Human gene editing may transform us into a truly enlightened species that can boldly seed the cosmos with the light of our brilliance, inventiveness, and romance.

In the European city where I live, I often walk past the ruins of Roman architecture and think deeply about the past. The Roman period of history is generally regarded as a positive and momentous forward step for our species. Quality of life along with the general justice and fairness of the human experience was immeasurable improved by the Roman Empire, especially during the Pax Romana period. The Romans were eventually enslaved and eradicated by foreigners and their own worst political impulses. But I don't think very many historians would say that the Roman Empire and the progress they made was not worth it because they were eventually enslaved.

Similarly, gene editing may usher in an age of Pax Humanitas. It may allow us to become a distributed species. The phenotypic revolution may occur on Earth but not necessarily on every planet where +200 IQ humans plant a flag.

The alternative to phenotypic revolution and gene editing is dark. I make the case in my book review of The Revolutionary Phenotype that Western civilization is dying, IQs are dropping globally, and we are at present a devolving species. On the present trajectory, our descendants will face a harsh and brutal existence on a badly polluted planet.

The Revolutionary Phenotype

 

4.5

Category: Book

The only hope of reversing this trend would be a severe genetic selection event like what occurred about 12,000 years ago when an asteroid slammed into North America throwing the planet into a brutal thousand-year ice age or commonplace gene editing of millions or billions of babies.

My empathy only travels so far into the future, I would want my children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren to have a better life than I. But human beings that live thousands of years in the future who don't look like me, don't remember my name, or to whom my language would be alien? I'm more concerned with people who I might know having an amazing, joyful life because of gene editing than what happens in thousands or tens of thousands of years.

Check out my book review and debate with the author and let me know what you think...

New Philosophy/Genetics Mini-Documentary

"The Revolutionary Phenotype" is a rigorous exposition of the misunderstood history of genetic evolution and an unnerving prophecy about how transhuman hubris will enslave our descendants to phenotypic machines of our own invention.

Gene Editing Debate

I appeared on the popular live stream show The Public Space with a real intellectual tour de force, J.F Gariepy. 

"Whenever a new revolution occurs there is a new aristocracy... The new aristocracy is going to be an aristocracy of intelligence and the people that have the most cognitive horsepower to bring to bear on constructing reality..."

From our rousing debate of transhumanism and discussion of biohacking. Check it out here...