From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Wed May 17 2000 - 17:46:52 MDT
Ian Field wrote:
>
> Just getting back into this...
>
> |
> | ----- Original Message -----
> | From: White, Ryan
>
> | Personally, I'd love to affect genetic optimization of my offspring. But
> I
> | think we need to be aware of the issues that arise: For example, the
> 'haves'
> | will have 'better' offspring, while the 'have-nots' won't be able to
> afford
> | all the 'kinder-mods'.
>
> Excellent point - I don't have a good answer, just a comparison or two:
> Private School vs. Public School, Private Healthcare vs. Public
> Healthcare...
>
Most people can't afford private education because they still get taxed
to pay for other people's public education. Fact is that private
education is actually cheaper than public education, and produces better
quality product. Areas where this isn't so, or where private schools are
kept affordable due to generous scholarship aid/income based financial
aid or large amounts of parental volunteerism, show that poor people
send their kids to private schools almost as frequently as rich people.
Those that don't are typically those that are poor to begin with because
they don't respect the value of education, and short change their kids
as much as they've done it to themselves.
> | And what happens if and when everybody can afford
> | it? Are we all going to optimize our offspring's genetic predispositions
> | towards some arbitrarily-chosen 'superior quality set'? There goes the
> | genetic diversity of the human race. It would be sad if humans turned out
> to
> | have a gene pool like the poor cheetahs.
>
> Another excellent point. Dan Adams' thoughts re: Dynamic DNA/genetic
> programming (below) might help us address this concern - you allow for
> natural genetic variance, while boosting the likelihood of "positive"
> mutations (Dan, apologies if I'm butchering your concept). This, of course,
> doesn't make a lot of sense when shooting for a particular adaptation (i.e.
> brain/microprocessor interface), but...
Here's my thoughts on making it affordable, the intent is really to
eliminate the supposed have/have-not 'problem': Give tax breaks to those
with above average or excellent genomes to donate their ova and sperm,
and absolve them of all financial responsibility for the children that
result from such donations. At the same time, give tax incentives as
lump sum payments to women who give birth to such individuals reflecting
the potential reduced costs to society by them not giving birth to
psychopaths/sociopaths/mental/physical defectives. Its a free market
solution to the have/have-not problem, it also won't encourage racist
eugenics as well. Of course, those rated poorly will resent it and try
to claim some sort of racism, but so long as there is no actual
specification for racial characteristics, then there is in fact no
eugenics going on, right? I admit there is a lot of room for abuse and
scary government manipulation of the system, but I don't see an
alternative other than allowing people to do it completely themselves,
or ban it altogether. Personally I am for letting people decide for
themselves and buy it themselves as individuals, but that is just me.
Mike Lorrey
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