Re: SOC/BIO: E-Magazine article on ethics of human genengineering

From: Max More (max@maxmore.com)
Date: Sat Jan 06 2001 - 14:07:05 MST


At 06:20 AM 1/6/01, you wrote:
> From E Magazine,
>http://www.emagazine.com/january-february_2001/0101feat1.html
>-
>COVER STORY
>Designer People
>
>[....]
>Chapela is also worried about the lack of civic discourse. But the advocates
>are talking, particularly among themselves. At a Berkeley conference, one of
>them, Extropy Institute President Max More, stood before the crowd and read
>an open letter to Mother Nature:
>
>[....]
>
>Other proponents are more sober,

Hey, I didn't have a drop to drink until *after* that talk.

Too bad the writer forgot all about the sober analysis in my talk following
that call to arms. I suppose mentioning that wouldn't suit her purposes.

>and include Nobel laureate scientists.
>"This is no 'marginal' movement or way of thinking," Chapela says. "The
>group advocating human re-engineering includes extremely powerful,
>influential and wealthy people. So don't expect them to roll over easily or
>soon."

Fortunately this is true. I'm hearing supportive comments from a growing
number of people in positions of influence who have plenty of resources at
their command, such as William Haseltine, CEO of Human Genome Sciences, and
Craig Venter, CEO of Celera Genomics, as well as the irrepressible James
Watson.

Since we're currently working on the FAQ, it seems that we should be able
extract a couple of important question from this article that need
answering. For instance, one would tackle the question of the
"commodification" of humans. This issue first came up in journals on the
philosophy of sports where issues of performance enhancement have been
addressed rigorously. One person who has done excellent work in this area
is USC law professor Michael Shapiro, who spoke at EXTRO-4.

Onward!

Max

Max More,
max@maxmore.com or more@extropy.org
www.maxmore.com
President, Extropy Institute. www.extropy.org
Senior Content Architect, ManyWorlds Inc.: www.manyworlds.com



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