I would like to open a line of questioning for AFF on the transgenics and transhumanism memes.
Those who subscribe to the ideology of this forum are all against eugenics. All of us oppose aborting the fetuses of Autistic babies, regardless of whather we label ourselves pro-life or pro-choice. As such, we are a mixture of radicals and conservatives, liberals, reactionaries, Marxists, Anarchists, libertarians, monarchists, republicans and the like; but we all agree that Autistic people ought to be able to express their lifes' purposes fully.
Yet, there is a broader discourse that people here seem reticent about discussing. That is the debate around genetics itself. If, as I have suggested, DNA is like a modern religion, one that is never doubted publicly, then what of the notion that we even have the right to control the genome? If it is wrong to abort children with Down's Syndrome, or with Autism, then what of the whole idea of modeling a society based on the control of DNA?
DNA is a tool in the hands of ruling interests who would establish a total Panopticon. England and the USA have emerging DNA data bases. They do not just extend to criminals and terrorists. They can theoretically extend to anyone, barring radical intervention from the courts. "Democracy" is really no shield, because any intelligent person can see that "democracy" is often a justification for State control. A docile population in representative democracies gives the elites who control the State sanction by voting. It is not so much that your vote counts. Rather, your vote actually gives power to those who would enslave you. This is the dirty secret that your civics classes will never tell you.
DNA date bases are part and parcel of the emerging survelliance state, "democratically" voted in mind you, along with cameras and ELF emitters. Intelligent people are awake to this fact. Now, the institutions of the medical-military-industrial complex want to go further. These characters actually want to *ENGINEER* the genome. They want to mix species. They want to alter humanity. Now, Gareth will defend transhumanism. He and I will disagree. Yet, I suspect that Gareth himself probably does not agree with meshing human genes with animal genes. I suspect that he believes in a voluntary merger of humans and machines, one that is not genetically inherited. However, within both the transgenic and transhumanist movements there is a strong contradiction, almost a schism between the idea that humanity is a god unto itself and the equally prevalent idea that humanity is outmoded.
This contradiction has very dangerous precedents, ones that are best left alone since my mention of them will only inflame the debate. I will leave the transhumanism issue aside, because there may be many schools of thought on the subject, some in favor of transgenics while others not so much. It is transgenics that I would focus on here. And, I will even broaden the debate to include GMO crops, animal chimeras, and animal-human hybrids. GMO crops are a force of enslavement for family farmers the world over. Animal chimeras are a form of abuse. And, finally, animal-human hybrids open an ethical pandora that is wide open. Are these beings free and equal? If not, then what of the slavery debate?
Scientists are like children. They want to be able to explore what they want. Yet, it is really the corporate interests who pull the strings. These guys will be the ones who benefit, along with the governments whose strings they pull. Scientists are like children, and that can be a good thing. Curiosity is a child-like trait. However, children sometimes wander in to areas that they should not. Therefore, the adults, including the ethical adult inside of every scientist remembered for true greatness, will find a need to step in and establish limits. We do not want biologist versions of Einstein and Oppenheimer to tear out their hair and exclaim, "What have we done? We have given the natural enemies of all scientists, the dictators and controllers of the world, a means to destroy it all!"
I vote that we head this one off at the pass and establish super-strict ethical limits on this kind of research.
Most human genes ARE animal genes. Identical. Same little A/T/C/G sequence. The part that makes us unique is actually only a few percent... now, mind, DNA is so complex that the few percent contains a huge amount of information; but if you look at animal genes and especially mammal genes, you can actually trace genetic relatedness, divide things into groups by shared DNA....
Callista,
I assume that you:
1) Do not believe in slavery
2) Do not afford animals 100% the same rights as humans. Animal rights, yes, but full rights of social and political participation---probably not.
So, I ask you; which side of the animal-human divide do these chimeras fall on?
Now, if I am wrong on point 2, then I can see how this would not be an ethical problem. However, *MOST* of society would see humans as possessing more rights. Therefore, supporting animal-human chimeras would be ethically problematic in that most of human society would reject equality with them, leaving them as something other than free and equal. Is there not an ethical problem here?
Okay, as far as animal genes go: There's no good reason to ever use them. Healthy human genes--like the gene that codes for the protein that, if missing, would cause cystic fibrosis--are the only thing we'd ever need. If that gene came from an animal source, and it were identical to a human gene, and inserted in the same place, then the resulting organism would be human.
Okay. Genes make proteins. They're like the "recipe" for making the proteins; and the proteins are what make you.
The human body is, in its very simplest form, a collection of information--the information that codes for the genes that make the proteins that make your body run. You could get that gene from a mouse or you could get it from a human; but if the genes you put together were a collection that said "human" when it got expressed, the result would be a human; and if when put together it said "mouse", the result would be a mouse. For that matter, you could (theoretically, of course not in real life) create human DNA from nothing but the constituent atoms--mostly carbon, oxygen, hydrogen--and end up with a human being out of that. (Emphasis on the "theoretically". It will probably never be possible.)
The human body is basically information; it doesn't matter whether you get the actual atoms from a human or a pig or a chemical supply company.
Okay, as far as animal genes go: There's no good reason to ever use them. Healthy human genes--like the gene that codes for the protein that, if missing, would cause cystic fibrosis--are the only thing we'd ever need. If that gene came from an animal source, and it were identical to a human gene, and inserted in the same place, then the resulting organism would be human.
Okay. Genes make proteins. They're like the "recipe" for making the proteins; and the proteins are what make you.
The human body is, in its very simplest form, a collection of information--the information that codes for the genes that make the proteins that make your body run. You could get that gene from a mouse or you could get it from a human; but if the genes you put together were a collection that said "human" when it got expressed, the result would be a human; and if when put together it said "mouse", the result would be a mouse. For that matter, you could (theoretically, of course not in real life) create human DNA from nothing but the constituent atoms--mostly carbon, oxygen, hydrogen--and end up with a human being out of that. (Emphasis on the "theoretically". It will probably never be possible.)
The human body is basically information; it doesn't matter whether you get the actual atoms from a human or a pig or a chemical supply company.
But where do we draw the line? Personally, I think that once we begin to tamper with the genome, we will continue because we are not wise enough to stop.
Once we tamper with genes, we are tampering with information. The two are one in the same.
On to the Sabbath....
GMO crops are a force of enslavement for family farmers the world over.
Wrong - patent laws are a force of enslavement, full stop
Would you oppose GM crops if they weren't patented?
Animal chimeras are a form of abuse.
I suppose this depends upon your views of animal rights and biological research on animals. Personally I fully support biological research on animals done in the name of advancing useful scientific knowledge, particularly where it pertains to medicine. If many lab animals have to die in a controlled and humane manner in order to give humanity the cure for cancer, i'd have to say I side with my own species.
Chimeras (by which I presume you mean hybrids of one animal and another) do not appear to me to be a-priori abuse to create. If they're created for frivolous reasons, or created in such a way that the resulting entity will suffer in unrequired ways then I would say that's a big problem, but there's nothing inherently bad about mixing genes from different species. Care must be taken, as with nearly all of scientific endeavours, but they're not automatically abusive.
And, finally, animal-human hybrids open an ethical pandora that is wide open. Are these beings free and equal? If not, then what of the slavery debate?
Animal-human hybrids set off an instinctive "creepy" response, and an understandable sympathy. Here are some questions i'd ask:
Will the resulting entity have a human or human-level mind?
If the answer to this one is yes, go straight to human rights, do not pass experiments, do not collect grant money
If no, read on.....
Will the resulting entity suffer in the experiment(s)?
If so, use the same standards as for animal research - is this suffering justified in serving humanity?
The tricky part, the REALLY tricky part, is the first question: judging the mind. A newborn human mind could easily appear to be of the same intelligence as a (for want of a better phrasing) "lesser animal". Where there is doubt, it'd be wise to lean towards saying "no" to any question of creating such entities.
Another thing to be considered is whether the resulting entity will suffer simply by virtue of being only part human. Will they feel trapped within a subhuman body? Will they feel excluded by society (this one of course is tricky, since similar logic of course could be used to justify not allowing autistics to be born)?
Callista is partly right in saying there's no need to use animal genes, excepting that I can envision many cases where animal genes could be blended in merely to test the results, or where some animal gene may cause a particular effect. For example, i'd love the gene that encodes for internally synthesised Vitamin C seen in many other mammals, if it could be safely transplanted into me in such a way it'd actually have an effect.
Now, the institutions of the medical-military-industrial complex want to go further. These characters actually want to *ENGINEER* the genome. They want to mix species. They want to alter humanity. Now, Gareth will defend transhumanism. He and I will disagree. Yet, I suspect that Gareth himself probably does not agree with meshing human genes with animal genes. I suspect that he believes in a voluntary merger of humans and machines, one that is not genetically inherited. However, within both the transgenic and transhumanist movements there is a strong contradiction, almost a schism between the idea that humanity is a god unto itself and the equally prevalent idea that humanity is outmoded.
Just to clarify here - i've never seen transhumanists calling for animal/human hybrids, or the forceful alteration of people's genomes. I do strongly believe in a voluntary merger of man+machine (and would argue such is already occurring today), and in the use of genetics with very strong protections against the obvious potentials for abuse, but I do not believe in anything being done by force.
The "man is a god" meme is one i've only seen you refer to by the way, man is far short of anything godlike even if each of us may be (if we don't externalise it) a god to ourselves.
The "design" of homo sapiens is riddled with bugs, including a tendency to fail within a century, various cognitive biases and vulnerability to diseases and pathogens. We also seem to be quite under-powered for some serious tasks and lack a few extra features that it'd be rather useful to have. Transhumanism to me is about fixing the bugs and upgrading with the extra features.
Humans don't even have the ability to communicate without using some external aid or something low-bandwidth such as vibrating air, which looked at from the right perspective seems a little bit odd. We're walking around on one tiny lump of rock quarrelling about stuff on that rock, while we build machines that can talk across the rock for us. If there are more advanced aliens out there and they have humour, we must look as amusing to them as a kitten chasing a bit of string looks to us.
"playing god" is a rather vague concept, and at the core doesn't seem to be automatically a bad thing.
limits that is not only not defined for me, but which really cannot be defined all that successfully by anyone.
I agree with this.
Limits are all good and well but we all know to well the power of curiousity.
A key thing for a wise person to remember is the limits of their own wisdom. Those who do not know those limits become dangerous. As for an individual, so for a species.
Very true words.
Equally true is that we should not shy away from avenues of inquiry that might massively boost the quality of life of our entire race - we should approach them with care, with a lot of oversight, but still ultimately approach them.
A key thing for a wise person to remember is the limits of their own wisdom. Those who do not know those limits become dangerous. As for an individual, so for a species.
Very true words.
Equally true is that we should not shy away from avenues of inquiry that might massively boost the quality of life of our entire race - we should approach them with care, with a lot of oversight, but still ultimately approach them.
But, Gareth, "might" ultimately improve is a huge gamble for such an uncertainty as manipulating the genome. If we look at atomic energy, we BARELY have the wisdom even to contain that.
These Barriers were given to us for good reason.
but "might" is commonly used far too negatively.
You "Might" get hit by a car
You "Might" get a raise
You "Might" Damage humanity through transgenics
You "Might" prosper humanity through transgenics
I think there should be assesments carried out on it to see how risky it would be.
And IMO I think it should not go ahead .....if any living thing is to suffer and I literally mean any
A key thing for a wise person to remember is the limits of their own wisdom. Those who do not know those limits become dangerous. As for an individual, so for a species.
Very true words.
Equally true is that we should not shy away from avenues of inquiry that might massively boost the quality of life of our entire race - we should approach them with care, with a lot of oversight, but still ultimately approach them.
But, Gareth, "might" ultimately improve is a huge gamble for such an uncertainty as manipulating the genome. If we look at atomic energy, we BARELY have the wisdom even to contain that.
These Barriers were given to us for good reason.
Everything we do at a certain scale has an element of risk, we might as well accept that and manage the risk.
A key thing for a wise person to remember is the limits of their own wisdom. Those who do not know those limits become dangerous. As for an individual, so for a species.
Very true words.
Equally true is that we should not shy away from avenues of inquiry that might massively boost the quality of life of our entire race - we should approach them with care, with a lot of oversight, but still ultimately approach them.
But, Gareth, "might" ultimately improve is a huge gamble for such an uncertainty as manipulating the genome. If we look at atomic energy, we BARELY have the wisdom even to contain that.
These Barriers were given to us for good reason.
Everything we do at a certain scale has an element of risk, we might as well accept that and manage the risk.
I agree with this but depending on the risk level and cost. (by cost I mean pollution and acossiated issues not just monetary)
Came across this link earlier today, and it seems rather relevant:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/se/should_we_ban_physics/
I love lesswrong
The above makes a good general argument for any situation where we might say "this has danger, let's never do it". Eliezer tends to make his arguments directed at strong AI - basically saying there's a risk of a terminator-type scenario, but there's also risks if we
don't achieve strong AI. Effectively, at some point nature will throw us a problem that our puny brains can't handle and we're all dead unless we create a greater intelligence and/or upgrade ourselves.
GMO crops are a force of enslavement for family farmers the world over.
Wrong - patent laws are a force of enslavement, full stop
Would you oppose GM crops if they weren't patented?
Animal chimeras are a form of abuse.
I suppose this depends upon your views of animal rights and biological research on animals. Personally I fully support biological research on animals done in the name of advancing useful scientific knowledge, particularly where it pertains to medicine. If many lab animals have to die in a controlled and humane manner in order to give humanity the cure for cancer, i'd have to say I side with my own species.
Chimeras (by which I presume you mean hybrids of one animal and another) do not appear to me to be a-priori abuse to create. If they're created for frivolous reasons, or created in such a way that the resulting entity will suffer in unrequired ways then I would say that's a big problem, but there's nothing inherently bad about mixing genes from different species. Care must be taken, as with nearly all of scientific endeavours, but they're not automatically abusive.
And, finally, animal-human hybrids open an ethical pandora that is wide open. Are these beings free and equal? If not, then what of the slavery debate?
Animal-human hybrids set off an instinctive "creepy" response, and an understandable sympathy. Here are some questions i'd ask:
Will the resulting entity have a human or human-level mind?
If the answer to this one is yes, go straight to human rights, do not pass experiments, do not collect grant money
If no, read on.....
Will the resulting entity suffer in the experiment(s)?
If so, use the same standards as for animal research - is this suffering justified in serving humanity?
The tricky part, the REALLY tricky part, is the first question: judging the mind. A newborn human mind could easily appear to be of the same intelligence as a (for want of a better phrasing) "lesser animal". Where there is doubt, it'd be wise to lean towards saying "no" to any question of creating such entities.
Another thing to be considered is whether the resulting entity will suffer simply by virtue of being only part human. Will they feel trapped within a subhuman body? Will they feel excluded by society (this one of course is tricky, since similar logic of course could be used to justify not allowing autistics to be born)?
Callista is partly right in saying there's no need to use animal genes, excepting that I can envision many cases where animal genes could be blended in merely to test the results, or where some animal gene may cause a particular effect. For example, i'd love the gene that encodes for internally synthesised Vitamin C seen in many other mammals, if it could be safely transplanted into me in such a way it'd actually have an effect.
We have no right to judge the mind. A "human/animal hybrid," apart from being nonesense since humans are animals, would still be a member of the sapiens clade and must be created free.
Genetically engineering a race of slaves is not a new ethical question in the least. If you're a slave then you're a slave. Human beings do not exist solely so that we may exploit them, whether they've been modified through assistive technology, nazi breeeding programs, or genetic engineering.