Why do you think genetic engineering is a bad idea? Is it because it's unnatural? Don't be foolish, nothing could be more natural. Or, perhaps nothing can be unnatural, unless it's supernatural. Think of all the good it could do. I'm talking about human engineering here. You don't need me to tell you the benefits of genetically modified agriculture. No, it's hitting up the lower 46 that is both scary and exciting in ways we can't imagine, and probably never will. That is because the problem with human genetic engineering is that we lack imagination.
Engineering works great when you have a measurable goal in mind. Engineered products have a function. So far this has been true of genetically engineered plants and animals. We've been doing it for millennia with selective breeding and now we're doing it with test tubes. The objectives, however, are basically the same. Increase yield, improve taste, and promote tolerance to pests. I'm not really sure where advancements in nutrition fall in there. Perhaps the agricultural industry puts more effort into nutritional content then I surmise, but my guess is that they don't. They wouldn't, considering their customer base is so prone to ignorance. Who cares about nutrition? You and I do, but at the risk of sounding a little too self righteous, most people don't. Even those who are trying to eat healthy don't. Especially those who are trying to eat health don't. If they did, they wouldn't be eating organic, free range corn from Portland. Like the Food Babe tells them to, they make sure they can pronounce all of the ingredients before consuming it, because everyone knows ease of elocution is a reliable indicator of content. You can keep your dihydrogen monoxide to yourself, Monsanto! Knowing nothing about the basic facts of chemistry, biology or common sense, they settle for theater. Or, maybe "settle" isn't the right word. Theater is what they wanted all along.
This is a bit of an overstatement, but this is also the Internet and Google immediately deletes anything that isn't screaming biased generalizations at you. Genetically modified foods are often more nutritious. However, I guarantee you that, outside of animal feed, the bulk of the research in food production is not focused on nutrition. Research costs money and the money comes from the people who vote with their feet. Those people want bread and circuses, or just circuses really. This is troubling because nutritional value is a quantifiable metric. We can unambiguously measure how well we're doing, and yet we don't do it. What happens when the standard for success is more subjective?
That is the frightening future of human genetic engineering. I'm sure that we have some pretty laudable goals at the moment. What if we could eliminate genetic influences on heart disease or cancer? That sounds good. Let's do that. Some day, however, human GMO might become a commodity. This could be a particular issue in the United States, which has a growing libertarian appetite for everything but abortion, gay marriage and flag burning. Don't do those things please, but for everything else live free or die. Preferably, live free or kill some else while standing your ground. Once all the diseases have been cured, what's next on the shopping list? Maybe your kids could be a little taller or better at sports. That's important. Some opponents of genetic engineering argue that it will ruin professional sports or the Olympics because it makes competition a moot point. That's a stupid argument because competition is already a moot point and because sports are fun but also a distraction from the looming threat that's really going to east your lunch.
At least with sports, there is a definable goal. Height, strength and aerobic capacity are all unambiguous, objective measures of "good" in that way the crop yields are. Having conquered these things, we would naturally start asking if we could be prettier or smarter too. That may seem like a long way off, but again the research money comes from those who vote with their feet. How many of you would like to have this ability right now? Put your hands down, you're making me nervous. There is no objective definition of beauty. It is fine for you as an individual to find something beautiful (not that you care about what I think is fine). It's not superficial for me to stand in awe at the beauty of my children or the truly stunning woman that I love.
However, when scaled up to a social level it starts to become problematic. It's bad enough that we have to measure ourselves against the model in the Victoria's Secret window, but what happens when some people have the money to actually force their children to look that way? Do you know how certain baby names become so popular that you have a 50/50 chance of guessing the name of stranger's kid based on age and gender alone? Now imagine a future where every preschooler at Bright Horizons actually looks like Giselle or her 2035 equivalent. Don't be surprised by a future where celebrities sell their looks in tubes, like celebrity branded perfumes, and the bone structure of more popular VIPs sell for more. I imagine this will also help them escape the paparazzi. Now I know how old you are and how rich your parents are based on the celebrity you perfectly resemble.
Ah, you thought you were libertarian. You thought you were taking matters into your own hands and taking charge, but even if you wanted to you can't, because society's momentary ranking of beauty is a major determinant of success and you wouldn't want to sacrifice your progeny's chances at fortune on the pyre of individuality, would you? Of course you wouldn't, because you're not a jerk and you'll join the rest of us inside the iron cage. Technology doesn't always free us, even when it appears to do so. Actually, you should be particularly suspicious when billions of dollars of research has been poured into a product that claims to give you more self determination. We don't have a choice, even when the pills are handed to us, because our choices have been rigged. Sometimes you only have two choices, the red pill or the blue pill, and neither is very appealing. Other times you can have any color you want, so long as it is black.
That's pretty bad, but it ain't the worst. Living in a world like that is scary enough, but don't forget that we want to be smarter too. Genetically engineering intelligence will be like teaching to the test, only on a horrific scale. You might argue that measures of smarts are more objective than measures of beauty. Aptitudes tests are flawed, but at least they measure something. At their best, however, these tests can only capture a fraction of human mental capability. At their worst, no one cares. Remember all those people who say they care about nutrition, but couldn't care less? No one wants their kids to be smarter. They want their kids to win awards and get into Ivy League schools and hedge GMO crop derivatives in corner window offices somewhere.
Intelligence, let alone creativity, can't be fully measured, but that's okay because all we wanted was a proxy for these things. All we want is for society to agree that we are smart. Society will respond no differently than it has before, by creating a standard that we can measure ourselves by. Even if advances in psychology allow us to measure intelligence and creativity more objectively, it doesn't matter because we don't care. We make it a point not to care. Even if we start to care, it doesn't amount to much because so much is riding on the flimsy paste board standard we've created that everyone will do their best to prop it up and protect their position in the pecking order. This is the world we live in right at this moment. Human genetic engineering will only calcify it. Technology has always been a way to exponentially extend power. The steam engine allowed us to pull weights that no muscle could pull. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as we're pulling something useful. What I fear is that the power of genetic engineering will arrange stones into a bulwark around a certain standard of success, fortify the positions of those who sit within in it and halting our creative progress as a species.
The last straw will be when we face some threat that we cannot defeat because we have lost all flexibility and ingenuity. When all the smartest people were engineered to get perfect scores on the SATs, what happens when they need to solve a problem that the SATs never predicted?
We've reached the time where I contradict myself. I wouldn't want you to start trusting me, not that you ever did. Let's keep it that way. This isn't a post about genetic engineering. I mean, the idea that celebrities could sell their faces is absurd, isn't it? (Forget for a moment that sperm banks charge top dollar for material from good looking Harvard grads). Maybe this future is not technologically feasible. That is most unfortunate, because perhaps the feasibility of such horrors would expose the underlying pathology. Genetic engineering would not create the world I have described, it would only make visible the world we have already created.
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