Some tools are asking to be misused. Some tools exploit human nature. Some tools create perverse incentives. Hammers, ploughshares and clothes don't really do that.
But it comes with a whole lot of baggage. Like the fact you're editing DNA that we don't understand much at all. Removing something that is likely to cause cancer might increase the probabilities of other conditions in later life and it might take numerous generations of doing this before we figure that out. Or the fact that this technology isn't going to stop with taking out genetic diseases, it's also going to be used to make people unnaturally muscular, taller, bigger eyes, more submissive and so on.
I think the negatives of this will far outweigh the positives, just like we saw with TV's overwhelmingly negative effect on people's intelligence, and then that of the internet, and then social media and now AI. Or processed foods on people's health. Or PFAS chemicals, or cross-sex hormones, or ...
any tool can be misused. if we discarded every misused tool, we would still be in the Stone age.
Some tools are asking to be misused. Some tools exploit human nature. Some tools create perverse incentives. Hammers, ploughshares and clothes don't really do that.
no shit, which is why I'm focused on the use. selecting to remove genetic disease is a good thing and I will never pretend it's not.
But it comes with a whole lot of baggage. Like the fact you're editing DNA that we don't understand much at all. Removing something that is likely to cause cancer might increase the probabilities of other conditions in later life and it might take numerous generations of doing this before we figure that out. Or the fact that this technology isn't going to stop with taking out genetic diseases, it's also going to be used to make people unnaturally muscular, taller, bigger eyes, more submissive and so on.
I think the negatives of this will far outweigh the positives, just like we saw with TV's overwhelmingly negative effect on people's intelligence, and then that of the internet, and then social media and now AI. Or processed foods on people's health. Or PFAS chemicals, or cross-sex hormones, or ...