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I must be the only person not to think it's bad. Why is taking away an illness/condition from a child a bad thing? Making their quality of life a lot better should be considering a good thing, not bad.
As for choosing the characteristics of their child, again, sure it's playing "God" to an extent but is it really do anybody any harm? It might be shallow or whatever choosing your child's eye colour but as long as the child comes out healthy, who cares.
Whenever I heard about genetic engineering, I think about Frankenstein, 1984, Farenheit 451, The Giver, and Brave New World. In each book, at least some people are genetically engineered and something goes wrong. In Frankenstein, the Dr. Frankenstein tries to have power by giving something else life. He finally succeeds in doing it, then realizes how dumb that was. I don't think genetic engineering is a good idea, and I think that it will eventually back fire. Take the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley as an example. In that book, the government genetically engineers people to be subhuman and slaves. They organize a caste system by genetically engineering some people to be mindless robots. If we continue to discover more things about genetic engineering, what is there to stop our governments from doing the same thing?
"Sometimes, the impossible can become possible...IF YOU'RE AWESOME!" -Rhino the Hamster
(Idea stolen from Novanter and vampenstine)
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Genetic engineering would become a fashion statement. Like I said, it's basically Eugenics. It's getting rid of the undesirables. It starts out as just disorders but society changes and other things eventually become undesirable as well. Even when it's perfectly normal things.
What I think of is 'The Number 12 Looks Just Like You' from an episode of The Twilight Zone or even 'Eye Of The Beholder' from the same series.
The first one everyone is born normally but after a certain age they get total cosmetic surgery and have to wear name tags to tell them apart. And the main girl of the story was pretty good looking to begin with.
And in the second one, well it's just too good to spoil. But let's just say that what is considered "beautiful" and "undesirable" changes a lot.
Basically, it's this... when you start fucking around with human genetics to this degree the worst possible scenario will happen. Why? Because it's human nature. Genetics was always meant to be pure probability and chance. When you start controlling it, children become nothing more than a fashion statement. There will be what's popular and what's not, just as there is now. And look at how far people go with it as it is. Now imagine if they could manipulate the genetics of people who didn't have a say in the matter.
It starts out as being noble, a lot of things do, but you can't just look at the short term but you also must factor in basic human nature once it becomes common-place. But it's just something to be exploited. If people could control genetics then eventually the human race might just all end up being the same according to what is popular.
People go far enough as it is without fucking with genetics, if those people could fuck around with genetics then i fear for the human race. Because it'll cause more problems than just societal ones.
Like I said, certain styles get popular and when you apply that to genetics I imagine it would get quite complicated genetically. I'll have to ask my cousin about that (assuming I can get a hold of him - he's a scientist by the way, which is why I ask him) though.
So basically, a noble idea doesn't mean it'll work.
"Some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best intentions."
"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
Good intentions or not, one must always factor in human nature and human desire. Plus human values and how ever-changing they are. Right now it may be considered horrible to treat children as a fashion statement, but 30 years from now who's to say our children or grandchildren won't believe different? Then we'll be the old fuddy-duddy's who can't keep up with the times.
What I mean is that, right now it seems like a decent idea. But the intentions will become warped and simply getting rid of genetic diseases won't be enough anymore. It's human nature to move beyond that. We don't know when to stop, that's always been the problem with the human race. It's our greatest strength and our greatest weakness.
Basically, what I'm saying is that while it'll start out with diseases, it'll inevitably come to the point where everyone has the same hair and eye color. Values change over time. The first change is exposure. When children are exposed to something they become more accepting of it. After that, it eventually becomes accepted as a part of everyday normal life. Give or take a few generations.
Just as in another generation or so all the values of the generation before us will totally fade out. What I'm saying is that we can't base everyone off of our own values - we have to look ahead based on what we know about human beings to predict how our children and their children will react to certain things. In the future, by the time out our grandchildren it may very well be acceptable to do things we consider horrible by today's standards. And it probably will be that way and like I said we'll just be the old farts who can't get with the times.
Values change and when you mix that with fucking around with the basic building blocks of a human, all you'll get will be negative consequences. Now isn't the only thing that matters, far off into the future does as well. Doesn't matter though, it's going to happen either way. But personally I'd rather not have it start when I'm alive and young just so i can be killed off (via Logan's Run) when people decide being old is a genetic disorder or is undesirable (hell, people already do).
Shout, Shout, Let it all Out, These are the Things I Can do Without You Shouldn't Have to Jump for Joy, You Shouldn't Have to Shout for Joy
They Give You Life and in Return You Gave 'em Hell As Cold as Ice - No Bitch, You're Ice Ice Baby I Hope We Live to Tell the Tale, I Hope We Live to Shout the Tale
Will You Never Shout? And When You've Taken Down Your Guard... If I Could Change Your Mind, I'd Really Love to Break Your Heart! Come On Let Me Shout Shout Let Me, Come On Let Me Shout Shout!
Genetic engineering sounds great, but it really messes up the natural cycles. I think the EU largely had it right on this one (though they've been buckling to corporate interests)... they banned all GMO's.
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Re: Genetic Design???
