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levite · 04-22-2009, 11:49 PM

Great question, Will!

I think for me, I have no problem with a certain amount of basic tinkering: small modifications to the palette of options presently extant to human beings, as it were. So, yes, given the chance, I might like to ensure that my kid is free of allergies, with good eyesight, prone to physical fitness, very intelligent, prone to arts and music, etc. I personally have minimal or no attachment one way or the other to things like eye or hair color, sexual orientation, gender, or suchlike, and for those, am happy to roll the dice the old-fashioned way. Although I suppose it might be useful-- given that I'd ideally love one of each-- to pick which comes first, the boy or the girl. But that's less important for me.

I would certainly say that some choices ought to be watched or even regulated by government: it wouldn't do to have radically disproportionate gender pools in the population, or to be essentially eliminating sexual orientations or certain racial characteristics. But tinkering with things about personal health, personality, or even certain cosmetic choices, at the least ought to be free options for parents to consider, I think.

But I believe I am opposed to artificially modifying the basic form of homo sapiens sapiens beyond the current parameters of our current evolutionary niche. So, no gills, no nictitating membranes, no wings or hollow bones, no multiple arms or legs, no glow-in-the-dark people, or dudes with prehensile penises, or chicks with extra boobs, etc.

My one potential exception to this line of thinking might be if we were serious about colonizing other planets, and if that were really a practicable option, then it might behoove us to modify the colonists to survive on different partial proportions of oxygen, or to be able to resist or process other atmospheric gases in different partial proportions or pressures than on Earth, or to be denser boned and muscled or more lightly boned and muscled to best use different gravities, and suchlike.

But otherwise, I definitely oppose serious changes to human beings just for the sake of "let's see what happens," or "I like swimming, so let's make my son more like a flounder."

04-22-2009, 11:49 PM	#2 (permalink)
levite Minion of Joss Location: The Windy City	Great question, Will! I think for me, I have no problem with a certain amount of basic tinkering: small modifications to the palette of options presently extant to human beings, as it were. So, yes, given the chance, I might like to ensure that my kid is free of allergies, with good eyesight, prone to physical fitness, very intelligent, prone to arts and music, etc. I personally have minimal or no attachment one way or the other to things like eye or hair color, sexual orientation, gender, or suchlike, and for those, am happy to roll the dice the old-fashioned way. Although I suppose it might be useful-- given that I'd ideally love one of each-- to pick which comes first, the boy or the girl. But that's less important for me. I would certainly say that some choices ought to be watched or even regulated by government: it wouldn't do to have radically disproportionate gender pools in the population, or to be essentially eliminating sexual orientations or certain racial characteristics. But tinkering with things about personal health, personality, or even certain cosmetic choices, at the least ought to be free options for parents to consider, I think. But I believe I am opposed to artificially modifying the basic form of homo sapiens sapiens beyond the current parameters of our current evolutionary niche. So, no gills, no nictitating membranes, no wings or hollow bones, no multiple arms or legs, no glow-in-the-dark people, or dudes with prehensile penises, or chicks with extra boobs, etc. My one potential exception to this line of thinking might be if we were serious about colonizing other planets, and if that were really a practicable option, then it might behoove us to modify the colonists to survive on different partial proportions of oxygen, or to be able to resist or process other atmospheric gases in different partial proportions or pressures than on Earth, or to be denser boned and muscled or more lightly boned and muscled to best use different gravities, and suchlike. But otherwise, I definitely oppose serious changes to human beings just for the sake of "let's see what happens," or "I like swimming, so let's make my son more like a flounder." __________________ Dull sublunary lovers love, Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove That thing which elemented it. (From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)