Genetic arms race, or intentionally crippling your population to make them easier to control? I wonder which the various governments will go for?

Are gene-modded babies going to have genetic compulsions that make them predisposed to propaganda and suggestion? Biological kill-switches?

There's a lot of good and a lot of bad that is going to come out of these technologies.

> Genetic arms race, or intentionally crippling your population to make them easier to control? I wonder which the various governments will go for?

This hypothetical doesn't make sense in the face of robotics. If people are around, they are because they are useful.

The GP's point is, to put it in your terms, whether the people are more useful for their friends, families and humankind or if they are more useful for governments to retain (and grow) their power. The activists today who are fighting their governments and government agencies are of the former kind, and there is a natural conflict between them and the governments in many areas (not saying all areas).

Unless one sees all governments as benevolent agencies that are truly "of the people, by the people, and for the people", this is a distinction to be wary of.

Nation states could already do this, but they've been remarkably uninterested. Yao Ming is the only example I know of.

You don't need DNA tests, or even knowledge of the concept of DNA, to participate in a genetic arms race. DNA tests were not necessary to produce dogs that would rescue drowning humans or cows that would produce incredible amounts of milk. They also aren't necessary to produce "good genetic" humans.

And furthermore, even after producing / selecting those, we struggle to give them a good education in a repeatable way.

China already paid people with high intelligence to ship them DNA for research in 2013, they are already doing embryo gene manipulation. They are years ahead of us due to not caring about ethics. Political correctness will be the death of the west.

https://www.nature.com/news/chinese-project-probes-the-genet...

The BGI project referenced above was hindered by certain suboptimal methodological assumptions. It does not appear that the Chinese are any further than the West in the field, and the most notable replicable advances have occurred in the supposedly-stymied labs of the West.

It is worth remembering that China is a highly ideological society with blinders and "PC" of its own, and is not entirely uninfluenced by Western priorities.

Different ethics != not caring about ethics. And if not caring about ethics were the key to winning the nation-state game, the ethical response would be to tear it all down ASAP, which is usually quite unethical in practice.

I'm not sure I follow your argument. Tearing it all down is or isn't ethical, therefore not caring about ethics is not the key to winning the nation-state game?

Ethics is stuck between a rock and a hard place if nations collapse because they're not disregarding ethics enough, as the previous comment suggests. (I'm disputing the premise.)

I phrased it a bit harshly, more like less inhibited. The US can't even have a discussion about IQ and genetics due to the pushing of BS like blank slate and political correctness, which makes doing research impossible.

Well, there are potential reasons beyond PC for caution.

Keep in mind that eugenics, the "old school" version of genetic manipulation, is widely considered a failure, and has a nasty association with certain unsavory leaders that loom large in European/American history (the most notorious one being, um, Hitler). One can say that eugenics has that nasty issue of raw tribalism clouding any potential good judgement. Personally, I would consider the sordid history of eugenics to be a warning sign to everyone in regards to genetic engineering.

The other angle to bring up regarding genetic manipulation of humans, is that genetic manipulation of animals and crops, whether through the old school "selective breeding" or more modern techniques, have not been without unexpected big problems. At the very least, specific health problems have popped up in certain purebreds, and certain bred crops are far more vulnerable to being wiped out by single parasites (eg: our "perfect bananas" have this nasty tendency to keep getting wiped out by the Panama disease). Biodiversity is also the reason that in-breeding of humans is widely looked down upon.

The other ties with the former: it is not impossible for some unsavory leader to take some research, bastardize the science through blinders of tribal instinct, say "Ah! Gene X is the key to IQ!", and do some nasty tribal things "justified" by science. And in the end, get it quite wrong in the end due to lack of biodiversity.

If by political correctness you mean the basic human rights of the constitution Of course we could add an exception to the constitution that excludes lab grown children. Well, unfortunately gene manipulation is eugenics unless you are willing to support your "defects" until they die of old age plus their offspring but then china is probably going to win again because they are disposing their defective subjects as soon as they notice the defect.

It doesn't take much imagination to think of this scenario. Creating artifical super children that grow up inside a lab and get killed off when convenient is the most common staple in scifi books and movies involving gene editing.

What's more important? Basic human rights for all humans or competitiveness?

> If by political correctness you mean the basic human rights of the constitution

I think the US constitution is silent on the subject of genetic research.

> What's more important? Basic human rights for all humans or competitiveness?

If a nation is uncompetitive, it won't matter in the long term what it thinks about human rights, as that nation will will be out-competed by other natinos that are more competitive.

I doubt it will end well.