Ethics of genetic engineering

[Borachio]

Nothing wrong with baby boomers.

And get off my patch of unwatered pasture this minute, or I'll turn the hosepipe on you. If that doesn't work, I'll shake a stick at you.

 

[uppi]

Because it would accelerate scientific advancement along with increased IQs and a far more robust human body. Just imagine an doctor with 300 years of experience and carrying out medical research.

Who was educated 300 years ago and stuck in a mindset of 270 years ago - certainly not someone who is going to bring scientific advancement.

Experience is good to have, but in time experience gets less useful. There are not that many jobs where experience that was acquired 300 years ago is still applicable today. In that time there have been so many technological and societal advancements and revolutions that 300 years of experience would be worth much less.

Longevity would lead to stale societies and be a hindrance to scientific advancement.

 

[Kozmos]

Because nobody ever changes over time. Especially not scientists. If you want to make a case against longevity, point to Madonna or something.

 

[uppi]

Because nobody ever changes over time. Especially not scientists. If you want to make a case against longevity, point to Madonna or something.

Even people though can change, they do so slower than younger people learn new things. If you have to unlearn things, if you have to overcome your old mindset, you will always be slower than someone who just learns the new thing without the old baggage.

Or as Max Planck put it:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

The corollary is that without death, a new scientific truth will never triumph

 

[Kozmos]

We're not talking about kung fu skills here, but data and facts. Nobody is walking around with 19th century mindset anymore. People who bring results and reproducible data is the only thing that matters and those who can't deliver will get swept away. Same thing in education and economy, despite the bureaucracy that sometimes hinders change.

 

[Farm Boy]

Longevity would lead to stale societies and be a hindrance to scientific advancement.

And what are we racing? The heat death of the universe? The nova of our own sun? Our depletion of natural resources on the planet? Zompoc? Or are we actually racing the death of each and every one of our loved ones' generations? Longevity, even if it does have the debatable cost of complacency and rate of advancement, is of different worths. Especially if we factor the inefficiencies of beginning and end of life when it comes to individuals productive to the scientific advancement of the whole.

 

[El_Machinae]

Frankly, if your social model requires the convenient culling of the old, then it's your model that's broken.

It's also possible to both fight aging-related degeneration AND concomitantly address the pitfalls of doing so. Pick an aspect, and proactively address it using win/win motivations.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

We're not talking about kung fu skills here, but data and facts. Nobody is walking around with 19th century mindset anymore. People who bring results and reproducible data is the only thing that matters and those who can't deliver will get swept away. Same thing in education and economy, despite the bureaucracy that sometimes hinders change.

Swept away to where? It's all good when they get swept away to a fairly brief retirement. When they get swept away to a century long stay at the bitter old scientist ranch they may cause some trouble.

 

[Borachio]

Who was educated 300 years ago and stuck in a mindset of 270 years ago - certainly not someone who is going to bring scientific advancement.

Experience is good to have, but in time experience gets less useful. There are not that many jobs where experience that was acquired 300 years ago is still applicable today. In that time there have been so many technological and societal advancements and revolutions that 300 years of experience would be worth much less.

Longevity would lead to stale societies and be a hindrance to scientific advancement.

Hmm. I'm not so sure. Some doctor was telling me about a brain surgeon he knew, who'd gone through medical school (5 years), spent time as a junior doctor (2 years), taken a Phd (3 years), gone on to train for this that and the other, and finally arrived at the top of his game, fully-qualified...

...but with only 10 years of working life left, in which the NHS could exploit his undoubted high level of skill. And apparently he wasn't untypical.

How does that make any sense?

It used to be the case that one man could acquire all the useful knowledge available in his lifetime, and be a proper Renaissance Man. This hasn't been the case since, I don't know when, 1700? I doubt it could ever be the case again but it might be more possible with a longer life time.

And if you can increase longevity, mightn't it be possible to increase the plasticity of the ageing brain at the same time, anyway?

In brief, you may be right, but I see no obvious reason to agree with you.

 

[Senethro]

And what if we find out that what you call Bigotry is actually completely necessary? When you get right down to it discrimination is choice, and strong beliefs are bigotry

Silliest What If ever. Well, except for the What If Obama Was A Secret Muslim.

What Ifs are silly until you give some reasoning behind them.

 

[uppi]

And what are we racing? The heat death of the universe? The nova of our own sun? Our depletion of natural resources on the planet? Zompoc? Or are we actually racing the death of each and every one of our loved ones' generations? Longevity, even if it does have the debatable cost of complacency and rate of advancement, is of different worths.

For the individual I fully agree. But for the society it is debatable how fast it should change. And I am fully convinced that longer lives will lead to slower change. You could argue that it would change faster normalized by the average lifespan, but it will move slower on an absolute scale.

Especially if we factor the inefficiencies of beginning and end of life when it comes to individuals productive to the scientific advancement of the whole.

There are some inefficiencies here, but scientific advancement is in no way limited by those. Not when most scientists stay in science only for a very short part of their life. If we are worried about the inefficiency of educating all these scientists first, we should either stop educating so many of them or create positions for them to stay in science. In the last decades science has moved to having a high flux of people passing through as that seems to be more cost efficient. Unless we change that, longevity will not contribute in removing inefficiencies.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Frankly, if your social model requires the convenient culling of the old, then it's your model that's broken.

It's also possible to both fight aging-related degeneration AND concomitantly address the pitfalls of doing so. Pick an aspect, and proactively address it using win/win motivations.

The social model shouldn't need to require it because biology is supposed to take care of it for us. The current situation emerged from a misguided prioritizing of 'long life' without putting a shred of thought into 'what for?'

 

[Farm Boy]

For the individual I fully agree. But for the society it is debatable how fast it should change. And I am fully convinced that longer lives will lead to slower change. You could argue that it would change faster normalized by the average lifespan, but it will move slower on an absolute scale.



There are some inefficiencies here, but scientific advancement is in no way limited by those. Not when most scientists stay in science only for a very short part of their life. If we are worried about the inefficiency of educating all these scientists first, we should either stop educating so many of them or create positions for them to stay in science. In the last decades science has moved to having a high flux of people passing through as that seems to be more cost efficient. Unless we change that, longevity will not contribute in removing inefficiencies.

But what are we racing? Why does it need to be faster?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

But what are we racing? Why does it need to be faster?

We are racing against the destructive forces unleashed by previous science. Therefore we need ever faster scientific progress.

 

[Kozmos]

Swept away to where? It's all good when they get swept away to a fairly brief retirement. When they get swept away to a century long stay at the bitter old scientist ranch they may cause some trouble.

Scientists can usually apply their skills in other areas of the economy. Or they could take up painting and inventing or study another field for an interdisciplinary approach. Many scientific fields are now intersecting at interesting points.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Scientists can usually apply their skills in other areas of the economy. Or they could take up painting and inventing or study another field for an interdisciplinary approach. Many scientific fields are now intersecting at interesting points.

Sure. I've noticed the overwhelming pursuit of other areas of the economy in which to apply skills. That's probably why the most heavily pursued breakthrough of the late twentieth century was a pill to make old dicks hard.

What people could do with longer lives is irrelevant pie in the sky, based on what has come out of the lengthening already provided.

 

[uppi]

Hmm. I'm not so sure. Some doctor was telling me about a brain surgeon he knew, who'd gone through medical school (5 years), spent time as a junior doctor (2 years), taken a Phd (3 years), gone on to train for this that and the other, and finally arrived at the top of his game, fully-qualified...

...but with only 10 years of working life left, in which the NHS could exploit his undoubted high level of skill. And apparently he wasn't untypical.

How does that make any sense?

I'll admit that there may be jobs were retirement comes too early. But consider that when he is finished he is fully qualified and educated with the most recent methods and insight. 10 years later, science has moved on and those methods are not the best available any more. So someone new might be better than him, just because his education is more recent. 100 years later all education from a long time ago is essentially useless. Would you want your brain to be operated on according to procedures established 100 years ago? That was even before lobotomies were a thing.

It obviously depends on how fast a field is moving. If things are still done like they were 50 years ago, someone who has been doing these things for 50 years has extremely valuable experience. But especially science is very fast moving on human timescales.

It used to be the case that one man could acquire all the useful knowledge available in his lifetime, and be a proper Renaissance Man. This hasn't been the case since, I don't know when, 1700? I doubt it could ever be the case again but it might be more possible with a longer life time.

With some simple reasoning one can tell that longevity does not help here: Let us assume it takes me 1 year to find out something new and write a paper on it. Let us also assume that it takes me 1 day to fully understand such a paper. If I want to stay productive, I cannot devote to much time on reading papers of others, say less than 1/10. That means all topics I stay fully current on cannot exceed the output of 36 scientists. As long as these 36 scientists keep working (or have a successor) I cannot expand the number of topics I am fully current on, no matter how long I live. I can expand the number of topics by dropping the fully current requirement for some of them to have more topics I have a basic understanding of. But to be able to expand the knowledge about a certain topic, I need to be current on it.

If with advancing age, it takes more time for me to understand a new finding, because I need to overcome my preconceptions that I have acquired, I have to reduce the number of topics I am current on, or have my students worry about the details and just tell me the important things (which means that they are essential in expanding knowledge.)

In short: Specialization is always necessary in science and longevity is not a way around that.

And if you can increase longevity, mightn't it be possible to increase the plasticity of the ageing brain at the same time, anyway?

In brief, you may be right, but I see no obvious reason to agree with you.

I was assuming that this is the case. Otherwise longevity would be even worse.

Edit:

But what are we racing? Why does it need to be faster?

I am not saying we need to be faster. I am just saying we will be slower with longevity.

 

[Kozmos]

Sure. I've noticed the overwhelming pursuit of other areas of the economy in which to apply skills. That's probably why the most heavily pursued breakthrough of the late twentieth century was a pill to make old dicks hard.

What people could do with longer lives is irrelevant pie in the sky, based on what has come out of the lengthening already provided.

The dick hardening was an accidental discovery, it was originally meant to cure hypertension. I know many folks who ended up working slightly outside their chosen field due to limited R&D budgets of the state. Now they are making educational child toys, working in Pharma R&D for new tumour drugs and providing better software for companies and individuals. One of my own family is an accomplished brain surgeon who is working his ass off to bring renewable power and diversify agriculture in his hometown region. For a small nation, a loss of his person would be significant.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015...-a-microscope-in-the-living-room-nobel-prize/

 

[Triewd]

Silliest What If ever. Well, except for the What If Obama Was A Secret Muslim.

What Ifs are silly until you give some reasoning behind them.

No....

See when you are messing with peoples genetics you have to justify why you are doing so not the other way around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osWnzRHiWkY

You cannot remove peoples free choice to do so on the grounds of some thoughts are wrong ... Is Orwellian really you are tying instead of making incorrect thoughts impossible via making incorrect language impossible:

You are suggesting people be genetically altered to make bigotry impossible!

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The dick hardening was an accidental discovery, it was originally meant to cure hypertension. I know many folks who ended up working slightly outside their chosen field due to limited R&D budgets of the state. Now they are making educational child toys, working in Pharma R&D for new tumour drugs and providing better software for companies and individuals. One of my own family is an accomplished brain surgeon who is working his ass off to bring renewable power and diversify agriculture in his hometown region. For a small nation, a loss of his person would be significant.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015...-a-microscope-in-the-living-room-nobel-prize/

I know many people who's goal in life was to become not productive as early as possible, including myself. For any nation the freeing up of the wealth we have hoarded and the resources we continue to consume would be a blessing.