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Comment by brianpgordon | Hacker News Reader

> Other groups, including Human Genetics Alert, say the move would open the door to further genetic modification of children in the future - so-called designer babies, genetically modified for beauty, intelligence or to be free of disease.

There are people who don't think this is a good thing?! If we could eliminate congenital disease, and make everyone smarter, it would be like fast-forwarding human evolution.

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And the kids whose parents couldn't afford to have them genetically improved? They just exist as some sort of permanent underclass?

If you think the inequality and the way poor people get treated is a problem now, wait until rich people are actually genetically superior to the poor.

This is zero-sum thinking. The un-genetically modified kids are no worse off than they would have otherwise been.

Second we could easily solve it by making it available to everyone.

Third, the world is hardly genetically fair as it is. People are born with all sorts of horrible genetic conditions every day. If anything this will make the world more fair.

Just because you perceive something makes the world "more fair" doesn't mean it should EVER be implemented exclusively on that basis.

And it's not. There are massive benefits to genetic engineering. That it makes the world more fair is just a counter argument. The parent comment argued that it makes the world more unfair.

But I am sure that it would eventually trickle down anyway. It's not like middle ages where the rich can't marry the poor, it's not like rich people don't lose their fortunes and become poor. It's not like the moment you stop earning money you have to give back the modifications gained.

If genetic engineering really became this important to human "performance" or health, I would think that most countries who can afford it, will actually have a way for society to pay for such services. It's the right thing to do, and the most profitable for the society as a whole. Just as in health care the smart policy is to spread the cost and risks around and keep the providers in check so that they can't hold individual's health as a hostage.

Exception being the U.S., of course ...

Then it would increase the difference between rich and poor countries. I'm not sure that that would be any better.

How would it be any different to the world today? The chasm between rich and poor nations is huge. The argument against this is similar in many ways to arguing against, say, smartphones because only the rich can afford them. And yet 'poor' people, even in our own countries, and in 'poor' countries have smartphones, or soon will have access to them.

As soon as a nation of people get organised enough to plan ahead well enough to copy existing technology, or trade it, then technology can be had by all.

I don't believe it makes a whole lot of sense for 'rich' people to preserve a specific set of technologies for themselves when they can get richer if more people are able to pay for it. And where that doesn't happen we see other countries copying the technology.

Superior genetics still die in a revolution. Ask Marie Antoinette.

'could not afford'^

i'm completely agree with you about it being in general a great progressive thing, a dream come true.

The devil is always in implementation details. I can't avoid amazement about extrapolating Monsanto DNA-modified seeds tight licensing control unto human "designer" genes.

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