From a sales perspective, I find myself bewildered by the approach this article takes to ethics. Deriding ethical concerns then launching into a grassroots campaign for fringe primate research into genetic hygiene and human alignment is nonstarter for changing opinions.
This article, and another here about germ engineering, are written as if the concepts are new. The reality is that these are 19th century ideas and early attempts to implement them are the reason for the ethical concerns.
Using the standard analogical language of this site, AI and gene editing are microwaves to the toaster oven of historically disastrous applied science programs like Lebensborn. Changing the technological methods of reaching an end do not obviate the ethical issues of the end itself. The onus of allaying those concerns is on the advocates and researchers, not society.
This article could very well have been written by Alfred Ploetz. That’s the barrier that has to be overcome. How is germ engineering, gene editing, and human alignment different from the programs that defined the 20th century as one of racial supremacy, genocide, and global warfare?
I know the answers to those questions. But I’m not the audience that needs to be convinced. What’s being presented here is not answering those questions. In fact, it’s doing the opposite. Anyone who has read Ploetz or Anastasius Nordenholz is going to, rightly, label this appeal to utopian reason as crypto-eugenics. It’s an inescapable certainty.
Any argument that successfully overcomes the historically rooted ethical concerns must explain how the proposal is not Ploetz. How Nordenholz’s arguments against humanism and financial throttling of research won’t be reused to pursue supremacy ideologies. Those are the concerns, not incremental technological advances. The technology is just a distraction. The ethical questions must be answered before the technology can be considered.
You seem like you might have read and thought about this a fair bit. Is that the case? Would you be up for a conversation about the questions you raise here (maybe that we record and possibly post)?
From a sales perspective, I find myself bewildered by the approach this article takes to ethics. Deriding ethical concerns then launching into a grassroots campaign for fringe primate research into genetic hygiene and human alignment is nonstarter for changing opinions.
This article, and another here about germ engineering, are written as if the concepts are new. The reality is that these are 19th century ideas and early attempts to implement them are the reason for the ethical concerns.
Using the standard analogical language of this site, AI and gene editing are microwaves to the toaster oven of historically disastrous applied science programs like Lebensborn. Changing the technological methods of reaching an end do not obviate the ethical issues of the end itself. The onus of allaying those concerns is on the advocates and researchers, not society.
This article could very well have been written by Alfred Ploetz. That’s the barrier that has to be overcome. How is germ engineering, gene editing, and human alignment different from the programs that defined the 20th century as one of racial supremacy, genocide, and global warfare?
I know the answers to those questions. But I’m not the audience that needs to be convinced. What’s being presented here is not answering those questions. In fact, it’s doing the opposite. Anyone who has read Ploetz or Anastasius Nordenholz is going to, rightly, label this appeal to utopian reason as crypto-eugenics. It’s an inescapable certainty.
Any argument that successfully overcomes the historically rooted ethical concerns must explain how the proposal is not Ploetz. How Nordenholz’s arguments against humanism and financial throttling of research won’t be reused to pursue supremacy ideologies. Those are the concerns, not incremental technological advances. The technology is just a distraction. The ethical questions must be answered before the technology can be considered.
You seem like you might have read and thought about this a fair bit. Is that the case? Would you be up for a conversation about the questions you raise here (maybe that we record and possibly post)?
Some of my thoughts are here https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DfrSZaf3JC8vJdbZL/how-to-make-superbabies?commentId=ZeranH3yDBGWNxZ7h and here (just a list of things that might go wrong) https://berkeleygenomics.org/articles/Potential_perils_of_germline_genomic_engineering.html.
The audience that needs to be convinced isn’t the target audience of this post. But overall your point is taken.