This seems like an argument that proves too much; ie, the same argument applies equally to childhood education programs, improving nutrition, etc. The main reason it doesn’t work is that genetic engineering for health and intelligence is mostly positive-sum, not zero-sum. Ie, if people in one (rich) country use genetic engineering to make their descendents smarter and the people in another (poor) country don’t, this seems pretty similar to what has already happened with rich countries investing in more education, which has been strongly positive for everyone.
this seems pretty similar to what has already happened with rich countries investing in more education, which has been strongly positive for everyone
While this is probably true in a first-order sense, and I’d say it’s totally true (most likely),
As a separate matter, I think many people don’t think this way. Instead they view it as quite substantively bad for there to be inequality as such—even if everyone is better-off to first-order, if that involves increasing inequality by a lot, it could be net-worse than the alternative.
At least hypothetically, they could be right about this! Inequality makes it easier for one group to exploit / betray / suppress / generally harm another group. If inequality increases, not in your favor, that increases the extent to which there exists a group who could decide to team up against you in the future, and do so successfully. Further, if the derivative has them pulling ahead, that’s some indication that this will continue, which would increase the potential for betrayal; and it’s some evidence (maybe weak) that the advantaged group intends to eventually betray (because they are not successfully preventing that possibility for themselves by actively sharing the technology).
Good objection. I think gene editing would be different because it would feel more unfair and insurmountable. That’s probably not rational—the effect size would have to be huge for it to be bigger than existing differences in access to education and healthcare, which are not fair or really surmountable in most cases—but something about other people getting to make their kids “superior” off the bat, inherently, is more galling to our sensibilities. Or at least mine, but I think most people feel the same way.
This seems like an argument that proves too much; ie, the same argument applies equally to childhood education programs, improving nutrition, etc. The main reason it doesn’t work is that genetic engineering for health and intelligence is mostly positive-sum, not zero-sum. Ie, if people in one (rich) country use genetic engineering to make their descendents smarter and the people in another (poor) country don’t, this seems pretty similar to what has already happened with rich countries investing in more education, which has been strongly positive for everyone.
While this is probably true in a first-order sense, and I’d say it’s totally true (most likely),
As a separate matter, I think many people don’t think this way. Instead they view it as quite substantively bad for there to be inequality as such—even if everyone is better-off to first-order, if that involves increasing inequality by a lot, it could be net-worse than the alternative.
At least hypothetically, they could be right about this! Inequality makes it easier for one group to exploit / betray / suppress / generally harm another group. If inequality increases, not in your favor, that increases the extent to which there exists a group who could decide to team up against you in the future, and do so successfully. Further, if the derivative has them pulling ahead, that’s some indication that this will continue, which would increase the potential for betrayal; and it’s some evidence (maybe weak) that the advantaged group intends to eventually betray (because they are not successfully preventing that possibility for themselves by actively sharing the technology).
Good objection. I think gene editing would be different because it would feel more unfair and insurmountable. That’s probably not rational—the effect size would have to be huge for it to be bigger than existing differences in access to education and healthcare, which are not fair or really surmountable in most cases—but something about other people getting to make their kids “superior” off the bat, inherently, is more galling to our sensibilities. Or at least mine, but I think most people feel the same way.