Dr. Frankenstein, meet Dr. Spock - creating designer babies

My main character in a novel I’m working is intended to be a “designer baby” but I’m not entirely sure if he fits that category.  The genetic changes his parents gave him are white hair to match his last name and life extension like everyone else of his generation.  So does hit fit the title of designer baby?

Non-biological intelligence will surpass biological intelligence to such a degree within two decades, as to make the issue of genetic enhancement or manipulation in any form completely irrelevant.

@ iPan

I wouldn’t be so sure of that.  For one thing Moore’s law is predicted by renowned scientists (such as Michio Kaku) to collapse within twenty years for silicon circuits and Quantum theory will take over (http://www.kurzweilai.net/parallel-universes-the-matrix-and-superintelligence).  Also, the intelligence you are describing is more like a glorified calculator than a self aware machine; there are still so many things we need to know about the brain and being self-aware.  Then there’s the issue of who is charge of distributing those technologies and whether people would even want to be uploaded or not.  You can’t deny that their will be people who would chose not to go through uploading and you can’t force that decision on them.  At the least, I think most people would genetically alter themselves to they have reached the upper limits of biology.  A technological singularity might happen (though at this point it is still speculative), it just won’t be as soon as you think.

I’m most concerned about criminals being enhanced—call them Designer Criminals.

@Christian

We will achieve full integration with the virtual no later than the mid 30’s.

Biology is obsolete.

@ iPan

Again you are assuming that everyone will “want” to be integrated.  Its not fair to speak for every single human being on issues like this.  Besides, you are not giving any reasoning behind your position.  I’m wondering if you even read my reasoning.

Everyone who read this thread read your comment, as it was a good one, Chris; but again, IMO ‘designer criminals’ are what (who) we need to be concerned about most. When you lock your doors at night, what are you concerned about?: criminals—
and that doesn’t mean jaywalkers or wholesalers who tear the do-not-remove-under-penalty-of-law tags off mattresses!

@ Intomorrow

That is a valid concern.  The last thing we need are biologically empowered criminals, but wouldn’t you think their would be laws or regulations that would prevent genetic enhancements from people who have a known criminal record?  Then again, the would be criminals might have been genetically enhanced before they decided to become criminals.  Why must issues like this be so difficult to resolve?

“Why must issues like this be so difficult to resolve?’

I can only respond with a rambling partial explanation.
As you wrote, “You can’t deny that their will be people who would chose not to go through uploading and you can’t force that decision on them.”; libertarians say one ‘must have the freedom to fail’, and such means in real life (of which libertarians are not always aware of) the freedom to be criminals—alienation and criminality are what Andrei Sakharov recognized as being constants. There is no way to force compliance (the most obvious example is Prohibition, having to be repealed with the 20th Amendment to the Constitution). There’s always been a conflict between what ought to be a rule and what ought to be a law; criminals it goes without saying perceive this differently than noncriminals.
One cannot always assume criminals are wrong: however law is not chiefly concerned with justice, but rather, with precedents, tradition. I’ve written about ‘the maddening crowd’, ‘dopes’, ‘miscreants’, ‘rednecks’, ‘rubes’, the uneducated. That is merely my sense of it, though; they see me as being a different sort of fool as I see them as being—and we all are correct!
Hobbes wrote:

“a vain conceit one’s own wisdom, which almost all men think they have in a greater degree, than the vulgar; that is than all me but themselves, they approve. For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves; for they their own wit at hand, and other men’s at a distance…”

The honest aren’t much better than criminals.
Today criminals can use computers, cellphones, etc. I have even talked to young criminals so indiscreet they admitted robbing parked trucks, using cellphones to communicate with ‘lookouts’.
Criminality is the worst aspect of the future- and not a potential one, but a real, Now, factor. And libertarians are falsely modest when they say they don’t know what to do, albeit, they say,  smarter people will come along eventually who will know what to do—
that is nothing more than Utopianism. Murderers can upgrade their IQs to be craftier; rapists can use testosterone, cialis, acetyl L carnitine, etc; and those are behaviors which have got to of course be reined in. Criminals, and I have noticed over the years, the majority of those at the bottom, are smarter than they appear; they compensate for their lack of education by craftiness- perception, wiliness- even a ‘six sense’.. whatever one wants to call it.

I worry more about Designer Criminals than climate change, grey goo, war, economic turmoil, and so forth; what do we fear most?- other people, we have more to fear from enemies around us than enemies in other nations, far away.

 

 

“Again you are assuming that everyone will ‘want’ to be integrated.  Its not fair to speak for every single human being on issues like this.”

Want to send one more (even I’m thoroughly weary of religion/politics) message to you, Christian.
Your question above was for ipan, however I have something to say to you on this matter, which is why the quote from Hobbes. Of course not everyone will ‘want’ to be integrated; millions want to and will continue to want to live a ‘natural’ (though it is not actually natural!) life. As for a Godly, pious life: you cannot expect Christianity to be as important in the future as it has been in the past—Christianity does not quite cut the necessary amount of slack. Men’s animal passions are not tameable. Christianity is good, but only if your expectations are not too high.. and I don’t know you well to say either way.

@ Intomorrow

I didn’t mention anything about Christianity in that post, neither did I intentionally imply it.  I was just saying that iPan shouldn’t think everybody will take a certain action just because he/she (I don’t know iPan’s gender) would (or at the least because he thinks so) regardless of their backgrounds.

“I didn’t mention anything about Christianity in that post, neither did I intentionally imply it.”

Well I did, because it has as big an effect as anything else in life has, and it affects me as much as it does you.
Perhaps ipan is correct that [w]e will achieve full integration with the virtual no later than the mid 30’s. Biology is obsolete.” Yet it is also true many will be bioluddites in the mid ‘30s, mainly for religious reasons—they will be the Amish of the ‘30s. Enough said, let’s put it to bed.

Perhaps ipan is correct that [w]e will achieve full integration with the virtual no later than the mid 30’s.

I still think iPan underestimates the factors that would delay, though not stop, integration.  I also agree that some people would refuse integration for religious reasons (or at the least conservative reasons).  Is their anything wrong with that?

Since it was mentioned, this scenario is actually similar to what I plan to include in a novel I’m working on; humanity separating into to two groups, the techs and the bios.

I’ll buy your book, then, when it comes out in paperback.

“I also agree that some people would refuse integration for religious reasons (or at the least conservative reasons).  Is their anything wrong with that?”

Here’s where things get fast: ‘conservative’ has for the most part lost its original meaning; originally conservative meant to conserve—during the Middle Ages the Church was actually conserving something. Today ‘conservative’ in effect means oppositionism. Right at this moment those who deem themselves ‘conservative’ are busy opposing Obama’s policies. But what are they attempting to conserve?: they probably have little idea what it is they want to conserve in the first place; perhaps the real, underlying, trajectory is merely to conserve their familial and dynastic interests.
In the mid- ‘50s, to choose an era, they might have been attempting to conserve the Nomos of that era.. and with a fair degree of success. However it was partially at the expense of certain groups (the obvious example is that the black poverty rate was fifty percent back then).
Perhaps religion is the only true card ‘conservatism’ has to play, as religion and the family cannot be separated- there is IMO a distinct religious component (faith, fidelity, etc.) to the family. So many families may perceive the dislocation of the future as a v. serious threat to their Nomos. They might not know exactly why it is they are fighting against the future, but they know how to go about it.

Another rambler:
from now on will only visit IEET to reply to those your age (not that there’s anything wrong with IEET or older people; however glancing at the latest thread on Israel you can see how emotions blow all out of proportion to the issues). And I get too political as well: there’s an old jest;
someone says,

“not everything is political”;

but another ripostes,

“that in itself is a political statement.”

Yet though my last post was political it directly relates to the future of tech, as ulterior motives are the most crucial motives, which directly impact the aggregation of policies which constitute what we call politics.
There exist legitimate issues concerning ethics, religion/spirituality, and naturally this topic of designer children. My overriding interest involved in these matters is to what degree do personal motives harbored by alleged conservatives affect the future?: is their primary motive pushing their families and dynasties up the food chain and thus opposing bio-progress is merely a ploy in doing so? quite apart from the issue of abortion, the way pro-‘life’ is practically a cottage industry is grounds for suspicion. If pro-‘life’ (will get to designer children later) is a political football, it leads to suspicions that much of what passes for opposition in bio-politics is based on
a) personal motive.
b) emotional overreaction.
Now, it might well be much of what bioconservatives (the bios in your novel) are sincerely concerned about is due to their concerns/fears of lack of meaning in the future; of the evaporation of meanings having been built up for thousands of yours—perhaps even prehistorical memes. Even if it is gobbledygook, it is deep-seated enough, and refined, so such cannot be dismissed out of hand—a polite way of saying we are stuck with the past for now and relatable to scenario you are painting in your novel (I’m actually a backard-looking person who only became interested in the future due to a religious background and interest in eschatology, which led to a realization of how no-one, not even Biblical authors, can and could predict the future).
Also there’s concerns involving the biosphere.. albeit if there isn’t even a genuine consensus among experts on so much as climate change, then us layman cannot be expected to know diddly!