There have been a good deal of medical and technological breakthroughs over the last couple decades. Reusable rockets, VR, machine learning, etc. This is the first article I have read that has made me realize that the future is right here, right now and there is a very high probability that things are now going to change rapidly.
One thing to consider is that via crispr and stem cell treatments, genetic changes can be affected in adults as well, you just need to wait for the kinks to be worked out now and apply large sums of money. Our definition of 'haves and have nots' is potentially going to change in ways we have never imagined.
On the one hand, hurray for them for trying to eliminate a couple of quite serious diseases.
On the other hand, we have very little clue what the long term effects of not having CCR5 will be for these children. Furthermore, do we really trust China to start messing with people's DNA? I could think up several uses for this that are downright dangerous in the hands of a country like China.
Some of them:
- Remove a key gene in a metabolic pathway which can be mitigated by dietary supplements, creating a biological dead man's switch in order to make it easier to control the population.
- Inserting a viral genome into the host genome (preferably also under some deadman's switch), creating in effect a biological weapon
This technology might not work at all, or it might be highly effective after refinements.
If it is highly effective moral arguments are moot. Genetic engineering will be like nuclear weapons. A nation that desires to be competitive or have economic dominance won’t have any choice, it will be forced to adopt its usage (or be left behind).
Even agreements to control nuclear weapons that could cause human extinction still leave nuclear weapons in the hands of many major nations (and a handful of tiny ones) so international agreements have little chance of curtailing genetic engineering.
I never said anything about Western countries being paragons of moral clarity. However, for most of them, it has at least been a few decades since they last made camps where imprisoned people are subjected to torture.
And in most Western countries you don't get imprisoned for speaking out against the government, or being a journalist without government permissions.
And most Western don't feel they have to ban innocuous search terms, such as "Big yellow duck", or "Square", or the letter 'n'.
Crispr/CAS9 is not necessarily about large sums of money, though. It's a cheap technique, I could probably teach you it in 3 days of lab work, and someone with lab experience could learn it even faster.
The issue is more the genomics. We can tinker with genetic code quite effectively these days, however we can't reliably predict which developmental processes will be affected by our tinkering; in short, we are far behind in our understanding of the array of specific roles of genes beyond the narrowly defined disease pathways we want to affect.
Just as an example, say you want to change the encoding for one of the dopamine receptors to discourage dopaminergic activity, hoping to lessen the risk of addiction and reward-based activity. Well, dopamine is also involved in dozens of other processes, including movement, executive function, and more. Who's to say what effects will occur in a fully grown human?
>This is the first article I have read that has made me realize that the future is right here, right now and there is a very high probability that things are now going to change rapidly.
The future? Compared to 1900 we already live in a widely different world, more diff today - 1900 than diff 1900 - 1000 B.C.
And yet, not match would have changed. Aside from a few major western cities (and specific major areas in them too) most cities in 1900 didn't even fully have electric lighting back then, nor central sewage systems, and tons of other stuff.
Technology wise, 1900 cities more like 1000 BC than today. 1000 BC wasn't some cavemen running around, we had established civilizations, with writing, education, math, literature, laws, etc already in place.
One thing to consider is that via crispr and stem cell treatments, genetic changes can be affected in adults as well, you just need to wait for the kinks to be worked out now and apply large sums of money. Our definition of 'haves and have nots' is potentially going to change in ways we have never imagined.