"Self Evolution" Choices facing Humanity
Posted by DrZarkov99 10 years ago to Science
Technology has sort of sneaked up on us, without our recognition that we may be the first Earth creature to determine its own evolutionary path, and that may not be a desirable result.
In a nutshell, humans are willingly affecting their future development by a variety of means, without any kind of insight as to the implications. Genetic engineering is rapidly improving to the point that we may soon be eliminating certain kinds of genetic disorders, and extending the healthy human lifespan. While that sounds like a good thing, the improvements are likely to favor the rich, as such procedures will be expensive. Does this mean we will have a serious class divide between an upper class of "superhumans" and a less healthy, shorter-lived underclass?
Bionics seem to be proceeding on a more equitable basis, mainly due to the large numbers of war veterans with serious physical disabilities. Paraplegics are beginning to see the hope of walking, and efforts to enable the blind to recover sight are making strides. The question is where do these efforts stop? If I can use technology to gain night vision, or super hearing, who decides who benefits?
Marrying human brains and information systems to create a near-infinite knowledge base sounds good, but could such a system be hacked? If such a system created a new class of group mentality, with multiple humans sharing more intimate contact than the superficial "Twitterverse" we see now, what kinds of danger lies there?
For the individual who refuses to participate too deeply in this new, ill-planned world, will he be shunned or denied privileges available to those who willingly join? We see this to an extent now, with a steadily decreasing ability for the non-computer literate to communicate, so it seems inevitable.
That's the short version of my original paper. I was hoping to get some response and recommendations about how to deal with this impending "singularity" (to use Kurtzweil's name for an impending unknowable future).
Being Objectivist does not allow indifference to the implications of the sociological impact of rapidly-arriving biotechnology. All of us will be affected, in one way or another, as our world gets reshaped.
Our government demonstrates its monumental incompetence every day, and I don't think government bureaucrats have a clue what's in store with societal changes soon to arrive. As information explodes across the population, the government is tempted to try to control that information. The NSA monitoring, and the attempts to predict who's likely to commit crime are just a fumbling start.
Obamacare will either morph into something like the UK NHS, or be replaced. Inevitably, any kind of government-controlled medical care engages in resource management, limiting choices, except for the wealthy. We have a two-tiered system now.
Getting too long-winded. I wanted to see what others thought.
Looking at the science, much has been promised from fetal stem cells as a solution to things like Parkinson's. Unfortunately, the biggest experiment using fetal stem cells on Parkinson's volunteers failed, unpleasantly, when the implanted cells went cancerous. So far not much practical has resulted from the fetal stem cell effort.
Adult stem cell research, on the other hand, has had a number of successful treatments for cell-related disorders (over 50 approved the last time I looked). The one edge adult stem cells have is that in many cases the stem cells can be coaxed from the sufferer's own tissue, which eliminates the rejection problem. Just like fetal stem cell research there have been failures and over-promising, but generally the adult cell lines have had more successes, and are certainly less controversial, ethically.
I personally think we're quite aways short of designed evolution, but it will come, whether we think of it as right or wrong. I suspect it's already being tried, but epigenetic findings and fossil DNA has set back some of the confidence in pure DNA manipulation. If a human can imagine it, we will try it and it strikes me as a logical step in our evolutionary process.
I support the development of the knowledge, and believe that we will use it to better the human race. But it is extreme hubris to believe that we will be able to control life and ultimately to create it from scratch.
The most difficult challenge is preventing such life from becoming cancerous. The key control variable is vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF.
btw - that hubris thing wasn't a shot, merely a lament that there will be those who think that they can play god, and will in the course of that effort create monstrosities.
Stopping the development of technology, though, seems impossible and undesirable.