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Super Human with high IQ, and athletic ability.

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» Super Human with high IQ, and athletic ability.

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The objective of breeding of dogs is always to "improve on the breed", and that is at least what they say in dog breeding sites. You might ask "How does one improve a breed?". One possible meaning is to find set of traits that are desirable. Suppose one day, scientists can select for traits they want, and manipulate the genes to get. What happens? Rich people would pay the money to improve their offspring, and after many generations of improvements. The aristocrats of our society is of different specie of human beings with super high IQ, and athletic ability.

questions:

1. Is it is good, and why is it good.

2. If it is not good, then why not? What can we do to prevent this from happening?

@TuringEquivalent,

Perhaps you should read up on the appalling health problems suffered by some breeds of dog, such as the Syringomyelia suffered by the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, because of artificial selection by human control freaks with absurd ideas as to what constitutes good breeding.

@TuringEquivalent,

Man has already been selectively breeding traits (in animals and plants) for thousands of years. But that has lead to a great deal of genetic problems in many animals (dogs being the classic example), I assume you're talking about manipulating genes without down sides?

Royal families have used arraigned marriages and such, which is a type of selective breeding I suppose. Most people tend to marry within their class. All that probably has lead to some genetic class differences, but who can say how substantial they are? (Just some thoughts on the deal.)

A similar idea has been proposed by Paul Saffro: a super-rich group of cyborgs.

Anyway, to get to your questions.
1. No, I personally don't think it is good because I'm not wealthy and therefore it is not in my best interest.
2. How to prevent it? Perhaps it is the cynic in me, but I don't think you can. If there is a will and a way, people will do it.

@Twirlip,

Here's the beginning of the television documentary I saw on the subject of health problems in pedigree dogs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbvv0vBf7t8

@Twirlip,

I have no idea bog breeding produce so much problems, and it is surely interesting to know...

The op post need not concern this problem. This is of course a imaginary situation used to get at the ethical issue. You can suppose these future imaginary aristocrats have complete control of the traits they want, and have the means of control over all the defects

@TuringEquivalent,

TuringEquivalent;169939 wrote:

This is of course a imaginary situation used to get at the ethical issue. You can suppose these future imaginary aristocrats have complete control of the traits they want, and have the means of control over all the defects

What if they consider femaleness, homosexuality, or extreme emotional sensitivity, for example, to be defects?

@Twirlip,

Twirlip;169942 wrote:

What if they consider femaleness, homosexuality, or extreme emotional sensitivity, for example, to be defects?

What do you think?

what do you think about blonds girl with tight bodies? I think that is an desirable trait.

@TuringEquivalent,

I hate to think of the rich and powerful, who have already so badly messed up the world we live in, being able to mess up the human genome as well, even if it only their own children they mess up in this way. That's my gut reaction, but it's hardly philosophical! Slightly more philosophically: I don't think that we, individually or collectively, have (or perhaps even in principle could have) a clear enough concept of what is or is not a 'defect' for the premise of your thought-experiment even to be an intelligible one. However, of course, that does not mean that some crackpot interference with human genes based on confused thinking might not one day, possibly even quite soon, become a 'reality'. And I am not against the elimination of some scientifically definable physical defects, in principle, although I have worries about how society would in practice legislate for such manipulation. Our laws on other matters, such as drugs and sexuality, are often insane, and based on no clear moral or intellectual principles; and the longer we go on in our present direction (as tools of corporations, it seems), the bigger mess we seem to make of things. Oh dear, you're bringing out the pessimist in me! But you did put me on the spot, and I'm not answerable for the consequences. Rant ends. Surprised

@Twirlip,

I think we do have some notion of what we don` t want, and you can, for ease, called it defects. I obviously want to eliminate disease, don` t you?

Interest that you place so much blame on the aristocrats. people just need to be rich. Thats all.

@TuringEquivalent,

Personally I prefer Asian girls - and many of them are so beautiful, they don't need any scientific manipulation...

@Alan Masterman,

what about asian girls without any heritable disease?

@TuringEquivalent,

TuringEquivalent;169883 wrote:

The objective of breeding of dogs is always to "improve on the breed", and that is at least what they say in dog breeding sites. You might ask "How does one improve a breed?". One possible meaning is to find set of traits that are desirable. Suppose one day, scientists can select for traits they want, and manipulate the genes to get. What happens? Rich people would pay the money to improve their offspring, and after many generations of improvements. The aristocrats of our society is of different specie of human beings with super high IQ, and athletic ability.

questions:

1. Is it is good, and why is it good.

2. If it is not good, then why not? What can we do to prevent this from happening?

It can be good, but only by extreme strict control, else it will result in freekishly results, also shown in aforementioned vid.

People usually have their selfish love overwrite reason and logic, which results in furless cats, cats with too short snout to be able to feed themselves, dogs suffer from selective breeding by usually having weak joints, I'm sure these things will at some time apply for humans too, if we are allowed selective breeding.

Imo many pet breeders should be considerd animal molestors, by knowlingly breedings weaknesses in the species.

@TuringEquivalent,

I believe that the brain is largely shaped by experience, and not just genetics.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;170080 wrote:

I believe that the brain is largely shaped by experience, and not just genetics.

Then explain prodigy savants.

Explain why siblings raised equally, will have vastly different behaviour.

How can a simple peasent boy with no formal education, rise to be a great leader, when higher educated people should on paper be far better leaders?

Explain why the kuku hatchling will act and behave like it does, when it isn't taught.

@Alan Masterman,

Alan Masterman;170022 wrote:

Personally I prefer Asian girls - and many of them are so beautiful, they don't need any scientific manipulation...

The same can be said of Dutch girls, Spanish girls -- or maybe healthy young ladies between 16 and 33 of any culture.

My wife is 83, is exceedingly healthy, shapely, and I consider her to be a "knockout": glamourlousy attractive, and quite "hot."

We see each other with "the eyes of love."

By the way, the Nazis tried selective breeding of humans. Adolf Schickelgruber, though not an Aryan himself, believed that Aryans had the highest standard of beauty, and he was voted into power by people who Hannah Arendt describes well. He declared (early, in a book named Mein Kampf) that Jews and gypsies were "non-Aryans." They had to go. So we got Maidenek and Auschwitz.

Is this, perhaps, what will result if Turing's eugenics experiment gets underway? ......something to think about.

@TuringEquivalent,

How about a controlled experiment that is based around simply selective breeding, (and I mean specifically around humans). Its alot slower than manipulations, but it would be less frowned upon and perhaps more intriguing. Take a woman and breed her to the most perfect males alive, continue with this for how ever long it needs be and basically you have taken Human evelution into your own hands. (If any of you have read Dune then you should know exactley what im talking about).

@Maud Dib,

Maud' Dib;171537 wrote:

How about a controlled experiment that is based around simply selective breeding, (and I mean specifically around humans). Its alot slower than manipulations, but it would be less frowned upon and perhaps more intriguing. Take a woman and breed her to the most perfect males alive, continue with this for how ever long it needs be and basically you have taken Human evelution into your own hands. (If any of you have read Dune then you should know exactley what im talking about).

Hi, Maud' Dib

You wouldn''t be one of those "most perfect males" by any chance, would you?

And how do you define the phrase "perfect male"? Please inform us. Have you bred any women lately? :perplexed:
Tell us how you did it. Okay?

@deepthot,

The assumption is that there are no defects in athletic ability and IQ. Accidental defects are also prohibited from this thought experiment to stay on topic. Sexual aesthetics was not part if the original question, and is a matter of taste.

Would it be good to create humans with ideal athletic ability and mental acuity? That still depends on what your idea of good is. It would likely promote increased potential for the human race to have conquest and mastery over the universe. Whether this is a good thing is a matter of opinion. The question then becomes, is it a good thing for humans to gain increased mastery over the universe.

Doing this genetic alteration also may promote inequality between the haves and have nots. However, in a world where this level of genetic control is possible, one in which physical perfection without drawback can be guaranteed, a new era may open up in which the process would become readily available to all. After all, more super-intelligent people would be available to conduct the procedure for others and the same technology would likely be being used for mass production of synthetic bio-products that could stem the tide of poverty.

@setzer9999,

setzer9999;172160 wrote:

alteration also may promote inequality between the haves and have nots.

If all contries allows genetic manipulation, it will result in equallity. Try look out your window, there you will already find vast unequallity, so I can't see what kind of equallity you are afraid to lose, when our equallity in the first place are screwed.

@HexHammer,

I didn't say there wasn't already inequality. It could generate further inequality, or it in and of itself could lead to a world where its improvements allowed for a society in which all would be able to obtain these improvements. Certainly there is already inequality. The danger is that if the procedure were not to become available to the vast majority, the inequality could become so great as for there to actually be somewhat valid arguments such that one group is actually measurably "better" than another and speciesism could cause the altered to treat the unaltered as though they are not sentient beings or to attempt eradicate them.

It could even be the other way around, in that though the bodies of the unaltered would be inferior, modern weaponry could still allow them to compete in war and even the bettered could be the ones that are slaughtered in the end instead.

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