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[Andres]

With recent advances in gene-engineering it's seeming more and more likely that we'll eventually get to a place where we can cure genetic diseases relatively easily, but what about going beyond that and actually improving your base human form? Should people be allowed to buy that technology at the risk of creating an upper class of gene-engineered humans? What methods can be employed to prevent that outcome? What other problems could arise from successful gene-engineering?

As for the class problem, I think that a sufficiently high tax should take care of the problem. Say you're in the top 10% of the richest people in the country, you would have to pay a 900% tax so that one person from each wealth level (10%) below you can all buy the same genetic modification you bought.

[~Neri]

I'm getting a tail.

[Urist Arrhenius]

I'm not sure your tax would work as well as you think. I honestly think the creation of a genetic upper class is inevitable under our economic system barring the prevention of all gene engineering.

[LordBucket]

I would be hesitant to be an early adopter for this.

[~Neri]

I'm getting a tail.

Good luck.

Genetics is far more complex than 'I want tail genes!', as there are no genes for tails. Or body parts. It's all a complex system of genes interacting with other genes interacting with other genes interacting with other genes. To get a tail you'd need to do EXTENSIVE genetic modifications, which would probably fuck up other parts of the body. Not to mention without surgery changing the genes of someone will only really effect things like hormone levels. Or cause cancer. That kind of stuff. Your body parts have to be formed during development, really. I mean, you COULD use stem cells, but in all likelihood the added body part would be useless and just hang there limply. Replacing body parts is different because your brain is already wired up to use it AND if you lost it as opposed to being born with it you're already 'trained' to use it.

And Urist, it depends on the costs. If it becomes cheap enough, then the creation of a 'genetic upper class' won't happen. If anything, it'll probably go the way of most new technology: the upper class can afford it and get it, then the costs drop and it eventually becomes more and more accessible to the populace at large.

We Have tail genes. They just aren't normally active.

As for the additional limb thing. The body is actually quite capable of adapting for new nerves. It would take months to a year to actually gain full control of an attached limb such as a tail, however it would be something it can do. In theory, and in experiments with lab animals, it is completely possible to attach limbs to things and enable control. You wouldn't need to alter at the genetic level.

Early adopting is a bad idea.

[~Neri]

The point is, we do have the capability of using tails if one is attached.

Would take time and money to get it working, however it is possible to get one working. Obviously we can't just change a gene and grow a tail, doesn't work like that normally.

[Urist Arrhenius]

Tail stuff should actually be pretty easy, once we get a better understanding of Hox genes. There's no need for any skeletal or muscular distortions elsewhere, although different stresses may be introduced by changes in posture.

[SquatchHammer]

With recent advances in gene-engineering it's seeming more and more likely that we'll eventually get to a place where we can cure genetic diseases relatively easily, but what about going beyond that and actually improving your base human form? Should people be allowed to buy that technology at the risk of creating an upper class of gene-engineered humans? What methods can be employed to prevent that outcome? What other problems could arise from successful gene-engineering?

As for the class problem, I think that a sufficiently high tax should take care of the problem. Say you're in the top 10% of the richest people in the country, you would have to pay a 900% tax so that one person from each wealth level (10%) below you can all buy the same genetic modification you bought.

The only problem with any Genetics is that the super rich will go for designer babies. You know, much like the ones from the Eugenics war (older Star Trek not Abram's rapefest) where if you were not at the x point of genetic superiority you were nothing but a slave. At the same time, you wont have the Kirk wins over genetic bad guy since he would have much better intellegence over everyone. It's something I really dont want to see come about, but that's the problem with Genetics. It can go badly for everyone if you fuck with it too much.

[ChairmanPoo]

Aren't designer babies illegal in most countries, though?

There was recently some polemic about CRISPR technology and germ-line editing.... to the extent of some groups asking for a moratorium in such practices. I did not look into the details but it's probably easily google-able.

[~Neri]

Tail stuff should actually be pretty easy, once we get a better understanding of Hox genes. There's no need for any skeletal or muscular distortions elsewhere, although different stresses may be introduced by changes in posture.

The real issue is ensuring proper bloodflow. I'm not sure if a normal human heart could support a fifth limb and keep everything at full capacity.

[wierd]

Well, If you were a fetus, growing a tail is as simple as preventing gene inactivation at the appropriate HOX site. This could be done epigenitically, and in fact, DOES happen with some humans.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6373560

In an adult? Well-- that's different. The most promising way to accomplish this would be an outcropping of the regenerative limb research being done on axolotl salamanders. Basically, in humans, there are genes SPECIFICALLY DEACTIVATING the kind of regeneration seen in salamanders and some lizards, which are there to help prevent you from getting horrible cancers. With those genes deactivated, humans dont produce new extracellular matrix, which is why we develop scar tissue, and cant/dont regenerate lost fingers, toes, or lost limbs.

These activation control genes can be turned off temporarily (in theory) with appropriate antagonist protiens/hormones, but since it would have to be a systemic application of this suppression, it would GREATLY increase your risks of developing cancer while undergoing the treatment.  While being so epigenetically doped up, the doctors would have to surgically remove your coccyx, put a buttload of cultured stemcells in there, and keep you in the hospital for several weeks.  In theory, the regenerative action of your own body under such conditions would cause regeneration of the coccyx, but with additional epigentic modifications (Or modifcations of the introduced stem cells at the site), the coccyx would grow into a tail or pseudotail.

Since you NEED the coccyx to be able to walk, sit, or stand-- you would be bedridden the ENTIRE time.

Good luck getting insurance to pay for it.

[Nirur Torir]

I am opposed to designer babies on the ethical front, but not economically. I'm too invested in the idea of superior AI or cyborgs to take seriously the idea of a ~30-50 year (10-30 years to figure out how to grow super-genius brains plus 20 for growth.) computing tech stagnation allowing super-genius rich kids to take over the world even more than they already have.

The real issue is ensuring proper bloodflow. I'm not sure if a normal human heart could support a fifth limb and keep everything at full capacity.

I don't see the issue. If we're grafting on fully functional tails, we're probably pretty close to upgraded hearts anyway. Going to need to do something about that to deal with the deaths-by-heart-failure thing.

Why are tails and such always brought up when genetic modifications are? From my understanding, once we figure out how to grow cells into full-sized human-engineered shapes, we can just graft anything made of our own cells on and have it stick, with no fears of rejection. (I am not under the belief that this would be an easy task with near-future tech). I'm thinking that would be easier than figuring out a DNA pattern for exactly what changes we'd want, somehow modifying significant amounts of an adult's DNA, and then locally inducing early-infancy-stage growth.

What other problems could arise from successful gene-engineering?

The technical extinction of Homo Sapiens. I expect there will be enough hold-outs that this wouldn't be seen for several centuries at least.

Divergent 'evolution' causing a significant split in subspecies and more violent splits in subcultures.

What methods can be employed to prevent that outcome?

In this age of free information flow and increasing automation? Let's turn this around. You are a billionaire (Between $1,000,000,000 and $1,200,00,000 in net worth). How do you and your peers develop and then make use of super-genius genmods (Let's say it's restricted to early infancy), and keep the peasantry from making use of it? Remember the many people who will be demanding that this tech be studied and used to remove genetic diseases.

[Urist Arrhenius]

The real issue is ensuring proper bloodflow. I'm not sure if a normal human heart could support a fifth limb and keep everything at full capacity.

I can't find any reliable estimates of how much extra volume a human heart could support, but I strongly suspect the addition of another limb would be much less challenging than it might seem. At least, if we're talking about genetic engineering and not grafting. The sudden change in volume from grafting might be tough, but that's a completely different issue from genetic engineering.

[Baffler]

Germ line treatments could do very well to get rid of certain genetic diseases though. It'd kinda suck for the generation that has the disease because they'd still be stuck with it, but their theoretical progeny wouldn't. The potential for more ambiguous eugenics (and the above is eugenics, if not exactly in the form its inventors imagined) is there with this on the other hand, it would have to be approached with the utmost care.

[wierd]

The problem with that though, is loss of genetic diversity.
Not all disease causing mutations are wholly bad, and needing to be removed.


It sounds callous as fuck, but the BEST solution is to let nature and natural selection do their things.  That means: Stop intervening with genetically based diseases that are terminal.


The path of human evolution is difficult, if not impossible to predict. When you start choosing how the species will evolve, (and in so doing, ignoring the evolution happening in the environment), humans stop evolving in concert with the environment, and become less genetically fit over time. (That is to say, the environment gets a leg-up on the humans, who think they know better than nature, and are doing their own thing...)

This is of course, VERY unpopular as a position-- It means letting little timmy with XYZ lethal syndrome die horribly (as nature intends), even if there is a life-saving treatment that would allow him to live on drugs for the rest of his life.

An example of why we need to leave deleterious mutations, is sickle-cell anemia.  It makes people basically immune to malaria. It also causes persistent anemia.  The mutation allows more human genome to be preserved (It requires homogenous alleles to cause the anemia, but only requires heterogenous expression to confer STRONG resistance to malaria) in the face of a very deadly contagious disease, and thus helps the human genepool.

Such mutations lead to subsequent mutations; The anemia causing gene may allow humans to survive long enough for malaria to mutate, at which time the detrimental effects of the anemia gene would cause selective bias against-- OR-- it may serve as the basis for further mutations of that gene, restoring function later, but keeping the immunity.

Since we can't predict which way the genome will be selected for, because we cant predict which way the pathogen will evolve, removing the "defect" is very unwise.

Further, we can't predict which mutations currently exist that might lead to protection later-- Take for instance the CCR5-delta32 mutation found in many people of european descent.  This mutation causes loss of function on several cellular receptors, and was selected for as a result of repeated exposure to the black death. This mutation also confers a profound resistance to one of the more common forms of HIV-- If we had chosen to eliminate this "defect" in our germ line, HIV would have been far more catastrophic in europe.

Again, the "Best" solution is to allow people to die from genetic diseases, without trying to intervene.

Allowing little timmy to die today, can save the world tomorrow.