CNN Casually Mentions Human Enhancement in a Positive Light Tuesday, Dec 8 2009
transhumanism 3:57 pm
From the “Top 10 Scientific Discoveries of 2009″ on CNN.com:
3. Gene therapy cures color blindness
Modern science already offers ways to enhance your mood, sex drive, athletic performance, concentration levels and overall health, but a discovery in September suggests that truly revolutionary human enhancement may soon move from science fiction to reality. A study in Nature reported that a team of ophthalmologists had injected genes that produce color-detecting proteins into the eyes of two color-blind monkeys, allowing the animals to see red and green for the first time. The results were shocking to most — “We said it was possible, but every single person I talked to said, ‘Absolutely not,’ ” said study co-author Jay Neitz of the University of Washington — and raised the possibility that a range of vision defects could someday be cured. That’s a transformative prospect in itself, but the discovery further suggests that it may be possible to enhance senses in “healthy” people too, truly revolutionizing the way we see the world.
The only people who bother to object to human enhancement will be the same people who objected to in vitro fertilization in the 70s. Not many.
This may actually be worrisome, because I am concerned about immoral individuals using enhanced abilities to control or intimidate others. A libertarian “hands-off” perspective overlooks the tremendous amount of damage that could be wrought if human enhancement is deployed in an entirely unregulated and uncontrolled fashion. For instance, the Russian mafiosi will use myostatin inhibition drugs to give their goons such bulging muscles that they will inflict even more horrible tortures on their victims.
For human enhancement to magnify human happiness but not human misery will require much improved standards of human rights around the world. Unfortunately, none of the nations that matter will comply. Many of these countries may eventually need to be forced economically into raising their human rights standards, or the defectors in social contracts will have a field day. The trump card of human enhancement will make defection easier than ever.
December 8th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Don’t worry, one of the first uses of transhuman technologies will be by totalitarian governments looking for enhanced methods of behavioral control. The Russian mafiosi torturers with huge muscles that you’re so worried about will simply be nipped in the bud — i.e. genetically, chemically or cybernetically modified at the first indication of such tendencies. Instead of those silly ankle bracelets they give convicts now, they’ll be given an implant, drugs or a surgical procedure and they’ll never want to commit such crimes again. Simply reducing testosterone in males across the board would go a long way toward eliminating violent crime, war, etc. These technologies have the potential to bring about a rather pleasant, crime-free posthuman paradise, as long as you aren’t overly concerned about such legacy values as freedom, human rights, equality, or machismo.
December 8th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
What is most exciting, to me, about the color blindness study is the possibility to study the nature of qualia. We could give an adult human the ability to perceive a new color (probably UV, with a bird gene), that no human has ever seen before. Having that experience, of gaining a new qualia, might yield insight into the philosophical problems surrounding qualia itself.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Looks like it will be the mainstream media referencing the taboo topic of transhumanism before any of the researchers do. They can’t be that stupid–how can every obviously transhumanistic advance be “for sick children”?