Throughout human history, there have arisen, time and again, people with the idea that they can make humanity better. This notion is called "eugenics."
A big part of the problem with this kind of thinking is that humanity, by and large, is better off left alone, and that the people who want to try to meddle in humanity's genetics always seem to be the people that think they already are better, and want to decide for the rest of us what traits should be reinforced - or eliminated.
For example: Our individuality.
Most of us associate eugenics with totalitarian governments like the Soviet Union, with their "New Soviet Man," or Hitler's Germany, with his "Master Race." But the idea actually got started in the United Kingdom. One of the pioneering proponents was one Professor Edward L. Thorndike of Columbia University (!), who in 1913, wrote:
The more rational the race becomes, the better roads, ships, tools, machines, foods, medicines and the like it will produce to aid itself, though it will need them less. The more sagacious and just and humane the original nature that is bred into man, the better schools, laws, churches, traditions and customs it will fortify itself by. There is no so certain and economical a way to improve man's environment as to improve his nature.
And there it is - the idea that human nature can be improved. Now, the proponents of eugenics have a whole bunch of new tools to work with, and, yes, that's troubling. At Unherd, Joel Kotkin, a Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute, the University of Texas at Austin, has some troubling observations.
Eugenics, a policy that seeks to “improve” humanity, dismisses the importance of bestowing a sense of worth and dignity to all individuals in the quest of breeding only “the finest”. Today, our expanding knowledge of genes and demographics has created eugenic possibilities far beyond those of the last century. Once rejected largely due to Nazi atrocities, eugenics is being embraced by both the Left and Right. Yet its beating heart lies not in politics, but in tech-driven approaches that reflect, as New York Marxist academic David Harvey called it, “a fetishism of technology” that transcends conventional politics.
In a way that past eugenicists could only dream, technology now opens the possibilities of engineering something far more radical than sterilizing the weak and giving bonuses to those with the right genetic inheritance. Instead, the looming prospect of an entire biological transformation emerges. For half a century, scientists have been dreaming of engineering humans to better specs before conception, as they look to edit genes to produce “superior” offspring.
Ay, there's the rub. Our modern lifestyle depends on technology, but as our understanding of biology grows, and as our capacity to interfere with it grows alongside, some very serious ethical questions arise. Who decides what is "superior?" Parents? Biologists? The government? On what basis? Would these efforts be aimed at circumventing new technologies or embracing them?
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This goes well beyond the old "designer baby" trope. Indeed, this purported merging of biology and technology has some pretty alarming proponents:
Potentially the most radical and far-reaching of the emerging creeds, transhumanism offers a distinctly secular approach to achieving the long-cherished religious goal of immortality. The new tech religion treats mortality not as something to be transcended through moral actions, but as a “bug” to be corrected by technology. The aim is to, in the words of tech engineer Anthony Levandowski, “develop and promote the realization of a godhead based on Artificial Intelligence.”
Hubris, much?
The next few generations, barring some society-ending calamity, will have to deal with the political and ethical issues surrounding this. And bear in mind, while here in the United States this sort of use of technology will be a matter of choice, for now, what about China? China has already shown an alarming willingness to mess about with biology.
It's always totalitarian states that seek to do this. Now they may have better tools for doing so - tools to make humans more passive, less resistant to authority, more morally flexible, more controllable. That, combined with new technologies, the implications of which we do not yet fully understand, could cause us some very real problems, and soon.
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This is, however, a genie that cannot be put back in the bottle. Joel Kotkin concludes:
Whether on the Right or Left, the core belief of all eugenicists lies in the assumption that we should shape and cull the human herd to fit a particular vision. This idea is gaining influence, particularly from the wealthiest and most powerful forces of our age. Threatened are our longstanding notions of morality, family, and self-governance critical to democracy and our flourishing as humans.
People cannot be made "better" by technology. It's a tool, but when it comes to genetics, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality, well, these are tools with some pretty sharp edges, and they are open to some pretty horrifying abuses. It raises one very real question: Do we, as a species, have the brains to make good use of this, while avoiding the horrible possibilities?
This pernicious idea, the idea that people can be made better through artificial means, has long been a mainstay in futuristic science fiction:
Could that future be now? I hope not. We simply lack the wisdom to make people... better.
