New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | September 21, 2005

Why do bioethicists increasingly sound like old X-Men villains? Ron Bailey defends your right to mutant powers.

Comments

|9.21.05 @ 9:45AM|#

Are there enhancements whose benefits would come at the price of our humanity?

The implication here is that "humanity" is the acme of all possible states of being. I can think of no evidence to support that contention. What reason is there to believe there are no "higher" possible states of being than humanity?

|9.21.05 @ 9:52AM|#

Screw th Concil on BioEthics! I hope some discovers a way to engineer a "Mutant Healing Factor" and quickly. I'm falling apart here.

Dave W.|9.21.05 @ 9:54AM|#

Well, at Least Mr. Bailey is dealing with the real issues now. The article seems dismissive of valid concerns, but nice framework for analyzing the issues, and its not like I have less-glib answers to these difficult questions anyway. So, like, nice work.

|9.21.05 @ 10:00AM|#

The Council's report "Beyond Therapy" warns "we risk 'turning into someone else,' confounding the identity we have acquired through natural gift cultivated by genuinely lived experiences, alone and with others."

Jesus H. Christ. Life is all about "turning into someone else" - our future selves. And just what the hell is a "genuinely lived experience"?

TallDave|9.21.05 @ 10:15AM|#

While the technology has great promise, I think the main product of bio-enhancement to this point has been great amusement.

Have you seen the website of the guy who trepanned himself? Hilarious!

|9.21.05 @ 10:18AM|#

Perhaps this is a result of reading too much Eastern philosophy, but it seems to me that before we can talk about maintaing one's 'selfhood', we need to define our terms. Just what do we mean by a self anyway? How much does this self weigh? What does it look like? Or is it a nebulous and constantly in flux?
The same questions, of course, can be asked about the term 'humanity.' The chromosome number can't be the key; if it were, people with down's syndrome could not be considered human. There must be something that defines humanity-otherwise, we would never recognize other humans-but what exactly defines that category is also hard to pin down.
My point here is that these debates turn on some difficult ontological questions, and anyone who claims to have a complete answer to those problems does not.
Now, for the libertarian part of the argument: the common view would be, "Because we can't determine what, if any, effect genetic technology will have on our humanity, we must stop it." That, of course, is precisely wrong. A better argument, it seems, is that until there is a clear reason to interfere, we should let people do whatever the hell they please.

Rant off.

|9.21.05 @ 10:24AM|#

In other news today, President Bush announced that $40 billion would be devoted to a new military research iniative called "Project Sentinel"....

|9.21.05 @ 10:34AM|#

Would another name for these X-Men villains be "evolution deniers"?

|9.21.05 @ 10:47AM|#

SR

Don't you think Dick Cheney would make a really good super villain? He can build the sentinals in his secret mountain stronghold (aka "undisclosed location").

Personally, I couldn't care less about the muties. Kill them all.

|9.21.05 @ 10:57AM|#

"Don't you think Dick Cheney would make a really good super villain?"

Oh yes. Shortly after 9/11, in fact, I suggested to a friend that when Cheney returned from his "undisclosed location" that he would have been fitted into power armor like Lex Luthor used to wear in the early '80s.

|9.21.05 @ 10:58AM|#

Don't you think Dick Cheney would make a really good super villain?

No, he doesn't have enough panache or bombast(apart from the occasional Fuck tossed in for effect). A shrill madman like Rev. Fred Phelps would be better.

|9.21.05 @ 10:59AM|#

In the first X-Men film Magneto tried to give everyone mutant powers.

|9.21.05 @ 11:10AM|#

The inviolable core of our identities is the narrative of our lives- the sum of our experiences, enhanced or not. If we lose that core, say through dementia, we truly do lose ourselves.

We may lose ourselves, but those who love and care for us do not do so. A definition of humanity which excludes the weakest members degrades the humanity of all. Given that the definition of exactly what is humanity is a core part of the problem, Mr. Bailey is making assumptions which weaken his argument. (And a nice set of questions to start the debate.)

|9.21.05 @ 11:19AM|#

David Drake and Eric Flint wrote an excellent series (Belisarius) which, primarilly, tries to answer this question, of what does it mean exactly, to be human? I like the answers they came up with.

You'd have to read the series to get the full picture, but my impression was that the primary characteristic that makes a 'human' is a willingness to sacrifice your life to protect the freedom of others.

By my defenition, 'councils' that meet to debate on how they will restrict the freedoms of others are lacking in humanity.

|9.21.05 @ 11:21AM|#

"...it's hard to think of any ethical basis for requiring someone to remain cynical or excessively shy."

Well, how else do you expect me to deliver spiteful vitriol over the internet?

Just kidding.

Ronald Bailey's articles are always worth reading, and I generally find myself wishing that they were longer and more in depth.

It's probably simply ignorance on my part, but how much of this biological/genetic based self-modification will turn out to be wishful thinking along the lines of "In the future, everyone will fly a helicopter to work!"

|9.21.05 @ 11:40AM|#

A definition of humanity which excludes the weakest members degrades the humanity of all.

Lance Armstrong is champion cyclist. I can barely peddal a couple of miles before I'm exhausted. Does Armstrong's stamina and skill at bike racing degrade humanity if I can't meet his standards?

H&R's own Thoreau has a Ph.D in physics, while I can barely add fractions and only understand enough physics to nitpick the special effects in bad sci-fi movies. Does Thoreau's scientific knowledge degrade humanity if I don't have the brain power to compete with him?

The whole "Gattaca" argument used by... ahem... "bioethicists" have never swayed me. There are always going to be people who, through effort or money, will have it better than most. I'll can't afford liposuction and cosmetic surgery, so does that mean Hollywood starlets should be bared from it as well? I've got a piddly BA in Journalism, should we keep people from graduate school so I can compete in the workplace? Why should genetic enhancement be any different?

The bio-luddites keep whining about a "Brave New World" when it's the world of "Harrison Burgeron," a world of state-enforced mediocrity, that we should be worried about. When the genetically altered are given more rights than those who remain baseline; that's when we should start worry. As long as our genes are our own, we should have the freedom to edit them if we can, when we can.

|9.21.05 @ 11:46AM|#

Akira, well said.

|9.21.05 @ 11:47AM|#

So, when these laws are enacted, and folks go cyber-punk, etc. anyway, how large of a class of criminals are we going to create in order to remain some neo-luddites version of "human?"

|9.21.05 @ 11:51AM|#

"As long as our genes are our own, we should have the freedom to edit them if we can, when we can."

Evidently a large portion of the hoi polloi are unsure who owns their genes, their bodies, their eminent domain, etc.

BTW, has the penile enhancement gene been discovered yet?

|9.21.05 @ 11:55AM|#

These guys must be up in arms about breast enhancement and plastic surgery in general.

|9.21.05 @ 12:00PM|#

It's probably simply ignorance on my part, but how much of this biological/genetic based self-modification will turn out to be wishful thinking along the lines of "In the future, everyone will fly a helicopter to work!"

That's a good point. How much of the transhumanism meme will be hype and how much of it will be reality. We've had our share of futuristic promises over the years, and today's techno-prognosticators may be not much better: Nanotechnology bringing forth an end to scarcity. Space elevators lifing cargo to orbit for dollars a pound. Genetic alterations making humans strong, smarter, faster, and virtually immortal. Realistically, all these utopian visions may turn out to be just pipedreams. However, they are still worth shooting for the impossible because, even in failure, we learn more about just what is possible. So let's not be hasty and burn all the gentetics textbooks. Let's see what we can actually do.

keith|9.21.05 @ 12:02PM|#

I always figured the worries about genetic engineering leading to a race of hyper-intelligent supermen to be idiotic -- same as the arguments against cloning. If you were going to clone anyone, you'd clone the idiots who will buy any old piece of crap, not some army of supermen who will only buy expensive, high-tech German stereos. And if the government could bioengineer a population of dupes who would go along with anything the government did, no matter how idiotic, well then...

Wait a second. This has already happened, hasn't it?

|9.21.05 @ 12:12PM|#

Smallpox was a "genuinely lived experience," and I don't think anybody misses that.

Seriously, "bioethicists" sound like a bunch of guys who found a way to actually keep the college bullshit session going long past college, and actually get paid for it. Where do I sign up?

As far as the prognostication business goes, I hereby predict that the future will be full of wonderful, horrible, and unpredictable inventions.

|9.21.05 @ 12:20PM|#

Akira, mediageek, Hakluyt:
A definition of humanity which excludes the weakest members degrades the humanity of all.

I didn't say strongest members, I said weakest.
As part of a throwoff comment, Mr. Bailey is implying the removal of the weakest members from the "humanity club." This weakens his argument and detracts from the questions which need debate.
I'm not suggesting Mr. Armstrong (who isn't even artifically modified, so I'm not sure why you're holding him up as an example) should be excluded either.

|9.21.05 @ 12:24PM|#

"It's probably simply ignorance on my part, but how much of this biological/genetic based self-modification will turn out to be wishful thinking along the lines of "In the future, everyone will fly a helicopter to work!"

I kind of agree, it sounds a lot like the virtual reality dream like ten years back.

|9.21.05 @ 12:24PM|#

"Wait a second. This has already happened, hasn't it?"

The thing is Keith, you don't need genetic engineering to create idiots. Humans are pretty good at stupifying themselves with recombinant DNA.

|9.21.05 @ 12:28PM|#

ChrisO,

I guess we should stop research into disease eradication entirely. :)

Angel Johnson,

...who isn't even artifically modified...

Actually he is. If he weren't he'd be dead. His natural state was to die of cancer after all; they modified that state with a variety of treatments. This points to the silly, neo-luddite nature of the bio-ethicists arguments, BTW.

|9.21.05 @ 12:29PM|#

"how large of a class of criminals are we going to create in order to remain some neo-luddites version of 'human?'"

I just know we need to act to ban genetic manipulation before we not only have problems with man-on-dog sex, but man-dog sex!

|9.21.05 @ 12:29PM|#

err: without

|9.21.05 @ 12:42PM|#

I just know we need to act to ban genetic manipulation before we not only have problems with man-on-dog sex, but man-dog sex!

You realize what this means? Every "Furry" fan will be able to realize their ultimate dream: To actually "yiff" with a anthropormorphic, hermaphroditic, fox.

|9.21.05 @ 12:43PM|#

Angel:

I think that Ron is not implying that we can (or should) remove the weakest members of society, but rather that we can possibly make it so that they aren't weak anymore. Of course, that will raise the ire of the folks that claim that the disabled are really just "differently abled." Whatever...

Of course, this raises an interesting conundrum, in a world full of superintelligent, long-lived folks who all look like Salma Hayek and (insert name of impossibly good-looking man), would someone who merely had currently normal intelligence and looked like, say, Gwyneth Paltrow be considered "disabled?" See, I can do this bioethicist bullshit as well as anybody--when do I get paid? :)

|9.21.05 @ 12:51PM|#

I think the first part of my previous comment didn't really get at the issue that Angel was raising. Are we defined, at least in part, as 'human' by our weaknesses? Perhaps. But consider the second part of my previous comment. Perhaps part of what makes us human is our need to differentiate ourselves into 'strong' and 'weak.' In other words, in a world of superhuman Salma Hayek lookalikes, the humble Gwyneth Paltrow humans will inevitably be considered 'weak,' even if in today's world I'd shag 'em all...

|9.21.05 @ 1:02PM|#

I didn't say strongest members, I said weakest.
As part of a throwoff comment, Mr. Bailey is implying the removal of the weakest members from the "humanity club." This weakens his argument and detracts from the questions which need debate.

I'm not sure why I got addressed in the response, but counter-respond I will!

I think I'm in agreement with you, though I suspect this will be a discussion of semantics. Also, I apologize if this response goes off on a tangent.

For instance, re-defining someone with advanced alzheimer's as having lost their humanity is probably correct. As a result of a terrible disease, they are stripped of their memories and ability to live day-to-day.

This, at least to my mind, does not make them less than human* nor does it mean we should treat them with any less dignity or respect. If the ability to stop or reverse these diseases comes out of transhumanist-style scientific discoveries, this is even better. (Not that I think you were arguing otherwise.)

At any rate, I hope that helps the discussion at least somewhat.

:-/

*Peter Singer, I'm sure, would argue otherwise. But he a shmuck.

|9.21.05 @ 1:04PM|#

he = he's

|9.21.05 @ 1:14PM|#

Incidentally, I suspect that if this stuff takes off and all of humanities wildest dreams come true and we eradicate disease, genetic defects, and have amazingly long, disease-free lives that we will see a distinct uptick in the number of laws and regulations designed to keep us safe from accidental and negligent death.

After all, if you aren't going to die of disease any time soon, you'll likely die from something unlikely, like a car crash, sky diving accident, or an anvil falling on your head.

|9.21.05 @ 1:31PM|#

Peter Singer, I'm sure, would argue otherwise. But he a shmuck.

Pete's not concerned with people, remember. If saving one human from Alzheimers meant experimenting on a lab rat, he and the spoiled, petulant, upper/middle-class, Birkenstock-shoed college brats who follow him will side with the rodent.

|9.21.05 @ 1:41PM|#

You forget the most interesting thing! Specialized niche underground transhumanist societies, that are chosen. Not everyone will chose to look like Selma Hayek, there will be different styles and looks that will be traded like preferences in music. That's the world I want to live in!

keith|9.21.05 @ 1:48PM|#

Not everyone will chose to look like Selma Hayek, there will be different styles and looks that will be traded like preferences in music. That's the world I want to live in!

So I can download my new appearance from iHumans onto my iPod? But then I have to burn me to cd, then re-rip me if I want to clone myself more than five times, right?

-Keith

Mark Bahner|9.21.05 @ 6:26PM|#

"Why do bioethicists increasingly sound like old X-Men villains? Ron Bailey defends your right to mutant powers."

I think this whole subject is going to be rendered hilariously moot.

Which is getting better faster: genetic engineering to improve my eyesight, or digital cameras?

Rhetorical question...it's digital cameras. We're going to have digital camera eyeballs long before we have genetic engineering to give us better-than-20/20 vision.

Similarly, which is progressing faster, the ability to have super-human intelligence through genetic engineering, or computers?

Again, computers are progressing much, much faster.

So 50 years from now, we'll all have ELECTRONIC implants for brain improvement, and eye improvement, and heart improvement (i.e., artifical hearts), and knee and hip improvement, etc. etc. etc.

The future is cyborg, not pathetic flesh-and-blood. So the question of what our grandchildren inherit in 2050 is going to be moot. They'll just buy the latest Brainiac 8 brain implant anyway. ("Awwww, Mom...all the other kids have one!")

Not to mention the eye implants with X-ray vision, for seeing through clothes. ;-)

|9.21.05 @ 7:22PM|#

Yeah, well, unless I can have chainsaw arms and a shoulder-mounted, auto-tracking minigun, I'm not interested.

|9.21.05 @ 7:51PM|#

Mark Bahner,
Good point, but we need to keep being sure our genes will not reject stainless steel penises, and stainless steel pecs, buns, etc.

I'm old.
Substitute titanium for stainless steel?
Even I know we're beyond the plastics of "The Graduate."

|9.21.05 @ 8:57PM|#

Which is getting better faster: genetic engineering to improve my eyesight, or digital cameras?

Rhetorical question...it's digital cameras. We're going to have digital camera eyeballs long before we have genetic engineering to give us better-than-20/20 vision.

Boop-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop...

Yes, I see your point -- and I'm nearly a mile away!

Mark Bahner|9.21.05 @ 11:36PM|#

"Yes, I see your point -- and I'm nearly a mile away!"

Yeah, when I'm in Best Buy, I like to crank up the the digital camcorders to maximum magnification, and then read the fine print on the boxes all the way across the store.

I figure in 50 years, that will be laughably *poor* eyesight.

P.S. Isn't it nin-nin-nin-nin-nin-nin?

|9.22.05 @ 4:23AM|#

P.S. Isn't it nin-nin-nin-nin-nin-nin?

When $6 million man Steve Austin performed a feat of strength in slow motion, you heard somewhat metallic and clackety "Dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit" with an echo effect. However, when he zoomed in with this bionic eye, you heard a more electronic-sounding "Boop-boop-boop-boop-boop," also with an echo effect.

I don't care what Lee Majors says in that commerical, he's WRONG. There was never a "nin-nin-nin-nin." That would be more of a soft-edged warbling, possibly buzzy, noise. Neither the hard-edged "dits" nor the electronica "boops" can be reasonably mistaken for a series of "nins."

That's what my memory tells me, anyway.

Ha! I just found this site that proves me 100% right! Scroll down to the "eye" and "strength" sounds.

(Please note that the "ear" sounds pertain to Jamie Somers the bionic woman, not to the bionic man.)

|9.22.05 @ 4:28AM|#

I repeat: If Lee Majors says the bionic eye sounds was "nin-nin-nin-nin" he is, in the parlance of our times, a LIAR.

A LYING LIAR.

That's LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE, STICK YOUR DICK IN THE DEEP-FAT FRYER LIAR.

(Forgive me, but I'm very passionate about this.

Mark Bahner|9.22.05 @ 12:45PM|#

Stevo Darkly writes, "Ha! I just found this site that proves me 100% right! Scroll down to the "eye" and "strength" sounds."

Stevo, you've got waayyy too much time on your hands. But I did go to the eye sound, and you're 100% right.

I was basing my sound on Chevy Chase in Caddy Shack. He's obviously not anywhere near your level of expertise/geekdom. I award you the Ohhhhfishul Golden Pocket Protector. (It's actually aluminum foil...and imaginary. But extremely valuable nonetheless.)

Mark (boop-boop-boop-boop-boop!) Bahner