As for “conservative” and “leftist” (why not “rightist? better symmetry)–I try to avoid using those labels. But I believe your post captures very well the essence of what people who are happy to use those labels usually mean by them. I have little doubt that many of Obama’s core supporters would rather lose in Iraq if that would gain them the White House. Doing both might even be considered a win-win situation. Core McCain supporters would probably see it as a real tradeoff. Victory in Iraq plus an Obama presidency might be too high a price (because of the future damage President Obama could do to their interests at home and abroad).

Just my opinion, based on no scientific polling whatsoever.

Is your sarcasm substantive, or trollish?

If it is substantive, it seems to address a leftish understanding of gene therapy [1], rather than a conservative one.

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/07/27/barack-obama-would-rather-lose-a-war-than-lose-an-election.html

In the interest of promoting true equality of capabilities at birth, I suggest we make our policy one of cloning only one individual, and allowing no one else to breed. In a generation, these pesky genetic differences will be a thing of the past.

Of course, we’ll all be the same sex, too. And we might want to be careful *whose* genes we’re using. And narrowing genetic diversity could have some very nasty consequences. And a complex division of labor might be more difficult to maintain when there is no genetic component to the distribution of talents or interests.

Maybe I need to think this through.

Thanks for the comment.

A genetic-elite: a social class comprised of individuals who genetic material is deliberately cultivated to prevent the occurence of certain behavioral or physiological traits, which are defined by the elite to be abnormal (yet they may occur regularly throughout society).

Why does intent matter here?

It strikes me that if you have genetically-driven classes in a society, whether this is through explicitly-genetic thoughts, through bigotry, or through accident, you end up with the same basic unfairness.

By loading the dice, one is taking any uncertainty or chance out of the equation.

Maybe this is a source of confusion.

In real life, loading dice does not guarantee certain results. However, it biases results in one direction. So loaded dice may not always come up snake-eyes or boxcars, but statistically you’re going to get a different average result and different spread than you would otherwise.

I think that being afriad of error-free processes is a strange stance, but here it is besides the point.

Success becomes guaranteed, and all choices regarding future success are practically guaranteed. The current genetic-elite do not have this luxury just yet, they still have not been made so perfect as to succeed in everything they do.

As mentions above, this is reaction to a proposal that I have not made, and so I will not address it.

Elites rise and elites fall. Using eugenics makes the fall of elites (through their own mistakes and choices) a non-issue.

This is a strange argument. In Britain, China, Japan, and probably other countries, malthusian selection made the high mideaval elite permanent, leading to the near-extinction of anyone except for descendants of what were the upper classes. [1,2] So you are attacking a proposed policy by saying that it would have the same results as the population replacement which triggered the Industrial Revolution and led to the greatest increase in wealth in human history!

Thank you for asking those questions, they are important and cut to the heart of the issue.

My pleasure. The new perspectives I get from conversations like this one is the reason I blog!

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/01/20/review-of-a-farewell-to-alms-by-gregory-clark.html
[2] http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Economic-History-Princeton/dp/0691121354

To some extent we do have this already, certainly people reproduce with others who they judge to have genes that are satisfactory to their own standards. It is also true that these offspring have a better chance at succeeding in life (however defined) than other offspring, yet there is still an element of uncertainty regarding their future success: they have to persistly take positive actions toward success and avoid pitfalls along the way. All offspring must deal with this uncertainty.

By loading the dice, one is taking any uncertainty or chance out of the equation. Success becomes guaranteed, and all choices regarding future success are practically guaranteed. The current genetic-elite do not have this luxury just yet, they still have not been made so perfect as to succeed in everything they do. Elites rise and elites fall. Using eugenics makes the fall of elites (through their own mistakes and choices) a non-issue. Thus, we have the new genetic-elite.

Thank you for reasking those questions, they are important and cut to the heart of the issue.

Perhaps it was my comment’s bad formatting. You did not answer two of my questions, so I will fix the formatting and post them again:

Liberty and equality need each other. If you allow liberty to run amok at the expense of equality, this destroys the basis of a democratic society as it concentrates power in the hands of a single class, the genetic-elite.

What is a “genetic-elite”?

Under what standard do we not already have one?

On the issue of low-quality/high-risk genetic engineering, I’m not sure what the riskiness of the procedure has to do with it. To perfect preventing people from getting cancer, certainly risks have to be taken to make the procedure work over time. This is completely unrelated to using eugenics to make an ubermensch.

Responding to “Nonetheless, ‘loading the dice’ to roll an eleven every time hardly seems to ensure choice should matter,” you said:

How is choice a function of a low-quality design?

Well how one’s approaches a situation makes some responses more likely than others. The odds that one will choose the ‘better’ choice are more likely than the ‘worse’ choice. Having genes of ‘low-quality design’ increases the chances of making a ‘worse’ choice, while having ‘designer’ genes increases the chances of making a better choice.

Magic? Define this, as I’m no magician. I merely used a metaphor from a sweet movie.

What I’m arguing against is the idea that the genetically inferior have a ‘place’. If they do, they will define it themselves, and anyone who seeks to do it for them is de facto limiting their freedom and their liberty.

Thank you for the comment:

No, nothing wrong will wellness technologies. Further, I don’t necessarily object to genetic manipulation to avoid an inherited tendency towards terminal or serious diseases. This would be ‘loading the dice’ not to roll snake eyes every time as opposed to fixing the game to roll an eleven every time.

First, how is this different from supporting only those wellness technologies that are of low quality — that is, risky? If appears you are attacking low-risk technologies merely for not being random enough.

Secondly, how is this a criticism of what I propose? (Or is it?)

Would one undertake gene therapy against their will? Unless they were a child?

We have a legal-medical regime for childhood innoculation as is, though obviously as government control gets more onerous, people will move in order to protect the health of themselves and those they love.

As is sometimes said of private medical procedures, a choice is always made — you just aren’t always in the room.

In a just society, choices should have consequences, I agree. Hence, I emphasize equality of opportunity at birth.

Unless you propose mass cloning of a single genome to everyone, you’re not going to get this.

Obvoiusly, though, we may approach or avoid genetic equality. If we wish to approach it, we should shun immigration applications from high- or low- intelligence immigrants, attempting to keep most of our immigrants in the IQ range of 98-100, with European-white skin, etc.

I really don’t know where you could get the idea that equal rights rely on equal abilities. Certainly it’s a frightening dogma, because it implies that no country should justly have equal rights now (as none have a citizenry with equal abilities).

That way, the choices one makes determines one’s place in society.

If humans were born with a blank slate — or even with psychic unity — this might be a sensible political declaration.

They are not, so it is not.

y. I admit this is more an ideal and not a reality given differing stocks of genes and capital, yet certain social institutions are nominally designed to come as close as possible, the public education system being one.

Perhaps — certainly it would explain why we have one of the worst public education systems in the world.

Our university system is built on a radically different notion — that each individualyl should be able to ascend as far as his skill can carry him. We have the best universities in the world.

The battle between centrally-enforced equality and competitive diversity is typically won by the latter, and lost by the former.

Nonetheless, ‘loading the dice’ to roll an eleven every time hardly seems to ensure choice should matter.

How is choice a function of a low-quality design?

A Valid’s choices will always be the right choices because they have been engineered to act this way.

I can’t comment on supernaturalism, or magic, or whatever nonsense this is. Certainly it’s not a serious claim.

The possibility of making a wrong choice is already factored out of his behavior.

More magic.

This the height of control and power, and ultimately perverts the Valid’s own liberty to choose.

More magic.

Liberty and equality need each other. If you allow liberty to run amok at the expense of equality, this destroys the basis of a democratic society as it concentrates power in the hands of a single class, the genetic-elite.

What is a “genetic-elite”?

Under what standard do we not already have one?

What you propose is a reconcentration of power in the hands of the genetic-elite. Its not that the Invalids should know their place. Instead, you are trying to put them in it. There is no liberty when it comes at the cost of subordination

I do not see how this is not an equally effective argument against any progressive technology that some may opt out of.