I have less and less respect for transhumanists because they seem to have a very simplistic idea of what "human" is. And absolutely no powers of observation of the current real world.
So, yes, there are no "good" genes. We know a relatively small number of specific mutations that increase your risk of cancer, or cognitive impairment. As I understand it, we don't know any genes that reduce your risk of cancer or increase your cognitive ability. We've now known the complete human genome for almost 10 years, and if anything, we now know less about how that encodes a human being (in the sense that while we have learnt some things, we've also become aware of large swathes of stuff we realise we don't know anything about that we didn't know we'd need to know about).
I'm completely confused why having one's genes tweaked would affect free will in any way. But I'm less and less clear on what free will is, and I'm starting to suspect it's like the soul, and doesn't actually exist.
I think I otherwise completely agree with you - monoculture is generally a bad thing, despite how much we seem to like it, and yes of course anything like this is just going to increase the rich/poor (or other privileged/not) divide.
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I've studied too much genetics to be much good here :-)
So, yes, there are no "good" genes. We know a relatively small number of specific mutations that increase your risk of cancer, or cognitive impairment. As I understand it, we don't know any genes that reduce your risk of cancer or increase your cognitive ability. We've now known the complete human genome for almost 10 years, and if anything, we now know less about how that encodes a human being (in the sense that while we have learnt some things, we've also become aware of large swathes of stuff we realise we don't know anything about that we didn't know we'd need to know about).
I'm completely confused why having one's genes tweaked would affect free will in any way. But I'm less and less clear on what free will is, and I'm starting to suspect it's like the soul, and doesn't actually exist.
I think I otherwise completely agree with you - monoculture is generally a bad thing, despite how much we seem to like it, and yes of course anything like this is just going to increase the rich/poor (or other privileged/not) divide.