Interesting. I still roll to disbelieve on China shunning human enhancement. The gains are just too great, the fruit too low hanging. Several standard deviation increases in polygenic traits are on the table, including the most important economic trait, intellectual ability:
https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selectionGiven China’s almost unique state capacity to think long term, history of eugenic policies in sport, an ironically less Lysenkoist population than America, and a cultural focus on educational achievement and competition, this seems overdetermined.
In fact, animal breeders are getting very keen on iterated embryo selection. So the technology will get investment even in environments where it is illegal for humans.
We live in interesting times. Even a 2 standard deviation increase would allow a small population to produce the vast majority of genius-level intellects. 2 standard deviations is on the way low end of what iterated embryo selection offers. Should we find the causal variants, direct editing offers vastly more.
A world-wide ban on this technology is not on the table. Plan accordingly.
Given China’s almost unique state capacity to think long term, history of eugenic policies in sport, an ironically less Lysenkoist population than America, and a cultural focus on educational achievement and competition, this seems overdetermined.
In fact, animal breeders are getting very keen on iterated embryo selection. So the technology will get investment even in environments where it is illegal for humans.
We live in interesting times. Even a 2 standard deviation increase would allow a small population to produce the vast majority of genius-level intellects. 2 standard deviations is on the way low end of what iterated embryo selection offers. Should we find the causal variants, direct editing offers vastly more.
A world-wide ban on this technology is not on the table. Plan accordingly.