Is this a good idea? Gene hacking to increase human intelligence?

This is the title of an article I just read at the link below.

http://blogs.discovery.com/good_ide...ncrease-human-intelligence.html#mkcpgn=emsci1

I say yes it is a good idea and the sooner the better. I personally would very much like to be a lot smarter than I am now. If I had kids I would want them all to be smarter. If everyone in the world could double their smarts over night I’d be all for it.

Smart humans got us to where we are today. I think humans being much smarter will be needed to keep us from winding up on the extinction list. Given any number of things that could take humans out of the picture. We need to do something ASAP about having more baskets to put out eggs in.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Actually it's more than just being smart. Smart is obviously handy, but you have to remember every individual is limited as an individual. Any accomplishments that have occurred throughout history are done because a team of people agree to work towards a common goal, this can either been through pay, through socialism or just out right ideology.

Establishing a goal that is common is the only way to gain those technological advances we dream of, the problem is in recent years it's obviously been proven that such common goals can be manipulated. i.e. technologies made by war, technologies made to counter disease, technologies made to counter energy deficiency and technologies to be "greener".

The main thing is to become better at networking, at communicating with other people, about evolving reason towards a common goal.

That's why you have Transhumanist's like Kurzweil talking about progression towards a "Singularity". I'm not too clued up on his reasoning, however I would gather it's the assumption that all common goals and directions for mankind as a whole can be streamline and potentially remove the concept of competition to overcome the most adverse technological obstacles that current sit on the horizon of the future.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I know plenty of smart people with absolutely zero common sense. One without the other is a handicap when it comes down to living life itself. If you can find a gene that codes for common sense, well, I'd be up for putting it in a jab and innoculating everyone!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

It would be much more productive to just utilize existing intelligence by educating our young people properly.

Genes seldom code for just one thing. If there was only benefit to a gene for intelligence, we would have it already. There must therefore be some tradeoff. Perhaps increased intelligence in one area robs one of memory or social skills.

 

I agree with what you said, except it could all be done better and faster by smarter people with better memories and more raw intelligence to work with.

 

That goes without saying. I sure don't like the idea of smarter criminals.

 

Who knows, it's hard to speculate on what if's. What I do know is what I would want for myself. Going to school with more smarts and a better memory would have been a big plus and I'd be willing to gamble with my social skills.

 

Why would enhanced common sense create more criminals? I would have thought it would reduce criminality..

 

I must have given you the wrong impression. Let me see if I can be more clear. I understand that gene hacking can have many unforeseen consequences. What I wanted to focus on is given all other things being equal everyone on the planet gets smarter. Take yourself for example, you get smarter and have a better memory added on to what you already are. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

How many people are they going to experiment upon until they get it right? How many retarded people will there end up being if they try to hack until they do it right? I'd think this is a very foolish idea myself and will gain more intelligence by just educatig myself more with readin, writing and other learning tools.

 

If you look at what intelligence has brought the world it doesn't seem like such a good idea.

 

I'm sure the procedures would be refined on animals, until it was time to try it on a human, then asking for volunteers would most likely produce a waiting list. Just like asking for volunteers to go to Mars. Lots of people are willing to take a risk to either better themselves or go down in the history books.

Also more learning doesn't produce more intelligence, it simply gives you more knowledge, which is not the same as knowing what to do with it.

 

I think it would take a long eugenics program. As with dogs, selecting for just one quality isn't everything, you have to make sure the whole animal can integrate that change, otherwise you get breeds with innate defects. Border collies are just about the smartest dogs around, but they don't make good pets. You have to wonder about the unintended consequences.

 

So what are you saying? That doing nothing is a good idea? We are already in the boat bailing to keep from sinking. Don't you think more smarts could be helpful.

 

I think humans weren't a good idea to begin with

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Dramatically cutting back the population seems to be the best idea to me.
By birth-restrictions of course, not by killing off people (I have to clarify it like that or else people will start 'yelling' at me).

 

Since when did humans suddenly become inferior? And when does high intelligence become useful without the sense to use it constructively. There is no one "treatment" that can cure humans of stupidity, and it would be stupid to try. The first people that should be experimented on are the people proposing this. Then they will realize it's a total waste of time.

 

In my life I've made many choices that have had unintended consequences, some good and some not so good. Either way I've had to live with them. Okay what about this scenario? What if we could produce humans with super brains that could never live a normal life (whatever normal is), but they working as a group could solve all the major problems in our world? I suspect you will say that it would be wrong, even if society would take complete care of them from birth to death.

 

You know I like the idea of pruning the population. I would suggest we start with people who like to hurt other people. Starting with those that like killing others for any reason other that self defense, then bullies and thieves and rapist...Etc.

 

Okay you are entitled to your opinion the same as I am entitled to mine.

 

Y'mean like what the nazis did? Just slaughter all the folks they didn't like?