August 13, 2008

We Should Want to Have Control

Articles like this make me long for a future of widespread genetic testing, embryonic genetic modification, selective abortion (regulated to check externalities), and legal infanticide. The universe has no moral arc. Children are usually not bundles of joy. At least we should spare them and their families from the worst of nature's vicissitudes. We should rig the lottery of birth as much as we can; there is nothing sacred about randomness.

The benefits of confronting reality and adapting to (or changing) it are usually greater than those of willful blindness or self-deception. Would that we were wired to recognize this!

1 comment:

Zed said...

Well, you have substantially more confidence than I do that parents (or the state, or whoever) will be remotely competent at rigging the genetic lottery. I'd defend randomness (except for serious congenital diseases, etc.) on the grounds that anything that parents/the state actually do is likely to be systematically worse.