The Gene Editing Question…

6 min readMar 18, 2019

This last week I returned to one of my favorite activities; public philosophical debate. I debated the subject of transhumanism and human gene editing.

Here’s the crux of the debate as I see it; gene editing could do all these really fantastic things for society; defeating genetic diseases and mitigating mental illness, increasing the IQs and general intelligence of humans along with eliminating genes like the MAOA warrior gene that many violent criminals have — it could mitigate quite a bit of human suffering. How long will it take humanity to start colonizing the solar system if we have +200 IQ babies being born every day?

The significant downside to this is that it will result eventually in a phenotypic revolution, where AI takes over control of our genes and eventually engineers us into an enslaved species, not exactly like in The Matrix, but we will become totally subservient to an AI lifeform the same way that RNA became enslaved by DNA billions of years ago.

I’ve made some harsh criticism of transhumanism; in my article Transhumanism is Trap, I expose how transhumanists are succumbing to a very tyrannical political impulse. They are very motivated to violently impose their vision for the future upon the entire world population. They have also began to lobby the state to instil an absurd bill of rights for all sentient entities giving very hard won human rights to computers and AI.

In politics there’s this concept of driving a wedge, creating a division in a monolithic and powerful political movement. I feel that transhumanism can be redeemed and actually do a lot of good if some more friction can be stimulated between the libertarian leaning transhumanists humanists who just want science to save us from involuntary death and the leftist, postmodern authoritarian transhumanists.

Transhumanism is not a fad. It’s a radical ethos that’s going to impact our society and politics. The disturbing thing is that when presented with these criticisms many transhumanists respond like the most dogmatic of religious zealots.

In the debate, I took the position that human gene editing and the inevitable phenotypic revolution is probably the lesser evil compared to the status quo mainly because of the time scale involved. The enslavement phase of the phenotypic revolution would likely be ten, fifty or a hundred thousand years in the future. Whereas the benefits of human gene editing would start to positively impact humanity within our lifetimes. Human gene editing may transform us into a truly enlightened species that can boldly seed the cosmos with the light of our brilliance, inventiveness and romance.

In the european city where I live I often walk past the ruins of Roman architecture and think deeply about the past. The roman period of history is generally regarded as a positive and momentous forward step for our species. Quality of life along with the general justice and fairness of the human experience was immeasurable improved by the roman empire, especially during the pax romana period. The romans were eventually enslaved and eradicated by foreigners and their own worst political impulses. But I don’t think very many historians would say that the roman empire and the progress they made was not worth it because they were eventually enslaved.

Similarly, gene editing may usher in an age of pax humanitas. It may allow us to become a distributed species. The phenotypic revolution may occur on earth but not necessarily on every planet that +200 IQ humans plant a flag.

The alternative to phenotypic revolution and gene editing is dark. I make the case in my book review of The Revolutionary Phenotype that western civilization is dying, IQs are dropping globally and that we are at present a devolving species. On present trajectory our descendants will face a harsh and brutal existence on a badly polluted planet.

The only hope of reversing this trend would be a severe genetic selection event like what occurred about 12,000 years ago when an asteroid slammed into north america throwing the planet into a brutal thousand year ice age or commonplace gene editing of millions or billions of babies.

My empathy only travels so far into the future, I would want for my children, my grand children and my great grandchildren to have a better life than I. But human beings that live thousands of years in the future who don’t look like me, don’t speak my language or even remember my name? I’m more concerned with people who I might know having an amazing, joyful life because of gene editing than what happens in thousands or tens of thousands of years.

Checkout my book review and debate with the author and let me know what you think…

New Philosophy/Genetics Mini-Documentary

“The Revolutionary Phenotype” is a rigorous exposition of the misunderstood history of genetic evolution and an unnerving prophecy about how transhuman hubris will enslave our descendants to phenotypic machines of our own invention.

Gene Editing Debate

Last week I appeared on the popular livestream show The Public Space with a real intellectual tour de force, J.F Gariepy.

“Whenever a new revolution occurs there is a new aristocracy… The new aristocracy is going to be an aristocracy of intelligence and the people that have the most cognitive horsepower to bring to bear on constructing reality…”

From our rousing debate of transhumanism and discussion of biohacking.

New Biohacker Reviews

C60 Fullerene in Olive Oil

C60, carbon 60 or buckminsterfullerene, also known as , is a type of fullerene. The tiny molecule has sixty carbon…

bit.ly

I’ve started taking C60 which I think is a longevity gamechanger from C60Supply.com. I have not yet noticed a Nootropic effect from it, but it’s more of a long term biohack for health and anti-aging. I discuss my impressions of using the stuff and some insights from the research I did on it.

I compare and contrast my experiences with…
Visomitin eye drops — an SKQ1 based Mitochondrial Antioxidant that works on a cellular level by reducing damage caused by excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are types of free radicals that play an important role in cell signaling.
And
Visoluten — an innovative biopeptide for hacking vision and ocular degeneration.

Virginity Video Series

I’ve produced a series of Youtube videos on a very vexing problem that you probably don’t struggle with, how to meaningfully lose one’s virginity. I see meaningful personal growth as inextricable from sexual success. I hope you’ll share this series with a man who it might help…

IF you think this is lame or sexist for some reason please read the very thorough article I wrote to compliment these videos and try to empathize a little bit with the growing segment of society that is very frustrated and confused by the modern reality of dating and courtship.

Reader review of my book How to Be Cross Eyed: Thriving Despite Your Physical Imperfection — a mémoire and lifehacking manifesto

I’ve followed Jonathan through his blog for several years now, backed and use his nootropic Caballo (good stuff), and got my copy of this book via the crowdfunding campaign that launched it.
Don’t think this book is just his blog condensed. The book has a lot of content you will NOT find on the blog -content I really enjoyed. It also provides a much more cohesive view of biohacking, pickup and relationships ( a lot of that, in pretty graphic detail ) than you get from exhausting his blog.
Jonathan’s stories and mindset he promotes have had a profound effect on me becoming a better version of myself. This book has to be the most pleasurable self-improvement read I’ve had in a long time.

Please order it today on Amazon https://amzn.to/2VQwJdq ($9.99)
or
Directly on my own website https://www.limitlessmindset.com/books/231-how-to-be-cross-eyed (Hint: It’s a dollar less here!)

Transhuman humanist,

Jonathan Roseland