techcrunch | A species-wide conversation on our future has never before been
carried out. We didn’t do it at the dawn of the industrial or nuclear
ages for understandable reasons, even though we might have avoided some
terrible outcomes if we had.
With a growing percentage of the world population connected to the
information grid in one way or another, we now have a limited
opportunity to avoid making the same mistake and begin laying a
foundation for decisions we will need to collectively make in the
future. Given the political divisiveness of this issue, the window will
not stay open long.
Such a conversation would involve connecting individuals and
communities around the world with different backgrounds and perspectives
and varying degrees of education in an interconnected web of dialogue.
It would link people adamantly opposed to human genetic enhancement,
those who may see it as a panacea, and the vast majority of everyone
else who has no idea this transformation is already underway. It would
highlight the almost unimaginable potential of these technologies but
also raise the danger that opponents could mobilize their efforts and
undermine the most promising work to cure cancers and eliminate disease.
But the alternative is far worse. If a relatively small number of
even very well intentioned people unleash a human genetic revolution
that will ultimately touch most everyone and alter our species’
evolutionary trajectory without informed, meaningful, and early input
from others, the backlash against the genetic revolution will overwhelm
its monumental potential for good.
Homo Sapiens of the world, let us begin this conversation.
