BTW, check out this website: I am not kidding when I say I have visual snow; it litterally is like seeing through a badly tuned T.V. set. www.visualsnow.com.
I'm not sure if you can get better at this point in time, so I'll just say "Best of luck at getting better." just in case.
BTW, thanks for the link. I'm sure it'll be an interesting read, especially coming from someone who has a good reason to know about snowy vision.
Consider the often-cited example: what if the embryo your wife (or you... I don't want to presume too much) carries has a genetic predisposition toward homosexuality. Let's ignore the science, for the time being, and just take it as a given that this can happen, and that we can find out, and that your child has it. Anyway, what do you do?...
I'm probally going sound like an ass for saying this: Why don't you fix it?
We are born without our concent. We are given a body instead of us getting a chance to choose. We have been given physical, or even mental traits that we may, or may not want. So how would it be different if someone were to choose what we go as apposed to gambling and hoping for the best? If the option of engineering a child became available, you could say that every baby' traits were chosen (the choice of: to engineer, or not to).
What are the chances of becoming a boy or a girl?... Perhaps 50/50, maybe? How about brown, or black hair? How about letting your child have bad vision, or a serious health problem? The point is, if no action is taken to choose what your child gets, you are gambling by letting nature take its course. In case you haven't realized, Nature does not always make healthy children. In fact, sometimes it can result in very unhealthy ones.
...Should you knock out the gene? Or terminate the embryo? To do so is implicitly discriminatory... what could be more biased than not allowing a minority to be born? Such discrimination is unacceptable, or at least illegal, in many western societies.
The politicians really should stop to take a look at the laws once genetic engineering becomes possible. Its most unfortunate that we live in a society that has those who are elected to run the government are only required to be charismatic. They are not required to be smart... thats the puppet master's job.
Lets get back to the point before I start ranting off topic. I have bad vision. I need to wear glasses to see things about as well as normal person. That is a problem. So if that made me a minority, then would it be illegal to have it fixed before I was born? To carry the point further, would it be illegal for me have surgery performed later in my life to have it fixed?
Now for the homosexual minority. How many of them hid in their closets being tormented by the question: "Am I a freak?". Then later, some of them become flamboint, get a little courage, and start a gay pride parade. Suddenly people start thinking that they have a culture, that they are some ethical minority. The moment that happened, all the homosexuals in the closets start comming out and joining the parade, and use that to try to hold their fragile, and confused mind together.
How much problems could have been solved if this little rogue gene was fixed? No gay pride parades to torment the 'strait' people. No homosexuals hiding in their closets wondering if they are a freak. No gay marriage issues, etc.
...However, given the inefficiencies in natural selection, and artificial selection the "old fashioned way" (i.e., lots of livestock inbreeding), I would really hate to see what selection by consensus of fashion would make out of the human race. Millions of little Brittany Spears clones?
*shudders* *followed by some cold sweat*
An army of blonde haired, blue eyed, big boobed, pop stars with IQs barely reaching the double digits. God, this a reason why I hate humanity. To quote the guy at my local 7 11 "Normal is boring.". Personally, I'll stick with my aspergers syndrome, thank you.
I seriously don't believe that such genetic manipulation would spiral out of control as you claim. I think most people would be increadibly uncomfortable with doctors playing around with their childrens genetic code. One molecule out of place and the child could have a third eye ball on his or her knee.
One might call that "neat" or "cool". It would be an interesting way to start a conversation on the bus...
________________
Before people lable me a racist bastard, or what ever you might try to call me, you should know that I'm developing philosopher who finds it ammusing to select difficult points of view, and argueing in their favor. So if you didn't like my arguement, don't hate me, hate the arguement I made, and try to defeat it.
