Thought about the evolution of mankind, the forced plasticity of ethics and gene editing.
Thought about the evolution of mankind, the forced plasticity of ethics and gene editing.
Modern humanity is a unique biological and social phenomenon.
Our modern society with “eternal” values (ethics, morality, etc.) is, on the one hand, a product of millions of years of biological evolution, on the other hand, a consequence of a quantum leap in the development of a social superstructure that has been developing exponentially for the last ~ 10,000 years.
As a biological species, we were able to survive due to the development of the brain, the increase in its size.
It was the developed brain that allowed our ancestors to walk straight at first, notice threats in the savannah faster, migrate over vast distances due to climate change. The brain allowed the use of tools, sticks, stones to resist the perfect predators.
Man and his mind were able to “improve” their body due to external devices: clothes appeared to cope with cold snaps, accustom fire to warm themselves, etc. At a certain stage, it became physically impossible to increase the size of the brain and the number of neural connections more or less stabilized. It took evolution many millions of years.Humanity as a species has reached the biological ceiling of evolution, but a unique superstructure has emerged: society and the connection between different people.
The “social” layer began to develop: communication with other representatives of the species accelerated the process of cognition by orders of magnitude, made it possible to transfer information not at the biological level (in the form of DNA), but at the social level: by language from people to other people.🎓
Later, writing appeared and improved the preservation of information by an order of magnitude, as well as the speed and quality of its transmission around the world.📜
Then radio, television, and finally the Internet, which further complicated the social superstructure of human society by several orders of magnitude: 30 years ago, information was broadcast either in small groups or “from top to bottom”. 💻
Social networks have increased the number of horizontal channels for the dissemination of information and have given way to millions of actors and authors.
We passed this step (pumping the social superstructure) in just a few thousand years, instead of millions of years of evolutionary development of the size of the brain.
The human brain has biological limitations in the perception of information, and we again came to the old proven method: we added external devices in the form of algorithms and later AI.
It is no secret that search results algorithms and the formation of a content feed have long been actively involved in the distribution of information on the network. This happens imperceptibly and seems to embarrass almost no one, no one protests against the "restriction of freedom on content by algorithms." 😉
The merging of algorithms and the social layer for mankind took place in just some 20-30 years and, due to its “invisibility”, almost did not affect the ethical aspects of society. 🤖
So far, I have a picture that in the plane of the social superstructure, evolution is proceeding by leaps and bounds: new mechanisms and technologies for disseminating information appear, people create decentralized structures without censorship, thousands of experiments on generating content by algorithms are going on at the same time, bot farms are being created and at the same time there is a fight against fake news - everything this is great from the point of view of "evolution" - there is a huge variety and, therefore, sooner or later more and more perfect mechanisms will appear in terms of the survival of the species.
But what about the basis? Biologically, we have not changed!
Until recently, the inforg man differed from the ancient Egyptian only in the number of social connections, the number of which has increased by orders of magnitude due to “external devices”.
And it seems to me that the next leap in the evolution of humanity as a species lies precisely in our foundation, and not in the superstructure: it's time to correct the biological aspect!
The ideas of Bezos and Musk about humanity as a “multi-planetary civilization” rest against our body.
Even if robots and algorithms help modern people, we will not survive on a conditional Mars: low gravity, solar radiation and a host of other factors will prevent us from spreading as a species.😏
What can we say about space, even while living on earth there is a risk of getting another strain of the virus with a lethality of 97% and there will be no one to fly 🤷🏻 ♂️
As Covid showed in the mass consciousness, for various reasons, there is a huge animal fear of changing the body: people are sincerely afraid of vaccination!
The same fear and the obsolescence of the norms of ethics and morality (my opinion!) hinder the development of genetic engineering associated with editing human genes.
So far, only China has ventured into bold experiments (since 2017) to modify the genes of embryos to make children resistant to HIV.
Theoretically, it is possible to increase the intensity of experiments with our DNA, and with modern computing power in 15-20 years, we will be able to edit our body at will, already in adulthood, changing part of the genes.
Only 1% of genes are responsible for our differences in organisms: from eye color to the quality of digestion.
By changing this 1%, you can become the most perfect person in nature with perfect immunity to all diseases and viruses studied.
There is at least some progress in this medical plane, breaking through public fear and accusations of eugenics.
Most likely, the Covid pandemic will accelerate the processes of changing ethics regarding genetic engineering and for the sake of the survival of our species, society will fund Research to change this 1% of genes under the pretext of fighting diseases.😅
Covid only became a catalyst for this process. Moreover, if a pandemic had happened 100 or even 50 years ago, everything would have proceeded differently, but today humanity already has a huge “arsenal” of computing power and data on our genome, which means that the chances of evolution coincided again and a new developmental leap begins.
There was a point in time and space when two factors coincided: an external threat and the technical ability to eliminate it.
No ethics can resist such an evolutionary tsunami: I am absolutely sure that the era of gene editing will soon be forced to wait for us.
I repeat, evolution in nature has no morals and ethics, only one KPI: the survival of the species. The population is growing - great. It is declining - it is urgent to look for that segment with deviations from the norm, which survives better in the changed external conditions.
I'm waiting with curiosity. It will be interesting!🔥
PS: after all, after the successful mastering of the first 1% of genes, there will be those who will go further and begin experiments with other “inviolable” 99% of genes from the point of view of nature, and then there will already be a full-fledged new species following the inforg.
A species that changes its DNA and at the same time acquires new interfaces from the outside for interacting with computers and machines.