Can't we just drop a nuke on the Vatican

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

No tool is natural nor is any tool abundant in its infancy.

So neither of these should be used as reasons to ignore them. It is much better to figure out what the end consequences are if they do flourish and they map out the consequences of this happening. Then one can decide if a thing is moral or immoral based on what it's journey and destination require and the change to our society by using or denying it.

Also when I talk about clones as twins I'm taking particular aim at the sci fi meme that clones have a shared concious or telepathic ability. They do not, they are just the same DNA book read at different time periods to form a human who is an individual not a gestalt entity.

There is a profound and I use the word deliberately, difference between what we do to our environment and what we do to ourselves.

It interesting you mention shared conscious awareness - something twins do appear to have, probably because they spend the first nine months of life together and afterward they grow up in parallel even though they diverge there have been studies showing that twins can have a disturbing level of convergence of things as mundane as what to have for dinner.

It's patently obvious that genetic engineering is so unnatural as to be beyond the pale of everything else. It's also obvious that it will be abused by either the rich or authoritarian governments. We might as well say the licensed and unlicensed rich.

Propagating the technology is not a good idea - it should tell you something that all the major Sci-fi authors see it being abused.

[Montmorency]

It interesting you mention shared conscious awareness - something twins do appear to have

Simple enough: causality.

A1 ~= A
A2 ~= A

A, then B

A1, then B
A2, then B

It's patently obvious that genetic engineering is so unnatural as to be beyond the pale of everything else.

Perfectly natural.

Propagating the technology is not a good idea - it should tell you something that all the major Sci-fi authors see it being abused.

One man's abuse is another man's empowerment.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

One man's abuse is another man's empowerment.

Weapons of Mass Destruction - who is empowered?

[Montmorency]

Would it be mean to respond, "Everyone"? But I'm mostly just yanking you with that.

But WMDs are a good thing to bring up here. They contribute to my larger point, which is that the technology will be propagated regardless of petty intellectual outrage.

Technologies like WMDs (and genetic engineering) are too powerful to be casually abandoned. Even should they not be taken up for private use, states will surely acquire them.

[Kralizec]

There is a profound and I use the word deliberately, difference between what we do to our environment and what we do to ourselves.

It interesting you mention shared conscious awareness - something twins do appear to have, probably because they spend the first nine months of life together and afterward they grow up in parallel even though they diverge there have been studies showing that twins can have a disturbing level of convergence of things as mundane as what to have for dinner.

It's patently obvious that genetic engineering is so unnatural as to be beyond the pale of everything else. It's also obvious that it will be abused by either the rich or authoritarian governments. We might as well say the licensed and unlicensed rich.

Propagating the technology is not a good idea - it should tell you something that all the major Sci-fi authors see it being abused.

I actually agree broadly about genetic technology, but I adimit it's just a gut feeling mostly. I associate it with scenarios like the Spacers from Asimov's SF novels, if you've read those (and even if you didn't read them, I still do)

I'm pretty shocked that you buy those stories about about twins somehow being mentally connected or whatever. I'm a pretty cynical person in general, but I also happen to know multiple (pairs of) identical twins, and to me it's all bull.

[rory_20_uk]

It's patently obvious that genetic engineering is so unnatural as to be beyond the pale of everything else. It's also obvious that it will be abused by either the rich or authoritarian governments. We might as well say the licensed and unlicensed rich.

Propagating the technology is not a good idea - it should tell you something that all the major Sci-fi authors see it being abused.

Genetic engineering has been done for millennia as we have bred animals and plants to be more suitable for specific roles.
Given genetic engineering is altering natural DNA using natural processes I fail to see how it is "patently obvious"