The shadow

Eugenics fails the test at every level. But it does not exhaust the question.

The question of editing a body before its person exists is old. It has been asked for centuries. In forms from the most modest to the most catastrophic.

In the late nineteenth century the eugenics tradition set out its programme. Shape whole populations by deciding who has children. Some bodies should reproduce, and others should not. And the larger structure takes the authority to enforce the choice.

Across the early-to-mid twentieth century the tradition produced sterilisation programmes, marriage restrictions and immigration policies. And in the end, the mass killings of the mid-twentieth century.

The shadow this casts over pre-agency editing is enormous. The chapter does not pretend it can be dealt with by structural analysis without facing the shadow directly.

Then heredity was read down to its molecules. The structure of DNA was worked out in the early 1950s. The techniques to cut and join it followed in the early 1970s. That opened a new question. Eugenics worked on populations, through permission to reproduce. The new question works on single edits to single genomes. One body’s corridor could now be changed before that body had begun to run.

Late in the twentieth century came the debates on recombinant DNA, gene therapy and germline change. From around 2012, CRISPR made the technical capacity widely available. The debate among institutions that followed has not closed.

The test deals with eugenics cleanly.

Eugenics is parasitic contraction at the scale of populations. One class of people used the power of institutions to shrink the room of the people it judged unworthy.

The test runs cleanly. The verdict is unambiguous. The tradition fails the test at every level the structure reads it.

The structure does not need a separate argument against the shadow. The shadow is parasitic contraction at its widest reach. The structure refuses it as that.

What the structure does need is a clean account of the difference. Some pre-agency editing is maintenance. Some is parasitic contraction. The shadow does not exhaust that question. It is one shape parasitic contraction can take here. The test does not collapse the whole question into the shadow.

The question is now asked one genome at a time, and the shadow alone does not answer it.

Source. Ø Applications, Chapter 6 — Genetic Engineering. The book in full: the420code.org/Applications.pdf. The short edition: the420code.org/models/applications/06-genetic-engineering/. The film, The room before the occupant: the420code.org/films/applications/. Its kill switches: APP-6.1 to APP-6.5.