Frankenstein? – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.
What was Frankenstein? The doctor, of course, and some argue the monster himself. The monster, a patchwork of butchered body parts, stitched and shocked with lightning into consciousness. A monster, a magnet for flaming pitchforks. It’s a cautionary tale, and we get closer than ever to turning books like Frankenstein from prose to prophecy.
He Jiankui. A biophysicist, prosecuted in 2018 for editing the genes of three embryos, brought to term, with a resistance to HIV.
I’m thrilled that we have such an ability to neutralize a deadly disease. But is it fair to call He JianKui “Dr. Frankenstein?” I mean the point of the horror of the book was that it was corpses being stitched together, not having their DNA rewritten. This, I think, goes beyond Frankenstein, and I struggle to figure out what horror story this is more like. Actually, “FrankenKids” aren’t even horror anymore. This is where we start getting superpowers.
Who’s going first? I can imagine billionaires having kids with super genes. I don’t see why that wouldn’t happen. Way too expensive to get if you’re broke. So you know you made it when your three year-old can fly.
There will eventually be special situations. Like toughening up soldiers and breeding workers with specific aptitudes.
The moral arguments here are enormous, but I would add this to the conversation: what if we are meant to self-evolve? What if things like gene editing are how every species that gets as far as we do goes further. Maybe the real hesitation is because we know it’s just not going to be done for the best of the species. Like advancement has provided us a solid A to B vehicle, and we’re nervous because we know we’re shitty drivers.
One thing, though. It’s going to be hard not to do this stuff when they start being able to erase more things. And maybe we should ask ourselves how much of “us” is made of things that can be erased.