Ask HN: What up and coming technology has you most excited?

Re:Ask HN: What up and coming technology has you most excited? by crote on Thursday April 12, 2018 @12:29PM (#16822516)

I don't follow your reasoning. It might work for some genes, but a very large part has no meaningful significance at all. If we were to simply take the majority allele, that would eliminate all blonde people, all redheads, everyone who has any form of biological talent for anything whatsoever; you'd even get rid of white people altogether: after all, they are the minority. Taking the majority would mean getting rid of all variation. To me, that is not at all what I would call a huge improvement.

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Re:Ask HN: What up and coming technology has you most excited? by candiodari on Thursday April 12, 2018 @01:18PM (#16822993)

Plus there's going to be interaction between the genes. After all, that's exactly what evolution is trying to evaluate. If it was possible to simply know the answer, don't you think it would have found that in 3 billion years runtime ?

Duplicate some hollywood star's genes ? Maybe even a scientist's ? Some combination ? Perhaps (have fun being the first one to try it though). "Perfect" genes/humans ? No way. It'll take decades before we can create smarter humans. "Duplicate" your beloved pet ? Sure (domesticated animals are pretty close to clones already, but whatever).

However, it'd be much easier to create the perfect dishwasher/street wiper/soldier. Obedient, maybe even dependent on a drug and unable to reproduce by themselves (ala Monsanto plants). And the question isn't whether we can stop the US military from doing that. The question is whether we can stop China.

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Re:Ask HN: What up and coming technology has you most excited? by davidivadavid on Thursday April 12, 2018 @04:55PM (#16824856)

Speaking as a marketer, I think people will be more interested in differentiation than in perfection (provided the basics are covered).

I.e. get the "secret" formula for a unique hair color or body proportions, or whatever.

If everybody's "perfect" in the same way, there's no advantage to being perfect, and people will look for ways to differentiate.

(Of course all of this is Hollywood-level speculation, but still).

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