MemeMachineGo!

This Wired article starts with the FDA’s having pathologized shortness and moves on to the larger question of enhancing healthy humans, coming to this pollyannaish conclusion:

The core issue is not whether enhancement is a good idea, but when we’ll have interventions worth making. In my view, the sooner the better. Enhancement is not only well aligned with our aspirations for healthier, happier lives, but progress toward it will be egalitarian. This is counterintuitive, but adding a few decades to the poor souls whose genetics are marching them toward an early grave should be a lot easier than pushing the centenarians of the world to 120. Enhancement technology, by its very nature, will inevitably narrow the differentials between us.

Uh-huh. And genetically modified crops are going to feed the world. And the Segway is going to revolutionize American cities.

If we really wanted to help people avoid an early grave, we could do a hell of a lot of things with current technology that would offer more bang for the buck than developing novel enhancement strategies. Providing clean drinking water throughout Africa comes to mind. Just like we could feed the world with non-GMO food production capacity if we really wanted to distribute the food to the hungry instead of just those who can afford it. Just like American cities wouldn’t need revolutionizing if we didn’t love cars so much that we avoided readily available slower single-person vehicles that are eminently practical for many trips like, say, bicycles.

Any sufficiently advanced technology still won’t make you give a damn.

And, yeah, commenting on technophilic pollyannaism in Wired is kind of like reporting on “Dog bites man.”

(Link via Boing Boing , back up after several days’ hiatus while they changed hosts. Yay!)