In 2006, in the second issue of the second year of this journal I wrote an essay, Homo Superior, and said, “What could be more natural than wanting a healthy beautiful baby? Has there ever been a time in history when parents, even in the midst of disasters and despair, did not wish to be delivered of a healthy child? And who wouldn’t want to have a son or daughter who was as smart as Einstein, as athletic as Michael Jordan, and as attractive as well, name the person whose looks you find most appealing? What could be more natural? But this deep-seated drive when linked to the onrushing train of genetic medicine is creating a trend that will shape—both literally and figuratively—the future of our species”.1
For most of our history as a species, we sapiens of the genus Homo have shared the planet with other hominid species. We know this because genetic science, by extracting DNA from ancient bone fragments, has transformed paleoarchaeology from speculation to certainty. This new research, which is amended and extended almost weekly, tells us we still retain, you retain, genes resulting from encounters Homo Sapiens had in Deep Time with Denisovans […]
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Monday, December 4th, 2017
TINA HESMAN SAEY , - Science News
Stephan: Here you see another perspective on the Homo Superior Trend, another of the major trends that will be shaping our future. It is receiving almost no attention from either the media or the government, but it is gathering momentum.
A doctor explains to a young couple that he has screened the pair’s in vitro fertilized embryos and selected those that had no major inheritable diseases. The couple had specified they want a son with hazel eyes, dark hair and fair skin. Then the doctor announces that he has also taken the liberty of eliminating the “burden” of genetic propensities for baldness, nearsightedness, alcoholism, obesity and domestic violence.
The prospective mother replies that they didn’t want those revisions. “I mean diseases, yes, but …” Her husband jumps in to say, “We were just wondering if it’s good to leave a few things to chance.”
But the doctor reminds the would-be parents why they came to him in the first place. They want to give their child “the best possible start.”
That’s a scene from the movie Gattaca, which premiered 20 years ago in October. But thanks to recent advances in gene-editing tools such as CRISPR/Cas9, genetic manipulation of human embryos is becoming reality.
Soon, designer babies like those described in the film may even become morally mandatory, some ethicists say.
Gattaca’s narrator tells us that such genetic manipulation of in vitro fertilized embryos has become “the natural way of giving birth” in the […]
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Monday, December 4th, 2017
Editorial Staff, - National Economics Editorial
Stephan: If you travel internationally you soon learn how far behind the curve America is in terms of both mobile phone service and internet speeds. It's pathetic, and getting worse. This has long term implications that few in government want to talk about. I wonder if they even know it.
It's all part of the decline of America as a result of structuring the social order so that profit is the only real priority, and the function of United States government is to make a small group very very rich. Witness the just passed Senate tax bill.
Neo-feudalism is going to lead, as it always does, to social violence and disorder. Amazing that we don't see it coming.
Fiber optic cables
South Korea is the poster child for high-speed internet: its fixed-connection and mobile download speeds are consistently among the fastest in the world, and its capital city, Seoul, is completely saturated with Wi-Fi. How did they do it?
Being densely populated helped: it’s easier and cheaper to wire-up crowded cities than empty countrysides. But the key element was the government’s pro-broadband policies. Not only did they open up the market for competition among internet service providers, but they also invested in hard infrastructure.
Back in 2011 the New York Times reported that the South Korean planned investments of $24.6 billion in digital infrastructure. It paid off: South Korea’s internet remains among the world’s fastest, according to testing done by Speedtest—and this is in spite of massive recent gains and investments made by other countries.
Meanwhile, America’s internet connections are slow. This summer Forbes Magazine reported:
The US ranks 9th in the world in fixed broadband speed at 70.75 Mbps average download and 27.64 Mbps average upload. Ranking in the top ten is good but the […]
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Monday, December 4th, 2017
OLIVIA BEAVERS, - The Hill
Stephan: Little by little the United States is abdicating world leadership. Most people don't even seem to know it is happening. Here is the latest.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday announced the Trump administration is pulling out of a United Nations-led Global Compact on Migration (GCM), claiming it could undermine the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.
“The United States has decided to end participation in the UN process to develop a Global Compact on Migration (GCM),” Tillerson said in a statement.
The U.S. has participated in the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, a 2016 agreement to manage international migration, which was in the process of being adopted as a global compact in 2018.
Tillerson, however, said that the compact, which aims to protect the rights of migrants as well as help them resettle, “contains a number of policy goals that are inconsistent with U.S. law and policy.”
“While we will continue to engage on a number of fronts at the United Nations, in this case, we simply cannot in good faith support a process that could undermine the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders,” he continued. He stressed that it “is the primary responsibility of sovereign states […]
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