Evan Kelly
Dr. Johns
Essay #3
Overkill
The world as we know it is changing. Fantasies that were only dreamt of in the 19th and early 20th century have become realities. We can now talk to and see in real time, a friend that is half way across the world. We can now stop the once horrifying word, cancer. Now, humanity is on the brink of a new frontier called genetic engineering. Many dread this new technology, but others claim that it is our brightest future. Think of a world without incurable disease. The fatal viruses in Africa and the rest of the world could finally become extinct, but what other outcomes will come of this technology. Bill McKibben writes in his book Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, that the world is loosing it’s meaning and genetic engineering will destroy our sense of community. I disagree. I believe that there are many flaws that are not addressed in McKibben’s argument.
Bill McKibben believes that we have already begun to loose our sense of community, but with technology constantly being improved, it is now easier than ever to stay in touch with those close to you. It is my first year away from my home family, and friends, but I can call, e-mail, and now even video chat with anybody, even my dog. While I hear my parents say “wow, I wonder what ever happened to him. After high school we just lost contact.” If I want to I will be able to continue talking to my old friends any time. It is much easier leaving home, when I can see it in real time with the touch of a button. Imagine if we were still constantly writing letters like we did a century ago. I would only hear from my parents once a month and I’d only hear their voices when I went home. It took a century to go from pencil and paper to digital video chatting. Who knows what will happen in the next century. I wouldn’t be surprised if teleportation became our new means of communication and transportation in the next century. Soon the next generation and even our generation will look back and be astonished at the poor picture quality in a video chat. Instead we may simply teleport to our destination and have a conversation face to face. Staying close with friends and loved ones is becoming increasingly easy and will ensure that we maintain a sense of community.
McKibben also argues that we have lost our collective meaning and that genetic engineering will only further destroy us. It is natural for man to be curious and to have an insatiable thirst for more. When I say natural I define it as a state of mind that the majority of humans are born with. Competition, love, attraction, and curiosity are all what I believe to be natural instincts. These are the some basic parts of life that humans are “meant” to do. Genetic engineering cannot and will not change this. While McKibben does admit that some genetic engineering is beneficial, such as the creation of genes that will combat disease and virus, he says that once we cross the line, there is no going back. He is frightened that IQ manipulation and designer babies will be inevitable outcomes. While this may be true, who decides that this is a terrible thing? I would like to be 6’2 with natural athleticism. I would also like to have been born smarter so that maybe calculus wouldn’t be so damn hard for me. McKibben debates that genetic engineering will steal our individuality and turn us into machines, with pre-programmed thoughts, feelings, and ideals, but this argument is not valid. Even if we do start to genetically alter our children before birth, there is no possible way that they will all be the same. Say a group of children receive a gene that increases intelligence, based on the rest of their genes this could enhance their writing skills, speaking skills, arithmetic skills or any other in a long list of skills. These children will not write exactly the same papers in school. They may all argue a thesis in an equally intelligent, but completely different way. Genetic engineering is not programming. It is enhancement. Remember that these children will learn different values through their upbringing. Sure, all parents may want their kid to be smarter, but some will want him to be a rocket scientist, others a doctor, and others a business owner. Furthermore, an increase of inherited intelligence does not mean that a child will be a bilingual nuclear physicist at birth. He may have traits like an increased capacity for knowledge and a yearning to learn. One must still obtain this knowledge from somewhere and there are thousands of teachers across the world, each with his or her, own style and beliefs. Each child will at least partially embrace the beliefs of his or her professor. This is more evidence that we will not become machine-like. Even identical twins, with the same DNA structure often take completely different courses in life. With genetic engineering we will not only continue to survive, but we will thrive. Does this sound like a loss of meaning?
What McKibben fails to consider are the many areas of our being that can potentially be altered. If our natural athletic ability can be enhanced then so can our personality. We can receive a gene that will make us less lazy or less of a procrastinator. I know that I would sign myself up for that one. We could become more loyal, dedicated, caring, ethical; the list goes on and on. Industry and the economy would boom if everybody had an undying will to succeed at the workplace. Poverty could potentially be wiped out and the financial scam artists that seem to be multiplying everyday could become non-existent. Life has become monotonous just as I believe F.C. Ware has demonstrated in his graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan. My days are more or less spent sleeping, going to day class, working, going to night class, doing homework, and then sleeping once again. Of course that is not every detail of my life, but my point is that I know where I will be and what I will probably be doing for 90% of the day next Tuesday. Genetic engineering could be our key to a new world. In reality, Jimmy Corrigan is not the typical person in today’s society. But I would describe him as an exaggerated normal individual, and his boring life is the life that deep down, many people feel that they are living. Though physically most people can communicate and interact much more thoroughly than Jimmy, they are mentally exhausted just as he is. Where would Jimmy be if he were to have had his genes altered before birth though? He could have increased intelligence, perseverance, and social skills. Maybe then, his father would not belittle him, and if he did continue to then Jimmy would have the will to continue on and rebel against his abusive father. There may be some consequences of genetic engineering, but the rewards heavily outweigh them.
Bill McKibben is wrong in saying that humanity is loosing it’s meaning. He is also wrong in believing that genetic engineering will steal our individuality. If anything it will increase it. Instead of being born solely with the genes of our parents, a child could be born with these genes as well as other enhanced genes that will increase various areas of the mind and body. Genetic engineering is the beginning of a revolution. The possibilities are endless and sooner or later man’s natural curiosity will enable us to cross the barrier and begin to engineer our genes to become a stronger human race. F.C. Ware is correct. Human life is monotonous and our lives are becoming more boring by the day. This world needs a breakthrough to excite us once again. Guns revolutionized warfare, electricity revolutionized the world that we live in, and genetic engineering will revolutionize the people living in this world. We are on the brink of a new age and to say that we have lost ourselves and robbed our lives of meaning is just overkill.
3 comments:
Hey Evan,
This was very organized, detailed, and well-articulated. Your argument was pretty consistent throughout and completely understandable. In the body, you did a wonderful job of directly arguing against each of McKibben’s points that you provided, although I would have personally liked quotes more than simple restatements of his general ideas. There are a few grammatical errors and misspelled words (perhaps you were in a rush).
I feel that a good portion of the introduction paragraph was off-topic, as you simply describe technology, genetic engineering, and their potential and already-realized benefits. Remember that the point of the essay was to argue that we either are or are not losing community and meaning. You should probably find a better way of leading into the thesis and the rest of your essay.
Your opinion on the loss of community is interesting. Personally, I think that people spend TOO much time instant messaging, sitting in front of their computer screens for hours instead of doing something more productive with their time. So while instant messaging is nice sometimes, how much of a community do you really have if everyone is sitting in their basements on their computer screen video chatting?
In your second body paragraph, it seems like you’re addressing the concept of “individuality,” not “meaning.” Although it’s perfectly possible that you find a connection between the two, it seems like focus is lost here. While you feel that individuality will not be lost due to genetic engineering, how exactly do you feel that both our personal and collective meaning would be affected? If you were, as you say, engineered to be smarter, would earning an A+ on a calculus exam give you the same sense of pride, or would you eventually get tired of achieving without the hard work that would have been required to succeed WITHOUT having been engineered? Like McKibben states, human meaning is derived from working hard and seeing the fruits of our labor (like looking at the beautiful homes that we upkeep, coming home after a day work knowing that we’d earned every dollar that we made that day). So if you no longer had to work hard to earn good grades, and you could just rely on your “superior,” supernatural genetics to handle the “studying” for you, would you feel as if you’d lost something? You probably wouldn’t even care to learn, because your genes already know everything!
In the third body paragraph, I thought the connection you made between your Tuesday routine and genetic engineering was interesting. I think routine and structure is good! Anyway, while I understand where you’re coming from, consider the fact that genetic engineering is something that would have to be paid for and quite unaffordable by average people (most of whom don’t even have health insurance), which means that only a select few upper-class people would be able to have these superior genes placed in their children, which would further alienate future generations of middle- and lower-class people. I say this because it seems as if you feel that genetic engineering is the SOLE solution to our community and personal problems. Nevertheless, while this paragraph is certainly interesting, I don’t see how it functions with respect to the topic. It doesn’t address meaning or community, or if it does it certainly isn’t apparent to me. Somehow make a more direct, explicit connection between genetic engineering and meaning/community.
Evan Kelly
Dr. Johns
Essay #3
Overkill
The world as we know it is changing. Fantasies that were only dreamt of in the 19th and early 20th century have become realities. We can now talk to and see in real time, a friend that is half way across the world. We can now stop the once horrifying word, cancer. Not only is technology changing, but people are changing. Now, humanity is on the brink of a new frontier called genetic engineering. Many dread this new technology, but others claim that it is our brightest future. Think of a world without incurable disease. The fatal viruses in Africa and the rest of the world could finally become extinct, but what other outcomes will come of this technology. Bill McKibben writes in his book Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, that the world is loosing it’s meaning and genetic engineering will destroy our sense of community. I disagree. I believe that there are many flaws that are not addressed in McKibben’s argument. There are dozens of ways that genetic engineering and other new technology can help the world reunite. Help us keep in touch with friends and family, help keep marriages strong, and help keep lost children off of the streets.
Bill McKibben believes that we have already begun to loose our sense of community, but with technology constantly being improved, it is now easier than ever to stay in touch with those close to you. It is my first year away from my home, family, and friends, but I can call, e-mail, and now even video chat with anybody, even my dog. While I hear my parents say “wow, I wonder what ever happened to him. After high school we just lost contact.” If I want to I will be able to continue talking to my old friends any time. It is much easier leaving home, when I can see it in real time with the touch of a button. It can be argued that some people spend too much time with their new gadgets, chatting non-stop with a friend in another part of the world. If everybody began spending their days, locked up inside, instant messaging then our sense of community would ultimately diminish, but this is not the future that I foresee. I see individuals wondering why, that if they can see and hear their friend, they can’t be with them in person. I wouldn’t be surprised if teleportation became our new means of communication in the next century. It took a century to go from pencil and paper to digital video chatting. Who knows what will happen in the next century. Soon the next generation and even our generation will look back and be astonished at the poor picture quality in a video chat. Instead we may simply teleport to our destination and have a conversation face to face. Staying close with friends and loved ones is becoming increasingly easy and will ensure that we maintain a sense of community.
McKibben also argues that we have lost our collective meaning and that genetic engineering will only further destroy us. It is natural for man to be curious and to have an insatiable thirst for more. When I say natural, I define it as a state of mind that the majority of humans are born with. Competition, love, attraction, and curiosity are all what I believe to be natural instincts. These are the some basic parts of life that humans are “meant” to do. Genetic engineering cannot and will not change this. While McKibben does admit that some genetic engineering is beneficial, such as the creation of genes that will combat disease and virus, he says that once we cross the line, there is no going back. He is frightened that IQ manipulation and designer babies will be inevitable outcomes. While this may be true, who decides that this is a terrible thing? I would like to be 6’2 with natural athleticism. I would also like to have been born smarter so that maybe calculus wouldn’t be so damn hard for me. McKibben debates that genetic engineering will steal our individuality and turn us into machines, with pre-programmed thoughts, feelings, and ideals. Machines serve purposes, but their lives are meaningless. They don’t think, believe, or feel emotion like a human being. Though it may very well become a machine’s purpose to create altered genes for an embryo, that embryo will be born full of life, confusion, and thousands of other emotions. Humans are meant to begin understanding and responding to these emotions as their lives progress. Even if we do start to genetically alter our children before birth, there is no possible way that they will all be the same. Say a group of children receive a gene that increases intelligence. Based on the rest of their genes this could enhance their writing skills, speaking skills, arithmetic skills or any other in a long list of skills. These children will not write exactly the same papers in school. They may all argue the same thesis. But it will be in equally intelligent, and completely different ways. Genetic engineering is not programming. It is enhancement. It is possible that the first generation of genetically enhanced students will breeze through school with straight A’s, but when these students take the role of professors, tests will be restructured to properly challenge the student and education will continue at a far superior level. Human meaning and individuality will remain intact. Remember that these children will learn different values through their upbringing. Sure, all parents may want their kid to be smarter, but some will want him to be a rocket scientist, others a doctor, and others a business owner. Furthermore, an increase of inherited intelligence does not mean that a child will be a bilingual nuclear physicist at birth. He may have traits like an increased capacity for knowledge and a yearning to learn, but one must still obtain this knowledge from somewhere and there are thousands of teachers across the world, each with his or her, own style and beliefs. Each child will at least partially embrace the beliefs of his or her professor. This is more evidence that we will not become machine-like. Even identical twins, with the same DNA structure often take completely different courses in life. With genetic engineering we will not only continue to survive, but we will thrive. Does this sound like a loss of meaning?
What McKibben fails to consider are the many areas of our being that can potentially be altered. If our natural athletic ability can be enhanced then so can our personality. We can receive a gene that will make us less lazy or less of a procrastinator. I know that I would sign myself up for that one. We could become more loyal, dedicated, caring, ethical; the list goes on and on. Industry and the economy would boom if everybody had an undying will to succeed at the workplace. Poverty could potentially be wiped out and the financial scam artists that seem to be multiplying everyday could become non-existent. While these would not be immediate outcomes of genetic engineering, they are plausible. It is inevitable that only people willing to pay top dollar will be able to use genetic engineering to their advantage at first. But, as is true with all new technology, the cost will decrease. Perhaps, the gene for increased intelligence will be mass-produced on a conveyor belt not so long from now. Eventually, as new technology is discovered, genetically altered genes will become affordable. Although I do not believe that humanity will fail without genetic engineering, I do believe that progress will be slower than it could be. Genetic engineering could be the spark that sends us into a new age. Life has become monotonous, just as I believe F.C. Ware demonstrates in his graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan. My days are more or less spent sleeping, going to day class, working, going to night class, doing homework, and then sleeping once again. Of course that is not every detail of my life, but my point is that I know where I will be and what I will probably be doing for 90% of the day next Tuesday. Genetic engineering could be our key to a new world. In reality, Jimmy Corrigan is not the typical person in today’s society. But I would describe him as an exaggerated normal individual, and his boring life is the life that deep down, many people feel that they are living. Though physically most people can communicate and interact much more thoroughly than Jimmy, they are mentally exhausted just as he is. Where would Jimmy be if he were to have had his genes altered before birth though? He could have increased intelligence, perseverance, and social skills. Maybe then, his father would not belittle him, and if he did continue to then Jimmy would have the will to continue on and rebel against his abusive father. There may be some consequences of genetic engineering, but the rewards heavily outweigh them.
Bill McKibben is wrong in saying that humanity is loosing it’s meaning. He is also wrong in believing that genetic engineering will steal our individuality. If anything it will increase it. Instead of being born solely with the genes of our parents, a child could be born with these genes as well as other enhanced genes that will increase various areas of the mind and body. Genetic engineering is the beginning of a revolution. The possibilities are endless and sooner or later man’s natural curiosity will enable us to cross the barrier and begin to engineer our genes to become a stronger human race. F.C. Ware is correct. Human life is monotonous and our lives are becoming more boring by the day. This world needs a breakthrough to excite us once again. Guns revolutionized warfare, electricity revolutionized the world that we live in, and genetic engineering will revolutionize the people living in this world. We are on the brink of a new age and to say that we have lost ourselves and robbed our lives of meaning is just overkill.
Anthony - as always, lots of great details in your response, although I'd have liked to see a little more focus on the structure/essence of Evan's argument.
Evan - Anthony has a point about your introduction, still. It rambles.
Actually, that's the *danger*, although not always the reality, with your whole paper. As Anthony also points out, your engagement with McKibben's text is very limited, so you often give long-winded responses to general ideas from McKibben. In all fairness, you don't mangle his ideas very often, but you'd still have gained a lot from paying more attention to what he actually says.
Your tendency to ramble in this paper takes you to very interesting places, however. Eventually you end up with the idea that life is fundamentally flawed, but that we can fix it (you might have made effective use of the several of the authors, e.g., Kurzweil, whom Bill Joy quotes but disagrees with here). While this is interesting as an ending, it would have been great if you had written a more focused paper *starting* with the assertion that genetic engineering can and will transform us in a profoundly positive way.
Short version: There's a lot of great material here, but it's too wordy, with questionable organization and a shifting focus. It has great potential, but it doesn't live up to it.
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