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Old 02-14-2018, 02:16 PM   #2
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: Avoiding Intollerance in a Post-BioEngineering Setting

Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.Steele View Post
The powers that be in my Space game have posed a question to my doctor. Given that we have the ability to genetically engineer the colonists' children, and indeed must carefully watch the genetics to avoid inbreeding, how do we minimize or avoid racial tensions down the line?
I'm not sure it's worth distinguishing between racial tensions and other types of tensions. Groups of humans are prone to forming cliques based on a perceived similarity, and then the cliques come into conflict, but racial similarity is hardly the only way this can happen (from the situation you describe, I would bet on political and philosophical divisions before racial divisions).
Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.Steele View Post
Concerns are:
Those adapted by the planet and those not adapted -- we're at a TL where we could prevent the adaption and could use nanites to prevent skin cancer and cataracts from the UV. Right now, parents are being given a choice to let the adaption happen or not, or to prevent it.
Block it. For everyone. Mysterious creatures of unknown motives mucking around in people's genetics without their permission is not a good plan. If the third intelligence actually shows up, starts talking to people, and asks permission, you can rethink that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.Steele View Post
Psis vs. non-psi. We've got a dozen or so psis (including my doctor). Psi is recessive, so not enough individuals to maintain a reasonable percentage of psis in the populace without genetic engineering.
Depends how useful psi is, and what costs it imposes. If psis are just better than other people, there's no good reason not to engineer it into everyone, other than issues of permission (on a game level, if you want psi to be permanently rare, don't make it recessive, make it something like a repeating group where having too many copies causes problems).
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