Detweiler Vision vs Beowulf Code: "Right" and "Wrong"

Pure lines by definition need sources of new genes from the wider population to improve further. That's what I'm getting at.

JohnRoth wrote:

jgnfld wrote:I'm certainly NOT agreeable!

I see no way in which you can embark on a plan to breed superlines (population-sized groups) of people without devolving the way the Malignment has devolved.

The one possibility I see for doing this without the results we are seeing is for them to emigrate completely away from the human sphere. But then they would lose access to the new new snippets they need and there we are right back at the beginning.

Why does this matter? It's not like there's something "magic" in a snippet of DNA.

Granted, if you want to add a characteristic, it's a good idea to check for how other species have done it. That's why they wanted some treecats to experiment with. But simply being able to splice in their DNA and come up with a fully functional and properly integrated phenotypical characteristic?

Ain't gonna happen. It would be like trying to make a flying car by bolting the wings from a Cesna on a Ford Escort.

Or by trying to make an angel by mixing human, Sphinxian and bird DNA.

runsforcelery wrote:
When a Beowulfan geneticist says that he will “work right up to the limit” of the basic genetic material, what this specifically means is that he will not introduce nonhuman or synthetic genetic material and that he eschews any deliberate effort to produce Homo superior.

<snip>

The Beowulf code is entirely prepared for genetic modification to deal with recognized disease states, and within the limits of the donor genetic material which is combined to create a human being, the Beowulf code is prepared to allow the parents to mitigate what they — the parents — see as undesirable characteristics and to enhance what they — the parents — see as desirable characteristics.

I’m not exactly clear how this works, or if it is internally coherent.

Firstly, what ‘donor genetic material’ are we talking about? Stuff within the genome of the parents? Or any stuff some kind person happens to have donated and the geneticist has lying around his lab? If it’s the former I can’t have ginger hair if neither of my parents has the genes for it, and probably lots of other more serious restrictions if my parents ’genetic potential’ (however you define that) happens to be limited. Presumably, however, it is the latter. How else do you quickly produce a colony sized group with e.g. the ‘Meyerdahl enhancements’? So the Beowulfans probably are prepared to splice in genes that have nothing to do with my genetic parents (or main genetic parents, if you like.).

Secondly, since the aforementioned Meyerdahl enhancements always breed true, even from one enhanced parent, the Beowulfans are also prepared to make actual changes to the structure of the genome, since no natural traits are expressed in that way, so far as I know. How far can you change the genome in the lab and not be using ‘synthetic genetic material’?

Thirdly, given the degree of mutation that you are going to get in a multi-billion person human race does the objection to synthetic genetic material really make sense? If I can pull a mutated gene which occurred naturally in someone, somewhere, out of a sample, that’s OK to use. If I whip up the same gene in a lab out of my head before the sample is known about, that’s forbidden. Isn’t this verging on a distinction without a difference? Or how would you make it work coherently?

jgnfld wrote:I'm certainly NOT agreeable!

I see no way in which you can embark on a plan to breed superlines (population-sized groups) of people without devolving the way the Malignment has devolved.

The one possibility I see for doing this without the results we are seeing is for them to emigrate completely away from the human sphere. But then they would lose access to the new new snippets they need and there we are right back at the beginning.

It is not clear that the original idea was to breed superlines, distinct from other people. Detweiler's original thesis was that everyone should have the benefits of advanced genetic modification.

Randomiser wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:
When a Beowulfan geneticist says that he will “work right up to the limit” of the basic genetic material, what this specifically means is that he will not introduce nonhuman or synthetic genetic material and that he eschews any deliberate effort to produce Homo superior.

<snip>

The Beowulf code is entirely prepared for genetic modification to deal with recognized disease states, and within the limits of the donor genetic material which is combined to create a human being, the Beowulf code is prepared to allow the parents to mitigate what they — the parents — see as undesirable characteristics and to enhance what they — the parents — see as desirable characteristics.

I’m not exactly clear how this works, or if it is internally coherent.

Firstly, what ‘donor genetic material’ are we talking about? Stuff within the genome of the parents? Or any stuff some kind person happens to have donated and the geneticist has lying around his lab? If it’s the former I can’t have ginger hair if neither of my parents has the genes for it, and probably lots of other more serious restrictions if my parents ’genetic potential’ (however you define that) happens to be limited. Presumably, however, it is the latter. How else do you quickly produce a colony sized group with e.g. the ‘Meyerdahl enhancements’? So the Beowulfans probably are prepared to splice in genes that have nothing to do with my genetic parents (or main genetic parents, if you like.).

Secondly, since the aforementioned Meyerdahl enhancements always breed true, even from one enhanced parent, the Beowulfans are also prepared to make actual changes to the structure of the genome, since no natural traits are expressed in that way, so far as I know. How far can you change the genome in the lab and not be using ‘synthetic genetic material’?

Thirdly, given the degree of mutation that you are going to get in a multi-billion person human race does the objection to synthetic genetic material really make sense? If I can pull a mutated gene which occurred naturally in someone, somewhere, out of a sample, that’s OK to use. If I whip up the same gene in a lab out of my head before the sample is known about, that’s forbidden. Isn’t this verging on a distinction without a difference? Or how would you make it work coherently?

Exactly. There's a rather strong stench of essentialism in the whole concept.

** Reordered to avoid the limit on embedding.

jgnfld wrote:I'm certainly NOT agreeable!

I see no way in which you can embark on a plan to breed superlines (population-sized groups) of people without devolving the way the Malignment has devolved.

The one possibility I see for doing this without the results we are seeing is for them to emigrate completely away from the human sphere. But then they would lose access to the new new snippets they need and there we are right back at the beginning.

JohnRoth wrote:Why does this matter? It's not like there's something "magic" in a snippet of DNA.

Granted, if you want to add a characteristic, it's a good idea to check for how other species have done it. That's why they wanted some treecats to experiment with. But simply being able to splice in their DNA and come up with a fully functional and properly integrated phenotypical characteristic?

Ain't gonna happen. It would be like trying to make a flying car by bolting the wings from a Cesna on a Ford Escort.

Or by trying to make an angel by mixing human, Sphinxian and bird DNA.

jgnfld wrote:Pure lines by definition need sources of new genes from the wider population to improve further. That's what I'm getting at.

OK. However, they're not "pure" lines in that sense. In the podcast that's been mentioned, DW points out that there's a considerable amount of variation within the "Mesan Alpha" lines; it's just that the characteristics they consider important are stable - in genetics jargon: 100% penetrance. Everything else varies freely.

Also, they wouldn't need new genes from the wider population; they could cook up what they want in a test tube. The MAlign doesn't accept the limitations inherent in the Beowulf Code, and they're not willing to let natural selection do its job, either.

SWM wrote:It is not clear that the original idea was to breed superlines, distinct from other people. Detweiler's original thesis was that everyone should have the benefits of advanced genetic modification.

This is how I interpret it as well. Detweiler seemed to envision a type of genetic communist society where everyone has access to a better genome for themselves and their descendants and no one is a "super-man". As with actual communism, the execution runs head-long into human nature and spirals out of control.

JohnRoth wrote: The MAlign doesn't accept the limitations inherent in the Beowulf Code, and they're not willing to let natural selection do its job, either.

They seem to be rather heavy-handedly turning natural selection into very focused artificial selection on the human species and greatly speeding up the process. That can't possibly go wrong. Blagh.

Randomiser wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:
When a Beowulfan geneticist says that he will “work right up to the limit” of the basic genetic material, what this specifically means is that he will not introduce nonhuman or synthetic genetic material and that he eschews any deliberate effort to produce Homo superior.

<snip>

The Beowulf code is entirely prepared for genetic modification to deal with recognized disease states, and within the limits of the donor genetic material which is combined to create a human being, the Beowulf code is prepared to allow the parents to mitigate what they — the parents — see as undesirable characteristics and to enhance what they — the parents — see as desirable characteristics.

I’m not exactly clear how this works, or if it is internally coherent.

Firstly, what ‘donor genetic material’ are we talking about? Stuff within the genome of the parents? Or any stuff some kind person happens to have donated and the geneticist has lying around his lab? If it’s the former I can’t have ginger hair if neither of my parents has the genes for it, and probably lots of other more serious restrictions if my parents ’genetic potential’ (however you define that) happens to be limited. Presumably, however, it is the latter. How else do you quickly produce a colony sized group with e.g. the ‘Meyerdahl enhancements’? So the Beowulfans probably are prepared to splice in genes that have nothing to do with my genetic parents (or main genetic parents, if you like.).

Secondly, since the aforementioned Meyerdahl enhancements always breed true, even from one enhanced parent, the Beowulfans are also prepared to make actual changes to the structure of the genome, since no natural traits are expressed in that way, so far as I know. How far can you change the genome in the lab and not be using ‘synthetic genetic material’?

Thirdly, given the degree of mutation that you are going to get in a multi-billion person human race does the objection to synthetic genetic material really make sense? If I can pull a mutated gene which occurred naturally in someone, somewhere, out of a sample, that’s OK to use. If I whip up the same gene in a lab out of my head before the sample is known about, that’s forbidden. Isn’t this verging on a distinction without a difference? Or how would you make it work coherently?

I'm not sure myself exactly what RFC means when he says the Beowulf Life Sciences Code only allows a geneticist to “work right up to the limit” of the basic genetic material. But using the Meyerdahl modifications to analyze the Beowulf code isn't really "fair." Meyerdahl was settled and the modifications done before Earth's Final War and the establishment of the Beowulf code.

IIRC the code seems to regard the Meyerdahl mods as genetic material that has been grandfathered into humanity's basic genetic material. Not something they might do now, but since it's already out there it's fair game, so to speak.

Amaroq wrote:

JohnRoth wrote: The MAlign doesn't accept the limitations inherent in the Beowulf Code, and they're not willing to let natural selection do its job, either.

They seem to be rather heavy-handedly turning natural selection into very focused artificial selection on the human species and greatly speeding up the process. That can't possibly go wrong. Blagh.

Exactly. For optimisation (necessarily done with respect to a limited set of circumstances) and artificial selection, you'd think they learned from our genetic impoverishment in domestic animals and plants. I think they should have just continuously pumped likely advantageous (IQ-enhancers known to work well, enhanced visible/audible spectrum, regeneration without regen therapy) and fun (fur, tail, cat eyes) modifications in the general gene pool by offering them to the general public without a coherent attempt at superiority.

The original Detweiler's vision seems to have been not dissimilar to that of a certain Alpha Centauri faction leader I recall:

We hold life to be sacred, but we also know the foundation of life consists in a stream of codes not so different from the successive frames of a watchvid. Why then cannot we cut one code short here, and start another there? Is life so fragile that it can withstand no tampering? Does the sacred brook no improvement?
-- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Dynamics of Mind"

I wonder how much time it took for Mesa to go completely off the rails. It may have been Detweiler himself, who could have been truly inspired by the benefit of humankind, but that nonetheless led him down the road towards plotting to overthrow the Solarian League. I can't recall how much the books go into that background.