Transmat World: What Will Happen When Genetic Manipulation of Human DNA Becomes the Norm?

We do have a fixation on superheroes. A goodly portion of screen time has been devoted to such. Before screen, comics. It is a profitable genre. It doesn’t matter that many of the powers defy the laws of physics or logic. They tap into a human desire to see evil be given a swift kick in the pants and sent on its way.

Some of the heroes and heroines are more believable than others. Jessica Jones, for instance, has super strength but it’s not that incredible sounding. The reason chimpanzees are 2-4 times stronger than humans is attributable to the muscle fiber being longer and denser, a higher ratio of fast twitch to slow twitch fibers, and the chimps lack of fine motor control. In humans, this limits our muscle strength except in extraordinary circumstances where chemistry overrides motor control circuitry. This is when adrenaline-suffused people lift cars off someone trapped underneath. Also, tonic clonic seizures can remove the strictures on muscle strength, breaking bones and endangering those trying to restrain limb movement.

We already know that there are real live humans with superhuman traits—people with photographic memory, that can do complicated math in their head, get by on four hours sleep every night, quick healers, slow to age, see a hundred million colors instead of just one million, super strong bones, resistant to poisoning, possess large and powerful muscles without working out, super tasting abilities, super endurance, vision of 20/2 that enables identification of a person's face a mile away, disease resistance, getting by with less oxygen, super good looks. Those traits and capabilities are in all of us somewhere in our genes.

Amazon Prime recently came out with “HANNA”, a TV series about a genetics experiment with baby girls to turn them into super soldiers. Hanna gets rescued from the experiment and raised in the wild. She is strong with fast reflexes, super hearing, and very smart. With CRISPR technology so easily and widely available, this is now a possible reality.

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRSPR) is a genomic editing tool derived from archaea (similar to bacteria) which uses it to defend against bacteriophages. It is now used in the laboratory to edit genes in living organisms. Variations of CRSPR can be used in epigenetics to simply tweak the expression of a gene without changing the gene itself. It has already been used on humans in China. CRISPR technology has been used there to produce two HIV resistant babies. The scientist involved was arrested by the Chinese government and has not been heard from since. The experiment was roundly condemned by other geneticists around the world. This is not the end. It is the beginning. As these genetic tools become ever more sophisticated and miracles with animals in labs become commonplace, the rules about using it on humans will inevitably be relaxed.

The first use will, and rightfully so, be curing diseases and genetic defects. Next, it will be used by wealthy parents wanting the “best” for their baby. Good looks, athleticism, intelligence, well-balanced emotional system—you name it, and it will be requested. Unfortunately, this will be another force driving inequality in society.

As the use of genetic tools on human DNA becomes commonplace, governments may easily start programs that take orphan babies and give them better genetics like an IQ boost, quicker reflexes, better eye sight, and stronger muscles as a “public service”. When these children become old enough to join the military, they will be given sign-up bonuses for their abilities. And that’s only in the free societies. An authoritarian regime or country that has no rule of law may not give a thought to such niceties as allowing the option of a nonmilitary career.

Just like governments currently don’t account for taking care of damaged humanity for the rest of their lives as a cost of war, future governments will not take into consideration the problems of reintegrating super soldiers with military training back into society. If and when such a group is let loose into general society, it will make for very interesting times. You will have government modified super humans competing against the offspring of the elite wealthy for money and power. The middle class will continue its shrinkage, and the poor won’t stand a chance in the current environment of uber capitalism.

More importantly this acclimation could begin, as it has with many technologies, a trend of pushing the limits of genetic technology. Eventually, there could arise an arms race to determine who can create the ultimate super human. And isn’t that a more defining characteristic for humanity than how we look and what we can do? Humans take things to the maximum.

In those future days, our great, great, great grandchildren will look back on such shows as Jessica Jones or Alphas as fondly quaint in their lack of imagination as to how far the human mind and body can be tweaked. And, in turn, their descendants will look back on them the same way. That is what we do and who we are.

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