In my post Doom and gloom, I didn’t mean to suggest that humanity would sit on its hands as it watched doomsday arrive. Surely alarms will sound in 10 to 20 years as nation after nation falls short of its voluntary emissions targets. What’s more, we’ll realize that holding the worldwide temperature increase to 2 ºC above the pre-industrial level was the wrong goal. 1.5 ºC—never in the cards—was the right one. Panic will set in as we desperately look for technological solutions. Anything resembling success will require an investment of trillions and international cooperation such as the world has never seen.
While this grim scenario is unfolding, an entirely different disruption will occur—the disruption of innovation. You probably think you know what I’m alluding to, but you’re wrong. You’re thinking of innovations on the order of manned flight, television, atomic energy, and computers. They indeed changed political and social realities, but they are trifles compared to what’s in store.
Why should the innovations of this century be more transformative than those of the last century? Because innovations imply new ideas, and new ideas aren’t isolated events. They interact and beget more new ideas. Metaphorically, the process is like nuclear fission. Eventually the rate of change becomes so enormous that you and I and our institutions can’t adapt, no matter how hard we try.
I’ll be specific. We’re at the doorstep of a revolution in genetic engineering and medical intervention. Many of us think genetically modified food is controversial, but what about genetically modifying pathogens to render them harmless? Or more radical still, how about modifying the human germline directly? We could “engineer” people who don’t get colds or the flu or chicken pox—or cancer or heart disease!
The basic technology for modifying DNA is already here. It’s known as CRISPR, an acronym that stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.” CRISPR is a DNA-editing tool that occurs naturally. Microbes use it to edit their own DNA into “repeating clusters” that protect them from infection. (Scientists, in a verbally clumsy way, named the tool after what the tool does.) Only a few years ago, biochemists had an epiphany: Perhaps our labs can duplicate this natural process and adapt it to edit the DNA sequences of any organism!
One application of CRISPR is to change the genome of nonhuman animals to become, in some respects, more humanlike. For example, pigs have hearts that are very much like ours. Tweak the pig genome to produce pig hearts that are virtually the same as ours, and voila!—no more shortage of hearts for transplantation. But we’ll be so rich in innovations that there will be other solutions just as good—say, stems cells that can grow new organs or 3-D printers that can “print” them!
All of this portends an average lifespan of… who knows? Centuries? Which should lead us to reflect on what the quality of these long lives will be. Well, why stop with mere good health? Why not change the human germline to guarantee that people will be good-looking, brilliant, and youthful, for practically all of their lives? Think of it: a world full of perky, statuesque beauties named Nikki and charismatic studmuffins named Chad. No, I take that back…. There will be all sorts of exotic names (for the illusion of individuality), but the eye candy will be plentiful. So will the supply of geniuses. And if IQs aren’t high enough or vision acute enough, we can embed computer chips in the brain for a cyber-assist.
Of course, a high-quality life isn’t assured by looks and intelligence. People need to be engaged in fulfilling work. No doubt robots will do all the drudgery. Manual labor will be a thing of the past, so many more people will become artists and scientists and entertainers. Leisure hours will double, at least, and new diversions—virtual reality on steroids—will be popular. The “holodeck,” a Star Trek fantasy, will become a reality.
Will these beautiful people, who do no drudgery, live creatively, and indulge their senses, find fulfillment? Possibly, but the odds aren’t very good. For one thing, with the death rate approaching zero, overpopulation will be a greater catastrophe than we’ve imagined. Will there be enough food and living space for everyone? And how will new workers—say, 25-year-olds with degrees in education, law, engineering, and medicine—get a foothold in their new professions when the retirement rate is also approaching zero? Death has always been the way a generation makes room for newer ones. For the first time in history, the mechanism of biological replacement will break down.
But the question that disturbs me most is how the benefits of genetic engineering will be distributed. For the most part, this is not an egalitarian world. That’s obvious in Asia, Africa, and South American. The people of Europe and North America fare better in sustaining their lives, but there is still wretchedness and poverty. In the U.S. especially, we see a high rate of child poverty and a maldistribution of health care. As the marvels of genetic engineering are unveiled, ask who will benefit first and most often. Of course—the wealthy. They’ve always had access to the best doctors, clinics, and spas; they will be the first to have designer children. Legal restrictions may slow them down, but an effective deterrent seems unlikely. In time, the phrase “the haves and the have nots” will acquire a new and more alarming meaning.
From about 2 million years ago to 10 thousand years ago, many species of Homo—the genus we belong to—walked the Earth. Besides sapiens, there were neanderthalensis, erectus, soloensis, egaster, and a few others. Then there was just sapiens. All the other species became extinct, and evolution hasn’t produced a new one. But in this century, the odds are very good that we will! If that happens, what will become of the cohabitants that are sapiens? Will they become extinct, too?
The Scratching Post 