"J. R. Molloy" <jr@shasta.com> writes:
> Right, so parents who add enhancement genes to their children might want
> to add an enhancement gene that enables the children to see the folly of
> suing the parents for a paltry settlement instead of using their
> enhancements intelligently.
While it might be hard to achieve genetically (overdeveloped familial
bonding systems and enhanced conflict aversiveness?) it is certainly a
emotional and memetic factor. Just look at how much people put up with
their parents (and vice versa!) today, even when there would be ample
reason to go away or even sue them. Clearly, people would not sue
their parents to the same extent as they would sue non-related people.
As I see it, we want to set up a system that supports the germline
engineering of traits that people later find useful but minimises the
engineering of traits experienced as confining without having to rely
on somebody setting global rules (which will not fit all people and
may impose bad values). The insurance-litigation system might be a
first approximation to this, but as this shows the idea needs some
development in order to work. I guess that if the main "regulating"
feature would be the pre-conception genetic insurance parents took
against future litigation from their offspring rather than the
litigation itself, then the bias against suing parents would become
less relevant and the differentiation between different changes could
still be retained.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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