So I read Brave New World and I liked some ideas in it...
Shanadeus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
... namely the government being responsible for the creation of new individuals.
I must point out that I strongly disagree with the way their society handled this particular technology but I saw that the very same methods they used could be a force of good and individualization rather than conformity and bleakness.
Now, I'm not a fan of unrestricted procreation and do not in any way consider it to be a right but am aware of the fact that the majority of the population disagree with me so I'll outline my idea with this in mind.
First of all, let's take at the significant technology that the BNW government, in my opinion, misused:
Artificial wombs and associated technology
Enabling us to create new individuals from donated sperm and eggs without having to retort to using inefficient human wombs. This would save society a great deal of time in money as humans in possession of wombs will no longer have to get impregnated in order for society to maintain our numbers and propel our species forward. For an example, these womb carriers wouldn't cease to work for a number of months due to the side-effects of using their organic womb to create a child.
Secondly, we would avoid various dangers to the fetuses such as pregnant drinking and physical traumas by storing and growing fetuses in secure containers that are designed to maintain ideal fetal growth.
Now these are pros that we could get without affecting individuals procreation rights as the government facility could be based on voluntarism from eager couples who don't feel like carrying a child.
But the real interesting benefits would come from restricting people's procreation and creating children in line with neutral and non-biased population policies. First of all we could create a reasonable compromise that allow for both anonymous egg&sperm donations as well as requested egg&sperm pairings from couples - the end result will be eggs that will be treated equally anyway.
We could for an example set a limit for the number of children an individual can have so that everyone ends up with equal genetic success regardless of ones desire to create one or more children in addition to keep better track of our population rather than leaving it up to more random population control measures.
We could also monitor heritable genetic disorders and deformities in fetuses and destroy them in order to remove these traits from our general genepool in addition to reducing future societal cost - without having to take individuals' desire to keep these fetuses in consideration and without infringing on their bodily autonomy by forcing them to destroy these fetuses.
Now who would raise the children these fetuses would turn into?
We could of course go with the option I believe the majority would be for - that those who jointly request the creation of a fetus made out of their egg and sperm will be given caretakership of the resulting child. And that couples who are infertile can request to take a child that's been created from anonymous genetic material donations.
But what I found interesting in the Brave New World was the concept of children being reared by professionals rather than amateurs - which could be taken to it's extreme or incorporated into the above scenario as a compromise.
For the latter, the Institute of Individual Creation (or IIC) would only create enough anonymous-sample derived individuals to cover the child raising spots at government child rearing facilities (controlled by the IID - the Institute of Individual Development) and infertile couples wanting a child while everyone else who wants a child is given one through the IIC-system - making sure that no child is created with any genetic disorders that negatively affect the entire genepool in unpredictable manners and making sure that no one person gets more children than anyone else (yes, anonymous donation would have to be restricted here so that you wouldn't be able to win the genetic race by just donated genetic materials without any limits).
The IID would then raise their allotted children in a manner that promotes equality, democracy, individualism and intelligence - with more benefits resulting from this that I'll touch upon down below.
If we were to take this whole concept to the edge we would make it so that all children would be raised by the IID then I believe we could gain a whole lot more than merely raising a small part of our population through it. For one, we would raise all children in accordance with scientific principles so that we ensure the most optimal physiological and psychological development of the next generation. New individuals would also be raised with a support system much more wider than the current family models and benefit from looking at themselves in only two different planes - as an individual and as a valuable member of society with no intermittent plane such as family that might detract from their existence as an individual or from their existence as a citizen (with the individual viewpoint being on equal grounds with the citizen viewpoint in order for the system to be stable enough to continue without individualism-propelled society upheaval and collapse)
At the same time we would ensure that no one individual would be given an unfair advantage in life by random happenstance (such as being born to rich parents or having ones mother give you a health problem by drinking while pregnant) and the result would be goodbye to people with generations of accumulated wealth and advantages and hello to that individuals that would, principally, have no one but themselves to owe to their success or failure in life after their child- and teenhood.
We could also ensure that no individuals would be indoctrinated with anti-social beliefs such as homophobia, racism (if everyone grows up in a mixed enclave as fellow citizens as close to each other as a modern family you would exhibit less of a "US versus THEM"-mentality), sexism, religious fanaticism and much more by setting a developmental plan for our growing humanlings that is decided upon as objective as possible merits and backed up by empirically derived data that is untainted by old and antiquated beliefs in how to raise children and what to imprint upon them - all of which would be determined through an open and transparent process to ensure that no hijinks are going on.
I'll come back with a pro/con-list and possible problems on all levels of implementation but what do you guys think?
I must point out that I strongly disagree with the way their society handled this particular technology but I saw that the very same methods they used could be a force of good and individualization rather than conformity and bleakness.
Now, I'm not a fan of unrestricted procreation and do not in any way consider it to be a right but am aware of the fact that the majority of the population disagree with me so I'll outline my idea with this in mind.
First of all, let's take at the significant technology that the BNW government, in my opinion, misused:
Artificial wombs and associated technology
Enabling us to create new individuals from donated sperm and eggs without having to retort to using inefficient human wombs. This would save society a great deal of time in money as humans in possession of wombs will no longer have to get impregnated in order for society to maintain our numbers and propel our species forward. For an example, these womb carriers wouldn't cease to work for a number of months due to the side-effects of using their organic womb to create a child.
Secondly, we would avoid various dangers to the fetuses such as pregnant drinking and physical traumas by storing and growing fetuses in secure containers that are designed to maintain ideal fetal growth.
Now these are pros that we could get without affecting individuals procreation rights as the government facility could be based on voluntarism from eager couples who don't feel like carrying a child.
But the real interesting benefits would come from restricting people's procreation and creating children in line with neutral and non-biased population policies. First of all we could create a reasonable compromise that allow for both anonymous egg&sperm donations as well as requested egg&sperm pairings from couples - the end result will be eggs that will be treated equally anyway.
We could for an example set a limit for the number of children an individual can have so that everyone ends up with equal genetic success regardless of ones desire to create one or more children in addition to keep better track of our population rather than leaving it up to more random population control measures.
We could also monitor heritable genetic disorders and deformities in fetuses and destroy them in order to remove these traits from our general genepool in addition to reducing future societal cost - without having to take individuals' desire to keep these fetuses in consideration and without infringing on their bodily autonomy by forcing them to destroy these fetuses.
Now who would raise the children these fetuses would turn into?
We could of course go with the option I believe the majority would be for - that those who jointly request the creation of a fetus made out of their egg and sperm will be given caretakership of the resulting child. And that couples who are infertile can request to take a child that's been created from anonymous genetic material donations.
But what I found interesting in the Brave New World was the concept of children being reared by professionals rather than amateurs - which could be taken to it's extreme or incorporated into the above scenario as a compromise.
For the latter, the Institute of Individual Creation (or IIC) would only create enough anonymous-sample derived individuals to cover the child raising spots at government child rearing facilities (controlled by the IID - the Institute of Individual Development) and infertile couples wanting a child while everyone else who wants a child is given one through the IIC-system - making sure that no child is created with any genetic disorders that negatively affect the entire genepool in unpredictable manners and making sure that no one person gets more children than anyone else (yes, anonymous donation would have to be restricted here so that you wouldn't be able to win the genetic race by just donated genetic materials without any limits).
The IID would then raise their allotted children in a manner that promotes equality, democracy, individualism and intelligence - with more benefits resulting from this that I'll touch upon down below.
If we were to take this whole concept to the edge we would make it so that all children would be raised by the IID then I believe we could gain a whole lot more than merely raising a small part of our population through it. For one, we would raise all children in accordance with scientific principles so that we ensure the most optimal physiological and psychological development of the next generation. New individuals would also be raised with a support system much more wider than the current family models and benefit from looking at themselves in only two different planes - as an individual and as a valuable member of society with no intermittent plane such as family that might detract from their existence as an individual or from their existence as a citizen (with the individual viewpoint being on equal grounds with the citizen viewpoint in order for the system to be stable enough to continue without individualism-propelled society upheaval and collapse)
At the same time we would ensure that no one individual would be given an unfair advantage in life by random happenstance (such as being born to rich parents or having ones mother give you a health problem by drinking while pregnant) and the result would be goodbye to people with generations of accumulated wealth and advantages and hello to that individuals that would, principally, have no one but themselves to owe to their success or failure in life after their child- and teenhood.
We could also ensure that no individuals would be indoctrinated with anti-social beliefs such as homophobia, racism (if everyone grows up in a mixed enclave as fellow citizens as close to each other as a modern family you would exhibit less of a "US versus THEM"-mentality), sexism, religious fanaticism and much more by setting a developmental plan for our growing humanlings that is decided upon as objective as possible merits and backed up by empirically derived data that is untainted by old and antiquated beliefs in how to raise children and what to imprint upon them - all of which would be determined through an open and transparent process to ensure that no hijinks are going on.
I'll come back with a pro/con-list and possible problems on all levels of implementation but what do you guys think?
Shanadeus on
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It's a pity that that sort of radical change would be almost impossible to test, meaning that it is therefore almost impossible to be certain of the consequences. That's not even considering the backlash towards actually implementing it, since people want to be able to have children and raise them however they like.
There's also the issue of memetic diversity. If children are raised by parents, the ideas of the parents will tend to spread, while if child raising is centralized, minority opinions will be marginalized, which would probably be unhealthy for society as a whole. Of course, that current healthiness does come at the cost of screwing over the children who inherit the bad memes, which is the reason that the system would be implemented in the first place.
Basically, it boils down to two effects, quality of life for children and control of inherited memes. Quality of life would be a challenge, but one that could be overcome if the system is very well designed. Memetics is the thorny point, since memetic diversity would need to be somehow enforced without causing some individuals to suffer once they leave the system.
But that might of course result in the parents of non-government raised children further raise their children to be the above in some form of conscious or subconscious reactionary protest against the "government meddling with us".
I think this basic assumption here is incorrect.
I suspect that no artificial womb we could build would be more efficient than what we already have. Certainly from a straight up energy and materials use perspective, and possibly even an economic one.
First of all, I question whether being pregnant actually prevents you from working for "months".
Second, an artificial womb is going to be bloody expensive. Both to develop, and to run.
Why do you believe this?
Past performance.
Planting some seeds in the ground and waiting is actually pretty damn efficient. Attempting to do the same thing in artificial environment is a hell of a lot less. For one thing the cost of development is pretty steep. Then the pure laws of conservation kick in because you have to produce power (which either means a consumable fuel which is inherently problematic or renewable, which are not very efficient all things considered) and then convert that power to light which then gets photosynthesized. All these steps involve energy loss. In other words, using a solar cell to power a lamp to grow plants is always going to be less efficient than just using that sunlight to grow the plants.
An artificial womb would be a similar situation. You need to get a bunch of matter and energy, do some complicated, difficult shit to get it to interface with a biological system, all to produce something that can be more easily produced by just a different instance of the same biological system.
Evolution has done a pretty good job of making our bodies efficient systems for converting certain types of matter into energy and back again, with a specific focus for being able to replicate said consumption engines at as low a cost as possible.
I think he's talking about after the birth more than before, but I question why its such a terrible thing to take a few months off work that we need to outsource this particular task to robots. Why not make robots to do the work instead :rotate:
Anyway, danged if I'm not going to take the opportunity to be the thread conservative and declare that I want the government nowhere closer to reproduction than making sure that my fine fellow citizens don't fuck me over for inconveniently deciding to play my part in perpetuating the species.
Hell, we can't even synthesise most of our medications. For molecules larger than about 20 atoms, we're wild harvesting or farming that shit. Materials science is barely starting to create things that are stronger than natural analogs, but the energy inputs required to synthesise those materials are insanely large by comparison.
There's a big difference in efficiency between eating a sandwich to run your body and using an engine to run a car. Biiiig difference.
I don't think anybody would bother to make an inorganic womb. The much more likely and logical way to do it would be for it to be biological, just not attached to a person.
I agree that an actual fully synthetic womb would be hyperdumb, but given the direction biotech is going I don't think anybody would bother.
At some point you have to make the transition. Is the heart also biological? The brain? All the other organs needed to keep the womb functioning?
The womb is probably doing all kinds of adjustments and control mechanisms. Are we going to be duplicating whatever biological systems run this? Is it going to be computer controlled?
What about maintaining body temperature?
What sort of failure rate is acceptable?
From what to what?
Obviously you wouldn't need a biological heart. You seem to have this idea that organs cannot exist without the entire body there to keep them company
I'm pretty sure that even with genetic engineering, you'd basically have to grow most of a person in order to get the support structures right, and that's the point at which my "oh hey, people are trying to create the ideal woman, one without that annoying brain and personality" alarm goes off...
Eh. You turned out alright, didn't you? I think most of us did.
You don't get out much, do you? :P
Rather, I think you watch too much TV. Most people are fine.
Thread's making me sad now.
Dude, I work retail--most people are morons.
Because they can't.
The womb is not some stand-alone module that you can rip out and plop on a desk.
It needs blood flowing through it. That blood has to be pumped by something. It probably needs some amount of various hormones and such. Those need to be supplied in the correct amounts. It needs to be heated. It needs a source of nutrients. It's plugged in to the nervous system to some extent. And so forth and so on.
b) the womb, of all the organs in the body, is one of the most stand-alone. It's even immunologically privileged, so assuming you had a good blood supply with the right IgGs you could have more than one womb on the same circuit.
c) Most of these are things that you can find out and replicate efficiently in other ways. Listing heating as a problem? Seriously?
It's intended to be abhorrent
The fact that you're finding the factory farming of people to be pretty okay means you didn't really understand the book
Eh, not really. Evolution doesn't produce the best possible result, just the most acceptable one. There are undoubtedly numerous ways that gestation could be improved.
Not to mention, human energy is derived from carbohydrates, proteins and lipids. An artificial womb could presumably utilize multiple other forms of energy and not be limited to these organic compounds.
And the fact that it is a low cost system is kind of the point. It is not a high-quality production system; It's built for cheap and fast replication. Under "normal conditions" this works great, but just by looking at a population graph showing the past thousand years one will pretty easily realize that low cost is no longer the primary goal worth pursuing.
Or he could understand and disagree? The alternative provided in the book to the Dystopia is The Savage character. Who, frankly is a massive misogynist and the book seems to endorse this to some extent. Even Bernard accuses Lenina of being 'meat' seemingly because he knows the 'programming' that goes into making a person hypnopaedically.
The Savage was raised by a mother and proves that he has essentially his own set of hypnopaedic knowledge. He quotes Shakespeare constantly because that is the book his mother gave him (whilst at the same time only apparently vaguely aware of the relevance of what he is saying) instead of actually having an opinion in the same way the Alphas et al say 'a gramme is better than a damn'.
Given that, I don't see why the battery farming is neccesarily worse.
IMO the book is not as cut and dried as you imagine. I agree that the Brave New World is a dystopia, but I think it is complex enough that there are many good/well intentioned ideas. Most dystopias do ultimately come down to a battle of content conformity vs true knowledge/individuality. I usually come down in favour of Culture/The Individual but I have to say, I think that the society in BNW is actually not as bad as some of the alternative - it may be that I don't get it too, but more than likely I thin I just disagree with some elements. Plus, as stated above, I don't think that BNW is depicted as truly abhorrent in the black and white sense as there are good qualities in the society.
Vat grown babies that remove the "ineffeciency" of human wombs? Are you serious?
Yeah okay, you have basically just summed up the fundementals of eugenics. What may start of as a good idea would increasingly become a bad one over time. How to define disorders or deformities? You might start off removing disease and future problems in relation to health, but increasingly it becomes a case of editing or modelling your perfect vat grown human, entirely specced to whatever the creator desires. Suddenly we're playing God.
Who moderates over this then to stop such events occurring? The Government, they'd breed a race of super soldiers, doctors, lawyers and highly intelligent individuals, boosting the economic output of their country. The public? They'd build their child to whatever desires they want, increasingly editing and modifying their choices. The scientists? They'd argue for eugenics because to them it would embolden the human race and remove impurities.
This was what Brave New World fundementally argued; a future in which the human race is split in two between those of perfectly designed characteristics, and those who are not. It may have started of as a good idea, likened to your argument that it would create solutions and make the human race better, but increasingly this would collapse in idealism and master race thinking.
So you would brainwash the child to believe solely on the aspects of equality, democracy, individualism and intelligence, when these aspects aren't without their flaws? Equality can lead to bias, democracy is broken, individualism leads to community breakdown, intelligence leads to depression and forward thinking in sciences but not neccessarily in creativity. By promoting these aspects you leave no room for alternative views.
I believe a philosopher (possibly Neitsczhe (SP) argued a similar hypothesis of "give me a child and i'll give you the man," except fundementally you can't grow a child in a box.
Nice, except without that third aspect of family the individual would have no compass to want to have children, and the human race would fundementally end up extinct. Unless of course your intention is to entirely remove all purpose control of creating children from individuals completely, simply making the process a sterile act of handing in a sperm and an egg. You create a race of people entirely built on the foundations of scientific test tubes. You'd be might as well stripping away emotional attachments and feelings while you're at it. Suddenly we've moved from Brave New World to Equilibrium.
Again though, as Huxley pointed out, you will effectively split the population in two between those who can afford to go down this merry route of absolute vat-grown adults, and those who can't. The astronomical amount of money involved in order to perform these tasks would require funding, and it would quickly become a business instead of a medical attachment. You will end up with a world in which you have those who are fundmentally pure and those who aren't, leading to a greater divide in social engineering than ever before.
So you'd quantitively decide upon what policies within development to use? What if the data comes back saying "Everyone with black hair has a 15% probability of having genetic defect A-221B. In 50 years A-221B will infect 45% of the population. In 100 years 70% of the population. Expected calculations estimate possible extinction within 250 years if this deformity is not handled. Subjects with black hair should be exterminated to remove A-221B and continue solid results." Are you okay with that?
I think you really need to go back and read the book again.
I think it might be interesting to introduce some form of market competition in terms of base genetic codes (or whatever, I know very little about biology or programming), similar to Android and iOS. Different companies could compete to deliver a more optimized genetic structure.
I think it's a little odd to imagine that people would settle for a single model for perfection.
The world of BNW is stagnant. No new changes will be implemented because it will risk the happiness/stability of its people.
Microsoft genetic code.
There's a good chance your human will BSOD.
Cancer.
I wouldn't mind being an Android device. I would enjoy improved integration with the cloud services.
Hey, science!
It would have to be up to the public and government to realize where the limit, if there should be one, should be set. But frankly, what's wrong with editing or modelling your perfect vat grown human?
This is where I found the way they utilized their power in BNW to be abhorrent. That individuals would be created for set tasks and basically have their choice trivialized in favour for their destiny engineered.
If focus was not on how this one particular fetus should be changed to fit a role in society but rather how it might fit as many different roles as possible (on a genetic basis) and then leave their destiny in their own hands instead of guiding them to one through hypnopaedia.
We would create flexible superhumans who would through the education and rearing be given the means to pursue what they so wish instead of being hindered by genes and other factors they never chose.
Those were just an example of what to imprint upon their minds and I imagine this process would be left up to professionals who know more when it comes to human development than either you and me.
I imagine that promoting diversity, among other things, would be integral in order to avoid cultural/societal stagnation and regression but experts might say otherwise.
And B.F. Skinner once (supposedly) said:
"Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything."
If we've implemented an IID system then it goes without saying that the system itself should work to enforce itself. If we find that the benefits of raising a child as just an individual and a citizen (albeit, with a stronger bond to your citizens) to outweigh the benefits of raising a child as an individual, family member and a citizen then we should of course strive to work against the creation of families and one way of doing that is removing the desire from individuals to have children they can call their own and keep (which would basically constitute a family).
Anyway, I suspect that the desire to spread ones genes and continue ones genetic lineage will be strong enough for most people to at least donate genetic material to the nearby IIC centre.
Ideally, it would be a lot cheaper to raise a child through an artificial womb as you'd have the benefits and cost-saving measures of it being done through a mass-production process that's highly automatized and would push down the costs of each individual fetus developing and being born. In addition to this you would no longer have to take any time off work towards the end of your pregnancy and afterwards and if we were to make it so that children were reared by the IID then people would no longer have to take their maternity leave and not lose any productivity by reproducing.
So in pretty much all scenarios; where we allow people to chose how to create their child, where we allow people to choose how to raise a child - would avoid the creation of super-humans and subhumans.
If the science is sound and there is a great deal of data backing it up I'd be okay with it. If all pregnancies went through the system then the only extermination would have to occur at fetal level in order to remove this genetic defect.
That is the option I'm kinda leaning towards at the moment.
Market it as a safer alternative to current forms of pregnancies that benefits both the individual and society as a whole.
I would be strongly against this not being government run as I do not think child creation and rearing should be motivated by profits so I guess it'd mostly be a problem in societies where people aren't used to the government intimately taking part in citizen's health and matters of life - that is, countries without a public health care.
I could see how we could get the majority of the population onboard with the artificial wombs if the incentives and advantages were great enough but it feels like it might cause some problems by making it something of a choice rather than the necessary standard (and it goes without saying that the alternative might pose even greater problems - how do you stop people from getting pregnant outside of the system?)
Even so we'd have to go through a voluntary system at first to get the public used to the idea of not having a child within oneself.
No. There is only one correct opinion to be had about this work of art.
BNW was a horrible nightmarish world with no crime, no suffering, no unemployment, where everyone was always happy. There is no possible way anyone could look at that and find anything at all okay about it.
I guess I didn't understand Brave New World, either. I know it was supposed to be a dystopia, but it didn't seem like one to me.
Talk of 'market competition' with designer genetics ticks all kind of weird boxes in my head. Namely, the conscious implementation of making human culture and human biology almost one and the same thing. Enclave societies. While there could conceivabley be arguments to be made about taking something as importantly intangible as human culture and society and locking it into the physical matrix of human life, I can help but be left with questions. In particular, I question the obvious stratification that will result. For all our apparent failings and inconsistent capabilities, we're, generally speaking, pretty cross-compatible as a species. A man from Brazil can meet a woman from Mozambique, and, 99% of the time, we can all safely assume they can have a healthy kid together.
Development of designer genes would inevitably lead to the sort of Enclave groups I mention. Sub-cultures stratifying apart. Eventually we could end up with human beings that are no longer genetically compatible. Horrible, bad shit. And let's not forget, as a species, we forget shit all the time. Who knows what important elements of our genetic makeup we could eliminate three generations ago that we don't even know we need now?
The womb assembly thing makes arguments that we can just, you know, grow more of us, so, it's cool. We're not gonna die off or anything. The machines make it okay. Locking ourselves as a species into these machines. Highpowered, future machinery that, well, we could only begin designing and coming up with via our pre-designer, subhuman, natural genetic history. As a species we tend to take anything we've accomplish for granted, in a day to day sense of it all. It won't be hard to lose all that. Too easily this would end up fragmenting ourselves into incompatible, dwindling groups, not unlike the Eloins and Morlocks in HG Well's Time Machine.
It's unlikely we'd allow ourselves to fuck it up that far, but, easily, we could create some kind of weird, global genetic Dark Age before we manage the collective U-turn, or end up with bizarre genetic reservation camps where minority survivors of this kind of designer work can have their special needs met before eventually all dying off together.
Horrible.
The public and government can't be trusted to decide upon where the limit would be set. The government would want to advance a hive of intelligent superhumans who would boost the economic and social output of the country three fold, while the public would let personal prejudice decide. It sounds good on paper - indeed the principles of eugenics were good - but in practice it leads to terrifying futures in which the human race is split into two. You breed master races to be your slaves, until the slaves become the master and you the slave.
Indeed. Experts might decide that culturally those of white skin are the better race, and those of any other should be subjucated. Who are we to argue if they can scientifically prove it? Remember that experts have their own personal bias as well. You could means test them like buggery to have "solid values" before letting them get anywhere near these learning centers, but you're still likely to end up with kinks in the system.
But how exactly are you continuing your lineage when the genetic code you supply may be so massively different that it is no longer your own? Genetic lineage is a child born with whatever the default attributes of the mother and father are, good or bad. If you modify and edit these characteristics you eventually strip apart whatever exists of a characteristic trait between the donator and the end result. People would be increasingly put off using this method if the end result is a child born who is perfect but entirely different from the characteristics of the mother and father.
Idealism rarely results in realism however. :P
Yeah, no thanks.
Sorry for the quote trees by the way, just arguing in certain sections!
Cue entire new subspecies of humans genetically engineered to survive the cold, low gravity, low oxygen and low sunlight of other planets. Humans with extra-sensitive eyes, wings (or at least skin flaps), tons of fat and extra-fast metabolisms. Obviously genetically incompatible with modern humans, and only "human" in the loosest sense of the world (some books do deal with the problems of inter-species racism that arise from this situation).
The point is, human engineering may not be needed only to remove undesirable traits and genetic diseases, but may be the required future of human space settlement.
We currently have genetic diversity in our populations. Some people, for instance, look better than others. They are, research shows, generally treated better. Higher salaries, lower sentences when they committ crimes etcetc. If this happends more or less randomly, while we might not like it, there appears to be a lack of skies falling down. So why would it fall down if we did it on purpose? If John wasn't good looking and tall because of accident of birth, but because an engineer made it thus?
For that matter, what about plastic surgery? Should we subject that to restrictions because being more attractive makes you more competitive? If not, then why would we do it for genetic engineering of your own offspring? If I want my child to have a better selection of potential spouses by increasing her good looks, why is this worse than what we already have by design - plastic surgery - or by accident of birth?