Homo Sapiens 2.0

It's been observed that the Germans would make a much better job at running Greece than the Greeks do. Some reactionaries have even been heard to observe that the British Empire made a better fist at governing its colonies (particularly in Africa) than the post-independence Governments.

At a technical level, these thoughts are certainly correct. They leave one factor out, however. The efficient Northern Europeans ran these countries in their own interests, not those of the indigenous populations. That's why the Greeks prefer their domestic leaders, incompetent and/or corrupt though they may be.

Genetics-aware commentators have been speculating for a while that we're on the verge of reprogramming our children with optimised alleles for health, athleticism, beauty, personality and intelligence. There's no technical reason why this shouldn't be reliable, safe, effective and possible in the next few decades. Sounds like the salvation of the human race - we can bootstrap ourselves to the next screen. Here's an update on work-in-progress.

But what of the parents and the broader community - do they think their own interests will align with those of their super-children? Hands up how many of you want to vote for your own extinction.

Every pre homo sapiens sub-species experienced this reality. The new guys are in the area and they're smarter and more competent than we are. We're gonna be toast. In the greater scheme of things, should we be happy about that or should we wipe out these upstarts while we can (if we can)?*

FWIW, my vote is in favour of letting the new guys have our space. But then, I always wanted humanity to get to the stars.

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* They say all Internet discussions eventually bring in the Nazis - this was precisely the argument National Socialists used against the Jews.