Allan Milne Lees
1 min readMay 16, 2021

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I'm skeptical of the idea that we should involve "as many people as possible" in debates about which most people are entirely ignorant of even the most basic facts. Ordinary people, after all, have given us Trump, Brexit, Modi, Bolsonaro, Erdogan and far too many other "successes" to mention. Furthermore, ordinary people mostly repeat the soundbites and memes they've been fed; they have little in the way of thoughts formulated by means of personal cogitation. As for the worry about social disparities, every single technology ever invented has begun as something mostly exclusive to the very wealthy and ended as a commonplace purchase. There is no reason whatsoever that the same thing would not be true of germ line editing. Just remember: 15 years ago only the rich could afford to have a bit of their genome read; today most middle-class people can easily afford a far more detailed genetic analysis. In another 10 years it will be a standard part of clinical practice. Today's playthings for the rich invariably become tomorrow's commonplaces.

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Allan Milne Lees
Allan Milne Lees

Written by Allan Milne Lees

Anyone who enjoys my articles here on Medium may be interested in my books Why Democracy Failed and The Praying Ape, both available from Amazon.

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