The Unlikely Consequences of Genetic Engineering

I was listening to a TED talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/gregory_stock_to_upgrade_is_human.html on the car ride home today. Let me summarize before I comment on it.

Biotechnolgy will drive our lives soon. Because of advances in genomics/biotechnology we can unlock our biology and have designer babies, live a long time and do lots of crazy stuff. There will be things we agree with and things we wont. But that does not matter because if people have the power to do something crazy with our genes, it will happen somewhere. (Of course, I'm crudely summarizing a really eloquent, interesting talk. Also, I'm only taking the portions which are relevant to what I'm going to comment on).

People will have tremendous power in the future to alter DNA or manipulate DNA to their own purposes. That's god-like power.

How will we handle it?

The way I see it, humans will have to learn to be tame with power before all of this starts happening. We'll have to depend on people to do the right thing at all times, especially while they hold onto this power. Legislation and enforcement can't solve everything. People have to act on their own in a way that does not negatively affect the community.

The way I see it, genomics isn't the only area in which this matters. We have increasing amounts of control over the courses of our own lives. On the internet you can do whatever you want and say whatever you want. We have the ability to influence others with our dollars, technology and ideas in a way never before possible in human history. Beyond that, in America at least, it seems as if political institutions and policymakers are trying to enable individuals with more and more responsibility. And, political institutions are having more and more difficulty containing the behavior of their respective citizenries. In short, weak individuals are becoming more powerful. Individuals are able to disrupt the community in a really, really powerful way sometimes.

It's clear that we have to tame power in our society--espeically as weaker people become stronger--if we don't many disruptive forces will start to...well, disrupt. Which is great if mroe people are empowered, and there's great benefit to societal disruption (civil rights movement, anti-apartheid, etc.).

But, if individuals are becoming more powerful and able to disrupt, those individuals have to act in a way that preserves the welfare of others, if we don't, we'll slowly (or quickly) destroy ourselves. The way I see it, if we (individually or collectively) have too much hubris, we're doomed. We have so much power, to help ourselves or hurt ourselves. If we don't use that power wisely or are too arrogant to think we're vulnerable to abusing power we're doomed.

But how?

I think it's possible to tame great power, because I see pockets of people who tame their own power...who do the right thing and do not act out of fear but out of virtue. So, I know it's possible. The problem with widespread adoption of humility and virtue is a problem of scale, I think. How do you get large numbers of people to voluntarily do the right thing. How do you get large numbers or people to trust one another and tame their own power?

I had a professor once that would call this ability--the ability to tame ones power and do the right thing--leadership. I would agree, I believe leadership is simple...do the right thing and get others to, too. The army calls it "Be, Know, Do". But I digress, my firm belief in virtue/character-based leadership is a topic for another day.

I dream of the day that leadership will no longer reference an individual, but a group of individuals or larger groups than that, like countries. As in, one might say, not that the United States has leaders or is a leader, but that the the United States is leadership. The sky is blue, the people are leadership...you know, like an adjective.

I know we can do this--tame power. And with what power we will discover in the future...during my lifetime even, we'll have to.

Forgive the poor use of language/grammar...this was a hustle post, I was afraid to lose my thought if I didn't speed on through.

Early September, Part II - Early Childhood Education

Lots of people advocate for education--access, k-12, higher ed., etc. I'm glad they do. I haven't really been bit by the Education reform bug...not more than any other left-leaning independent anyway.

But early childhood education, I'm sold that's the best solution we've got.

I don't really mean to talk about politics here, but just write an expression of thanks.

I'm so lucky to have the parents I did. They read to me, read with me, and had me read to them...all starting by the time I was three. They brought me up with two languages. They had me doing times-tables and math from a really early age. My dad started showing me pre-algebra a few years before it was introduced in school.

It got me started learning really early in life. They supplemented my schooling in ways that were invaluable.

That shouldn't be considered "lucky".

Early September, Part I - Fear the most

Earlier, I took a few moments to think about the topic of fear. You can find that discussion, here: http://ntambe.blogspot.com/2009/05/exploring-fear.html.

Here's an excerpt:
"...Loneliness is [what I fear], and death by extension. A world alone is one that I would never want to live in. I'm damn sure that fear isn't natural, I know exactly where it comes from.

But, even if I understand fear more clearly now, this wishy-washy idea of "alignment" isn't any easier. But luckily, we're human. I'm convinced that the human spirit is strong enough to do almost anything. In fact, when the human spirit triumphs, it makes me feel fearless. Even if only for a quickly passing moment."

I went to Chicago on Friday. I decided to stay the evening and fly back to Detroit on Saturday morning. Obviously, I needed a place to stay. I had three options: 1) Drop some money for a hotel room, 2) Stay out all night, 3)Find a friend to stay with. A friend from work, offered me a couch for the night in an e-mail earlier that week.

I declined. I went ahead and booked a hotel, even though she had offered. I didn't know why at the time.

I though to myself that I politely declined because I didn't want to inconvenience her. After all, I'd pretty much be staying on her couch for 3-5 hours and leaving extremely early the next morning. I thought, I was being considerate...rather, I convinced myself of it.

What I thought about Friday evening--ironically, I was walking to see Jersey Boys at the theater, alone, at the time--what that I had declined because I was scared. Even though she had offered, I was afraid she would angered by the request, refuse or think poorly of me if I had asked. In other words, I was avoiding making a request of her (a sort of confrontation, I suppose) and rejection. Why? Because rejection is the step-sister of loneliness.

Why do I bring this up? I don't know, maybe it's just for my own reflection. But also, I think it's terrific that these fears show symptoms. It's just hard to see them. And then admit them. Then do something about them. Really tough stuff.

So I guess it was nice that everyone had left town to go to Ann Arbor, my phone died--so I couldn't contact my colleagues after the show to meet up, and nobody else I had tried to make plans with had called me back. Otherwise, I would've never thought about this. But, it was pretty scary being by myself...I had felt pretty lame. As it turns out, being alone was exactly what I needed to understand why I get so anxious about loneliness.

Is that irony, coincidence or perfectly sensible? Sensible, I think.

PS - Jersey Boys, a pretty good show. Quite a pleasant surprise.

Innovation, Pressure and Leadership

I've been listening to a lot of material about innovation lately. There's one consensus thought: innovation takes discipline. It takes the management of inspiration and persistence, so they say. And, I agree. To be creative--to have good ideas which are valuable in people's lives--is useless if it happens randomly or only in sporadic surges of ideating. Innovation is valuable, if a problem-solver can produce an innovative by recalling a process, instead of just being dependent on unpredictable spurts of creativity. That process takes persistence.

I've also been living in a world where pressure rules. There's never enough time to complete a task in a manner that's comfortable. Everyone works in a hurry because it consumes less resources and prevents opportunities from extinguishing. Also, groups of people seem like they are hardly motivated without pressure.

The problem is, rushing doesn't produce innovation. I suppose it might--because competition might require innovation--but pressure seems unlikely to guarantee truly brilliant innovation because there's no opportunity for experimenting, exploration or risk-taking while under tight deadlines or immense pressure. I suppose innovation MIGHT happen, but in the random, sporadic way. Not the cultivated, systematic way. That cultivated innovation--through discipline--is the kind of innovation I'm after.

So, there are contrary forces here: the need to innovate and the pressures of organization(constraints of time, resources or anti-inspiring missions). So, in a way...maybe it's not typical to lean towards innovation. It's not rational to fly in the face of pressures and constraints. Maybe that's why it takes "leaders" to transform. Maybe that's why it takes the "crazies" to innovate.

I do have quite an admiration for the leadership that entrepreneurs can provide, they relentlessly do what is most difficult. And, those whose creativity lies in creative processes instead of creative talent...those are the people that I'd bet my marbles on.