The Genetic Investment Paradox
In 2006, Warren Buffet donated $31 billion to the Gates Foundation; the largest charitable gift in history. Yet a hypothetical $10 thousand invested in embryonic selection might yield greater social welfare returns than Buffett's billions. How? Through the compound interest of genetic advantages across generations. This isn't science fiction; it's the mathematics of compounding genetic capital, a force set to reshape humanity more profoundly than any market bull run, maybe less so than AI, possibly, idk.
Imagine two societies: Baseline continues natural reproduction with random genetic combinations. Selector implements modest embryonic selection; choosing among naturally created embryos for favourable traits. After just three generations, a 30% cognitive ability gap emerges between these populations. By generation five, the difference approaches that between modern humans and our evolutionary predecessors. The power isn't in the initial gain, but in its compounding, the 8th wonder of the world.
This is neither eugenics nor gene editing. It's statistical optimisation of existing genetic combinations; selecting embryos likely to develop higher intelligence, better health, and longer lifespans. The technology exists today, though imperfectly. The implications are widely not in the zeitgeist.
Darwin Meets Bernoulli
In financial markets, compound interest creates wealth disparities that economists refer to as the eight wonder of the world. $1000 invested at 7% for 70 years yields $113,989. The same principle applies to genetic capital.
Each round of embryonic selection offers modest gains - perhaps 5 IQ points per generation using current techniques. Consider these selection gains across generations:
- +5 IQ points
- +10.25 IQ points (selection on baseline)
- +15.76 IQ points
- +21.55 IQ points
- +27.63 IQ points
The insight is that gains compound because each generation selections from a new, higher baseline. Unlike financial systems where wealth vanishes during crashes, genetic advantages persist through recessions and wars. They're non-fungible, non-taxable assets passed seamlessly across generations.
Natural selection already employs this principle but operates across thousands of generations with no intentionality. Embryonic selection collapses evolutionary timelines from millennia to centuries.
The Chasm
Selection creates divergence between populations at exponential rates. Tiny initial advantages in genetic optimisation capacity (wealth, technology, cultural acceptance) amplify across generations. Nation A with a 2% genetic capital advantage over Nation B sees this gap widen to 10% by generation 3, 32% by generation 5.
This mirrors wealth concentration in capitalist economies; but operates on fundamental human capability, not just resources. The consequences dwarf economic inequality. When core human capacities diverge exponentially, we get subspeciation in all but name.
Consider historical parallels: The 1-2% genetic difference between humans and chimpanzees translates to vast capability gaps. Embryonic selection could theoretically create similar magnitude differences within nominal Homo sapiens within several generations.
Optimisation Dilemma
Parents face a prisoner's dilemma regarding embryonic selection. If nobody selects, society maintains genetic equality. If everyone selects optimally, average capabilities rise but relative disadvantages disappear. The unstable equilibrium: some select while others don't, creating unprecedented capability chasms.
This compounds across multiple sectors, the education systems designed for statistical distributions of intelligence become obsolete when distributions bifurcate. Labour markets face challenges when cognitive capability spectrums widen. Democratic governance strains when voter capability diverges exponentially. Military power shifts towards nations embracing genetic capital accumulation.
Like all prisoner's dilemmas, coordination proves difficult. Religious opposition, bioethical concerns, and regulatory boundaries create selection disparities between nations, cultures, and socioeconomic groups.
The most consequential aspect? Unlike purely social inequalities, genetic capital differences cannot be eliminated through redistribution. Once established across generations, they become as fundamental as species distinctions.
Computational Limits vs. Theoretical Potential
Current selection techniques remain relatively primitive; primarily PGS (polygenic selection) identifying embryos with higher probability of desired traits. We can current select for are disease resistance, modest cognitive advantages, height, and longevity traits.
Theoretical limits vastly exceed current capabilities. With complete genomic understanding, selection from 10 embryos could yield children at the 99.99th percentile of genetic potential for multiple traits simultaneously. This remains computationally challenging today, but selection power grows exponentially with the number of embryos screened, the accuracy of our models, and the number of traits simultaneously optimised.
Each technological breakthrough in computational genomics amplifies selection power, accelerating the compounding effect. While CRISPR gene editing garners headlines, embryonic selection quietly offers immediately accessible genetic optimisation with fewer technical risks.
Tragedy of the Selection Commons
Genetic advantages historically emerged through random mutations and selection; a commons no individual could deplete. Embryonic selection privatises this process, creating a classic commons problem.
When early adopters gain selection advantages, they improve both absolute capability and relative position. Each subsequent generation amplifies this disparity through enhanced cognition, longer lifespans, better health reducing selection costs, and higher education improving selection decisions.
The compounding feedback creates a selection vortex where those who begin selecting gain increasing advantages in selection capability. Unlike educational advantages that dissipate without continued investment, genetic capital persists indefinitely once established.
WEIRD societies (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic) face internal selection divides between progressive and conservative elements. Nations with centralised authority and pragmatic ethical frameworks (China) potentially implement selection more uniformly, creating national level genetic capital advantage.
Multivariate Selection Frontiers
Popular discourse fixates on intelligence, but comprehensive selection targets multiple traits simultaneously: psychological resilience, impulse control and delayed gratification capacity, immune function and disease resistance, creativity and divergent thinking, social cognition and empathy, and metabolic efficiency and obesity resistance.
The true revolution occurs at intersections. Combined selection for intelligence, emotional regulation, and physical health creates synergistic gains exceeding the sum of individual trait improvements.
Most significantly, selection can target what economists call 'time preference'; willing to delay gratification. Populations with lower time preference make better long-term investments, including greater investment in... genetic selection. Another compounding loop.
Malthusian Genius Traps and Escape Velocity
History demonstrates a curious pattern: societies reaching high capability concentrations often collapse, preventing continuous advancement. Ancient Athens, Renaissance Florence, and Vienna's scientific golden age flowered briefly before regression.
Embryonic selection potentially breaks this cycle by institutionalising genetic capital accumulation. When genetic advantages persist independently of social structures, civilisational collapse no longer resets genetic capability.
The pivotal question becomes: Can genetic capital accumulation reach "escape velocity"; the point where accumulated advantages enable solutions to existential risks? Selection could produce populations with sufficient intelligence to solve complex coordination problems, ethical frameworks naturally aligned to long-term thinking, and psychological resilience against civilisational stressors.
The alternative: selection creates capability divides that exacerbate existing tensions, accelerating rather than preventing collapse.
The Identity Paradox
Critics argue that selection threatens human identity and dignity. This perspective assumes static humanity is normative. Evolutionary history reveals continuous genetic change; modern humans differ from ancestors 50,000 years ago.
The deeper identity question: does accelerated change fundamentally differ from gradual evolution? Selection doesn't create novel genetic sequences; it optimizes existing combinations. Does agency in this process enhance or diminish human dignity?
Consider parallels with education. We universally accept intentional cognitive enhancement through teaching, despite creating capability divides between educated and uneducated populations. Is genetic selection fundamentally different, or merely education operating at the substrate level.
Equality of Outcomes... I Mean Equality of Origins
Political philosophers distinguish equally of outcomes from equality of opportunity. Selection introduces a third category: equality of origins. Current ethical frameworks presume random genetic distribution as the natural baseline. Selection challenges this assumption.
Three models emerge for managing genetic capital:
- Laissez-faire selection — market forces determine access, creating maximum divergence
- Universal selection floor — socialized basic selection with premium options privately available
- Complete selection equality — state mandated uniform selection levels
Each model creates distinctive social outcomes and capability distributions. The universal floor approach potentially combines baseline equality with innovation incentives; similar to public education systems with elite private options.
Importantly, selection doesn't require coercion. Voluntary adoption by even small population percentages initiates compounding dynamics. The market mechanism suffices to create significant divergence within 2-3 generations.
Paradoxically, welfare states might accelerate selection disparities by subsidising reproduction among non-selecting populations while selected populations focus resources on fewer, higher-investment children. Selection potentially exacerbates the demographic transition's effects.
The Convergence
The compounding power of selection gains meets a second exponential force: artificial intelligence. Selected populations with enhanced capabilities potentially develop increasingly sophisticated AI systems, creating a feedback loop between genetic and artificial intelligence.
This combined genetic technological acceleration potentially creates differentials far exceeding either factor alone. Selected populations might develop enhanced human-AI interfaces surpassing conventional cognitive augmentation.
The convergence timeline matters critically. If powerful AI emerges before significant selection occurs, genetic optimisation might become irrelevant. If selection precedes transformative AI, genetically enhanced populations potentially maintain advantages even in AI-saturated environments.
Asymmetric information about selection effectiveness creates market distortions. Early adopters gain advantages based on imperfect but real selection benefits, while mainstream adoption awaits definitive proof; which emerges only after initial advantages compound.
Rebuilding the Genomic Cathedral
How should we approach the genomic cathedral of human potential? Universities must establish interdisciplinary embryonic selection departments combining genomics, economics, ethics, and evolutionary game theory. Regulatory frameworks should distinguish selection from gene editing, acknowledging their distinct risk profiles. International coordination mechanisms could establish selection parameters maintaining interoperability between populations.
Most crucially, we need new ethical frameworks acknowledging selection's inevitability while managing its distributive consequences. The worst outcome: haphazard implementation creating maximum divergence with minimum societal preparation.
This requires uncomfortable honesty. Selection isn't inherently good or bad; it's potentially both, simultaneously. It accelerates human potential while potentially fragmenting humanity into capability castes.
The only certainty? The mathematics of compounding ensures that small differences today create vast divides tomorrow.