[-empyre-] Between the Blinds of Heredity: Transgenic Humans as an Ecological and Non-Human Animal Study

[Adam Zaretsky]

I wonder about the terra-soil eco and animal studies non-human kin
theoretical time travel thinking in terms of the process of sculpting
innate anatomies in a GMO transgenic fashion. I look mostly at the ethics
and aesthetics of gene splicing humans, non-humans and chimera collages of
lifeworld deep time gene spillage. I don’t buy into the genohype: social
Darwinism, sociobiology and gene fetishism. I do think that genes do eek
out statistical propensities for certain ways and means as well as
uncertain expression patterns for emotions, relations and inurednesses. But
I still err on the side of training as first response for behavioral
repertoire. Chemical or gene therapy can wait a little while. I know we
have elbows and eyelids without being asked… but I have yet to see wisdom
defined. No one has found a market of flesh pathway for ‘controlling,
weighing or selling’ micrograms of wisdom. That’s perhaps a designer drug
for the future. WE haven't even figured out the complete metabolic pathways
of e. Coli.

On the other hand, I do watch advances in the Human Germline Engineering
arena and intuit the next few generations of human.non-human mixes. There
have been a lot of advances lately!

“...the experiments are a milestone on what may prove to be an inevitable
journey toward the birth of the first genetically modified humans.

… The process is termed “germline engineering
<https://www.technologyreview.com/s/535661/engineering-the-perfect-baby/>”
because any genetically modified child would then pass the changes on to
subsequent generations via their own germ cells—the egg and sperm.

Some critics say germline experiments could open the floodgates to a brave
new world of “designer babies” engineered with genetic enhancements—a
prospect bitterly opposed by a range of religious organizations, civil
society groups, and ‘''secretive, self serving and manipulative''’ biotech
companies.“  -
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608350/first-human-embryos-edited-in-us/
(triple
quote myne)

An entranced way of interpolation of overidentification ethics is to talk
about the unacceptable face of human programmed anatomical aesthetics. What
is off target, anti-enhancement? Can germline transgene infection arts
segway from the military, sports, corporate and hyperHealth + longevity
obsessed SuperHumanists aethetic? Where are the antiAesthetic,
antiperfectionist, anti-immortalist, transHumanists?

ALT tendencies look a bit like this:

“How do we decide what is worth engineering for?

In particular, Babies can be designed along a wide variety of Aesthetic
gene expressions. Considering the range of gene expressions possible in a
collage of multiple genomic pallettes, economic efficiency is neither a
simple concept nor our only deciding force. Beyond public acceptance of the
technology, there is also public trend diversity, novelty markets and niche
power to be brokered in this global competition for more unusual kindred.
Stockpiling difference, in and of itself, is a form of security. We need to
explore the entire range of the programmed body. Human cloning = somatic
cell nuclear transfer = oocyte modification all of which are built as a
bridge to widen the variety pool to include Gene Therapeutic (GT) knock-ins
or cassette inserts of signature transgene infections into human ovum,
sperm, zygote or human embryonic stem cells (hESC). If we are found
FACS [7] sorting germline altered human reproductive hESC tissue in
culture, then this Cell Therapy (CT) is an ART [8] of forming an unlimited
edition (as opposed to a one-off). Can we not consider the protocols valid
to be used for esoteric, abject and non-utilitarian breeding projects?
Isn’t that what we are already involved in? Practitioners or Historians of
Futurism, Surrealism, Abstraction, Minimalism and other Contemporary art
movements may all have their own special Oogonial clone advisory role to
play. Beyond health and beauty lies a glut of diverse industrial beings,
born with positive anomalous security for the sake of the widest range of
feelings that reaction can attain. Consider what a gifted retro-garde
cubist could bring to the table.”

   -From http://serpentinemagazine.com/2015/01/oocyte-aesthetic/

But often enough, I think about the effects of GMO humans on the
environment and question why the FDA controls Germline GMO human
trafficking and not the EPA or the APA or our many rubber stamp AICUCs or
even the CDC. Are CRSPR babies good for the environment? Or are they drug
delivery agents? Are we allowed to Eat them? CRSPR babies are actually most
easily defined as sexually transmitted diseases of difference that also
carry congenital repercussions. Like Zika, human germline engineered post
humans are spreading difference undefined as health or harm. Most important
is the concepts of animal enrichment for the psychosocial worlding of the
novelty replicants. For transgenic ethologies we have to ask: Who is
produced? Are they more-than-human? Who is not an animal in social
captivity? Are we all Devo?, SubHuman?, Ignoble? How are our produced
beings doing living with your anatomical, metabolic or purely aesthetic
choices (as their sticky body pod lifestyle)? What does their behavior tell
us? What does our behavior tell us about us? So, to look at gene splatter
punk babies through food, ecology, animal (non-human) studies and body art
helps demystify the biological imperative of our obviously fetishistic
project: OCD techno breeding of human.nonhuman lifeworld plotzed genome
collage.
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