Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age

by Bill McKibben

Book Overview

Passionate, succinct, chilling, closely argued, sometimes hilarious, touchingly well-intentioned, and essential. --Margaret Atwood, The New York Review of Books Nearly fifteen years ago, in The End of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805075194
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.7" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Yes

One point that has not been made yet which I feel is pertinent is the question of disease. Namely, what purpose has disease served in directing the adaptation of humans? This needs to be considered by pathologists and geneticists alike. Genetically engineering resistance to known diseases will not protect future humans from all diseases. On the contrary, such a poorly thought-out removal of adaptive processes such as natural immunity is likely to make engineered humans of the future utterly helpless when beset by a new disease. If space colonization is a serious hope for the future, we'd best not engineer ourselves for greater comfort. It's a real shame that multi-generational eugenics programs have been abandoned in favor of a get-it-now attitude similar to that which produced fast food. "Fast Evolution."

A vital warning which may not be taken

This book opens in a very interesting way. McKibben gives his account of a marathon he participated in. Primarily he writes about his own struggle when he reached the point where his training and his adrenaline push were no longer enough. He writes about the moments in which he had to be totally concentrated in going on, a test of his own human strength, will, courage. He then goes on to imagine what it might be like in the future should it be able to program human beings in such a way as to make them free of suffering from fatigue, and exhaustion. He suggests what certain kinds of technological improvements might do is to not simply provide the individual racer or marathoner with incredible speeds in today's terms but in fact cancel out the whole activity of racing. In a sense this question the question of how technological improvements may deprive the human situation and even human nature and character of its meaning is at the heart of this book. McKibben's main claim is that we must be able to know when we have gone far enough, and not go beyond it to a Pyrrhic victory . McKibben in this sense connects with bio- ethicists one of the most prominent of whom is Leon Kass in suggesting that in order to remain human we may have to limit our own hunger for overcoming our own limitations. We may have to stop ourselves from developing in areas where we have traditionally dreamed of developing. One problem however which may be insurmountable is the competitive character of human beings. Also , human greed may play a part in pushing humans to seek their own advantage and profit at the expense of not simply their own humanity, but humanity as a whole. My own sense is that McKibben has a very wise and important, perhaps even vital message for humanity- but that the likelihood of humanity taking it is truly questionable.

Not so brave new world

I can't argue the science presented in "Enough" and I do not think that is the point of the book. This is not a scientific treatise or a technical analysis of the subjects raised in the book. Instead, it is a moral tale, not unlike a sermon, and it does not pretend to be something other than that. I found it to be extremely engaging, frightening too. Why not? Not everyone will agree with the points made by Bill McKibben, which is fine. But he deserves much credit for presenting cogently a looming possibility for humanity and discussing it honestly and with foresight. I was fascinated. Is is "luddite" (if anyone really knows the meaning of that word) to question what the outcome might be of letting the genie out of the bottle? Is it alarmist to suggest that we might need to reconsider the consequences of progress? For most Americans, it seems almost sacriligious to question the infallibility of technology, to say nothing of its ability to constantly improve our lives. But is that necessarily so? Can anyone really say that unleashing the power of the Atom was unequivocally good? Do we really have better lives with nuclear weapons blossoming all over the planet like morning glories? For me, the answer is no, and I applaud the attempt by Bill McKibbon to state his case. Is he absolutely correct, maybe not. Only time will tell. But this is an important book because it poses questions and challenges our thinking on the subject of genertic engineering, nanotechnology and the kind of future we are heading toward. The intensity of the reviews is a testament to that. There are only a few voices out there discussing the possibilities awaiting us down the road. Enough is well worth reading, it may shake you up, and it will provoke some much needed discussion on these subjects.

Thought-Provoking

So where to join the fray? I'll just say what I think, I guess. First of all, McKibben has written a highly informative and gripping book. He provides a good overview of some of the developments actually occurring in biotech, robotics, and nanotech right now (well, within the last few years), and then proceeds to outline his viewpoint of opposition to the radically transformative effects of these technologies. This is all well and good. Though I'm not sure how I come down on these issues, I greatly appreciated his viewpoint and thought that he had some compelling arguments against the use, or at least reckless use, of these technologies. First of all, I do not think, as some other reviewers have stated, that his argument is Luddite or in any way antitechnological. He wholeheartedly agrees with, or at least supports, the efforts of biotech researchers, doctors, and roboticists to advance and apply their technologies in ways that do not radically alter the existential landscape. Where he gets nervous is when people start talking about modifying who we are on an extremely basic level. Try as one might, the discoveries of Galileo, Columbus, Einstein, and Bohr cannot be compared to germline engineering and nanotech. These were revelations of the external landscape, knowledge revolutions. The territory McKibben is trying to protect is the internal landscape. Living to be 200 (or 500+), selecting from a catalog of gene upgrades for an unborn child, or becoming host to a swarm of nanomachines that act as immune system kevlar sounds pretty cool on paper, but his contention is that these technologies will ultimately dehumanize by making one of our last givens--our selves--into yet another commodity. Once committed to these technologies, we'll be locked in, forced to get the next upgrade every time there's a new advance (every few years?), forced to keep feeding the hungry corporate behemoths to keep ourselves tuned up. If not, we risk becoming obsolete and disconnected from the world we have allowed to come into being, not just economically or politically, as is the case with the disenfranchised now, but existentially, at our root level of being. If we don't get our kids genetic upgrades, they or their descendents will become second-, third-, or fourth-class human beings, forever relegated to the trashbin of history. And the poor may not even get the choice to procure gene upgrades or nanotech defenders, with the rich giving themselves a carte blanche to write their good fortune into the DNA of their descendants so that the advantages of "good blood" become literal. Decide for yourselves whether this argument and his others are convincing, or whether the technologies he discusses are dangerous for some other reason. Nanotech and genefixing may make us so prosperous that everyone, all over the world, will become a golden god and begin living a life of ease. Perhaps history is not an accurate precedent when dealing with something so tran

Something we all need to think about

Bill McKibben's latest book, "Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age," raises some fundamental questions about who we are, what we are, and how we may be affected by the biotechnologies which we already possess and those which are just over the horizon. The author takes us on an expedition into the world of genetic research, nanotechnology and robotics.This is a passionate book and a disturbing book and one that presents what we in the "argumentation trade" might call a "persuasive" argument, that is, a presentation of facts which are used, not to support a conclusion that may be true or false, but used to support a conclusion promoting a particular policy or course of action."Enough" is also a revealing book, a hard and detailed look at our rapid acceleration into technologies which may have permanent and adverse effects on the future of human beings; indeed, these technologies have the potential to affect what it means to be human at all. Because he perceives this to be a threatening situation, McKibben discusses technologies such as germline engineering and therapeutic cloning, warning that they represent a slippery slope that may make more dangerous and harmful technologies possible and even acceptable."[I]f we aggressively pursue any or all of several new technologies now before us," the author says, "we may alter our relationship not with the rest of nature but with ourselves. First human genetic engineering and then advanced forms of robotics and nanotechnology will call into question, often quite explicitly, our understanding of what it means to be a human being."McKibben acquaints us with microscopic nanobots cruising our bloodstreams, attacking pathogens within our bodies and building new cells. And with children born so genetically enhanced that they will never be able to believe that they reached success as musicians or artists or athletes or whatever because there was something unique in them and a hunger to reach the pinnacle of their ability through their own choice and desire.The author tackles what it means to be human, pointing out how these new technologies threaten our very identity as human beings. "What if we have been programmed," he asks, "or at least must suspect each time we choose a path that we have been nudged in that direction by our engineered cells? Who then 'are we'?"One of the more interesting arguments that McKibben makes, in my opinion, has to do with the matter of "choice," an issue with which libertarians are always concerned. Libertarian-minded thinkers tend to be among the strongest advocates of modern technologies and tend to believe that the free market will police itself in regard to any dangers which may result from their use.More often than not, libertarians accuse those who oppose or may merely question the effects of new technologies of being Luddites, a name attributed to that infamous group of early nineteenth century workers who protested against the introduction of new labor-saving technologi