Rez wrote:
UsedToBeKnowItAll wrote:
Or people in power that could afford it would use it to increase their power and rule over the commoners like yourself.
This is the correct and only answer.
You could say the the same thing about the Renaissance, the printing press and the spread of ideas. Only the rich and powerful would be able to afford to print, buy, or read books.
You could say the same thing about Industrialization (and many did - they were called Luddites).
Yes it's possible that gene editing tech that will cost virtually nothing, and that is already being tested at home by amateur Joes known as 'bio-hackers', could result in the lucky few who already tend to possess the best genes for beauty, IQ at the top simply cementing their place at the top.
It's much, much more likely that as with the printing press, it will enable a distribution of 'gene wealth' just as the printing press enabled literacy and the spread of knowledge to the common people (and caused the collapse of Papal rule by dogma and the end of the medieval world).
Further, I'd rather be a commoner who is a transhumanist and in the know, than a rich person without a clue when this tech spreads rapidly and changes society almost overnight.