Or EDS. Or diabetes. Or spinal bifida. Or congentital blindness. So many, many things can go away. So much agony, so many lives saved, both that of the victims and their families. And the resources we spend to research "treatment" to be sold at ruinous profit. The miracle fairy has arrived, and they want to shoot it in the head, or at least make themselves a lucrative profession of judging, for us, what we can and cannot cure, because Jesus or whatever.
There ain't no discussion we can have. We either do it or we don't. "Discussion" is just a delaying tactic, as those who oppose GM will never let go of their delusions. Like abortion or birth control, those who believe it shouldn't happen will never back down, and will do anything up to and including shooting doctors in the head to stop it.

Ask people who try to download movies how effective American law can be. Doors are being kicked down all over the world - and after the new secretly negotiated treaty is slammed up our collective Terran ani, watching Dobie Gillis illegally will subject you prison time all over the planet. When Americans get Jesus about their notions, armored goons move in all over the world. Genetic modification will be no exception (except in cases of corporate profit, of course).

I once thought Bob Heinlein was a bit too cynical in "Friday", a world of the near future where designed humans - optimized for health, etc. - were considered subhuman ungodly creatures that were trained from birth to be subordinate to the point where Friday was trained to be a prostitute from birth. And once again, Grandfather knew his fellow Missourans well - and I must move my needle downwards again. A baby made in a back seat by two morons who can't find a condom is superior, "ethically" speaking, to a baby with maladapted genes removed.
I'm old enough to recall the moment where the "Genetic Ethics" profession was born. I believe it was when Dolly the sheep was born, the first mammalian clone that made it out of the chute alive. The "ethics" chair was created that week, and self-appointed experts at once popped up on TV to tell us what was right and what was wrong. The nature of journalists embraces the idea of the professional expert, so these carpetbaggers hopped up to take charge.
Most of the "ethicsists" are fundamental christian types or outright clergy, I'd guess from my Heinlein-trained cynical mind, as most media censors are. I do not take orders from them.

We perform a human genome modification every time we make a baby. The results are not spectacularly successful; we've an enormous number of genetic defects.

Time to kick the dice bag away, and let humans sort it out instead of god. Modify away. No more diabetes. No more lupus. No more EDS. Let it end. Human evolution is now in our own hands.

Some people won't identify as either man or woman, some are in transition, whatever. Whatever word one uses, a correction will follow."guys" was a gender neutral term when I was growing up, mostly because one-syllable tends to win the usage game.

Germany is halfway converted to solar. It works. QED

That and it doesn't exist. If it existed, and this goes for thorium reactors too, I'd be fine with it. Better than setting all the buried forests of the ancient world on fire.

"smaller amounts of mass with far more velocity to counter the energy of the incoming rock", I meant to say. Edit went wrong.

Hm. Wild idea, no way to do it I could see- but could you build an electromagnetic catchers mitt on the lunar surface to slow down and arrest the fall of a cargo module? Focused array to force an incoming cargo module (induced opposed magnetism) to a landing. In a deep crater? Or a dug hole? LOTS of giant coils and a huge solar power array to power the fields. Not for humans tho, as I assume the fields won't project far and so the deceleration would be damned rapid. No-rocket landing, sort of a reverse-mass-driver in a sort of cone with the base aimed at the incoming bullets of stuff. Good for cargos of liquified nitrogen and hydrogen, and solid-state cargo that doesn't mind a multi-hundred G stop.

You know - just occurred to me this might be the solution to the "catchers mitt" problem that always presents when you talk about mass-driver launching lunar soil into an escape trajectory bound for a orbital construction site such as a terraria factory- how do you stop the incoming rock without being knocked back?. Of course the mitt would have to fire mass itself to counter the kinetic energy acquired by being continually pelted by millions of pounds of rock, but that can be balanced by keeping station by firing smaller amounts of mass to counter than the incoming rock has, exchanging solar power for mass in a net gain.

The impossible will always be a bit harder than we thought. Building a self-contained world would be the hardest thing we've ever done - the first times we do it. Then it's just work.

I'm a-going with working on #2. #1 is never gonna get cheap. And someone needs to talk to Musk about electrical launches - he thinks you need to accelerate the ship to 18000 mph at the launchhead! #1 could be immeasurable improved if we eliminated stage 1 with an electrical launch up a mountainside to get the bulk of the work out of the way before ignition of the actual engines to take it all the way.

We can build terraria long, long before we will ever build an elevator.

No WAY were terraria were intended for LEO. Lagrange points are the stable places. LEO is not exactly a place to settle.

KSR is well aware of what you speak of.

Venus is hot because the atmosphere is damned near 100% carbon dioxide. It demonstrates the greenhouse effect taken to the ultimate. LEAD is liquid on the surface. Hotter than Mercury.

The "fiction" is the aspect of science fiction which is the made-up part. The "science" part is, for the most part, not. The rule is, you get one or two freebie made-up items, but the rest has to hang together as science. Or you are doing fantasy, which, while it must obey rules, has rules which are based on the need for entertainment or plot. IE you make it all up.
  KSR doesn't make up science, and SF isn't about making up science. Sci-fi(y), which is the Hollywood version of SF, makes up the science.