But when it comes to traits that determine social status, people benefit from keeping lower status people - lower status. For instance, I wouldn't want anyone shorter than me - that I don't care about - becoming any taller; that puts me at a disadvantage.
That would be true if shorter people were a large subcommunity, or if short stature was correlated with other status-relevant traits. But when only the shortest 1-2% people are treated, and their new height isn't above average, most people's status shouldn't be negatively affected enough to notice.
The people whose status would be affected are those who are significantly short, but not short enough to qualify for treatment (funded by society). This might depend on the exact shape of the height distribution curve...
his might depend on the exact shape of the height distribution curve...
Right. It could be that increasing the height of the bottom 1-2% by a notable difference will get them to be as tall as, say, 5% of men i.e. negatively affecting 5% of men, in exchange for helping 1-2%. It's not clear whether the trade-off will be worth it.
There was some talk here about height taxes, but there's a better solution - redefine shortness as a treatable condition and use HGH to cure it. They even got FDA on board with that, at least for 1.2% shortest people.
Unsatisfactory sexual performance became a treatable condition with Viagra. Depression and hyperactivity became treatable conditions with SSRIs. Being ugly is already almost considered a treatable condition, at least one can get that impression from cosmetic surgery ads. Being overweight is universally considered an illness, even though we don't have too many effective treatment options (surgery is unpopular, and effective drugs like fen-phen and ECA are not officially prescribed any more). If we ever figure out how to increase IQ, you can be certain low IQ will be considered a treatable condition too. Almost everything undesirable gets redefined as an illness as soon as an effective way to fix it is developed.
I welcome these changes. Yes, redefining large parts of normal human variability as illness is a lie, but if that's what society needs to work around its taboos against human enhancement, so be it.