 So three years ago we organized the Nexus conference entitled The Triumph of Science and we also had people from the world of transhumanism and I was fascinated by the fact that based on a pretty pessimistic view on human nature they think that due to the technology we are having we should improve human beings with this technology because the world is too dangerous there are indeed nuclear weapons and to make sure that the tragedies will not happen we should use new technology to improve human nature what do you think about that? Very skeptical first of all I'm skeptical that we need to re-engineer humans to achieve peace. Canada and the United States have not fought a war since the war of 1812 no one had to re-engineer Canadians or Americans the Netherlands and Germany have not fought a war in more than 70 years we did not have to genetically engineer the Dutch there are many changes to our institutions and our norms and our ideas that can reduce or eliminate the the risks of nuclear war without what I consider a rather quixotic attempt to change the course of human evolution I'm also on purely scientific grounds highly skeptical of the prophecy that we will re-engineer human nature I think that these predictions came in the during the brief burst of enthusiasm for finding the gene for intelligence the gene for altruism and so on we now know that there is no such gene there are hundreds or thousands of genes each of which increments or decrements psychological traits by a tiny amount to genetically engineer someone you would it's not a matter of sticking in one gene you'd have to replace thousands of genes we have no idea how to do that we're not going to know how to do it anytime soon and we also don't know how many of those genes might lead to an improvement in one aspect at a risk in another aspect there may be a gene that increases your IQ by two-thirds of a point but also increases your chances of getting brain cancer or bipolar disorder by a third of a point and there it's going to be a very long time if ever until we know how to balance those tiny benefits and tiny risks multiplied by hundreds or thousands of genes so I'm purely scientific grounds I doubt that it will happen and then on historical grounds I don't think we need it what will be your choice what is it that you think is essential to make sure that in whatever form quote unquote we can save the world we have to first of all have an empirical mindset you were right there are many hypotheses we have to look to see which ones have made the world better which ones have made the world worse I think the track record of messiahs is not particularly good I think there's a excellent reason to believe that there's no such thing as a messiah and there never will be on the other hand there are some things that that do work international institutions like the United Nations has decreased the probability of war has it eliminated war that's made it less likely we have reason to believe that trade and cosmopolitanism the movement of people and ideas has been a positive force the reason to think that democracy has more advantages than disadvantages and I think the what we have to do is not believe that we can deduce what will make the world better from first principles and then impose them and in full confidence that we know how the world is going to react because we don't we're not that smart but we really have to look at our past track record track record look at the data what makes things let's make people better off what makes people worse off now the conference it will be the weekend after the American elections will you still say the same things if mr. Trump will be the next president of America I think it's extremely unlikely and all the indicators are that he will not be the next president if he is president I think that that would be a definitely negative development and there's there's no guarantee that in all positive trends such as the trend toward tolerance cosmopolitanism democracy knowledge guided decision-making will continue there's no the the there no iron laws that propel the world in a particular direction there are contingent events that are unpredictable so bad things could happen how bad could it be much depends that is if Trump were elected much depends on how much a single man can control the entire apparatus of American government fortunately American government has some checks and balances built in there are there's the Supreme Court there's the the legislatures there's local governments and state governments and and just the willingness or reluctance of the American people to go along with particular policies so as long as Trump doesn't become the furor with or like now with absolute control and I think that's that's unlikely then the worst-case scenarios probably will not happen but then Trump being elected as itself a worst-case scenario that I think will probably not happen okay thank you very much Steve Pink and we are very much looking forward to meet you again in Amsterdam