We Could Breed for: Longevity, Robust Good Health, Prosperity Intelligence, or Affability — but we don’t.

Heinlein describes how it might be if we breed for Longevity. My own books describe how to breed for good health. The whole point of MENSA the organization is to breed for intelligence. Nobody has ever tried to breed for affability to my knowledge.

The rules for husbandry breeding are fairly plain. It’s selecting this one to mate with that one to get that even better one.

We do it with horses and dogs.

So we get fast horses, and sniff-talented dogs.

Breeding for good health takes some genome analysis, and then not mating to make children that are likely to have genetic defects (including many forms of bad health).

Heinlein’s idea is easy but will never happen. My idea is done in a primitive way by genetic counselors today for about 0.00032% of the mating couples. If My idea was implemented, the cost and inconvenience of health/mating would go way way down. But nobody cares. So nothing is done. You cannot sell a product that people ***should*** want, but don’t.

A smart country could decide to incentivize health based mating. Maybe Switzerland. Maybe Germany. Maybe China, or Japan. Or Sweden, or Netherlands.

I imagine that by 2862 this will actually be done, if Sapiens still exists as a species.

For now, we just proceed as impulsive romantics.