When you fill out a survey and it asks you if you classify yourself as:
a) Hispanic orgin
b) Asian origin
c) African descent/Black
d) Causcasian/European/White
e) Native Indian
f) Other
How do you categorize yourself?
Whatever you select, please read this and put it on your fridge…
Did you know skin color is not your race? It’s a DNA setting your inherit
What color do you what to be?
There are two types of melanin in humans — eumelanin and pheomelanin. In general, the more eumelanin in your skin, then the darker your skin will be. People whose bodies make more pheomelanin than eumelanin tend to have lighter skin with freckles.
I’m one of the authors of the book Super You: How technology is Revolutionizing What it Means to Be Human (click here for a free chapter or just grab 16 bucks and buy the freaking book: click here.)
..and I say:
Up with lots of eumelanin and down with pheomelanin!
Wait, no – Down with lots of eumelanin and up with lots of pheomelanin!
Umm, no that’s not it.
How about, up with people who have skin?
Or how about this:
Don’t you wish there was a genetic signature for love, tolerance and willingness to eat delicious food with us?
Don’t you wish the world couldn’t see your eumelanin and pheomelanin levels? Because, it really doesn’t matter. Right?
And here is the funny part. Soon, you will be able to engineer this weird DNA aberration by using a pill or an injection or a nano-patch.
That’s a fact.
There is a baby doctor in LA who has the ability to adjust the pigment in your unborn baby’s skin, as well as eye color, hair straightness and gender.
How do I know? Because we interview him for our book Super You. You can buy services from him to engineer your baby’s gender for $18K. That said, you can’t buy the other traits (yet) because of a lot of controversy and drama. (We talk about that in Chapter 6 of Super You.)
But, very, very soon you will be able to write a check for those things.
Soon any cosmetic surgeon will offer these Super You feature adjustments to grownups or in babies you want to conceive.
Although you might have to travel somewhere outside the U.S. to get it because it may be mired in social policy for a while in the United States. Religious and political will tend to trail science by several years and they cause delays while they fret about it and check the scriptures or case law. (We talk about the technology barriers setup by politics and religion too in Super You.)
Skin color choice will soon be yours to make and change
Those of you that want to be more “white” will be able to pay for that. Those that want to be more “black” can choose that too.
Eric Sprague, aka Lizardman, wanted to be green. Photo courtesy: Eric Sprague
Those that want to be green? Yes that will be possible too. (In Chapter 3 of our book you’ll meet Eric Sprague aka Lizardman). If you want to be zebra-striped, likely that will be possible within a decade.
Why? Because cosmetic doctors — it’s not surgery so we won’t call them surgeons any more — have a new tool called CRISPR that lets them edit your genes. Or your baby’s genes.
Very, very soon, we’ll all have the option to easily adjust a eumelanin / pheomelanin “slider” based on our mood that day. This will be possible soon. really soon. Like 5 years. And worse case 10. And worst, worst case 20. But really not because of the science, but because of the resistant public policy as I mentioned above.
Bottom line: Let’s stop hating each other, and hunting each other, because of DNA that determines our eumelanin vs. pheomelanin levels.
And while we’re at it, let’s start editing people’s mental health. That is the real untreated problem today.
