I'm a molecular biologist and know a couple of things about CRISPR. I'm also a philosopher, and know a couple of things about ethics. In college, I minored in bioethics.<p>"Germ line" editing and production of designer babies as well as genetic re-tooling of already living people is going to happen with 100% probability. Right now there's already embryonic screening for certain (mostly pathogenic) traits, but this will be supplanted by writing and editing of desired traits.<p>There are not going to be any long term barriers whatsoever; the future of mankind is one of directed synthetic genetics. There will be roadblocks from the regressive factions, of course, but they'll ultimately fail. The millenials will be the ones to start to integrate this technology from the laboratory into normal human existence. Many members of generations that come after millenials will likely be heavily genetically modified, which brings us to an interesting place: the people who are currently being born right now are some of the last humans with fully "organic" genomes. This also means that our future as a species is radically more uncharted at this juncture than it has been since start of the industrial revolution.<p>Opening the door to synthetic genetics is going to also create new gulfs between the peoples of the world, as the norms that different societies have regarding genome editing will be different. Think Indians behave weird relative to Westerners? Well, you haven't even met the Indian whose parents decided that his genome would be engineered to be the most effective medical doctor. Not only is this guy foreign, he's literally made for a different purpose than you or I. It's extremely likely that his biological intelligence and focus will surpass unaugmented people, and that will breed jealousy and hatred. Among certain populations of people, genetic augmentation will be taboo, so there will be a new undercurrent of "maybe he's augmented" when a newcomer seems to perform strongly. Weird to think about these small details, but they're coming. As I briefly mentioned before, it'll be possible to engineer people for a certain purpose. Even right now, the knowledge of the genetics of intelligence is advanced enough to give this a very good shot. There's always room for unintended consequuences, but we'll wait and see.<p>As usual, the technology itself is neither good nor evil, but the usages of it will serve both ends and likely remake future human generations moving forward. The next thing that comes to mind is price: affording gene screening and editing is out of bounds for most people right now, so it'll only be the rich, for a time. Eventually the technology will be cheap and ubiquitous, with most middle class people deciding whether or not to genetically modify themselves and their prospective children broken mostly along ethnic religious/political lines. My immediate expectation is that the major powers (US, Russia, China, and EU) will allow for wild "abuses" such as allowing or subsidizing the intentional genetic extinction of certain undesirable traits or malignancies. Some of the worst abuses will probably occur when a government edits the genomes of certain minorities to prevent them from reproducing. It's extremely unlikely that any race of people or any negative trait will go completely extinct, though.<p>Exciting time ahead, to be sure. I really hope that there are people working on viral vectors to use with this technology so that currently living people can have their genomes edited too.