God's Not Dead, But We May Be Replacing Him (or: Gene-Editing and Extreme Self-Loathing)

What if you could change the unchangeable? This is something that’s been on my mind ever since I first heard about Crispr, the technology that allows for cutting-and-pasting of genes using the enzyme Cas9, three years ago. Since then, the technology has greatly improved and the implications are now being discussed to the point where it’s been a topic on both NOVA and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Now, preparations are being made for humankind to be put under the genetic knife. Recently, Japan released guidelines for the genetic modifications of human embryos. That said, the guidelines state that you can’t actually make a human with an edited embryo (although they aren't legally binding), but the message is clear: human life can be hacked. I’m reminded of the end of Tron: Legacy, where the hero escapes the video game world with a humanoid computer program. He takes her to see the sun rise, the one thing she’s always wanted. How sweet. No mention is made of the fact that a being comprised of lines of programming code just entered the realm of humanity, and the scientific and existential implications contained therein (and given the movie’s box office returns, we’ll probably never find out). How long until our DNA strands are treated like lines of C++? 
Discussions on this topic typically have the same warnings. Ecosystems are fragile and no one wants another Hitler. Okay, most people don’t want another Hitler. (God, I hate the world right now.) We're not at the age where "designer babies" are a thing, but imagine that we were. Two of the most caustic topics of discussion right now are identity and nationalism. There are people who've designed all of their online and real-life activity towards keeping their people/country "pure" and harassing those who they believe are of inferior genetics based on race/gender/country/etc. A breakthrough in human gene editing would upend concepts of race and nation. Plus, we live in an age of hypersensitivity when it comes to self-esteem. Snapchat dysmorphia is apparently a thing. People are getting plastic surgery to look more like their Snapchat filters. What are the odds that people will want to design their kids genetically in a way that will get them the least amount of abuse online? What would they look like? What would be the cost of that? How much would it cost to do so? Will we have an elitist group of specifically assembled rich kids and a genetic proletariat that has to live with standard conception? Also, what if our designer children hate themselves, and therefore they blame us for how they turned out? Again, we aren’t at the age where GMO humans are feasible, and there will definitely be a lot more discussion on this topic going forward. Plus, it seems that our bodies aren't too enthusiastic to being edited, anyway. A study revealed an immunity to Crispr in 96% of humans. If the day comes, however, when humankind can be edited, we should think twice before giving ourselves the controls to ourselves.