This is from the future I always dreamed about, amazing
Jesus freaks will always complain about playing god when any type of genetic modification is used.
The lab did specify that there’s a looooong road between here and putting this in the clinic, but it’s a good to see.
God that was such a bad intro tune. Adding the acoustic guitar didn’t help. Loved the show until they went full “Timecop”.
Never go full Timecop.
The intro sequence completely slapped though. A Wright Model A taking off, Glamorous Glennis rolling away, OV-101 Enterprise being pushed out of the hangar, the Spirit of St. Louis taxiing out, Saturn V’s launching, LM Eagle’s gear check, Actual footage of Sojourner rover rolling up to sample a Martian rock making this the first sci-fi show to feature footage actually filmed on another planet, Bruce McCandless’ untethered spacewalk from Discovery, the International Space Station taking shape…it’s a shame an intro that fucks that hard was wasted on Bakula’s Enterprise.
“We’ve built a new kind of apparatus and we are going to god damn mother fucking learn something even if it kills us in a new and exotic way.”
Absolutely. Fantastic opening sequence.
I absolutely hated it when I first watched, but it grew on me so much that by the end of the series it was by far my most favourite intro. None of the others come anywhere close.
The most recent ones are an absolute snooze fest only good for skipping
You’re right and yet now it’s a beloved classic
IT’S BEEN A LAWWNNGG ROAAWWWDDDDD GERRIN FROM DERRRR TOOO EEEEEARRRR
#FaithOfTheHeart
I genuinely wonder where the line is between curing defects and eugenics. It seems razor thin how it can swing easiy into dark territory.
Isn’t eugenics more about choosing who can reproduce for the best outcome? Curing after the facts doesn’t seem to fit that.
I think what is talking about is like everyone now forced to have blue eyes with gene editing so is it considered a type of soft genocide or something.
it considered a type of soft genocide
Not saying this is what you’re saying, but it’s attitudes like this that make me see red. We gotta stop letting our society become so atomized that we’ve replaced tribalism with Turbo Tribalism.
Not clear to me what you are trying to say.
Groups who are so desperate to maintain a group identity that they think something like a child getting cochlear implants or other actual remedies to handicaps is equivalent to “genocide” against their group. (that’s a thing.)
Everyone is susceptible to this syndrome to some degree, but you see it the most when you see people suggest the possibility of positive change.
Ah thanks for the clarification.
I remember this was literally the question posed to us by an ethics professor 20 years ago. Now it’s a reality.
A person with Down’s can live a happy fulfilling life, but most parents would never choose to have a child with Down’s if it could be born ‘normal’ instead. So we’re essentially removing them from the gene pool and human race.
It’s eugenics for sure. I’m not sure if it’s unethical though. It’s pretty complex.
we’re essentially removing them from the gene pool
I don’t think Downs works like that.
It’s already being removed, since people choose abortion over downs and since people with Downs don’t have children (normally).
It is not hereditary. It’s an error or mutation that can occur for anyone. The chances are higher the older the parents are.
There’s hereditary factors but it’s because the genes in charge of replication are flawed.
The one thing you can guarantee of the human race though is we will do it before we really put the thought in to “if” we should do it.
I have ADHD and have 2 boys on the spectrum. Despite the challenges with my younger and higher needs son I don’t know if given the opportunity to play God if I would. As you said it’s an extremely complex question I don’t know if anyone is truly equipped to answer and I’d argue we definitely aren’t mature enough to start playing God.
Here be dragons.
Personally, I’d much rather have never been born than be as neurodivergent as I am. We all exist without our consent, and I think preventing disabilities and neurodivergence in our children is no more unethical than having children in the first place. I’d never make the decision for people who already exist, I know some people consider it a part of who they are and I wouldn’t want to change that. However, with hypothetical offspring, they aren’t anybody yet. You can’t take away part of a identity that doesn’t exist.
What scares me is the idea that having neurodivergent children could be outlawed. I think neurodivergence does bring a lot of value to humanity as a whole, and while I don’t think there’s anything egreiously unethical about an individual preventing it in their child, the idea that a government could have that much power over how we have children is absolutely fucking terrifying.
This is something I’ve thought a lot about. I hope you appreciate my rambling or at least don’t find me inconvenient to ignore
I do appreciate it and stresses why it’s such a nuanced topic and why I feel we (collective) are not mature enough to make the decision about if we should be playing God.
My 12 year old who is high needs is also the happiest and gentlest boy despite the challenges and when asked he feels he is not different and more importantly, he feels normal.
He also has T1D. I’d much rather we focus CRISPR on solving the problems we currently have than erasing the “inconvenience” of a neurotypical having a kid with autism, ADD or Autism.
My understanding is that women with down syndrome only have a 30-50% chance of fertility, and men are generally infertile. Additionally there are laws in place to prevent those with mental disabilities from being taken advantage of sexually, which lessens the chance of children even more. It’s a spontaneous mutation, so they wouldn’t be removed from the gene pool.
If 99℅ of pregnancies are screened and the gene’s edited then, yeah, you’re effectively eliminating people with Down’s from our world.
Unless society collapses and the Quirk returns naturally.
Realistically, gene editing will never be affordable for the vast majority of the world’s population. But today, abortion is chosen up to 93% of the time instead. If the alternative is a live, healthy birth, I can’t see any ethical issues.
Stopping fetuses from developing Down’s Syndrome in my opinion isn’t unethical because it will genuinely improved their quality of life. They will live longer lives, have fewer health problems, etc. The slippery slope however was pretty well covered in the film Gattica in which people not only start requesting designer children but the world becomes a dystopian utopia where the genetically perfected are unfairly favored as the ruling class while the genetically unmodified become relegated to the worker/slave class.
Reminds me of Cyprus with Thalassemia,
they were mostly against termination, but when they introduced screenings, and optional termination. the disease mysteriously disappeared. even though publicly they were against it
(it’s a story I read about it a long time ago, so take it with a grain of sand)
Well, it looks like your memory is somewhat correct.
i personally call it “soft-eugenics”.
not too give it moral traits, it just is
This isn’t eugenics or close to it, it’s fixing actual problems before someone is born, not choosing who has rights to breed. If they announced a therapy to guarantee a child will grow up immune to corporate propaganda or be able to use their brain in a rational, well-planned and thoughtful way, and have exceptional language skills, we should voluntarily hand the world over to them. Because what’s happening right now is the opposite of that.
Right now capitalism is imposing eugenics on us. The system and the cost of life has created a very real system deciding who can have families. If tools emerged that could guarantee the kids we DO have aren’t subject to the same weaknesses and limitations, we need to capitalize on every advantage we can.
I agree. Eugenics is about harming the rights of the would-be parents. It means telling them, “You have traits we consider undesirable, so we will forcibly prevent you from having any child whatsoever.”
To me, that’s different from parents choosing to avoid having a child with certain traits. Or not having children at all.
If parents decide to cure a disorder in their future child, or decide to abort a pregnancy, nobody is stopping those parents from trying again. The parents themselves have not been deemed undesirable and unworthy to pass on their genes.
There will be no line for anyone who can afford it. Morality will not be in question. It’s basic human nature. To believe anything else is crazy
You’re definitely right how this without proper regulation could get out of hand with unethical individuals trying to edit genes. I’d say from my non-geneticist perspective the line would be “would editing this gene improve the individual’s quality of life or improve their life expectancy”. Operationalizing"quality of life" is obviously crucial here and can’t be defined socially but medically such as “no debilitating pain”.
I do wonder how things like this will impact existing communities of individuals with disabilities. I’d expect it would probably increase discrimination as it will increase the perception of people with disabilities as being “curable” which isn’t always possible or even desirable.
Yeah this is scary. Down syndrome is definitely in the gray area too where it can be viewed negatively but plenty of people have it and lead fulfilling lives. Wipe cystic fibrosis out of a fetus and all but the most staunch biological purists would agree it was a good thing. Make your fetus white, blonde, and blue eyed and it’s obviously eugenics. I don’t know how I feel about this.
Completely apart from the ethics, I think this technology is really cool though.
They live fulfilling lives at the detriment of others who have to live less fulfilling lives, maybe they don’t see it that way, but its added responsibility
Actual Nazi rhetoric btw
this is killing no one, its the same person tho
https://lithub.com/how-americas-concepts-of-disability-and-family-were-created-by-fascism/
Don’t think too much about how close you were to calling them “useless eaters,” you might learn something about yourself you don’t like.
There are a lot of reports and interviews with ppl who have down syndrome that are not happy at all with their situation. Ie. Unable to have a driving licence, go to university, huge disadvantage on the dating market… the list goes on. I’m not saying they can’t have fulfilling moments but we also shouldn’t kid ourselves and look at down syndrome with rosy eyes. If it could be cured everyone would do it instantly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability
Notice how everything you listed is a result of society’s treatment of them and not necessarily their learning disability itself?
Cognitive impairment isn’t a social construct.
Doesn’t stop you.
I’m not looking at it with “rosy eyes”, I’m just explaining that to me it’s not nearly as cut and dry as something like cystic fibrosis.
Phenotype vs biological normative.
Deaf people will decry “fixing” a person hearing impaired in the womb. Yet, it’s a correction to biological normative.
Adjusting a gender to a different one in the womb would not be.
Adjusting physical traits for looks wouldn’t be.
Adjusting a physical trait like spinal deformity would be.
Adjusting for general height would not be.
If there is something diagnosable in the ICD-10 codes we have, and it’s preventable in a population, it would not be eugenetics. Remove gene editing as the tool, but just say “magic” a cure. Cures apply to diseases, not traits.
You don’t cure being black. You CAN cure sickle cell.
I think the line is pretty clear.
You simply use existing diagnostic criteria of deviation from biological normative function.
The diagnostic criteria and the culture that determines that criteria are both subject to change. lots of things that people consider perfectly normal now would be classified as a disease or disorder in the past.
Who defines the diagnostic criteria?
Gattaca is the semi-dystopian vision of our future if we just walk blindly down this path without legislating it properly in advance.
For those who haven’t seen the movie: Rich people start paying for perfect “designer babies”. A person’s genetic information becomes their whole identity; businesses only hire employees with the most genetic predisposition towards being good at the job, while regular people conceived “the old-fashioned way” get McJobs. Even wearing glasses is treated like a crippling disability that immediately and visibly marks someone as “inferior”.
It is extremely important that we pass laws to ensure that genetic engineering doesn’t create a new caste system.
I’m fine with it at this point.
I think a fair line is removing debilitating genetic conditions, but not for cosmetic uses.
If the person grows old enough that they have dysphoria for some reason then cosmetic surgeries are pretty routine these days.
they should poll people with down syndrome. not carers, not family, no people who work with them.
if they consider they idea obscene, them or should be considered obscene, of they consider it a must, then it’s ok.
While this is fabulous news I do worry that there could be similar done for other genetic conditions that are far more contentious as to whether they’re a disability not.
Neurodivergence is the one that springs to mind right away. The majority of people on the autism spectrum are at level 1. While it has negatives there are positives into thinking and seeing the world differently.
How many of those would have been ‘curered’ in the womb by scared parents who’ve just been told that their child will be born autistic? Scared parents who’s fear will mean when hearing that they think of someone at the far end of level 3.
Then what about for ADHD and dyslexia.
What about other physical conditions like dwarfism etc.
Pretty sure Autism is a lot more complex genetically and we don’t even know just how complex.
Very true. I’m not saying it’s something that would be soon. These are discussions that should be now, to help determine morally where we as societies want to go with the new technology.
Personally I see this rift in the trans community rather often (although not as much right now anymore, there isn’t much room for controversial arguments when being threatened from ‘outside’). On one hand the absolute majority will tell you that they “wished to be born in the right body”. On the other hand many dislike or even reject science into how being trans happens (like this study) out of the very reasonable fear that it will be used to, again, pathologize our existence or outright eradicate us. I’ve heard similar hard questions and controversial discussions from other communities over the years as well. They usually somewhat reach academic circles at best but are never really discussed in public.
In the end it boils down to what the ulterior motive behind the science or technology is; care for- or eradication of humans (or their natural expression). And of course where we out the line between the definition of diversity and illness, something society has a really bad track record for.
So…Remember the X-Men series of movies? I forget which of the films it was, I stopped giving a shit about superhero movies a decade before it was cool, but one of them involved a “mutant cure.” Most of Professor X’s mutants saw it as an existential threat, but Rogue–whose ‘powers’ utterly sucked–saw it as something she wanted to do.
Ultimately I think the key here is individual consent. Yes and No need to be equally valid answers otherwise it gets pretty fucked up.
Some folks make a pretty good living for themselves looking at the world slightly differently than everyone else, other folks would like to do something with their life other than drool. Surely we the civilization that can split the atom and splice the genome can help both of these people live their best lives? Otherwise what the fuck are we even doing here?
other folks would like to do something with their life other than drool
Not trying to be an ass, but how would you know that? How could you get consent from someone in that state?
Okay I suppose force vegetables to be vegetables. I’m honestly to burned out to give the first two half-flaccid thrusts of a reluctant pity fuck about basically anyone.
I also meant more like, even if they “come back,” would they even be able to integrate? Can they (re)learn language and motor skills? Sorry to bother you.
I’m not like the other girls, I stopped caring about superhero movies long before others
No seriously, why did any of you continue to give a shit about Marvel after, like, 2006? That was about the time I realized I lost track of how many Incredible Hulk movies they made, and I would learn later that’s when my interest in movies overall died because that’s all they would ever make ever again
Son you sound young, there’s a lot more to cinema than popcorn flicks like marvel movies, they didn’t stop making good movies, it’s just harder to find and requires people put their money and time to go watch something other than summer blockbusters, expand your taste and maybe also watch older movies, many local theatre’s do reruns of older classics
What this guy said. Or, even better, why doesn’t Captain Aggravated just go make their own movie? It’s not super complicated to do, but it does require getting others involved, since nobody can do everything.
I’m 38 years old. The last time I remember having a good time at a movie theatre was Inglourious Basterds, and if the movies require effort to glean enjoyment out of it I hope I never see a movie again in my life. Used to be you could look up what’s playing at the 4-plex and there’d usually be something fun on. That hasn’t been the case since the last time I felt an emotion and I don’t think either thing is ever going to happen again so fuck it.
See that’s the thing, you want an amusement ride that’s fun, but movies can be more than that, if you can’t have fun anymore, try watching something that’s not trying to be fun, and maybe something clicks, I recently watched 12 Angry Men on a whim, it’s about 12 jurors discussing on a virdict for a man accused of killing his father, this movie came out in 1957, it’s black and white, I didn’t think I could even sit through such a old movie let alone like it, but it was one of the most engaging movies I’ve ever seen and the plot felt so relevant to the current times.
Some other stuff I saw recently that I liked : Predator Killler of Killers
Sinners
Warfare
The Rule of Jenny Pen
Friendship
The Life of ChuckIf you want to watch some old movies that are genuinely special, look up the movies that Alfred Hitchcock made in the 40s and 50s, both color and B&W. I’m especially fond of the bunch he did at the end of the 50s - The Man Who Knew Too Much, North By Northwest, Vertigo, Psycho, and my favorite movie of all time, Rear Window. A few other really interesting ones are Strangers On A Train, Lifeboat, Dial M for Murder, Notorious, Rebecca, etc.
Absolutely mind-blowing, they’re so good. His stuff from the 30s and the 60s is okay, but his middle period was incredible.
I don’t know if you personally have any disabilities, but generally, when I see this take, the person doesn’t.
I’d take a crispr treatment without hesitation. And everyone I know would do the same. My partner and I are doing IVF not for fertility reasons but to ensure certain genes don’t get passed down to our kids.
That whole disability-is-a-positive view is a very privileged thing to say.
Yeah, on the one hand it isn’t fair to let someone be born with a condition that negatively effects their life when there’s a treatment to prevent it happening. On the other hand, as you say it’s good to have divergent people in society - there really is strength in diversity.
If the world would accomidate for Neurodivergent people more they wouldnt have a problem
Fewer, not none. Adhd for example tends to interfere with the pursuit of longer term goals in some ways, regardless of society’s pressures and expectations. Those make it asymmetrically harder on top of everything else.
The social model of disability is essential, but it’s not the only perspective to keep in mind.
In a way, accommodations can erase disabilities.
I’m still waiting to be tested but I swear if we were still hunters and gatherers in a small tribe then my suspected ADHD would be irrelevant.
This is the beginning of countless sci-fi stories. According to the TV and movies I’ve seen, this will lead to customizing fetuses, mostly for intelligence, and then the question becomes does society accept those people as their leaders (Brave New World) or criminalize their gene-enhanced intellect (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)?
Or enforce social hierarchies based on genetic traits? (Gattaca)
I was thinking red rising, but that sounds similar. Hadn’t heard about this, gotta watch this, thanks :D
Hm, well red rising was more about specialization and exploitation. While they were some great books, automation and AI should have made reds unnecessary. But pinks, they may not be covered enough by robots and AI and would be the first thing I bet the rich would go for.
As I recall, the reason the Federation outlawed genetic manipulation is due to what happened with the Eugenics Wars, the details of which are murky due to temporal interference, but one of the root causes was clear. While the end results of genetic engineering (Khan Noonien-Singh and his Augments) were undoubtedly superior to normal humans in every way, they also incredibly aggressive and arrogant, a flaw their creators could not correct, as the science was still in its infancy. One of the scientists remarked that “Superior ability breeds superior ambition”.
Being raised in labs by dickheads may have also been a contributing factor in their personality flaws.
Homelander says hi.
checks correlation of education to voting outcomes
Checks news
It will be seen as an anti-control danger and banned entirely by the nearly single-circle Venn diagram of government officials, oligarchs, and religious figures.
They will be quiet about the true nature of their decision. Instead, it will be called a danger to society, ungodly, and unnatural. Rumors will be started that it creates autistic psychopaths, and that anyone in any country that touches the technology will need to be permanently ostracized.
I believe this will happen, only slowly enough that it will feel normal. First genetic diseases for a generation. As our understanding and editing improve, humans will start to edit for benefits, maybe something small like eyesight, so kids don’t need glasses. Eventually, it will just be a part of our medical culture. If everyone is edited, it won’t be taboo to keep going, after all, who wouldn’t want their kids to be better off than they are? 1000 years from now, our species won’t be recognizable to us today. Slightly related, have you seen what they’re doing with lab grown human brain cell organoids connected to microchips? 1000 years (or significantly less!), unrecognizable.
I have not seen this but would very much like to. Do you have a link?
You can rent one today for $500 a month here:
https://finalspark.com/neuroplatform/
Here is the wiki on the organoids themselves:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_organoid
Here is a 2021 med journal publication on potential uses:
https://jbiomedsci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12929-021-00728-4
Here is a nature article on their use in AI:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41928-023-01069-w
And finally a Bloomberg video report:
One of my favorite details is that they sometimes grow little eyes. 👀 🧠
Pleasant dreams!
Those are several, excellent links! Thank you so much!
Can it remove my depression and make me love myself?
Yes but you will get that extra chromosome back
I see no downsides.
I don’t think I understand. Are you saying i’d be mentally challenged?
Yes it was a joke because there is a prejudice that mentally handicapped people are always happy
Here I am! What’s the squared root of 27,545,987531,885578,5884789.0644789* 367464787644.654224577!^675434784321347998900974376789.753345!
Don’t use a calculator.
At least 3
gonna be bold and say: more than 4, even.
Okay, look, exponents are okay, but when you start using factorials with decimals in the exponents? You’re just a jerk.
Holy crap. The obvious use for this would be in vitro. However, I cannot wait to see how this affects those already born. Could it be used on someone who is a 7 year old to rid them of this? What if they’re 50? So cool. Can’t wait to see where this goes.
And in the US, religious assholes want to ban IVF for exactly this reason, because it’s “playing God”.
“if your god wasn’t such a loser fuckup, we wouldn’t need to fix this mess”
Until someone who knows more tells me otherwise, no. It would have to be applied to a human at the stage of a single cell
The article mentions the technique worked on most (differentiated) skin cells they tested on, in addition to working on (undifferentiated) stem cells.
But, there’s a lot of steps between this article and any sort of treatment, if I understand correctly.
It might be easier to just edit the gametes before they form a zygote at all. That would also make consent for treatment much clearer.
Could it be used on someone who is a 7 year old to rid them of this?
No. Gene editing works in this case since they’re just working with a few cells. But a whole human is way more cells. Not only that, but the cells have already developed into structures that are much harder to access, and difficult to change. Any gene therapy may only affect a few cells.
On top of that, there’s also a bunch of ethical issues around altering a human when they’ve already formed, and we don’t really know if it would be possible to do so, or if it would make things worse.
Hard to say at this point. This early testing was on cells in a petri dish. It will take a lot of study to convert this to a treatment on living humans and determine the best time to intervene.
i can’t tell if you’re serious.
That’s a dilemma. The kids and parents not having the challenges is great, but also people with Downs are often some of the best humans to exist.
I work with special needs adults. Your experiences, while valid, with many of those that arent so disabled that they actually can engage with society, do not represent those with more extreme versions of this disability.
Often they will never get to experience the fullness of life they could without. Basically, people with Downs who dont have caretakers with means are fucked pretty hard.
Of the 6 I interact with daily, I think they all would rather not have the disability, and 2 have said they would trade places with the guy in the wheel chair that has seizures sometimes, but is otherwise living a normal life.
I would agree with you on that as well. I do some volunteering with the special Olympics, have family members, etc. it’s like you said and in these cases they are able to interact with the general public, maybe have basic jobs, live in group homes, and so forth.
I also agree they are fucked without support. I am not advocating for more people to have the disease so much as I wish more people had the vibes of the population I’m referencing.
I think you have a super healthy view of this dilemma through your experience. As a person who has experienced the worst Down’s has to offer with a very close relative, i can’t imagine a happier thing they could have told my mother than, “your child doesn’t have to be born with down’s syndrome”.
Due to religion, terminating the pregnancy was never an option, so a set of cosmic dice was spun in how positive or negative this experience would be. Let me tell you right now, I wouldn’t wish my family’s experience on anyone, and that breaks me apart to say more than I’m willing to admit.
Sending love
they still can be.
I’ve known plenty of people with down syndrome that were abused and were some of the most vile people I’ve ever known.
perhaps they are the best because they are treated differently and we should treat everyone that way.
I agree. We should treat others differently. Case in point: several people trying to pick a flight with me about this.
Of course I’m not saying “we shouldn’t try to cure this disease.” Maybe I’m saying, “these people are 'Innocents ’ who don’t have to have the same interactions with society as we do, and in some ways that’s better because society is fucked.”
No one’s saying they’re not. But Down syndrome also predisposes kids to cataracts, hearing loss, heart disease, leukemia, thyroid problems, severe constipation, and gum disease. It’s a disorder that causes a litany of health problems, and it’s not fair to saddle a person with potentially life-threatening conditions on the grounds that many with the disorder are nice people.
I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with that. Please read the other comments.
Where is the line with eugenics being bad and it being good?
It’s a really deep pool, and I’m going to juuuust touch the edge here and say that consent should absolutely count, if they’re in a condition to give informed consent. In general, I expect that people with disabilities would prefer to not have the disability, and I would love to give them that choice. What shouldn’t happen, though, is people being changed or treated without their consent.
I mean, this will be used in utero waaaaay before it’s applied to a full adult human. Far easier to change the cells when there are only a few, and they haven’t already started to effect development.
But it’s hard to get informed consent in utero.
Imo, then it’s between the parents and the clinicians involved. My son has autism severe enough that it hinders his learning and his social growth and stuff. I go back and forth about whether he’ll have the ability to live independently, or to have a partner and not beat the everloving shit out of them for what seems to be no reason. I love him, AND it’s a burden for everyone in the family, not just him, not just us parents. If given the choice, yes, I absolutely would have chosen to give him the chance at a life where he doesn’t spend every day frustrated by invisible barriers and possibly a life in prison or long term clinical detention (I forget the term) if we can’t get him to manage his physical outbursts by the time he’s an adult.
I have autism and i love it. it’s a significant part of me and i wouldn’t be the same person without. it has caused me some difficulties in life, but has also enabled me a lot of things that would otherwise be impossible.
i have very much the fear that my mother would have gotten me genetically engineered while in utero too, and i hate the thought of that!
I have ADHD and, given some shared traits with my diagnosed kids, likely autism as well. I like myself the way I am as well, but it’s definitely made my life harder. While it isn’t a disability for me, my wife, or my daughter, it is for my son, to the point where, even as he nears double digit age, we’re still unsure if he’s ever going to be able to participate in society and care for himself independently. I honestly worry, with how free with violence he is*, that he’s going to end up institutionalized or in and out of jail once he gets big enough to actually start hurting people. That’s not a life that I want for him.
*A specialist broke this down for us. Basically, he gets so frustrated and has no means of dealing with it or communicating the frustration that it manifests as a fight response.
Could this even be an option in late pregnancy, much less after someone has been born? There are some significant physical changes that could take place… and I can’t imagine what the mental changes would be like to go through.
Parents consent on behalf of their children all the time. In utero takes that to 11.
This isn’t eugenics. This is taking advantage of crispr to make genetic modifications.
I agree that it’s not eugenics, at least not as we normally think of it, but it’s definitely edging into GATTACA territory.
Read the other comment eugenics won’t be realistic in a capitalist environment class division would be more common.
Try reading MY comment. You are talking about a central element of the movie GATTACA from 1997. I know it’s old and many younger people haven’t seen it so I provided a link to the Wikipedia article about the film.
This issue was widely discussed, at least in American society, almost 30 years ago. The film is still heavily referenced in any discussion involving bio-ethics and genetic manipulation.
I mean, sure, if you ignore all of history. What if I was using CRISPR to prevent a child from being born black or brown?
Hell, what if I used it to keep a kid from being born deaf? The deaf community is one that’s very outspoken about exactly that kind of treatment as a form of eugenics, as it is a potential existential threat to their culture.
What if I was using CRISPR to prevent a child from being born black or brown?
What if was used to prevent a child from being born with Spina bifada? What if it was used to correct SB so that the child wasn’t aborted?
Hell, what if I used it to keep a kid from being born deaf?
Or what if its used to cure deafness after the effected person is no longer a minor?
Being born brown is not a disease. 😅
Pretty sure that’s the point they’re trying to make.
This isn’t going to lead to eugenics. You are living in a capitalist environment this is going to lead to only a population with a certain amount of income is going to be allowed to use this technology. Eugenics is a vocal minority and everybody that goes with eugenics does not have a basis as its always been disapproved from psychology to biology. You can find patterns but nothing is perfect and everybody has quirks. Also race is a social construct so eugenics can be completely useless as your parents and direct lineage matters more than anything for your biology.
I think it’s presumptuous that only a certain income level is going to have access to this. It very much depends on the scalability of the treatment. Nearly everyone in the entire nation got the COVID vaccine, and those that didn’t weren’t due to lack of financial means. Just because you assert this will be reserved for the ultra wealthy doesn’t make it so.
The rest of what you said is borderline unintelligible, but I’ll give it a shot.
Sure, it would probably be difficult to “un-black” a baby or something, as there are a ton of genetic markers that inform what we think of as “blackness.” But just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
And you say that Eugenics “is a vocal minority,” which I presume to mean that most people are anti-eugenics. But, as you say, we live in a capitalist hellscape. It would be entirely possible for a billionaire to run a “un-black your baby for a chance to win a million dollars” campaign (a’la the Elon Musk voting drive), and have that take off in a big way.
And all that assumes that people wouldn’t be driven to it by simple desire for conformity. It’s easy to justify a lot of things under the “my child would have a much better life if they just weren’t… fill in the blank.” In the modern climate as an example, there would probably be a lot of Hispanic people saying things like, “my child probably wouldn’t get abducted by ICE if they just were more white passing.” And that’s terrible, obviously, but I guarantee it would happen. Not every mother. Not even a majority. But a good number would.
bodily autonomy i think
But what does bodily autonomy mean when this will almost certainly be primarily used in utero? Should I be able to use CRISPR to keep my baby from being born with Downs?
Should I be able to use it to make my baby less prone to other diseases? Make them taller?
Change their race? Add interesting modifications that I think would be cool, like an extra set of arms or gills or something?What does bodily autonomy mean for a fetus?
Should I be able to use CRISPR to keep my baby from being born with Downs?
Yes, absolutely yes. Downs children are wonderful, there’s one in my family, but I can say without hesitation that both he and his parents would have used a treatment like this if it was available. He’s 30 now and he himself would choose to do it if it was available.
What does bodily autonomy mean for a fetus?
Doesn’t matter.
Abortions are also in utero. And it’s not the choice of the child to be born either. Or a lot of the choices guardians make in stead of their children. Legally and ethically this shouldn’t be something you can stop them from choosing, even if I’m personally against such modifications for the reasons you’re probably thinking of too. If you say “we should stop gene modifications to prevent the loss of gene diversity risking great public health concern for our population”, that is also eugenics.
Humanity, one step closer to get rid of all of the genetic defects that we have accumulated because of our own reproductive stupidity.
I wish for a future in which genetic diseases do not exist. 👐
Seems like very basic research - I wonder how far in the future it might turn into a human treatment, and what improvements people would see?
My uninformed guess is that even if you edit chromosomes it won’t change someone. Like if you edit someone’s DNA to give them DNA that makes blue eyes, their eyes won’t turn blue. I think they are just like turn signals that direct growth of a being during development.
This seems good initially.
I just really really hope they won’t try to “cure autism” with this next.
Autism is an important and fundamental part of me. The fact that it’s often classified as a disease is understandable, but nevertheless sickens me.
They don’t even know what autism is. Genetics play a role, but most likely they simply affect the chances of developing autism. And really autism is a spectrum, so think like a clock. If the minute hand is between 10 and 2, it is autism, the rest isn’t. So it is less a thing you “have” and more about being in a range from thing that ends up causing a snowball effect. My kid is autistic. It is like there is a missing feedback channel that would cause a typical kid to modify there behavior. All that really translates to is a lower sensitivity to a specific feedback. Typical people will have a range, he is just very low on that range.
Please straight up cure my ADHD. I do NOT want it!
double it and give it to the next person
I would not wish it on my worst enemy.
Don’t worry. Autism is more complicated.
I don’t want them to “cure autism” by erasing it, either. I’d rather they try to “cure autism” by improving on what it can help a human be capable of doing. That way, if we have a real-life “Butlerian Jihad” like from the lore of Dune, we have Mentats (human computers) to replace “thinking machines”(AI and computers).
You are the genetics they want to remove.
I have mixed feelings about this. At first it seems great, but the line between “genetic defect” and eugenics can get very blurry.
There are many people with what some would consider a “defect” to be fixed that live incredibly fulfilling lives and bring an irreplaceable uniqueness to the world.
EDIT: I guess this wasn’t clear from my original comment, but I’m not arguing against this particular use case. I understand very well the challenges that down’s presents to both the person and their caretakers. I’m saying that I’m weary about the precedent this can set while there is no legal boundary between curing crippling diseases and simply changing undesirable (in the parents’ subjective view) traits.
something that i’m also very worried about is humans making permanent genetic changes to people, that are hereditary, but have some sort of unexpected, poorly understood, downside. like, a modification might cure deafness, but cause a different, seemingly unrelated, defect in the process.
people with downs syndrome have a significantly shorter lifespan compared to the rest of society. these people would still be who they are even after treatment but would have the potential to live longer healthier lives.
get your philosophical moralistic bullshit out of here. if you were so concerned about this before why not complain about how you aren’t the same physical being after 10 years due to all your cells being in a constant state of death and rebirth.
Yeah, I’m not arguing against curing Down’s syndrome. I updated my post to be clearer.
However your “Ship of Theseus” argument makes no sense and is completely irrelevant.
