CRISPR babies

[Petey Pate]

It appears that Chinese scientists are creating the first gene-edited babies, hoping to make them resistant to life threatening diseases like HIV by eliminating a gene which makes humans vulnerable to said diseases.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612458/exclusive-chinese-scientists-are-creating-crispr-babies/

Is this basically a revival of eugenics which will lead to a Brave New World style dystopia, or should we welcome our new genetically superior overlords babies?

[Alberon]

I've not got a problem with it in principle. If you can edit out genetic diseases and ultimately optimise a foetus towards its maximum potential, then why not?

Human 1.0 isn't that special.

[Chollis]

I think I speak for all of us when I say Male Pattern Baldness must be the priority

[BlodwynPig]

I've not got a problem with it in principle. If you can edit out genetic diseases and ultimately optimise a foetus towards its maximum potential, then why not?

Human 1.0 isn't that special.

Take this to its logical conclusion...

[Alberon]

Take this to its logical conclusion...

[thenoise]

Great now the children of rich people won't just think they are better than us, they really will be better than us.

[græskar]

Great now the children of rich people won't just think they are better than us, they really will be better than us.

It always boils down to this, really. We can't be happy about such advancements until we stop living in a system where a narrow elite will just use them to cement their grip on most of Earth's resources. In other words: in this economy?!

[Zetetic]

Is this basically a revival of eugenics

Well, yes, obviously, literally.

The fundamental issues with eugenics last time around where that 1) the emphasis was on social good not the experience of individuals (both in terms of defining 'good' and the use of force and coercion) and 2) the science was largely nonsense anyway.

We do still have a problem with the first of these, even if we are trying to emphasise preventing the suffering of individuals rather than any dubious idea of the social good.

Stuff like cystic fibrosis is probably fine to get rid off - it's far from clear what positives there are for anyone with a copy of ΔF508 (unless we really think we should be betting on some hypothetical future peculiar respiratory epidemic) and I think we can be fairly certain that a large part of the suffering of people with CF isn't bound up with the nature of our society and so on.

Once we get into stuff like reducing the incidence of psychosis, however, there's a load of other issues:
1. Why can't we target the environmental factors like early trauma (which we should be doing anyway) with greater intensity instead?
2. Given we're likely to fiddling with a lot more genes to have any impact, what impact are we going to have on diversity in the 'normal' population?
3. Does psychosis (or things it coincides with) have its positives, for society and at least some individuals?
4. Couldn't we do a lot more as a society to make developing psychosis produce less suffering?

(We likely still do have a problem with the science, of course, for anything even vaguely complicated - genes that contribute to suffering in one environment might have no such role in another, depending on the causal route. A neat example - genes that affect nicotine sensitivity have a complicated relationship with lung cancer, but only really if smoking is widespread in a population.)



Fiddling about with HIV resistance seems a bit stupid, mind you, given that 1) we've got pretty good approaches to both preventing and treating HIV, and 2) that this sort of fiddling isn't known to be entirely safe.

[Zetetic]

One genetically-related disorder that I find quite difficult to think about - in terms of wiping out future populations - is Downs.

I don't think there's much difficulty applying the term 'disorder' without hesitation here (as there can be for varieties of 'mental health' or 'personality' issues, for example) and having Downs comes with a whole heap of physical health shit beyond the standard human (some which is open to amelioration and some really isn't).

Even before we think about the implication for carers and the extent to which our society can and should make itself better suited for people with moderate or severe learning disabilities (as Downs usually brings with it).

But we, as a society, will still be losing a bit of variation amongst our members as we work to eliminate it. Perhaps even worrying about that is wrong, and tending towards the sort of excessive focus on society over the individual's experience that typified historical 'eugenics'. I really don't know.

[Bhazor]

Call me when they get around to Chilli Heatwave Dorito babies. I'd eat the whole fucking creche.

[chveik]

.

[buzby]

Take this to its logical conclusion...

<Dr. Eldon Tyrell enters thread, rubbing his hands>

[im barry bethel]

Worked for the Romans