I mean, this is a good idea for a big reason other than genes though, people who are currently addicted to meth shouldn’t be having kids, not from a gene perspective but as an unfit parent and as an unsafe pregnancy standpoint.
While I agree with you, the problem is, that it opens the door for a lot of other forms of eugenics. Once we decided that Meth users shouldn’t have kids we can quickly expand the definition of who is “allowed to have kids”. People who take LSD? Those psychopaths. Stoners? Homeless people? Black people?
It gives a certain group of people power over one of the most intimate secsectors of someone’s private life. No one can guarantee, that at some point we are not the ones being included in the definition of “unfit for parenting” simply because we have the wrong political views or something like that.
This is only because the word “eugenics” has been made a bad word because people assume that anything called “eugenics” must be similar to the horrible things the Nazis did. It’s the non-central fallacy – such things are eugenics only in the same way that Martin Luther king is technically a criminal (he did violate the law by protesting) or abortion is murder (a “human being” does “die”).
Polygenic scoring on embryos is legal and eminently doable if you’re wealthy enough to afford it; it’s a very effective way to eliminate the risk of debilitating genetic diseases like Down’s Syndrome, and can greatly reduce the risk of things like Alzheimer’s or some types of cancer. It also can improve the IQ of your child by up to ~8 points or so, which correlates (plausibly causally) with higher education and income in life. So basically, it’s an effective way to help make your child more privileged. Right now it’s only affordable by the very wealthy though, but perhaps in ten years it will be very cheap.
Notice though that it’s unrelated to race pseudoscience and murder, even though race pseudoscientists and nazis like to talk about genetics and IQ.
jsomae, do you want Gattaca ? Because that’s how you get Gattaca !
And next for sale we have this worker with very small hands, through multiple generation of human breeding we have developped this fine pure bred specimen perfectly adapted to reaching into tight spaces and machinery, its mind is docile and obedient and doesn’t get spooked easily by the loud sound of working high speed hydraulic presses. Very agile with tools and can read schematics but no artistic ability nor speech as a side effect of the genetic modification, on the plus side, they cannot form unions.
Gattaca is a great warning about what could happen if we have gene-elitism. If you’ve forgotten, the premise of Gattaca is that the main character isn’t genetically enhanced, but he’s still sufficiently capable; it’s only stigma, not an actual lack of ability, which is a threat to his career. We already live in a world where some people are privileged and some people are not, and despite this, there’s been a Black POTUS, women astronauts, and so on. That a lack of privilege is a barrier that can be overcome with hard work is basically central to liberal ideology; I don’t see it disappearing in the west any time soon.
I think GATTACA is more a warning that gene editing will become a luxury of the wealthy, and inherently will be elitist, with no realistic way to separate the two. It will just become the new rich and connected qualifier, doesn’t matter the actual capacities of the people, the one with the money, and connections, will be much more likely to get the thing.
In the USA, health-care is already a luxury of the wealthy. Perhaps if we improve the IQ of our population with free access to polygenic scoring and IVF, we’ll stop voting in lunatics who benefit the wealthy. :P
Anyway, most medical advancements start out only available to the wealthy, and then trickle-down to the lower class. At least, that’s how it works in countries that have good health care, not so much the U.S. (despite the U.S. holding so-called “trickle-down economics” on a pedestal). Still, sequencing a genome cost usd$1million in 2000, but is now like usd$50.
If polygenic selection follows the same curve as other genetic procedures and 25 years from now (that’s 1 generation) it costs $50, then I can’t really see it being something that disproportionately benefits the wealthy. Why would somebody turn it down at that price, if they’re going to have a kid? It would surely save them money in the long-run, since it reduces the risk of disease.
Yeah, you get the older, less advanced, gene editing tools, while the rich maintain their lock into the cutting edge. The new marker will be a combination of age and generation of genetic tech applied. This is also considering that it will be a broad application of the tech that is available to the lower classes, not just things that make them better soldiers and laborers.
Imagine somebody saying this about any other form of healthcare:
“Yeah, you get the older, less advanced cancer-fighting drugs, while the rich maintain their lock on chemotherapy. The new marker will be a combination of lifespan and generation of hospital bed. This is also considering that it will be a broad application of the tech that is available to the lower classes, not just things that only help cure diseases in soldiers and laborers.”
Yeah! Legitimate points! I could see some forward-thinking philosopher objecting to the notion of health-care with ideas like this 100 years ago. And yet, I’m so glad we live in a world with healthcare so I am much more likely to live a long and healthy life, and I still have a chance at finding the right treatment for chronic pain. 100 years from now, we’ll all be grateful that we have genetically-boosted lifespans and intelligence and we don’t suffer from genetic diseases just because somebody objected, “but what if this helped the rich more than the poor?”
We need to make genetic modification something that isn’t gate kept by the rich. You might not think that horror scenarios where you will be genetically engineered to operate in a determined class/occupation, aren’t possible, or probable, but I do. Without having some sort of regulation forcing genetic engineering to be universally available to everyone, with no exceptions, I see this being a very strong risk for the long term.
Yes, most humans would be genetically designed living tools to serve the few real, pure bred, unmodified humans
For them liberation would only mean death, not that they could imagine life in different way
for copyright reasons, they would also all be sterile of course
I find it surprising that you think the rich and powerful would not choose to genetically enhance themselves (their children) to be smarter, more attractive, etc. They would surely be the first to do so.
I don’t trust society to fairly give out any kind of health-related benefit. The USA just ended PEPFAR this year, condemning millions in africa to die of easily-preventable diseases. But you don’t see me protesting the very notion of medical science.
I don’t really see why billionaires change the calculus. So what if they get slightly genetically superior children? They already have everything. As much as I want to tear down billionaires, I’m more interested in seeing the lower class be elevated than I am in not letting billionaires get further ahead.
I liked the way posthuman society was portrayed in the ‘firefall’ novels, how fucking bleak and horrible it got, but omg.
Are you from the SF bay area? Is this the thing where you only ever got STEM education and now can’t like piece of art, even a dystopian one, without trying to make it real?
We already practice eugenics. Its a term that covers a lot of things. There’s a line between good eugenics and bad eugenics. I’d say secretly bputting birth control in drugs to control population is bad eugenics.
Not eugenics though, if anything it’s a rather leftist stance that accepts that you can’t control what people put in their body, but tries to mitigates harm for those who have no choice.
They are not forced to take it, they can just not take the meth and have children.
I would really like your opinion on children being “forced” to have MMR vaccination in order to attend pre-school? Do you think it’s immoral to take that bodily autonomy away in order to make it safer for all the rest of the children?
no, because MMR vaccines have been proven to be safe, and you are informed that your child must be vaccinated to go school; it’s not like the kid is vaccinated against their knowledge once they get there
birth control pills can have side effects, sometimes very detrimental, and in this hypothetical scenario they’re hidden in the meth, so you don’t even know it’s there
Once again, the hypothetical that it’s hidden, is only in your head, that sign doesn’t say “hide birth control in meth”, it’s also fucking unrealistic, if it were to happen the only way it happens if it’s legalized, controlled meth that has birth control added to it, or rather it could be that the users can get meth as long as they also take the birth control when they get the meth.
Also your worry about birthcontrol side effects with fucking meth users is goddamn laughable.
It’s like going back to ww2 and telling the soldiers not to smoke because it’s bad for their health, like the fucking bullets and explosives are way more detrimental to their health, don’t you think?
These are all good points but they also apply to alcohol which is a hard drug and a teratogen (causes birth defects). I suspect that people would throw a hissy fit if this was suggested, yet it actually makes perfect logical sense. If meth comes with birth control then all known teratogenic recreational drugs should come with birth control, as no one should be consuming them while pregnant.
It’s always lovely to be reminded that eugenics remains a popular idea so long as you don’t call it that.
Looks like it’s time to reinvent the Torment Nexus from famed science fiction novel “Don’t Invent The Torment Nexus”. Maybe it will go well this time!
I mean, this is a good idea for a big reason other than genes though, people who are currently addicted to meth shouldn’t be having kids, not from a gene perspective but as an unfit parent and as an unsafe pregnancy standpoint.
While I agree with you, the problem is, that it opens the door for a lot of other forms of eugenics. Once we decided that Meth users shouldn’t have kids we can quickly expand the definition of who is “allowed to have kids”. People who take LSD? Those psychopaths. Stoners? Homeless people? Black people?
It gives a certain group of people power over one of the most intimate secsectors of someone’s private life. No one can guarantee, that at some point we are not the ones being included in the definition of “unfit for parenting” simply because we have the wrong political views or something like that.
This is only because the word “eugenics” has been made a bad word because people assume that anything called “eugenics” must be similar to the horrible things the Nazis did. It’s the non-central fallacy – such things are eugenics only in the same way that Martin Luther king is technically a criminal (he did violate the law by protesting) or abortion is murder (a “human being” does “die”).
Polygenic scoring on embryos is legal and eminently doable if you’re wealthy enough to afford it; it’s a very effective way to eliminate the risk of debilitating genetic diseases like Down’s Syndrome, and can greatly reduce the risk of things like Alzheimer’s or some types of cancer. It also can improve the IQ of your child by up to ~8 points or so, which correlates (plausibly causally) with higher education and income in life. So basically, it’s an effective way to help make your child more privileged. Right now it’s only affordable by the very wealthy though, but perhaps in ten years it will be very cheap.
Notice though that it’s unrelated to race pseudoscience and murder, even though race pseudoscientists and nazis like to talk about genetics and IQ.
jsomae, do you want Gattaca ? Because that’s how you get Gattaca !
And next for sale we have this worker with very small hands, through multiple generation of human breeding we have developped this fine pure bred specimen perfectly adapted to reaching into tight spaces and machinery, its mind is docile and obedient and doesn’t get spooked easily by the loud sound of working high speed hydraulic presses. Very agile with tools and can read schematics but no artistic ability nor speech as a side effect of the genetic modification, on the plus side, they cannot form unions.
Gattaca is a great warning about what could happen if we have gene-elitism. If you’ve forgotten, the premise of Gattaca is that the main character isn’t genetically enhanced, but he’s still sufficiently capable; it’s only stigma, not an actual lack of ability, which is a threat to his career. We already live in a world where some people are privileged and some people are not, and despite this, there’s been a Black POTUS, women astronauts, and so on. That a lack of privilege is a barrier that can be overcome with hard work is basically central to liberal ideology; I don’t see it disappearing in the west any time soon.
I think GATTACA is more a warning that gene editing will become a luxury of the wealthy, and inherently will be elitist, with no realistic way to separate the two. It will just become the new rich and connected qualifier, doesn’t matter the actual capacities of the people, the one with the money, and connections, will be much more likely to get the thing.
In the USA, health-care is already a luxury of the wealthy. Perhaps if we improve the IQ of our population with free access to polygenic scoring and IVF, we’ll stop voting in lunatics who benefit the wealthy. :P
Anyway, most medical advancements start out only available to the wealthy, and then trickle-down to the lower class. At least, that’s how it works in countries that have good health care, not so much the U.S. (despite the U.S. holding so-called “trickle-down economics” on a pedestal). Still, sequencing a genome cost usd$1million in 2000, but is now like usd$50.
If polygenic selection follows the same curve as other genetic procedures and 25 years from now (that’s 1 generation) it costs $50, then I can’t really see it being something that disproportionately benefits the wealthy. Why would somebody turn it down at that price, if they’re going to have a kid? It would surely save them money in the long-run, since it reduces the risk of disease.
Yeah, you get the older, less advanced, gene editing tools, while the rich maintain their lock into the cutting edge. The new marker will be a combination of age and generation of genetic tech applied. This is also considering that it will be a broad application of the tech that is available to the lower classes, not just things that make them better soldiers and laborers.
Imagine somebody saying this about any other form of healthcare:
“Yeah, you get the older, less advanced cancer-fighting drugs, while the rich maintain their lock on chemotherapy. The new marker will be a combination of lifespan and generation of hospital bed. This is also considering that it will be a broad application of the tech that is available to the lower classes, not just things that only help cure diseases in soldiers and laborers.”
Yeah! Legitimate points! I could see some forward-thinking philosopher objecting to the notion of health-care with ideas like this 100 years ago. And yet, I’m so glad we live in a world with healthcare so I am much more likely to live a long and healthy life, and I still have a chance at finding the right treatment for chronic pain. 100 years from now, we’ll all be grateful that we have genetically-boosted lifespans and intelligence and we don’t suffer from genetic diseases just because somebody objected, “but what if this helped the rich more than the poor?”
We need to make genetic modification something that isn’t gate kept by the rich. You might not think that horror scenarios where you will be genetically engineered to operate in a determined class/occupation, aren’t possible, or probable, but I do. Without having some sort of regulation forcing genetic engineering to be universally available to everyone, with no exceptions, I see this being a very strong risk for the long term.
How bad could it be? Ethan Hawke succeeds in the movie even though he’s got no real genetic qualifications.
Imagine if we got genetic engineering back when everybody inherited their parent’s job. People named Smith would look like dwarves.
Yes, most humans would be genetically designed living tools to serve the few real, pure bred, unmodified humans
For them liberation would only mean death, not that they could imagine life in different way
for copyright reasons, they would also all be sterile of course
I find it surprising that you think the rich and powerful would not choose to genetically enhance themselves (their children) to be smarter, more attractive, etc. They would surely be the first to do so.
There are other hazards and i don’t trust this society to deal with any of them in healthy ways.
I don’t trust society to fairly give out any kind of health-related benefit. The USA just ended PEPFAR this year, condemning millions in africa to die of easily-preventable diseases. But you don’t see me protesting the very notion of medical science.
Im seconding the ‘this is how you get gattaca’ comment.
If i could crispr myself in my garage, there’s some shit I’d absolutely do right now. Like wonder when i got a garage.
But we cannot, as a socisty, be trusted with this tech until the billionaire class are exterminated.
If you want to have it and not have a dystopian nightmare shit show, get started on hunting the filth.
I don’t really see why billionaires change the calculus. So what if they get slightly genetically superior children? They already have everything. As much as I want to tear down billionaires, I’m more interested in seeing the lower class be elevated than I am in not letting billionaires get further ahead.
You haven’t actually read/watched any of the media we’re talking about here, have you?
Like, we could get the full ‘echopraxia’ dystopian suite if we arent careful.
And with billionaires around, we can’t be.
Gattaca is one of my favourite movies. Is there another thing you’re talking about?
I liked the way posthuman society was portrayed in the ‘firefall’ novels, how fucking bleak and horrible it got, but omg.
Are you from the SF bay area? Is this the thing where you only ever got STEM education and now can’t like piece of art, even a dystopian one, without trying to make it real?
I mean we do take kids off crackheads. Repeatedly in some cases.
We already practice eugenics. Its a term that covers a lot of things. There’s a line between good eugenics and bad eugenics. I’d say secretly bputting birth control in drugs to control population is bad eugenics.
This isn’t an ethnic group or permanent, though. I think the bigger ethical issue is that birth control can have dangerous side effects.
Not eugenics though, if anything it’s a rather leftist stance that accepts that you can’t control what people put in their body, but tries to mitigates harm for those who have no choice.
Controlling which people are allowed to reproduce is eugenics.
Absolutely, and like most abhorrent evil the first step is such a positive idea you cant possibly object.
Birth control pills are eugenics?
no, because people choose to take them
if they’re forced, then yes, it’s eugenics
They are not forced to take it, they can just not take the meth and have children.
I would really like your opinion on children being “forced” to have MMR vaccination in order to attend pre-school? Do you think it’s immoral to take that bodily autonomy away in order to make it safer for all the rest of the children?
no, because MMR vaccines have been proven to be safe, and you are informed that your child must be vaccinated to go school; it’s not like the kid is vaccinated against their knowledge once they get there
birth control pills can have side effects, sometimes very detrimental, and in this hypothetical scenario they’re hidden in the meth, so you don’t even know it’s there
Once again, the hypothetical that it’s hidden, is only in your head, that sign doesn’t say “hide birth control in meth”, it’s also fucking unrealistic, if it were to happen the only way it happens if it’s legalized, controlled meth that has birth control added to it, or rather it could be that the users can get meth as long as they also take the birth control when they get the meth.
Also your worry about birthcontrol side effects with fucking meth users is goddamn laughable.
It’s like going back to ww2 and telling the soldiers not to smoke because it’s bad for their health, like the fucking bullets and explosives are way more detrimental to their health, don’t you think?
These are all good points but they also apply to alcohol which is a hard drug and a teratogen (causes birth defects). I suspect that people would throw a hissy fit if this was suggested, yet it actually makes perfect logical sense. If meth comes with birth control then all known teratogenic recreational drugs should come with birth control, as no one should be consuming them while pregnant.
deleted by creator
Prescribed with any sort of trickery, skullduggery, or hooliganism? Yes.
Your interpretation presupposes malice and lack of transparency.
Almost anything can be made to look really bad with that attitude.
malice is irrelevant