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First 'three person baby' born using new method

bbc.co.uk

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Re: First 'three person baby' born using new method

#121

Post by pyre »

BurningFrog wrote: post #103
pyre wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better analogy for "designer babies" would be performance enhancing drugs in sports. If we accept their use, then it basically becomes a requirement on anyone that wants to participate (or at least compete).

Only if you see life as a competition against your fellow humans.

It's not always about whether or not you see everything as a competition. Consider the "requirement" nowadays of a college degree. I could say that you "need a college degree to compete in the work-force," but that doesn't mean you just need a college degree only if you want to be the "best of the best." Also see sci-fi exploration of this topic (e.g. Gattaca).

Re: First 'three person baby' born using new method

#122

Post by int_19h »

Esau wrote: post #95
milcron wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet access should be a public utility.

Some people can't afford public utilities either.

Then perhaps that is a problem that we should tackle, instead of going all Luddite about fairly basic tech because someone cannot afford it?

I even wouldn't be surprised if it resulted in a net economic benefit, because the reduced overhead of new tech is less than amount of money you need to spend to make sure that everyone has access to it.

Re: First 'three person baby' born using new method

#123

Post by int_19h »

tomrod wrote: post #108
runeks wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the more powerful a technology is in changing our capabilities as human beings, the more unethical it inherently is, because poor people will have less access to it (assuming it costs money)? I'm not arguing on the validity of this world view, but it does seems very negative to me, since it can be applied to any powerful technology (that isn't free of charge). I mean, computers and internet access also costs money…

> I mean, computers and internet access also costs money, so does this mean that the introduction of these technologies presents an ethical problem, because the poorer part of the population may not be able to afford it, thus increasing inequality? Actually, yes, there are inherent ethical problems here. In this case (computers/internet), the divide it causes is not so large that it cannot be overcome by training, sa…

It may result in more stratification, but I don't see how that translates to feudalism.

Re: First 'three person baby' born using new method

#124

Post by int_19h »

pyre wrote: post #84
Kalium wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short, "designer babies" is approximately the same thing to us today as nutrition was to an earlier age.

A better analogy for "designer babies" would be performance enhancing drugs in sports. If we accept their use, then it basically becomes a requirement on anyone that wants to participate (or at least compete).

Participate in what, though?

This outlook basically presupposes that society is a competition of everyone against everyone. Does it have to be? If it does, what does "losing" mean, and can we reduce its impact to the point where it stops mattering?

Re: First 'three person baby' born using new method

#125

Post by int_19h »

pyre wrote: post #120
joesb wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about drugs in general, not just performance enhancing drugs? I meant, everyone want to participate in modern medical treatment, right?

> What about drugs in general, not just performance enhancing drugs? I meant, everyone want to participate in modern medical treatment, right? What? I'm talking about performance-enhancing drugs here because they enhance performance . So everyone else operating in the same space as you will need to also use performance-enhancing drugs if they want to compete. I'm not sure why this is a hard concept to grasp. If there…

We already have such pills, in effect. For example, someone who has depression (a very common ailment), but also has access to drugs that mitigate it, can easily be 10x better programmer relative to someone who has depression but no drugs.

Come to think of it, this goes for a lot of other things. Having a car is better than not having one, if only because you shorten commute times, and so have more free time - which translates to better rest and therefore higher productivity, or you could spend it learning new things, again, for higher productivity.

So basically anything that improves your quality of life in exchange for money is "performance enhancing" directly or indirectly.

Re: First 'three person baby' born using new method

#126

Post by int_19h »

geofft wrote: post #32
afarrell wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It occurs to me: What are the ethical problems with designer babies?

It is pretty close to eugenics, whose ethical problems are I think well-acknowledged now. (And it's worth noting that these ethical problems were not acknowledged in the US in the early 20th century, and a very large number of reasonable people were excited about eugenics.)

Eugenics is different in that it was an attempt to make these decisions in a centralized fashion, and imposed at the entire population. Basically, "we know better" with respect to reproductive freedom.

In that sense, laws regulating how parents may or may not change the genome of their kids are closer to the concept of eugenics than laissez-faire.

Note, I'm not saying that laissez-faire here is the right approach, necessarily. Some amount of regulation is necessary, at least, to prevent parents from knowingly imposing debilitating choices on their children. Which, again, is very reminiscent of eugenics, actually, except that they got carried away with what exactly was supposed to be undesirable, and eventually made it into all-encompassing social engineering approach.

Re: First 'three person baby' born using new method

#127

Post by int_19h »

maxerickson wrote: post #24
return0 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It occurs to me there aren't any; it's just a postmodern habit to treat every new technological possibility as an ethical problem first.

Right, no quandary at all created by the possibility that mistakes and misunderstandings might lead to children with severe medical problems. Short, miserable lifetimes of suffering are a high cost for "improving the species", and they are a real possibility if the approach taken is to just try things that seem worth trying.

Let me give one particularly chilling example.

Suppose that it is possible to make genetic alterations that cause 1) rapid aging, and 2) unavoidable self-induced death at some specific age well before the organism becomes old.

Now you can make clones of yourself, add these alterations, and harvest them for organs when they die. Since they die naturally by themselves, no murder is committed.

Re: First 'three person baby' born using new method

#130

Post by BurningFrog »

pyre wrote: post #121
BurningFrog wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you see life as a competition against your fellow humans.

It's not always about whether or not you see everything as a competition. Consider the "requirement" nowadays of a college degree. I could say that you "need a college degree to compete in the work-force," but that doesn't mean you just need a college degree only if you want to be the "best of the best." Also see sci-fi exploration of this topic (e.g. Gattaca).

I think the need for a college degree to even get a job is (1) specific to American society and regulations, and (2) not really true even there.

Since we're talking about general human morality, I wouldn't put much weight on the particulars of this region in 2016.

On a healthy job market, you get paid about as much as you produce. Regardless of what others produce. You also get to benefit from whatever inventions any new super talented people come up with.

Finally, the more intelligent a population is in general, the more peaceful it is.

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