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Regardless of how well this particular case works, I'm in favor of people being able to modify their bodies as they see fit. If he wants to become more muscular, morbidly obese, or ten feet tall, that's his right. Unfortunately, I could see things like this becoming illegal solely because they help people play sports too well.
Even steroids aren't illegal, you just need to get a doctor to prescribe them.
2017 but also here's a bit of follow up on Josiah: >So when Zayner saw Ascendance Biomedical’s CEO injecting himself on a live-stream earlier this month, you might say there was an uneasy flicker of recognition. >Ascendance Bio soon fell apart in almost comical fashion. The company’s own biohackers—who created the treatment but who were not being paid—revolted and the CEO locked himself in a lab. Even before all that…
Regardless of how well this particular case works, I'm in favor of people being able to modify their bodies as they see fit. If he wants to become more muscular, morbidly obese, or ten feet tall, that's his right. Unfortunately, I could see things like this becoming illegal solely because they help people play sports too well.
I agree, but there are externalities. Medical care resulting from personal choices should be paid by the risk-taking individual (or the research firm, if it's a sponsored experiment), rather than society or other people in the insurance pool.
Imagine all the data we're just throwing away with people biohacking. That data, properly done by 3rd party non-biohackers, could be invaluable long term. Sure, it wouldn't be as valuable as a massive double blind trial (or w/e), but we're basically talking about "mad scientists" doing experiments in their basements.. I imagine lots can still be learned, if we simply watch.
> Biohacker I find this highly concerning, biological organisms are orders of magnitude more complicated than man made hardware and software. I think all he will achieve is either giving himself an infection or cancer.
Yes, highly concerning but not because biological organisms are more complicated, but because biological organisms reproduce. Any "hacking" mistake will reproduce for eternity.
Could someone with actual knowledge fill this in? Am I right? Or am I very wrong?
> Biohacker I find this highly concerning, biological organisms are orders of magnitude more complicated than man made hardware and software. I think all he will achieve is either giving himself an infection or cancer.
Yes, highly concerning but not because biological organisms are more complicated, but because biological organisms reproduce. Any "hacking" mistake will reproduce for eternity.
You can change the DNA of specific cells. A change in you skin cell's DNA will not propagate to your bone cells. The skin cell has instructions to make a bone cell, but skin cells do not make use of that part of the code.
"I want to live in a world where people get drunk and instead of giving themselves tattoos, they’re like, ‘I’m drunk, I’m going to CRISPR myself." Ok, scary thought already. But, casting aside all the safety concerns, how many attributes would someone in general want to change as an adult? You can't change your height, you can't change your hair color, you can't change your eyes. Is a myostatin-inhibitor going to be…
The article talks about some scientists doing DNA injections meant to stall aging. I could see that becoming popular if it turned out to work.
It likely it didn't do anything if a previous study on this was correct[0]. It showed that possibly 96% of people have a pre-existing immunity to CRISPR-Cas9. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18334240
Regardless of how well this particular case works, I'm in favor of people being able to modify their bodies as they see fit. If he wants to become more muscular, morbidly obese, or ten feet tall, that's his right. Unfortunately, I could see things like this becoming illegal solely because they help people play sports too well.
Not necessarily. We as a society have come up with many activities which seem, on their surface, to only harm the individual, but are illegal. This shares many concerns with drug use, gambling, etc.
Killing yourself harms others, and society has a vested interest in the population being healthy and productive. If you harm yourself an ER has to treat you regardless of whether or not you can foot the bill. Perhaps most importantly, you can procreate and pass on defective generic material.
This is far from an issue which only concerns the individual in question.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, but there are externalities. Medical care resulting from personal choices should be paid by the risk-taking individual (or the research firm, if it's a sponsored experiment), rather than society or other people in the insurance pool.
If this becomes cheap enough for a person to effectively do for $20, I imagine the cost of resulting medical care would end up proportionally cheap.