Live data from Hacker News

Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

newatlas.com

81–90 of 250 posts

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting points. Personally, not sure I agree with 1. Lots of scenarios where creating a sentient being would be bad - like if that being can only experience endless pain. On point 2 : well you got me there. Let me be more precise : its not the "natural processes" part that is important, but my point was rather that this type of hybridizing results in the creation of organisms which have not been time tested and w…

> We have no gaurantees of the probabability of a successful organism - could be, as I said, some fucked up abomination which only exists to plead for death. Although I think this is unlikely, let's accept it as true for the sake of argument. Eventually I think it's fair to presume we'd come to understand which variations of the process produce your 'abomination' and solve that problem, such that we go on to produce…

Personally, I think it would not be a better outcome, no.

What would be the point of creating new species? Sow more division and war and violence. I just dont see it turning out well. Inherently humans would be the "creators" of the other species. Sounds like a recipe for some horrible problems with speciesm.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#82

I am by no means whatsoever an Alex Jones listener or fan. But he's been laughed at for proclaiming that human/animal hybrids are being "developed" for some time now (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa9jXkVpnw0 , for example). It's scary to see this article because it's essentially "proving" Alex Jones right. This is a very bad precedent. The issue at hand is serious, but it's obscured because of the comedic/craz…

If he referenced some good reasoning, he'd be proven right. If he's just screaming random ideas often enough that one turns out to be true... he's still just screaming random ideas. (Also turning frogs female is not the same as turning them gay - if he meant that it would propagate harmful stereotypes)

Jones is a kind of "bullshitter," as defined by Harry Frankfurt [0][1].

To paraphrase — a liar has some respect for the truth, because he knows its power and shies away from it. A bullshitter doesn't care if something is true or false, only if they persuade their listener, and therefore the bullshitter has no respect for the truth.

The point I was trying to make, and maybe I did not make it well, was that this is another thing Jones's adherents can point to to say "well, look, he was right about this." That means he can persuade more people, which is clearly not good.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1RO93OS0Sk

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#83
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that reasoning about morality without an irrational, faith-based approach leads to a "slippery slope" if you will of reasoning. Essentially, I believe that the fundamental utility of religion is that it provides a framework for morality which is external to logic : therefore it allows one to establish moral barriers which cannot be cross regardless of any logical rationalization. This is important when consid…

This seems similar to the Jordan Peterson view that religion, mythology, and even good fiction serves to encode generational wisdom on how best to organize a society.

Maybe similar. While I agree with that view, I think religion is more than that.

My practical argument is not that it encodes generational wisdom, necessarily, but rather that it is a source of moral reasoning that lies external to pure logic, which sacrifices what is right for what is practical, or expedient, in many cases

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#84
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alex Jones claimed 1) that the US Air Force attacked Texas with weather control weapons 2) that the majority of frogs in the US are now gay because the government is intentionally turning people homosexual for population control 3) that the most monstrous shooting in my lifetime, Sandy Hook, was a false flag and the bereaved families of the murdered first graders were crisis actors. Alex Jones is an awful person. He…

> Alex Jones is an awful person. He lies about so much, some of it will end up being accidentally correct. Agreed. > What he says or thinks should be shunned by any decent human being, and he should not be brought up here. No. He should not be a taboo topic. Let it out in the open where rational people can see for themselves how crazy he is and make up their own minds. I really hate this whole cancel culture thing, I…

I don't care for cancel culture, too. That doesn't mean we can be selective about who and what we spend our limited time on Earth discussing. Not talking about a pathologically lying conspiracy theorist is good for efficiency and mental health. To each their own.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#85
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh like I said I was not as concise as I would like to have been in my comment : IVF is not creating a completely new, engineered organism. Not really what I am talking about. And man, the idea that religion has no place in the modern world would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. Religion serves a veokry important role in society and we abandon it at our peril. I am sorry to hear about your friend, but this is re…

As someone that doesn't abhor religion, the following isn't meant as argumentative, but rather curiosity: > Religion serves a very important role in society and we abandon it at our peril. What "important role" might that be? I don't see the necessity of religion and don't think there's anything inherent of religions that can't be supplemented by the surrounding culture.

In my travels around the U.S., I encountered many institutions helping the disadvantaged, and almost all of them were religious, mostly Christian or spiritual. I don't know any other organization or entity feeding, clothing, listening, aiding those who need it, day in and day out, giving time and effort and resources without expecting anything in return. No photo ops or social media posts.

With Christianity supposedly in decline, especially in tech, how will we replace it?

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#86
post #8

1996, Jose Cibelli implanted his own DNA into a cow egg, then let it divide into 32 chimeric stem cells before destroying it. I heard about the news in 1998 and was blown away by how little anyone seemed to care. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/12/us/researchers-claim-embr...

How about 1920s? It's not clear how far it went.

> "Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov was the first person to attempt to create a human–chimp hybrid by artificial insemination."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he referenced some good reasoning, he'd be proven right. If he's just screaming random ideas often enough that one turns out to be true... he's still just screaming random ideas. (Also turning frogs female is not the same as turning them gay - if he meant that it would propagate harmful stereotypes)

Jones is a kind of "bullshitter," as defined by Harry Frankfurt [0][1]. To paraphrase — a liar has some respect for the truth, because he knows its power and shies away from it. A bullshitter doesn't care if something is true or false, only if they persuade their listener, and therefore the bullshitter has no respect for the truth. The point I was trying to make, and maybe I did not make it well, was that this is ano…

We can't prevent it until it crosses into directly harmful territory. We can just ignore it and call out the random luck when it is. He wasn't the first one and won't be the last one.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#88
post #60

These chimeras pave the way for more accurate models of human biology and disease The goal, the team says, is to make better models for studying biological development, evolution, disease progression and treatments. "As we are unable to conduct certain types of experiments in humans, it is essential that we have better models to more accurately study and understand human biology and disease," Interestingly, the revie…

Did you finish reading the article? > After 10 days, there were 103 of these chimeric embryos remaining, but by day 19 only three still survived. After that, the embryos were terminated before they developed any further. Clusters of cells can't be 'tortured in a lab,' there are plenty of legitimate problems in the world to be outraged about but this really isn't one of them.

Okay, on day 19 three of them are clusters of cells, how about day 280? How about year 5? I think the argument is that a majority of people would find it unethical to continue to develop viable embryos, and even more unethical to conduct research on them were they to mature.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#89
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much brain capacity those terminated embryos have though??

You're right, anything below a certain brain capacity should just be killed off. Maybe we could even put such people into camps and then slowly kill them without people finding out. I doubt anybody would care or start a world war because of it.

Straight to godwin.

You know an easy way to tell awful comments? How about this: a sarcastic reply to someone who didn't even make a particular point, with "You're right, [here's what I wish your comment was so I could make fun of it]"

Post reply on HN