Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Turning stem cells into human eggs

conception.bio

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 106 posts

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#11

Post by hourislate »

WJW wrote: post #5
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #2

No Ethics personnel on the team?

> Our Mission > We want to help parents have kids when it otherwise wouldn’t be possible. What is so unethical about that?

Because the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I can see many ways this spirals into something different.

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#12

Post by The_rationalist »

women can already cryogenize their eggs, so what is the value proposition? Even if one could transform a stem cell into an egg, that would be extremely dangerous. The stem cell for a human of say 50/60 years old has accumulated many kinds of damage over time (oxidative stress, mitochondria bioenergetics, DNA, proteasomomal deficits, etc)

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#13

Post by willmorrison »

Seems completely unethical to me. This would be more of an advancement for eugenics than anything else. Would people be scared of giving blood at blood drives? Could celebrities who don’t want to have children have cells taken from them and put through this process?

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#14

Post by willmorrison »

jschwartzi wrote: post #8
josephcsible wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that end is noble, but the ends don't always justify the means.

I don’t understand. Are you saying there’s some negative impact to allowing people to have children who otherwise couldn’t? What problems do you foresee?

I commented above a few of the issues I see. For example, would Lebron James (or any celebrity or person that has genetics that are profitable) be afraid of giving blood for fear of someone making Lebron 2.0 without his permission?

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#15

Post by mcculley »

jschwartzi wrote: post #8
josephcsible wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that end is noble, but the ends don't always justify the means.

I don’t understand. Are you saying there’s some negative impact to allowing people to have children who otherwise couldn’t? What problems do you foresee?

Once humans (and other animals) can be created without parents being involved, there will be many ethical issues.

At what point do they attain human rights? At conception? At "birth" from an artificial womb? What defines "human" in "human rights"? (Can they knock out a few genes and make a sentient creature that is capable of suffering but not human? We have sentient non-humans suffering in factory farms already.) How will we prevent people/corporations/governments/religions from just deciding to create a bunch of people? What does regulation look like in this inevitable future?

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#16

Post by skulk »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #2

No Ethics personnel on the team?

How much does ethics even matter in this specific case? If they develop this technology and use it in a "maximally ethical" way, whatever that is, what is stopping the next person to get their hands on it from using it unethically? It seems to me that the ethics question was "Should we have this technology at all?" and not "What do we do with it?" and it's already been answered.

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#17

Post by sdhfjg »

willmorrison wrote: post #13

Seems completely unethical to me. This would be more of an advancement for eugenics than anything else. Would people be scared of giving blood at blood drives? Could celebrities who don’t want to have children have cells taken from them and put through this process?

Eugenics has obvious issues when applied to mature individuals or groups, but I'll need convincing that the same moral position is warranted if we're talking about cells.

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#18

Post by danuker »

sdhfjg wrote: post #17
willmorrison wrote: post #13

Seems completely unethical to me. This would be more of an advancement for eugenics than anything else. Would people be scared of giving blood at blood drives? Could celebrities who don’t want to have children have cells taken from them and put through this process?

Eugenics has obvious issues when applied to mature individuals or groups, but I'll need convincing that the same moral position is warranted if we're talking about cells.

> We want to help parents have kids when it otherwise wouldn’t be possible.

Sounds to me like those eggs are bound to become mature individuals.

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#20

Post by sdhfjg »

danuker wrote: post #18
sdhfjg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eugenics has obvious issues when applied to mature individuals or groups, but I'll need convincing that the same moral position is warranted if we're talking about cells.

> We want to help parents have kids when it otherwise wouldn’t be possible. Sounds to me like those eggs are bound to become mature individuals.

I could have been more clear, the distinction is semantic. I was referring to culling/sterilization to prevent reproduction in the sexually mature. Unborn persons are not adults, even if they will be.
Post reply on HN