Live data from Hacker News

Creating a sperm or egg from any cell?

npr.org

91–100 of 102 posts

Re: Creating a sperm or egg from any cell?

#91
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you ignoring my distinction between hypothetically perfect laws and the laws as written? And also being just downright stupid about what a vasectomy is and it's reversibility (hint: no medical professional will perform a vasectomy if you are getting one under the impression that it is reliably reversible, particularly after decades).

You never said it had to be reversible, so maybe next time outline your goal posts a bit better if you don’t want people to blow right through them. It’s almost as if all you said was: > Invent a world where men can disable sperm production entirely, and you'd be able to write very different laws. And you clearly can’t bother looking at the existing comments when you have so much snark to share so let me help you out…

> There is no difference between an ideal world and real laws when the laws actually exist.

If you're not capable of understanding what a hypothetical is then there's really no further discussion to be had here.

Re: Creating a sperm or egg from any cell?

#92
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You never said it had to be reversible, so maybe next time outline your goal posts a bit better if you don’t want people to blow right through them. It’s almost as if all you said was: > Invent a world where men can disable sperm production entirely, and you'd be able to write very different laws. And you clearly can’t bother looking at the existing comments when you have so much snark to share so let me help you out…

> There is no difference between an ideal world and real laws when the laws actually exist. If you're not capable of understanding what a hypothetical is then there's really no further discussion to be had here.

Hypotheticals get thrown out the window when an actual law exists. I agree there's no further discussion to be had but not for the reasons you think.

Re: Creating a sperm or egg from any cell?

#93
post #46
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) Denying the agency of women to make their own choices is by definition misogynistic. Asserting that when women make choices you don't agree with, it must be due to exploitation, is likewise misogynistic. Paternalistic too. Hardly the vocab of women's lib. B) Somehow I doubt I'll be getting a particularly balanced take from a website called 'the critic slash end womb trafficking'. Julie Bindel is a fiery political…

Your definition of misogyny is far too narrow then, if you're focusing entirely on the concept of individual agency, yet ignoring the larger structural inequalities and power dynamics that constrain women's choices and perpetuate exploitation. Did you actually read the article I linked, or are you just complaining about the URL? If you did read it, do you dispute the factual content that describes several examples of…

Using more words does not make you not misogynistic. ChatGPT can also spew endless pages of superficially coherent but intellectually devoid text, and is also entitled to the same amount of entertained debate.

Re: Creating a sperm or egg from any cell?

#94
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no difference between an ideal world and real laws when the laws actually exist. If you're not capable of understanding what a hypothetical is then there's really no further discussion to be had here.

Hypotheticals get thrown out the window when an actual law exists. I agree there's no further discussion to be had but not for the reasons you think.

That's still not how hypotheticals work, nor does it have any bearing on the original argument I was making.

You've managed to not read my original post, and have been doubling down by pretending that "well what about vasectomies" was a core problem or even oversight.

Re: Creating a sperm or egg from any cell?

#95

> People could even potentially steal the DNA of celebrities from, for example, a clipping of their hair to make babies, he says. "One law we definitely need is to make sure people can't become genetic parents without their knowledge or consent," says Greely. A new type of blackmail: (1) get some trace DNA from a rich person, (2) use it to create a baby, and (3) threaten to harm that baby if the rich person does not…

Nobody is going to care. The larger problem is what happens if someone gets a significant piece of DNA from a celebrity and then decides to mass market this to many different people. There's currently a huge scandal such as this one: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/du... . going on with the sperm donor industry because some individuals have donated under various aliases. The people who were…

Reminds me of this Canadian show called ReGenisis where a cult trying to clone Jesus was one of the background stories.

Re: Creating a sperm or egg from any cell?

#96
post #15

This will be great until we select away our natural ability to reproduce, and then the power goes out and nobody can reproduce anymore and humanity goes extinct in one generation

You might be interested in a book called The Revolutionary Phenotype. The author goes through that scenario.

Re: Creating a sperm or egg from any cell?

#98
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypotheticals get thrown out the window when an actual law exists. I agree there's no further discussion to be had but not for the reasons you think.

That's still not how hypotheticals work, nor does it have any bearing on the original argument I was making. You've managed to not read my original post, and have been doubling down by pretending that "well what about vasectomies" was a core problem or even oversight.

What hypothetical? The one where men can turn off reproduction? Congrats, that already exists. The one where laws are made around the ability to do so? Congratu-fucking-lations. It exists.

There is no hypothetical when the things being discussed already exist. That's not how hypotherticals work.

Next time, don't have a shit argument that can be broken down in a heartbeat and then whine about your precious hypotheticals not being respected.

Re: Creating a sperm or egg from any cell?

#99
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's still not how hypotheticals work, nor does it have any bearing on the original argument I was making. You've managed to not read my original post, and have been doubling down by pretending that "well what about vasectomies" was a core problem or even oversight.

What hypothetical ? The one where men can turn off reproduction? Congrats, that already exists. The one where laws are made around the ability to do so? Congratu-fucking-lations. It exists. There is no hypothetical when the things being discussed already exist. That's not how hypotherticals work. Next time, don't have a shit argument that can be broken down in a heartbeat and then whine about your precious hypothetic…

> This is relatively new; previously Visa/MC prevented their merchants from doing this but it changed recently.

Not that it is the biggest point in this chain of people arguing badly past each other, but you have confused “hypothetical” (which assumes a condition independent of what is true in reality) vs. “counterfactual” (which assumes a condition contrary to what is true in reality).

Re: Creating a sperm or egg from any cell?

#100
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the legal standard, yes. I think the stark inconsistency between how the sexes are treated here, with one being given far more power to decide outcomes for everyone, strikes many people as wrong. In a world where 'equality' is one of the highest values, it's hard to square that.

Equity is the real thing we should be striving for, not equality. There is a massive difference between the two, and it's very telling that even then, you chose to put quotes around equality. Maybe when you're asking yourself why the woman has the ultimate choice, you remember that you're not the one carrying the baby to term.

Certainly, the fact that the woman carries the baby is an argument in favor of her having decision of whether to abort it or not.

(Not a perfect argument, since it is of course his child as well and killing it would seem to involve both of them.)

It's harder to argue that she should also be the one to decide who is forced to work to pay for the baby's upbringing for 18 years. There is no situation where the woman can be so forced; she would give it up for adoption instead, which is the female version of 'paper abortion'.

This is where the idea of paper abortion for men comes from.

Post reply on HN