Medical science is about the only thing in modern life that consistently delivers hope. While all the other terrible things are going on, something like this comes along and I’m just extremely happy to be alive right now.
Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial
71–80 of 351 posts
Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial
#72Yuval Harari makes an interesting point in one of his books: that many kinds of these inventions always start as a way to treat people with some kind of a medical condition and bring them into the "median" spectrum, but there's no stopping there and the same inventions are then used to bring "median" people into the "super-human" spectrum. What happens next is that the "regular" humans have to compete with these "sup…
You say that as if this has happened before ("many kinds of these inventions always start as..."), but what conditions have actually had this happen? I can't think of anything that started as something to help bring people up to a median level, to then end up bringing median people into a super-human level. Everything we've done so far have all been ultimately limited by the human body, so things that bring people up…
Implants, prosthetics, and exo-skeletons?
Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial
#73Yuval Harari makes an interesting point in one of his books: that many kinds of these inventions always start as a way to treat people with some kind of a medical condition and bring them into the "median" spectrum, but there's no stopping there and the same inventions are then used to bring "median" people into the "super-human" spectrum. What happens next is that the "regular" humans have to compete with these "sup…
I can't think of a medically relevant example except maybe stimulants and painkillers, but outside of medicine, this definitely is the case with technology: many inventions have a ratchet effect - they start as gimmicks, but when they reach a critical mass of users, they confer so much competitive benefits that they rapidly spread everywhere, and eventually become required to function.
Examples range from agriculture to the Internet; currently, smartphones seem to be hitting this threshold, as more private and public services become designed primarily with smartphones in mind.
I found it enlightening to ponder the history of clocks. There was a time nobody needed one; it wasn't actually useful for anything[0], because nothing in agricultural societies happened fast enough to require hour or minute accuracy. Some people eventually found use for more accurate and precise time tracking, then more, then those people realized they're able to coordinate better when they have synced clocks, which made new things possible, and few centuries later, our entire civilization runs on clocks, and it's near-impossible to live without minding what time is it.
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[0] - Use in sea navigation notwithstanding.
Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
You say that as if this has happened before ("many kinds of these inventions always start as..."), but what conditions have actually had this happen? I can't think of anything that started as something to help bring people up to a median level, to then end up bringing median people into a super-human level. Everything we've done so far have all been ultimately limited by the human body, so things that bring people up…
Implants, prosthetics, and exo-skeletons?
Which implants and prosthetics currently exist that are such that a median person would want them and as a result would become super-human?
Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial
#75[flagged]
I used to live in Texas near the biggest deaf school in the U.S. From my understanding, some people in the deaf community do consider the word "cured" to be offensive because they don't consider their condition to be a disease. I don't know if that's the dominant view and preference, but if that's the case, perhaps we should all learn to respect their culture, as much as we're all learning to respect (up to some poin…
>I used to live in Texas near the biggest deaf school in the U.S. From my understanding, some people in the deaf community do consider the word "cured" to be offensive because they don't consider their condition to be a disease.
And if these some people want to view it that way to help themselves feel better or for whatever personal motives, that's their right. However, nobody else should be obligated to suspend a rational assessment of reality because of how it might offend anyone's emotional and irrational notion.
Whether it comes from a disease, and accident or something congenital, deafness is certainly at least a defect in normal human function and needs to be recognized as such by those who could strive to eliminate it as a problem.
Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
You say that as if this has happened before ("many kinds of these inventions always start as..."), but what conditions have actually had this happen? I can't think of anything that started as something to help bring people up to a median level, to then end up bringing median people into a super-human level. Everything we've done so far have all been ultimately limited by the human body, so things that bring people up…
Breast augmentation could be one case.
Haha I guess that might technically fit.
Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Science doesn't (and shouldn't) care for how people socialize around a disability. I recognize the power and a reclaimed self worth that comes with reframing narratives around deafness. The lack of hearing is a disease. Because diseases are nominatively about being at dis-ease. As long as it's difficult for deaf people to socialize with those who outside the community, it dis-eases them.
like someone mentioned in a separate comment, you are conflating disease with disability here. when people become too old to walk without assistance, you wouldn't say that they have a walking disease.
> when people become too old to walk without assistance, you wouldn't say that they have a walking disease.
Why not? We have some peculiar cultural memes related to accepting the inevitable end of life, which we perhaps should revisit. I see no reason to not consider aging itself as a slow-burn disease, one we'll hopefully cure at some point too.
Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Implants, prosthetics, and exo-skeletons?
Which implants and prosthetics currently exist that are such that a median person would want them and as a result would become super-human?
As was mentioned in another comment, breast augmentation and other forms of body modification in the context of influencers, broadcasters, actors, models, etc.
Prosthetics may not quite be there yet, but do you seriously think they won't get there?
Military is actively investing in exoskeleton R&D. Whether it's currently accessible to the median person is sort of besides the point.
Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
You say that as if this has happened before ("many kinds of these inventions always start as..."), but what conditions have actually had this happen? I can't think of anything that started as something to help bring people up to a median level, to then end up bringing median people into a super-human level. Everything we've done so far have all been ultimately limited by the human body, so things that bring people up…
steroids
Most, even in the presented example of the olympics aren't having to compete against those on steroids though?
Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
In color blindness, the cone cells produce an incorrect opsin protein that isn't sensitive to red (or is sensitive to a frequency close to green). Gene therapy would fix that, though it'd probably take a while for the brain to understand the new information. The main reason this therapy isn't available is because the FDA has decided that the risks of gene therapy aren't worth the benefit of curing color blindness. I…
The 'though it'd probably take a while for the brain to understand the new information' is an interesting question; on one hand people say you need to fix stuff early in development while the brain is still very plastic (so great for this kid); but then again there is that demo of people getting used to vertically flipped vision with weird glasses; so perhaps something is flexible?
The brain is good at re-mapping things where it can make a distinction, but it seems to only learn distinctions in so-called "critical periods". See doi:10.1038/228477a0 for a famous 1970s experiment on the subject.