What Is the World to Do About Gene-Editing? • Hacker News Board

Re: What Is the World to Do About Gene-Editing?

#31

Post by chr1 » Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 9:20 AM UTC

mkhalil wrote: post #24

x220 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but a moratorium on gene editing is the equivalent of banning all schools.

Not even remotely right. Banning all schools will affect all children. Banning gene-editing will effect the children of the wealthy, or those who's parents chose to go that route. A better example will be banning private schools, but even then, that requires the child to at least work hard and the parents to constantly invest for a child to get any value out of it, as oppose to gene editing.

Banning all schools will affect all children now because we have reached a point where schools are common. 200 years ago they were not, and if we decided to not allow any schools until we could provide schools for everyone, we still would not have any schools.

Re: What Is the World to Do About Gene-Editing?

#32

Post by siedes » Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 9:20 AM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #19

technotony wrote: post #2

The main thing* holding back this is that we don't understand the human genome enough to make really useful edits. It's very rare that there's a change that would be better done with germline engineering than somatic cell engineering or gene therapy. One day that won't be true however, and that's when the problems will really begin. To me the strongest non-religious argument against doing this is that it will further…

I think the strongest argument against gene editing is the tendency for societal biases to be taken to the extreme. Gene editing is drastic and has the potential to greatly reduce genetic diversity in a population since people tend to want to become “normal”, or meme certain popular traits. If you gave minorities the ability to become a white males in America, would they? Certainly many would and it would mean losing…

Why would anyone become a white male in today's political climate? If anything, the concern would be white males turning themselves into minorities to get racial benefits. :-)

Re: What Is the World to Do About Gene-Editing?

#33

Post by iguy » Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 9:30 AM UTC

ramblerman wrote: post #23

chrischen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the strongest argument against gene editing is the tendency for societal biases to be taken to the extreme. Gene editing is drastic and has the potential to greatly reduce genetic diversity in a population since people tend to want to become “normal”, or meme certain popular traits. If you gave minorities the ability to become a white males in America, would they? Certainly many would and it would mean losing…

I can't help but find this incredibly condescending. You would take away a technological advantage from majorities and minorities alike because their choices might not lead to your ideal of diversity utopia.

Here's a different take, on a different sort of diversity:

Suppose it turns out that extremely high-achievers are gambles on the part of nature, which have some chance of going wrong. For example, suppose that every birth of a potential future Nobelist comes with a 10% chance of serious disabling autism. (I stress, I'm not claiming that this is true, just setting up a thought experiment.) Many parents would decline this gamble: 10% is quite a high chance of devoting the rest of your life to care, for a tiny chance of having a world-class star in the family, who will anyway have very little personal gain from his contributions. But if the whole society decides never to gamble, we will (in my scenario!) miss out on major advances.

Re: What Is the World to Do About Gene-Editing?

#34

Post by keiferski » Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 9:34 AM UTC

identity-haver wrote: post #25

keiferski wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire history in Europe of the past 2,000 years is precisely this - the preference for equality over excellence. See: Beyond Good and Evil , Nietzsche.

I'm not really sure where to start here. There was more "excellence" in the Roman Republic and prior times than the following 2000 years of European history? This is a familiar critique that seems to conflate the modern self-esteem craze, communism, and the utopian "equality of outcome" with the traditional religiously based idea of equality, which is that every soul is made in the image of and has equal responsibili…

Nietzschean philosophy is a bit too complex for me to explain in a HN comment, but I was referring more to the Master-Slave Morality concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master–slave_morality

Re: What Is the World to Do About Gene-Editing?

#35

Post by chr1 » Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 9:39 AM UTC

Thiez wrote: post #29

sho wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your offspring have genetic defects [..], and their offspring [..] > If you choose to abort, only your offspring is affected By aborting, you're not merely potentially saddling your offspring with genetic defects - you're denying them the most basic right to exist in the first place! And their offspring, too. You're shutting down that whole line before it can even start. I'm pro choice, but this line of argument…

You may be pro-choice, but you would probably oppose the right of mothers to end the lives of their children (and descendents of those children) after pregnancy. So I don't see what is strange about the argument; you are allowed to terminate a pregnancy, but you do not necessarily have the right to inflict arbitrary other life changing modifications on your children. Like, no doctor would agree to amputate the legs o…

> but you would probably oppose the right of mothers to end the lives of their children after pregnancy

Unfortunately the distinction is not that clear cut. When we have technology to raise several weeks old fetus to maturity in an artificial womb (which we'll have soon), what will be the difference between 'after pregnancy' and 'during pregnancy'? In both cases it will be something that can become a human if someone wants to spend resources to keep it alive.

> Like, no doctor would agree to amputate the legs of an unborn child

Situation with gene editing is the opposite. Is it moral to allow your child to be born with one leg, if there is an way to cure her to have both legs?

And the point about 'affecting all descendandts' is wrong because if we have a technology to make a change we can easily reverse it too.

Re: What Is the World to Do About Gene-Editing?

#36

Post by mikeq101101 » Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 9:45 AM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #19

technotony wrote: post #2

The main thing* holding back this is that we don't understand the human genome enough to make really useful edits. It's very rare that there's a change that would be better done with germline engineering than somatic cell engineering or gene therapy. One day that won't be true however, and that's when the problems will really begin. To me the strongest non-religious argument against doing this is that it will further…

I think the strongest argument against gene editing is the tendency for societal biases to be taken to the extreme. Gene editing is drastic and has the potential to greatly reduce genetic diversity in a population since people tend to want to become “normal”, or meme certain popular traits. If you gave minorities the ability to become a white males in America, would they? Certainly many would and it would mean losing…

>losing the benefits of such diversity we currently have

Could you describe some of these benefits?

Re: What Is the World to Do About Gene-Editing?

#37

Post by ben_w » Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 9:50 AM UTC

ramblerman wrote: post #23

chrischen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the strongest argument against gene editing is the tendency for societal biases to be taken to the extreme. Gene editing is drastic and has the potential to greatly reduce genetic diversity in a population since people tend to want to become “normal”, or meme certain popular traits. If you gave minorities the ability to become a white males in America, would they? Certainly many would and it would mean losing…

I can't help but find this incredibly condescending. You would take away a technological advantage from majorities and minorities alike because their choices might not lead to your ideal of diversity utopia.

Monocultures are fragile. They are fragile in agriculture, they are fragile in software development, and they are fragile in political thought. There is no reason to expect we would not be equally fragile if we all changed our genomes to be the “same race”, especially given that “The concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis” [1], and therefore can be expected to continue to find it easy discriminate against each other for being different right up until the supermajority[2] are all identical.

[1] https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/gb-...

[2] I was going to say ‘entire population’, then I remembered one of our differences includes a desire to be different; how different we get to be depends on social rules, which is why the number of furries who had themselves surgically altered to look like (say) cats is a small non-zero number.

Re: What Is the World to Do About Gene-Editing?

#38

Post by Emma_Goldman » Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 9:51 AM UTC

ramblerman wrote: post #23

chrischen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the strongest argument against gene editing is the tendency for societal biases to be taken to the extreme. Gene editing is drastic and has the potential to greatly reduce genetic diversity in a population since people tend to want to become “normal”, or meme certain popular traits. If you gave minorities the ability to become a white males in America, would they? Certainly many would and it would mean losing…

I can't help but find this incredibly condescending. You would take away a technological advantage from majorities and minorities alike because their choices might not lead to your ideal of diversity utopia.

'You would take away a technological advantage.'

This begs the question. Whether this is an advantage or not is exactly what is at issue.

'Might not lead to your ideal of diversity utopia.'

One of the defining traits of humans is that they are acutely aware of their relative social status. A significant group of those perceived advantages are based upon appearance. The attempt to imitate and supersede others in a toxic battle for recognition creates all sorts of harms. Opening up our germline to that battle seems extremely dangerous. Your comment reads like pure political reaction.

Re: What Is the World to Do About Gene-Editing?

#39

Post by luma » Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 9:51 AM UTC

ramblerman wrote: post #23

chrischen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the strongest argument against gene editing is the tendency for societal biases to be taken to the extreme. Gene editing is drastic and has the potential to greatly reduce genetic diversity in a population since people tend to want to become “normal”, or meme certain popular traits. If you gave minorities the ability to become a white males in America, would they? Certainly many would and it would mean losing…

I can't help but find this incredibly condescending. You would take away a technological advantage from majorities and minorities alike because their choices might not lead to your ideal of diversity utopia.

I feel like the comments here have some beef with "diversity" as used in this context. The impact of genetic diversity within a species is extremely widely studied and there is little doubt to the benefits nor is it a matter of personal politics. It applies to algea as much as it does sapiens.

Re: What Is the World to Do About Gene-Editing?

#40

Post by mirimir » Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 9:51 AM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #19

technotony wrote: post #2

The main thing* holding back this is that we don't understand the human genome enough to make really useful edits. It's very rare that there's a change that would be better done with germline engineering than somatic cell engineering or gene therapy. One day that won't be true however, and that's when the problems will really begin. To me the strongest non-religious argument against doing this is that it will further…

I think the strongest argument against gene editing is the tendency for societal biases to be taken to the extreme. Gene editing is drastic and has the potential to greatly reduce genetic diversity in a population since people tend to want to become “normal”, or meme certain popular traits. If you gave minorities the ability to become a white males in America, would they? Certainly many would and it would mean losing…

Skin color involves only a few genes, which don't likely impact much else. It's pretty common now for people with different skin colors to discover that they're actually rather closely related. As in maybe only second or third cousins.