Eugenics/Designer-babies... is the concept really that bad?

[The Grand Nudger]

You can ask that with a straight face, lol?  

If there's money to be made in it, money will be made.  It;s hard to imagine a product that people would pay more for, than designer spawn. There's -already- a market for it, all of sexual selection provides the backdrop.

The alternative is that this fantastically valuable service is offered, from the outset, free of charge to everyone everywhere - that's the only way to avoid the worst case scenario. A wonderful tech, sure, but also pandoras box.

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Consider a hypothetical in which a government does earmark billions in order to pay for engineering in human children.  Are those billions likely to go to the poor in ghettos, or the military? To couples with terrible heritable diseases, or strong political connections?

[Mermaid]

People can want and be willing to pay for a lot of medical procedures, that doesn't mean they will be able to access it. Of course there are a lot of medical ethics questions involved. That's true for almost everything in medicine, though.

[LastPoet]

At work today, the topic of gene editing to alter fetuses came up, and most of my colleagues seemed to be strictly against that, but I really don't understand why. Sure if an error goes out into the population unchecked, it can lead to totally unpredictable consequences, but if I am not mistaken, evolution does that all the time already, at least if we take control of the process ourselves we might have a chance of fixing things before things get out of hand. Also, evolution is damn slow and unpredictable and hence unreliable for our survival. I mean, let's say our blue planet is hit by another large space rock, can we really say we will be able to evolve and adapt in time to survive the planet-wide changes? On the other hand, if we by then have properly mastered our genetics, we can easily engineer our offsprings to survive the disaster. Moreover, if we can engineer ourselves to survive in space, then I don't see any reason not to try it, we will be able to colonize other planets easily and ensure our survival. Also, I know that those kinds of engineering capabilities are decades, if not centuries away, but if we don't take some tiny risks and start studying now, how can we ever expect to get there?

Repeatedly inserting my penis onto my wife's vajayjay seems to be the kind of thing that 9 months later pops out, new to this world.

I am all about eugenics when it comes to fucking. Its the best eugenics. Why use technology to do what we are already equiped wifh Magi?

[c172]

I definitely think eugenics will eventually become a not-uncommon thing, but it will never be universal due to some folks' ethical concerns and the prohibitive expense for others. 

As a visibly disabled person, I also know it will not solve all the problems people think and/or hope it will. Within this calendar year, I came within a couple feet of also becoming a double-amputee due to a drunk driver that headed straight for me at a 4-way and accelerated. What are people going to do at that point? Call for my execution for acquiring another disability and thereby offending their relevant sensibilities?

At the conferences of the Spina Bifida Association and all its state and regional chapters, there is less of an emphasis on a cure, and more of one on QOL (quality of life) issues, both surgical and therapeutic. This is the most reasonable and most helpful tack that can be taken for folks like me. A cure will not happen for a long time (at least a viable, safe, and palatable cure). But tomorrow will happen. Tomorrow. And that's soon. Best to think about quality of life more than a cure.

[The Grand Nudger]

People can want and be willing to pay for a lot of medical procedures, that doesn't mean they will be able to access it. Of course there are a lot of medical ethics questions involved. That's true for almost everything in medicine, though.

Sure, there could be a shortage of a drug or of providers, but money -is- access.  It's true that there are ethics questions involved in all of medicine, though, in the case of designer babies, more difficult ones than in the case of vaccinations or stitches.  Engineered human beings would be in a class all their own, not just as human beings, but as ethical problems. Awesome tech, incredible potential, for better or for worse. Personally, I think it;s a good idea...but I'm pretty sure the first we'll see of it on any large scale is rich kids and bred soldiers. Unless we suddenly become much better people than we are, ofc.

[Aoi Magi]

Well, it might seem like it is something for the wealthy, but so were all technological innovations once. Televisions, computers, phones everything was once available solely to the rich, now they are so commonplace that we barely even stop to admire them. And gene editing is already something that even college grads can do in a barebone lab, with the right laws and progress in technology things should get even easier and more accessible.

As for corporate shadiness, unless they are a movie villain organization like umbrella corp, they really won't have that much motivation to do something shady. Sure they can try to keep that intelligence enhancing formula for themselves for a while, but as we all know in this age of information such attempts are quite pointless. Trying to keep from others and selfish greed only makes sense with limited resources but with genetic engineering, we possibly might have access to the entire universe.

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh, absolutely, but televisions aren't genetically enhanced human beings.  I don;t think theres any need for shadiness, the worst case scenario can present itself for nothing but the best of intentions.

Let's use tvs - suppose it takes two or three generations, as it did for tvs, for them to become affordable, in every home -at least every home in the developed world..........

Gene editing follows the same arc, and the people who do it charge what they do to pay off the r/d and establshment costs so that someday, every baby can be edited. Given the current disparity between the rich and the poor...what will two or three generations of genetic supremacy do to that gap?

[Astonished]

At work today, the topic of gene editing to alter fetuses came up, and most of my colleagues seemed to be strictly against that, but I really don't understand why. Sure if an error goes out into the population unchecked, it can lead to totally unpredictable consequences, but if I am not mistaken, evolution does that all the time already, at least if we take control of the process ourselves we might have a chance of fixing things before things get out of hand. Also, evolution is damn slow and unpredictable and hence unreliable for our survival. I mean, let's say our blue planet is hit by another large space rock, can we really say we will be able to evolve and adapt in time to survive the planet-wide changes? On the other hand, if we by then have properly mastered our genetics, we can easily engineer our offsprings to survive the disaster. Moreover, if we can engineer ourselves to survive in space, then I don't see any reason not to try it, we will be able to colonize other planets easily and ensure our survival. Also, I know that those kinds of engineering capabilities are decades, if not centuries away, but if we don't take some tiny risks and start studying now, how can we ever expect to get there?

Under the right conditions, yes, this would be an ideal thing to do (one of said right conditions being, it's available to EVERYONE who wants it for their offspring so there's no discrimination based on income, intelligence, race, etc.)

Why would it be a bad thing to, say, engineer people immune to a great number of very unpleasant diseases and conditions? 98% resistance against all cancers? Sign me up. Immune system rejects HIV/AIDS before it can take root? Yes, please. Vaccinations no longer required due to effectiveness of immune response? Oh, hell, yeah. Malaria and other parasitic maladies no longer needing sickle cell anemia to resist? Fuckin' A.

Or how about cognitive ability increased? We might be rid of faith in a generation with that, so obviously that's a huge selling point just on its own. Shrink that reptilian part of the brain, increase memory capacity, it would be criminal to DENY someone that if the opportunity to give it was presented.

I'm not saying go full GATTACA, where only those who've been modified would occupy positions of power or whatever, but if when it came down to competition between natural-birth and enhanced-birth folks for education and jobs, it just seems like a foregone conclusion who would come out on top. One would simply hope that those possessing enhanced intelligence would not segregate society like that, develop enough automation that menial jobs no longer have to be performed so nobody is relegated to them if they don't want to, and other careers are available to those who don't occupy the top strata.

Apart from that kind of thing, I'm not really seeing any other enhancements that might really be practical, other than a metabolic stimulation boost that would decrease the tendency to become obese in spite of the largely sedentary nature of most careers. Possibly temper that with a higher efficiency digestive system so that one hungers less and wouldn't be inclined to overeat or if they ate a really crappy diet, it wouldn't be too negative.

[The Grand Nudger]

Thing is, if there are objectively better genetic specimens of humanity, we'll go full gattaca by default.  Why would I hire a lesser being, who invariably underperforms compared to an engineered candidate?  That was the premise of Gattaca.  Not that the society sought to intentionally become casually villainous, but that it just happened.  The answer, in movieland, ofc..was "determination".

-how about increased tolerance for oxygen deprivation
-resistance to acid buildup in muscle tissue
-tetrachromatic vision
-increased dopamine/seratonin production or decreased inhibitor production.
-enhanced white blood cell count

Just for starters. These traits already exist in mutants among us, lol.

[Astonished]

Thing is, if there are objectively better genetic specimens of humanity, we'll go full gattaca by default.  Why would I hire a lesser being, who invariably underperforms compared to an engineered candidate?  That was the premise of Gattaca.  Not that the society sought to intentionally become casually villainous, but that it just happened.  The answer, in movieland, ofc..was "determination".

-how about increased tolerance for oxygen deprivation
-resistance to  acid buildup in muscle tissue
-tetrachromatic vision

Just for starters.  These traits already exist in mutants maong us, lol.

Hence why I said hopefully those at higher levels would be more enlightened than to go that route, or at least not that severely. In employment perhaps, but not in every other aspect of society, that was preposterous hyperbole.

I think those first two are more for if your job tends to be more hazardous (miners or something) or more physically than mentally taxing so unless automation for those things turns out not to be possible/feasible, it wouldn't necessarily be that important. Not even sure what the hell that third one means.