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

[The Grand Nudger]

Enlightened benevolence doesn't really seem like the sort of thing the upper strata is known for.  

You're not being imaginative (or bloody minded, lol) enough.  I could think of a million things to do with people who don't need as much oxygen and don't suffer fatigue as easily.  People who would have increased muscle mass and the ability to hold their breath.  

Mining would be a waste of their abilities, as would manufacturing. On the upside, they'd make great search and rescue divers, also, SEALS. Tetrachromats would make brilliant cops....or MOUT assualt.

[vorlon13]

Big (biggest?) cause of bankruptcies (and I'm assuming if someone is bankrupt they don't have any money and that would be considered 'poor') is health expenses.

So 'editing' out propensity for disease would be a no brainer if the goal is (making another assumption here) reducing poverty.


I realize that is a bunch of assumptions . . . .

[The Grand Nudger]

Poverty is a movable typeset - a relative designation.

It would be nice to edit out that vector for impoverishment..but that would, for a few generations, be mainly helpful in reducing the medical expenses of the rich, making them richer...and dragging up the level under which one would be considered impoverished by default. Even factoring in our vanishing uppermiddle class (the first "non-rich" set that would gain access)....reduced illness would increase earnings, thus decreasing the value of any given dollar (and so any given labor hour) in the marketplace.

The upside is still there, ofc, no disagreement from me on that count. Poor and/or poorer people will be less sick, someday.

[Fireball]

Having worked as a system engineer for a time, my concern with editing would be that a particular gene is still embedded in a system of other genes, and there may be an unexpected result in other parts of the system. Until we understand the entire genome, I'd be pretty cautious about editing. Somebody is going to go in all gung-ho, and something will go wrong.

[Mermaid]

Having worked as a system engineer for a time, my concern with editing would be that a particular gene is still embedded in a system of other genes, and there may be an unexpected result in other parts of the system. Until we understand the entire genome, I'd be pretty cautious about editing. Somebody is going to go in all gung-ho, and something will go wrong.

I think we do have the human genome all mapped.

[Astonished]

Enlightened benevolence doesn't really seem like the sort of thing the upper strata is known for.  

You're not being imaginative (or bloody minded, lol) enough.  I could think of a million things to do with people who don't need as much oxygen and don't suffer fatigue as easily.  People who would have increased muscle mass and the ability to hold their breath.  

Mining would be a waste of their abilities, as would manufacturing.  On the upside, they'd make great search and rescue divers, also, SEALS.  Tetrachromats would make brilliant cops....or MOUT assualt.

Oh. I was assuming they'd all become too intelligent for any of that shit to be necessary or desirable. Utopian ideal and all that.

[The Grand Nudger]

Hehehe, so, lets say a company's gene editing service is balls to the wall better than any other - the kid will be faster, smarter, stronger, healthier....but they insist on a terminator gene to prevent their IP from becoming public property through bumping uglies.

I wonder how many people would agree to their terms of use.

[Astonished]

Hehehe, so, lets say a company's gene editing service is balls to the wall better than any other - the kid will be faster, smarter, stronger, healthier....but they insist on a terminator gene to prevent their IP from becoming public property through bumping uglies.

I wonder how many people would agree to their terms of use.

You mean a built-in means of controlling otherwise completely unchecked population growth? One would think they'd be intelligent enough to accept that that's the best idea we've had in a long fucking time.

[The Grand Nudger]

No, I mean a built in means to ensure that the beneficiary of their gene editing service couldn't pass the edited genetics along to their spawn for free.  An inability to carry/be carried to term without - say, paying them to remove the inhibitor each time. This would be a decision you made for your child before their birth. It's a fairly standard GMO practice. Otherwise, they'd go out of business fast.

If your business was editing babies, you'd want there to be as many babies born as was possible. Maybe you'd bundle any editing with a fertility enhancer.

EvilCorp™ 101 man, don;t you get the memos?

[Astonished]

No, I mean a built in means to ensure that the beneficiary of their gene editing service couldn't pass the edited genetics along to their spawn for free.  Some form of sterility, or inability to carry to term without - say, paying them to remove the inhibitor each time.  This would be a decision you made for your child before their birth.  It's a fairly standard GMO practice.  Otherwise, they'd go out of business fast.

I would have thought it would be implicit from the beginning. I mean, just because your best genes are active, doesn't mean they're going to recombine in the ideal way if you fuck someone, so I figured all reproduction would be done in that manner anyway. If you want the ideal genes, you can't trust your sperm and egg to figure that shit out on their own. So I thought it would go without saying that both the pseudo-sterility and monitored, lab-controlled gene-regulating reproduction would go without saying under that kind of system, and we'd all be better off for it.

I mean, that's basically how it was on Krypton in Man of Steel. Didn't seem very problematic.