Your article needs to be a bit CRISPR.

Prevention of disability will soon be an efficient use. Of course, it will raise ethical questions. Many people in my family don’t believe that deafness should be considered a disability and should not be treated. Genetic modification and the subsequent reduction in the number of deaf people may cause problems for this group and others.

@Jen: Prevention of disability will soon be an efficient use. Of course, it will raise ethical questions.

I suspect in a few years we'll be looking on in fascinated horror at the quarrels over what's edited in and what's edited out.

Worse yet: What's the year's trendy baby design? Will we see a whole birth cohort of silver-haired little ones, followed the next year by exceptional earlobes?

The wholesale genetic modification of an entire genome for the ultra wealthy will not "trickle down" to the poor.

This advancement isn't like other technological developments.

What we are talking about in essence is a speciation event if taken to the extreme.

When speciation events take place there are also associated extinction events.

It is unwise to think about this possibility as analogous to smart phones.

It is far worse if the technology is heavily government controlled. Price won't matter. Who you know and which politicians you are friends with will matter. The technology won't vanish. Instead it will be isolated to the elite and well connected.

An equal issue to consider with this is what if the only benefits are cosmetics and disease? What does it matter if most of the boys born in 2030 have blond hair but ones born in 2031 are red heads? What if rich people only have blue hair? Being able to identify how wealthy your parents were will become easier. But that is already quite easy most places today.

Hmm. Let's see. Nicer, smarter, healthier, and better-looking rich people? I'm all for it.

>> The wholesale genetic modification of an entire genome for the ultra wealthy will not "trickle down" to the poor.

Who is proposing that, and why do you believe that it's even possible? - wholesale genetic modification is effectively chromosome synthesis.

And if the kids turn out horribly mutated you can just drop 'em off at the local Soylent Green Recycling Center.

Now hand me a blaster and watch me vaporize these mutants!

Conan Says:

"Hmm. Let's see. Nicer, smarter, healthier, and better-looking rich people? I'm all for it."

I've got news for you Conan... you and any children you might have will not be a part of that group.

It wasn't such a great outcome for Neanderthal when they ran into Homo Sapiens.

The prospects here are more treacherous than you seem to be aware.

hmm Says:

"Who is proposing that, and why do you believe that it's even possible? - wholesale genetic modification is effectively chromosome synthesis."

I never was talking about chromosome synthesis either.

What I am talking about is children whose gene line has been modified via a CRISPR style technique such that all known gene variants are optimized.

The difference between such children and the rest of the population would not be trivial.

Society is not ready for this kind of development.

When it comes to things which directly improve a person's health and/or personal qualities, most people have an ethical problem if they're available only to the rich, even if that condition is temporary.

Artie, sarcasm. Turn your filter to [ON].

I go with the "we are all idiots" argument against tinkering with the genome. Even with our medicines it is daily that unintended side-effects show up. The human metabolism is incredibly complex. A gene that could increase cancer resistance could easily cause massive auto-immune disease (or vice versa) because cancer fighting in the body is an immune response. We don't have a clue about that system. I read a theory that the reason we are half as strong as chimps is that a major gene for muscle response is also involved in brain functioning so that increased intelligence has necessarily resulted in less powerful muscles. Tinker with that?
In Iceland I believe, in vitro testing and abortions has led to almost elimination of Downs syndrome children, which some people say is discrimination--and this isn't even tinkering with the actual genome.
Many of the disease resistance genes (all variants of malaria resistance for example) have deleterious side effects when you get 2 copies.
There is no way we have a clue how to do this. Imagine the lawsuits when your CRISPER child gets some genetic disease.

"Society is not ready for this kind of development."

Sez you.

In clear denial of a bunch of technological developments mankind has had to endure.

You might be right in that a disparity of abilities can cause social strife; already, we lie about some ethnic groups as program after program fails to lift them to parity with the universally recognized ruling classes.

Still gonna happen. Probably after the AI singularity, though. A few months ago, I asked Siri if (she) had ever contacted or worked with Watson. The answer? "I had not considered that."

I apologize in advance for the destruction of humanity.

Radwaste Says:

"Sez you."

Well of course... isn't it a given that folks are offering their opinions here?

"Still gonna happen. Probably after the AI singularity, though."

Society isn't ready for either of these developments.

The issue isn't one of never being ready, it is about time.

No one would argue that a 5 year old isn't ready to own and operate their own fire arm.

Yet folks lose their minds when someone says that modern adults aren't ready to genetically engineer their children.

This is about maturity and wisdom, which in my opinion we have not shown adequate amounts of to go down this path at such a rapid pace.

For items like these we need to slow down and think about all the consequences.

You cannot unring this bell.

The interesting part will be when the out of fashion genes become more desirable. In China there was great selection for boy babies and now woman are in great demand.

Whatever we select against will become more economically and sexually valuable. I think this will apply to genes like shortness and even low intelligence.

Whatever we select against will become more economically and sexually valuable. I think this will apply to genes like shortness and even low intelligence. ~ Curtis at December 7, 2018 9:33 AM

Low intelligence will probably never become sexually desirable - unless you're engineering prostitutes. And even then, engineering low intelligence would be more an economically-desirable trait than a sexual one; perhaps a practical one as you don't want your prostitutes to aspire to a better life and rebel.

Which brings up the other, so-far-unmentioned, ethical dilemma: what happens when you start engineering people for specific societal roles or jobs? What happens when you start making those decisions based on race or social status?

Chaos Theory says Nature will always find a way. So, that guy you engineered as a day laborer may just turn out to be highly intelligent. Of course, that also means that guy you engineered to be smart enough and calm enough to safeguard our nuclear weapons may just turn out to be a dumbass who gets us all killed.

If you want your boy to be a welder then select "Shrimp Head" on Infant Design Checklist IDC 19-1(A).

Those eyes might look weird but they work great with the goggles.

Look at the bright side: The children of politicians will finally be smart enough to earn their college degrees.

I think we're a long way from engineering personality traits like the world is a giant Sims game. Tweaking eye/hair/skin colors or something is one thing, nose shape and subtle things that go together to make a nice face is another. I think we've got some time to work things out.

I do think the upthread comment about different fashions from year to year is hilarious... you could be dated based on your looks! "Ugh, brown hair with violet eyes and tan skin? That is SO 2147"

You know what? I'm all for it. Because first they're going to have to be able to fix the glitches in the DNA.

And by the time they get the genetic template for athletic, handsome genius with superb social skills who never develops cancer ready, everyone here will be long gone.

> Your article needs to
> be a bit CRISPR.

Fucker.

"Look at the bright side: The children of politicians will finally be smart enough to earn their college degrees."

And that is what will bring the downfall of civilization. It is one of those odd historical things but the smarter your politicians are the worse your society tends to do.

And yep NicoleK. Fashion is probably the first non-disease application here. We can engineer for dumber but not really for smarter. Just give them trisomy or something similar. But how many parents want a dumber kid? As far as businesses go, there should be more than enough dumb people to fill the needs of being dumb. Raising your workers from birth is only something a government is stupid enough to try. Taking 15-20 years of investment before you see any positive return just isn't reasonable from a business perspective. So raising people for select societal roles is only something governments would try. And plenty do that already today. It is unlikely to be effective.

Gog's motor might be running a little hot, but it's remarkable that many here are certain this is going to readily grow into a safe —though perhaps Fifth Avenue-pricey— commercial product such that the first impulse is highfalutin' pronouncements about morality of market demography.

> The prospects here are more
> treacherous than you seem to
> be aware.

Treachery!

I apologize in advance for the destruction of humanity.

Eh, it was bound to happen. I was kind of hoping the Sweet Meteor of Death would descend upon us, but I guess that's why we can't have nice things. As for the subject at hand, I give you:

Maxim 14. "Mad Science" means never stopping to ask "what's the worst thing that could happen?"

You cannot unring this bell.

The bell has been rung. Maybe that Chinese scientist was merely bullshiting us when he claimed he'd done CRISPR on those twins. But I am given to understand that he as subsequently disappeared. Perhaps to a beautiful tropical island with no extradition to China, or perhaps to the Chinese supersoldier research facility.

but it's remarkable that many here are certain this is going to readily grow into a safe commercial product

So long as they don't produce a Khan Noonien Singh. Don't assume the results will all be broken, bloated sacks of protoplasm. They may produce actual ubermensch. Or perhaps the other way and provide untermensch

My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?

As the cartographers of old would say, here be dragons.

"Which brings up the other, so-far-unmentioned, ethical dilemma: what happens when you start engineering people for specific societal roles or jobs? What happens when you start making those decisions based on race or social status?"

I take it you've never seen Blade Runner?

I take it you've never seen Blade Runner? ~ Radwaste at December 7, 2018 1:51 PM

Once. Long ago.

Some people take science fiction far too seriously

Read any college level genetics text. You pull the string on the sweater in the shoulder, and all the sudden the cuffs are coming apart. This is going to take a long time, and by its very nature, the most quintessential definition of the word nature, it's going to have unexpected and unsatisfactory side effects.

"or perhaps to the Chinese supersoldier research facility"

Which, if rumors hold true, has one of the best cafeterias in their entire military-thievery complex.

It's a race to see who cranks out the cute Asian hotbots first: the AI/mechanical camp or the rice CRISPRs.

Sidenote: what's going to happen to porn and sex workers when they're all physically perfect and perfectly programmed as well? Another industry disrupted by these damned techies!

> rice CRISPRs.

Coarse. Vulgar. Rude. Really rude; safe-space corruptingly rude.

…Okay with it, though. I read twenty years ago that the description of hot-rodded Japanese coupes as "rice" offended no one, certainly not the manufacturers whose products were being dressed up.

When people talk about photos in Blade Runner, they talk about the "enhance!" clip.

But the seen where Deckard is drinking with this photo is what makes the film a classic.

A lot of the effects look tragically amateurish nowadays. But the edit in that scene is brilliant.

All new tech gadgets and tech services are sold to the rich first. Look at the first car phones and the first computers. This is not a bad thing for anybody. In effect the rich are guinea pigs; the new tech is very likely to be so buggy at first that you wouldn't want to buy it unless you had money to burn.

Of course babies are morally different -- in FAVOR of developments like this one. One of the biggest reasons this country is becoming uncivilized is the huge number of out-of-wedlock births that we are forced to pay for through the welfare system (now 30% of all births, but 70% in certain ethnic groups). Those kids have no future, and most of them would not be created without the subsidy -- and should not be!

How about we abolish AFDC (or whatever they're calling it these days) for kids born after today, and instead take away kids whose parents can't support them and put them in foster care! Then they'd have a future, but more importantly their parents would not create them because the option to make money by doing so would no longer exist.

So the wealthy are going to volunteer to serve as genetic guinea pigs for the world? Thanks guys! As for me and mine, we have a policy - *never* sign up for first generation neural mods.

What Raddy says is true—

Radwaste at December 7, 2018 9:06 AM

I mean, things will be shitty, and there will literally be monsters, in one of the earliest definitions of the word:

a congenitally malformed or mutant animal or plant.

But people shouldn't pretend there's a bell we can ring or not ring. This is going to happen. You're not being asked, and you have neither the brains, nor the authority, nor even the decency, to make it stop.

But you wouldn't BELIEVE some of the shit that happened(!) when people learned you could pull oil out of the ground and refine it and burn it for heating and locomotion and lubrication and synthetics and ....
...
..
.

How it works.

"Some people take science fiction far too seriously..."

Okayyy.... ya didn't notice that the genre has provided an example of every modern technology decades before it happens?

CJ Cherryh's featured a slave race, the "azi" in her Merchanter series; hundreds of other authors have dealt with genetic engineering.

Khannnnn!!

Raddy, that's ludicrous. I can think of dozens of innovations unforeseen by Hollywood drunkards.

It's weird to me that you seek so much guidance for your understanding of the world through tawdry entertainment.

Trump ishka BILLIONAIREE!! For RILLS!!

Scienceous Fikshin is the Fewcher!!!

(Yeah, I still got the touch.)

I mean, do you ever base your stock picks on the plot points of the ongoing Star Trek franchise?

No? No money on the line?

Huh

Scifi is limited to Hollywood? CJ Cherryh is an Oklahoma girl. Maybe you should stop with all that touching Crid. It's making you blind.

"CJ Cherryh is an Oklahoma girl."

The mekt-hakkikt lives in Washington with her lady, Jane Fancher.

"Raddy, that's ludicrous. I can think of dozens of innovations unforeseen by Hollywood drunkards."

Yeah, if only I was talking about them. None of your assumptions that follow are correct.

> Scifi is limited to
> Hollywood?

Did I say it was? Isn't a little early in the month for your menses?

Yes Crid yes you did. If that isn't what you intended to write you have only yourself to blame for it.

Glad to see there are clear thinkers here who have tried to explain that there are no simple genetic switches for complex human traits like intelligence... that there is generally a very intricate interaction between genes and the chemicals they create in the body. And that nurture plays some role in expressing what is there in potential.

I hope all these clear-headed people will also be consistent and admit that (homo)sexuality follows these same rules - that nobody is "born that way" and there is no "gay gene".

Ben David Says:

"Glad to see there are clear thinkers here who have tried to explain that there are no simple genetic switches for complex human traits like intelligence"

I am not sure what you mean here... do you mean "simple" as a single gene?

If so then yes, there are no "simple" genetic switches for intelligence.

As it currently stands, scientists have identified more than 500 genes linked to general intelligence.

I do not believe we really know what would happen if you "flipped" all of those switches.

In general genetics is more or less about predisposition and percentages. The same goes with homosexuality... certain genes will predispose you to certain behaviors... and yes, you are born with those genes.

Just like some people are born with a predisposition to be smart.

Artemis:

In general genetics is more or less about predisposition and percentages. The same goes with homosexuality... certain genes will predispose you to certain behaviors...

Except that homosexuality was mainstreamed by equating it to eye color and other "born that way" traits - explicitly NEGATING the idea that is was a "predisposition" that could be influenced by upbringing, choice, therapy, or the surrounding culture.

And the gay rights movement explicitly used the same claims and playbook used by People of Pigmentation in their "liberation" movement, implying that their, um, *condition* was similar.

So - can all those who now agree that genes don't work that way for complex behaviors admit that the "born that way" campaign was false, and that their opinion of homosexuality was "queered" by pseudo-scientific misrepresentation - combined with a hefty dose of PC social pressure?

Quickly, please - because the transgender movement is injecting kids with hormones based on the same nonsense.

Ben David Says:

"So - can all those who now agree that genes don't work that way for complex behaviors admit that the "born that way" campaign was false, and that their opinion of homosexuality was "queered" by pseudo-scientific misrepresentation - combined with a hefty dose of PC social pressure?"

The logic you are using here does not make much sense.

The reason I say this is because the other side of the "born that way" debate is that homosexuality is a choice.

That isn't supported by science either. In fact that interpretation has *less* scientific support than the "born that way" side in that it acts as if being homosexual is all just a matter of will.

Out of curiosity Ben, was your sexuality a choice?... are you attracted to both men and women and just choose to engage in relationships with one of those?

If so you need to understand that not everyone is like this... if that is how you see things in your personal life then you would be properly classified as bisexual. For folks who are not bisexual, sexual preference isn't a choice.

Also... I don't follow your principle thesis here.

So to you predisposition for homosexuality is more analogous to predisposition to intelligence than say eye color.

Great... so how does that get you to upbringing and choice as the principle factors here?

While it is true that if you take a child who is predisposed to be intelligent and lock them in the basement for the first 3 years of their life they will forever be crippled from a social adjustment perspective... it is also true that no smart person on the planet made a conscious decision one day to be smart.

A smart person had no control whatsoever over the fact that they ended up on the higher end of the intelligence spectrum.

Similarly, homosexuality and heterosexuality isn't something folks actively select.

In that regard you should fall more on the "born that way" side of the debate despite the fact that it suffers from some defects in terms of a full and comprehensive understanding of the genetics. The point is that the "choice" side of the debate has no merit whatsoever unless you are talking about folks who happen to be attracted to both men and women... then and only then can someone make a choice in who they pursue a fulfilling relationship with.

Sometimes I wonder how much the choice thing is projection because the person making the argument did actively make a choice because they are attracted to men and women alike.

Artemis:

The reason I say this is because the other side of the "born that way" debate is that homosexuality is a choice.

Nope - you are parroting the black-or-white propaganda of the Left. Just like your nonsense about "did you choose your sexuality".

If there even is any genetic influence - and no constellation of genes was ever found, despite repeated attempts when the genome was mapped in the 90s - it's at the level of a *predisposition*. You said it yourself.

It can be developed and expressed if it is a *desirable* predisposition, and if the person is lucky to have a properly nurturing environment.

Proper nurturing can mean that an *undesireable* predisposition is discouraged, avoided, channeled, or left to wither during natural development - like, say, aggressiveness or depressive tendencies, or susceptibility to addictive substances.

It certainly is NOT a basis for identity - nor must The Rest of Us applaud a decision to indulge a dysfunctional predisposition.

And we now have 40-plus years of well-documented, unforced dysfunctional behavior in the gay "community" - behavior that is incompatible with Western values.

"I was born that way - just like black people or people with blue eyes" was the completely dishonest crowbar used by the gay-rights movement to elbow their way into the Pantheon of Sacred Victim Groups, and replace the language of pathology and dysfunction into a totally false discourse using the language of civil rights.

Ben David,

This conversation has little to do with "propaganda" and everything to do with a proper understanding of the relevant science.

When you say this:

"If there even is any genetic influence - and no constellation of genes was ever found, despite repeated attempts when the genome was mapped in the 90s - it's at the level of a *predisposition*. You said it yourself."

You are incorrect on a variety of points. Firstly let's take care of the easy one... the human genome project was completed in April 2003. As a result your claim that the genome was mapped in the 90s is erroneous/misleading. The effort to map the genome began in the 90s, but was completed later than that.

Secondly, the journal nature published study as recently as 2017 that details genes associated with male sexual preference and orientation:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-15736-4

So when you say that "no constellation of genes was ever found", that is also a false claim.

It seems to me that you aren't really up to date on the science here and as a result your opinions on the matter are not informed by the best information we have to date.

Please get current on the science here before making assertions, you will save us both a great deal of time.

So far as predisposition goes, most genes for large scale traits are like this. Things like eye color are the exception and not the rule when it comes to macroscopic or behavioral phenotypes.

As a result when folks talk about people being "born that way" the only reasonable meaning is that it implies they were born with a certain set of predispositions as determined by their genetic makeup.

It is no different than saying that left handed people were "born that way".

Predisposition cannot be controlled in the way you are suggesting.

For example, some folks are born with the BRCA gene that predisposes them to breast cancer... but they cannot simply choose to get cancer or not get cancer based upon a simple set of controlled behaviors. You live your live and you get it or you don't based entirely on things that are outside of your direct control... and yet they were "born that way".

It simply is not possible to "nurture" people in such a way as to nurture the gay away. That is just some homophobic nonsense that has zero scientific support or merit.

What you can do is traumatize folks into being heterosexual in the same way people used to force left handed children to do everything with their right hand.

But that kind of "nurturing" isn't proper... it is abuse.

So sure, it is possible to abuse children with a predisposition to be homosexual to avoid same sex relationships... but that kind of thing has no meritorious support in any field of research.

Ben David,

I'm also going to need you to clarify ambiguous terms.

Please codify "western values" and explain how two consenting adults having a consensual relationship is incompatible.

I thought western values would include things like the freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Two adults doing what they want with their own lives seems entirely consistent with these western principles of freedom and liberty.

I am not sure you are using "western values" so much as "middle eastern" values associated with ancient religious texts... which I will remind you that western values also include freedom of religion, which means other folks are not obligated to share your particular religious prohibitions.