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Comment on Iron

jsomae@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

This is only because the word “eugenics” has been made a bad word because people assume that anything called “eugenics” must be similar to the horrible things the Nazis did. It’s the non-central fallacy – such things are eugenics only in the same way that Martin Luther king is technically a criminal (he did violate the law by protesting) or abortion is murder (a “human being” does “die”).

Polygenic scoring on embryos is legal and eminently doable if you’re wealthy enough to afford it; it’s a very effective way to eliminate the risk of debilitating genetic diseases like Down’s Syndrome, and can greatly reduce the risk of things like Alzheimer’s or some types of cancer. It also can improve the IQ of your child by up to ~8 points or so, which correlates (plausibly causally) with higher education and income in life. So basically, it’s an effective way to help make your child more privileged. Right now it’s only affordable by the very wealthy though, but perhaps in ten years it will be very cheap.

Notice though that it’s unrelated to race pseudoscience and murder, even though race pseudoscientists like to talk about genetics and IQ.

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outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There are other hazards and i don’t trust this society to deal with any of them in healthy ways.

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- jsomae@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I don’t trust society to fairly give out any kind of health-related benefit. The USA just ended PEPFAR this year, condemning millions in africa to die of easily-preventable diseases. But you don’t see me protesting the very notion of medical science.
  
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  - outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Im seconding the ‘this is how you get gattaca’ comment.
    
    If i could crispr myself in my garage, there’s some shit I’d absolutely do right now. Like wonder when i got a garage.
    
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    jsomae@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I don’t really see why billionaires change the calculus. So what if they get slightly genetically superior children? They already have everything.
    
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interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
jsomae, do you want Gattaca ? Because that’s how you get Gattaca !

And next for sale we have this worker with very small hands, through multiple generation of human breeding we have developped this fine pure bred specimen perfectly adapted to reaching into tight spaces and machinery, its mind is docile and obedient and doesn’t get spooked easily by the loud sound of working high speed hydraulic presses. Very agile with tools and can read schematics but no artistic ability nor speech as a side effect of the genetic modification, on the plus side, they cannot form unions.

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- jsomae@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Gattaca is a great warning about what could happen if we have gene-elitism. If you’ve forgotten, the premise of Gattaca is that the main character isn’t genetically enhanced, but he’s still sufficiently capable; it’s only stigma, not an actual lack of ability, which is a threat to his career. We already live in a world where some people are privileged and some people are not, and despite this, there’s been a Black POTUS, women astronauts, and so on. That a lack of privilege is a barrier that can be overcome is basically central to liberal ideology; I don’t see it disappearing in the west any time soon.
  
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  - Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think GATTACA is more a warning that gene editing will become a luxury of the wealthy, and inherently will be elitist, with no realistic way to separate the two. It will just become the new rich and connected qualifier, doesn’t matter the actual capacities of the people, the one with the money, and connections, will be much more likely to get the thing.
    
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    jsomae@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    In the USA, health-care is already a luxury of the wealthy. Perhaps if we improve the IQ of our population with free access to polygenic scoring and IVF, we’ll stop voting in lunatics who benefit the wealthy.
    
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- dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  How bad could it be? Ethan Hawke succeeds in the movie even though he’s got no real genetic qualifications.
  
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  - interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Ask Jude Law inside the incinerator how things are going for him
    And astronaut boy is not going to be normal
    after the surveillance state twisted him like a pretzel so he could avoid detection
    
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- explodicle@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Imagine if we got genetic engineering back when everybody inherited their parent’s job. People named Smith would look like dwarves.
  
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  - interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yes, most humans would be genetically designed living tools to serve the few real, pure bred, unmodified humans
    For them liberation would only mean death, not that they could imagine life in different way
    for copyright reasons, they would also all be sterile of course
    
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    jsomae@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I find it surprising that you think the rich and powerful would not choose to genetically enhance themselves (their children) to be smarter, more attractive, etc. They would surely be the first to do so.
    
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