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Uhh... I don't believe that these concerns are valid at this point in time because the technical complexity required to actually "use CRISPR on yourself" (which

Uhh... I don't believe that these concerns are valid at this point in time because the technical complexity required to actually "use CRISPR on yourself" (which isn't even a coherent idea in the first place) is extremely daunting. We're talking intermittent failure with a fully kitted lab, trained people, good protocols, and a concrete goal. CRISPR being scientifically "easy" to implement relative to the other solutions on the market doesn't mean you can just slop together some new genes and go wild. Geneticists should probably know that, but whatever. The point is, you can't just "take CRISPR" and "chop up some cool new genes" then "use it on yourself". I mean, I shouldn't have to say this at all, but only with a childlike understanding is such a sequence of events remotely conceivable. Each of those items within quotation marks entail a deeply complicated series of planning actions and laboratory manipulations within different scientific paradigms, executed without mishap. Even if it WAS that simple, who cares? People unambiguously have the right to experiment on themselves and alter their bodies however they wish without unwanted external interference.

deleted 11y ago
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TheCraiggers 11y ago
I love everything you said, but the last sentence gave me pause. There are a few cases were experiments on themselves using CRISPR may be at best morally "wrong". Changing your genes that may introduce defects to your offspring, for example. Another (probably less likely but more interesting to me) example is altering yourself in a way that invites a communicable disease to take hold, optionally mutate, and begin infecting others.
- curryst 11y ago
  I don't think it's any different from many things we already do that are considered "right". > Changing your genes that may introduce defects to your offspring Is it wrong for someone who has a genetic disorder to breed? What about cases where both parents are carriers of a recessive genetic disorder, which gives the child a 25% chance of expressing the disease and a 50% chance of being a carrier themselves? > altering yourself in a way that invites a communicable disease to take hold, optionally mutate, and begin infecting others. Again, this isn't something we consider morally wrong. Is it morally wrong to let your basement be damp and grow mold? Sure, it's stupid, but is it morally wrong? Is it morally wrong to have unprotected sex? We generally consider an action's morality based on the intent. If your intent is to spread disease, it's wrong. If you had a different intent, but didn't realize the consequences you're not considered to be wrong. I think the more compelling argument is, what happens to people who don't want to alter their DNA if this actually works? If this is allowed in sports, much like steroids, other athletes will be compelled to undergo treatment just to remain competitive. If we can make people smarter, then people who won't undergo treatment could be relegated to doing menial tasks simply because they won't edit their own DNA. To add another interesting corollary to that, what about people that won't do it for religious reasons? I know some people who oppose any kind of genetic alterations for whatever reason because it violates "God's design". I'm sure someone will call it discrimination when they have to flip burgers because they haven't undergone treatment to have an Einstein level IQ like the rest of the workforce.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > > altering yourself in a way that invites a communicable disease to take hold, optionally mutate, and begin infecting others. > Again, this isn't something we consider morally wrong "we" who? I suspect that it something quite a lot of people who consider to be morally wrong (whether they would consider it the kind of moral wrong that it would be desirable to formally sanction, as through legal prohibition on doing it or legal restriction on public interaction if you do it, is a separate consideration, but consider the issue of mandatory vaccination which involves legal restrictions if you fail to take active steps, involving treatment of your own body, to protect yourself and, through herd immunity, others from communicable disease -- its not implausible that many would consider active steps, even involving modifying your own body, that increase the risk of communicable disease sufficiently to not only be abstractly morally wrong, but the kind of moral wrong for which legal sanction is appropriate.) > We generally consider an action's morality based on the intent. If your intent is to spread disease, it's wrong. If you had a different intent, but didn't realize the consequences you're not considered to be wrong. In morality, as in law, while intent is usually important, actions taken without intent to cause harm but in which known risks of harms to others exist and are ignored, or even cases where risks of harm exist which would have been discovered with due care and are unknown to the actor due to their lack of concern, are often also considered wrong despite the absence of specific ill intent.
    - curryst 11y ago
      You touch on mandatory vaccination, which is already largely polarized, but what about any of the hundreds of ways you can decrease your immune response that we don't commonly talk about? Lack of exercise, overconsumption of alcohol, being overweight, these things all decrease the functioning of your immune system, thus inviting disease. Are they morally reprehensible? And how does one way the cost benefit of the genetic modifications? We already have a substantial number of people on immunosuppressants for transplants, among other things. Is it okay for them to invite communicable disease because they would die otherwise? If so, where is the line where it is acceptable to compromise your immune system? > in which known risks of harms to others exist and are ignored What level of possible risk defines an immoral action? If we compare it to driving, there's a known risk that I'm going to kill someone while driving. With genetic modification, there's a very low assumed risk because we honestly haven't the faintest idea what's going to happen. The assumption of benefit is about the same as the assumption of detriment. > cases where risks of harm exist which would have been discovered with due care and are unknown to the actor due to their lack of concern, are often also considered wrong despite the absence of specific ill intent. This is a more nuanced area, especially in medicine. We have a lot of medical research that was enabled, or greatly hastened, by experiments undertaken with little knowledge of what the outcome would be. This would have the advantage of the subjects providing consent, since they seem to be acutely aware that there could be serious side effects. How far can we go without actually applying this research to people? How long will it take to get there, and how much time will trying the research on people save? How many lives could be saved by trying it on people now? > due care I also disagree with the use of this term. What is "due care", and at what point have you satisfied it? It seems to me that if you get to the point where you know all of the potential outcomes, the value of actually doing the experiment is greatly diminished. From my understanding, it seems highly unlikely for this gene splicing to have a radical effect either way. The two most likely outcomes, I think, are that no noticeable change in expression occurs, or the patient dies.
hobs 11y ago
Agreed on everything up to the last sentence, but I would also be one to say that we should mandate vaccines and not allow bullshit objections to override public health for all. I am not a geneticist, and I imagine the state of the art of CRISPR wouldnt even be close to something like this now, but couldnt conceptually someone create an environment in their body that causes problems with unengineered people? (and then call into question whether bioengineering yourself is actually something we should protect) For instance, comparing what is effectively "natural engineering" of people's immune systems living in cities and close proximity decimating native populations by bringing their diseases to the new world. Their resistance allowed them to breed a whole new set of horrible things.
- pmoriarty 11y ago
  Many people considered objections to eugenics to be bullshit as well. It was considered very scientific, modern, and a great advance of public health.
  - hobs 11y ago
    You might not think I would say so, but that is a fair point; basing our decisions on the flavor of the times is not actually a way to determine whether something is right. However, do you think the ethical considerations of eugenics and vaccines are the same? I think that would be a disingenuous claim.
    - pmoriarty 11y ago
      Forcing people to get vaccinated because "we know better", and especially with some objectors' voiced concern that the vaccinations are harming them in some way (whether that's true or not) do bear some similarities to the forced sterilizations undertaken by proponents of eugenics, yes. Furthermore, some victims of eugenics programs were considered mentally inferior to the those who were sterilizing them, and generally considered not intelligent enough to make their own decisions in this matter or to know any better. That also has some echoes in the vaccination vs anti-vaccination debate today, with the latter being accused of being stupid, uneducated, misled, ignorant of or unjustly fearful of modern science and the vaccines that some propose forcing on them for their own good or the greater good.
ap22213 11y ago
I hear lots of people saying similar things about 'rights' these days. It's like people think that declaring something as a 'right' is all that it takes to enable free action. If only it was that easy. My experience is different: One has a 'right' to do something as long as the observers (i.e. the authority) agrees that the right exists. In other words: if you want a right, you have to fight for it, first. (Personally, I agree with your sentiment - but I'm a little frustrated with our current generation. Lots of rhetoric, too little action.)
- cryoshon 11y ago
  You always have free action under all circumstances. You may not have freedom from the consequences of your actions, but usually you will, unless you take a few specific verboten actions. To determine beyond a doubt what you have the right (as the laws are capricious, enforced by hard and jealous men), do something, then observe the consequences. This may seem rudimentary, but it matters, as many new rights are enshrined explicitly or intuitively via actions without precedent. This is how the legal system works also. You can get a tattoo without repercussions from the law; you can amputate your arm without repercussions from the law. In special situations where you are pregnant, the law may cause repercussions to you under certain circumstances. From this, you can assume that you have an unlimited right to self-modification, though you do not have an unlimited right to modify fetuses, which law does not understand as being a part of your self. This right is not explicitly codified anywhere, though we implicitly understand it to be the case, even in extreme cases such as heavily pierced or tattooed people. I am not equating cosmetic actions with genetic modification, but the fundamental right of self modification is the same for both.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    The law also protects you from harming yourself. Wether it be by denying you freedom to do so (e.g. forcibly institutionalize some one for attempting to commit suicide or when they declare their intent to harm them selves) or by suing you for damages you cause to yourself (e.g. If you ram your car into a wall and only hurt yourself you will be tried for that in many countries).
maxharris 11y ago
I love everything you said, especially your last sentence.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

TheCraiggers 11y ago

I love everything you said, but the last sentence gave me pause. There are a few cases were experiments on themselves using CRISPR may be at best morally "wrong". Changing your genes that may introduce defects to your offspring, for example. Another (probably less likely but more interesting to me) example is altering yourself in a way that invites a communicable disease to take hold, optionally mutate, and begin infecting others.

curryst 11y ago
I don't think it's any different from many things we already do that are considered "right". > Changing your genes that may introduce defects to your offspring Is it wrong for someone who has a genetic disorder to breed? What about cases where both parents are carriers of a recessive genetic disorder, which gives the child a 25% chance of expressing the disease and a 50% chance of being a carrier themselves? > altering yourself in a way that invites a communicable disease to take hold, optionally mutate, and begin infecting others. Again, this isn't something we consider morally wrong. Is it morally wrong to let your basement be damp and grow mold? Sure, it's stupid, but is it morally wrong? Is it morally wrong to have unprotected sex? We generally consider an action's morality based on the intent. If your intent is to spread disease, it's wrong. If you had a different intent, but didn't realize the consequences you're not considered to be wrong. I think the more compelling argument is, what happens to people who don't want to alter their DNA if this actually works? If this is allowed in sports, much like steroids, other athletes will be compelled to undergo treatment just to remain competitive. If we can make people smarter, then people who won't undergo treatment could be relegated to doing menial tasks simply because they won't edit their own DNA. To add another interesting corollary to that, what about people that won't do it for religious reasons? I know some people who oppose any kind of genetic alterations for whatever reason because it violates "God's design". I'm sure someone will call it discrimination when they have to flip burgers because they haven't undergone treatment to have an Einstein level IQ like the rest of the workforce.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > > altering yourself in a way that invites a communicable disease to take hold, optionally mutate, and begin infecting others. > Again, this isn't something we consider morally wrong "we" who? I suspect that it something quite a lot of people who consider to be morally wrong (whether they would consider it the kind of moral wrong that it would be desirable to formally sanction, as through legal prohibition on doing it or legal restriction on public interaction if you do it, is a separate consideration, but consider the issue of mandatory vaccination which involves legal restrictions if you fail to take active steps, involving treatment of your own body, to protect yourself and, through herd immunity, others from communicable disease -- its not implausible that many would consider active steps, even involving modifying your own body, that increase the risk of communicable disease sufficiently to not only be abstractly morally wrong, but the kind of moral wrong for which legal sanction is appropriate.) > We generally consider an action's morality based on the intent. If your intent is to spread disease, it's wrong. If you had a different intent, but didn't realize the consequences you're not considered to be wrong. In morality, as in law, while intent is usually important, actions taken without intent to cause harm but in which known risks of harms to others exist and are ignored, or even cases where risks of harm exist which would have been discovered with due care and are unknown to the actor due to their lack of concern, are often also considered wrong despite the absence of specific ill intent.
  - curryst 11y ago
    You touch on mandatory vaccination, which is already largely polarized, but what about any of the hundreds of ways you can decrease your immune response that we don't commonly talk about? Lack of exercise, overconsumption of alcohol, being overweight, these things all decrease the functioning of your immune system, thus inviting disease. Are they morally reprehensible? And how does one way the cost benefit of the genetic modifications? We already have a substantial number of people on immunosuppressants for transplants, among other things. Is it okay for them to invite communicable disease because they would die otherwise? If so, where is the line where it is acceptable to compromise your immune system? > in which known risks of harms to others exist and are ignored What level of possible risk defines an immoral action? If we compare it to driving, there's a known risk that I'm going to kill someone while driving. With genetic modification, there's a very low assumed risk because we honestly haven't the faintest idea what's going to happen. The assumption of benefit is about the same as the assumption of detriment. > cases where risks of harm exist which would have been discovered with due care and are unknown to the actor due to their lack of concern, are often also considered wrong despite the absence of specific ill intent. This is a more nuanced area, especially in medicine. We have a lot of medical research that was enabled, or greatly hastened, by experiments undertaken with little knowledge of what the outcome would be. This would have the advantage of the subjects providing consent, since they seem to be acutely aware that there could be serious side effects. How far can we go without actually applying this research to people? How long will it take to get there, and how much time will trying the research on people save? How many lives could be saved by trying it on people now? > due care I also disagree with the use of this term. What is "due care", and at what point have you satisfied it? It seems to me that if you get to the point where you know all of the potential outcomes, the value of actually doing the experiment is greatly diminished. From my understanding, it seems highly unlikely for this gene splicing to have a radical effect either way. The two most likely outcomes, I think, are that no noticeable change in expression occurs, or the patient dies.

hobs 11y ago

Agreed on everything up to the last sentence, but I would also be one to say that we should mandate vaccines and not allow bullshit objections to override public health for all. I am not a geneticist, and I imagine the state of the art of CRISPR wouldnt even be close to something like this now, but couldnt conceptually someone create an environment in their body that causes problems with unengineered people? (and then call into question whether bioengineering yourself is actually something we should protect) For instance, comparing what is effectively "natural engineering" of people's immune systems living in cities and close proximity decimating native populations by bringing their diseases to the new world. Their resistance allowed them to breed a whole new set of horrible things.

pmoriarty 11y ago
Many people considered objections to eugenics to be bullshit as well. It was considered very scientific, modern, and a great advance of public health.
- hobs 11y ago
  You might not think I would say so, but that is a fair point; basing our decisions on the flavor of the times is not actually a way to determine whether something is right. However, do you think the ethical considerations of eugenics and vaccines are the same? I think that would be a disingenuous claim.
  - pmoriarty 11y ago
    Forcing people to get vaccinated because "we know better", and especially with some objectors' voiced concern that the vaccinations are harming them in some way (whether that's true or not) do bear some similarities to the forced sterilizations undertaken by proponents of eugenics, yes. Furthermore, some victims of eugenics programs were considered mentally inferior to the those who were sterilizing them, and generally considered not intelligent enough to make their own decisions in this matter or to know any better. That also has some echoes in the vaccination vs anti-vaccination debate today, with the latter being accused of being stupid, uneducated, misled, ignorant of or unjustly fearful of modern science and the vaccines that some propose forcing on them for their own good or the greater good.

ap22213 11y ago

I hear lots of people saying similar things about 'rights' these days. It's like people think that declaring something as a 'right' is all that it takes to enable free action. If only it was that easy. My experience is different: One has a 'right' to do something as long as the observers (i.e. the authority) agrees that the right exists. In other words: if you want a right, you have to fight for it, first. (Personally, I agree with your sentiment - but I'm a little frustrated with our current generation. Lots of rhetoric, too little action.)

cryoshon 11y ago
You always have free action under all circumstances. You may not have freedom from the consequences of your actions, but usually you will, unless you take a few specific verboten actions. To determine beyond a doubt what you have the right (as the laws are capricious, enforced by hard and jealous men), do something, then observe the consequences. This may seem rudimentary, but it matters, as many new rights are enshrined explicitly or intuitively via actions without precedent. This is how the legal system works also. You can get a tattoo without repercussions from the law; you can amputate your arm without repercussions from the law. In special situations where you are pregnant, the law may cause repercussions to you under certain circumstances. From this, you can assume that you have an unlimited right to self-modification, though you do not have an unlimited right to modify fetuses, which law does not understand as being a part of your self. This right is not explicitly codified anywhere, though we implicitly understand it to be the case, even in extreme cases such as heavily pierced or tattooed people. I am not equating cosmetic actions with genetic modification, but the fundamental right of self modification is the same for both.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  The law also protects you from harming yourself. Wether it be by denying you freedom to do so (e.g. forcibly institutionalize some one for attempting to commit suicide or when they declare their intent to harm them selves) or by suing you for damages you cause to yourself (e.g. If you ram your car into a wall and only hurt yourself you will be tried for that in many countries).

maxharris 11y ago

I love everything you said, especially your last sentence.