6 ms·

This isn't as inconsistent as it seems. People would probably also be equally uncomfortable with both the idea of "editing" an embryo's genome to make it light-

by rntz 10y ago

This isn't as inconsistent as it seems. People would probably also be equally uncomfortable with both the idea of "editing" an embryo's genome to make it light-skinned, and the inverse idea of editing it to make it dark-skinned.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Why are people uncomfortable with this? While it's not important enough for genetic engineering on it's own, I'd probably edit my children to be darker. Having spent a few days on the beach in Thailand, the genetic inferiority of my own fair skin is quite visible and painful.
- up_so_floating 10y ago
  Your body evolved skin to suit an environment other than a Thai beach. I would not consider that genetic inferiority.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    Pale skin is thought to have evolved as a rapid (last ~5k years) and crude adaptation to avoid vitamin D deficiency shortly after farming was developed and allowed non-animal-based diets at the very high latitudes of northern Europe. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved-white-skin http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved... It is reasonable to think that there the significant drawbacks associated with that hacked-together solution are no longer necessary because modern diets easily give adequate vitamin D.
    - Tycho 10y ago
      So you're saying pale skin is a "hacked together" solution but modern vitamin supplements are not?
      - jessriedel 10y ago
        No, that's not what I'm saying.
        cb18 10y ago
        No, what you're saying is that "hey look at me! I'm joining in and parroting the modern destructive and discursive forces and saying that nature in her infinite wisdom made my skin pale, but pale skin is bad, bad, bad, oh the noble savage, oh to not be so pale, oh and race doesn't exist, but hey let's disparage whites, and promote inflated and romantic notions of all other races. " Oh, and also in this ridiculousness I was quickly caught up in a logical fallacy, but no, no "that's not what I'm saying." crude adaptation Who are to you to say what adaption is and isn't crude? It is reasonable to think that there the significant drawbacks associated with that hacked-together solution Uh yeah, highly doubtful https://i.redd.it/iwhuv6wyklgx.png https://i.redd.it/iwhuv6wyklgx.png And once again, how is pale skin a "hack-together solution" in some way all the other countless biological adaptations aren't?
- krapp 10y ago
  > Why are people uncomfortable with this? Some aspects of cultural, ethnic and religious identity are associated with and expressed by genetic factors like skin color. For African Americans, just to give an example, the premise of "editing" children to be "whiter" might appear to enable racial genocide. It doesn't apply only to skin color - some deaf people would consider genetically engineering away deafness an attack on "deaf culture."
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Normally "genocide" is considered bad because it results in living people being killed. I think we can all agree that killing a living person against their will is bad. But with what you describe as "genocide," not a single person is harmed. To me, an African American person has the same intrinsic value as a white person or anyone else. Therefore, I can't see any particular reason why I should care if we have more or fewer African Americans in the world. I'm familiar with the argument made by deaf people. But those advocates never seem to address the reversal argument; why shouldn't we also produce new deaf people (e.g. by sedating some children and painlessly puncturing their eardrums) in pursuit of this goal?
    - krapp 10y ago
      Bear in mind that many people consider abortion to be murder even when the people it "kills" only exist in the theoretical future. It's not a rational way of thinking, but it is common.
      - drdeca 10y ago
        I believe the usual argument is that the person already is a person, not that they could become one.
      - yummyfajitas 10y ago
        The people who consider abortion to be murder consider it to be an actual, non-potential baby. Thus, killing that baby is murder. Your argument is merely a straw man that left wing types smugly create and then dismiss to portray those they disagree with as stupid.
- philwelch 10y ago
  Having spent a week in Cabo I agree with you, but having spent the entire rest of the year in Seattle I need all the Vitamin D I can get.
- cb18 10y ago
  I'd probably edit my children to be darker. Having spent a few days on the beach in Thailand, the genetic inferiority of my own fair skin is quite visible and painful. Is this like reductio ad absurdum of PC signalling? Where do you spend the other 362 days of the year? In an environment that fair skin provides advantages for things like vitamin D production perhaps?
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    I spend the rest of the year in places that are not Norway or Sweden - places where even the darkest African or Tamil does not suffer vitamin D deficiency. I find it very entertaining to be accused of PC signalling a few days after being accused of white supremacy.
- duckingtest 10y ago
  What does it have with skin color? Just limit the sun for two or three days until you tan, no sunburns after that. It's not like Thais are black. Compare: https://pixabay.com/p-199674/?no_redirect https://pixabay.com/p-199674/?no_redirect https://tonycavanagh.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/5005.jpg https://tonycavanagh.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/5005.jpg Hardly a big difference. For genetic modification, the best solution is to increase range of tanning rather than changing the constant. It's already possible to get black skin [0] with eg. melanotan-2, so it's not that big of a change. [0] http://imgur.com/a/I428E http://imgur.com/a/I428E
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Perhaps I can chemically supplement myself to have the same powers that my African and Indian friends are born with. Why wouldn't I want my children to be born with that power? Similarly, I'd like them to be born intelligent and naturally athletic.
    - duckingtest 10y ago
      Power to be D3 deficient? [0] Do you have some inferiority complex? It's objectively better to have white skin that can tan instead of a darker one. It's always possible to cover from the sun. Only disadvantage: in sunny climates, ~4x higher risk of skin cancer, but the absolute risk is still a minuscule ~25/100k. "It is evident that as much as 69%-82% of the South Asian populations in India had 25(OH)D levels in plasma less than the minimum acceptable levels of 20 ng/ml" Skin colors evolved when most people were outside for the entire day. Now the opposite is true. [0] http://www.pjms.com.pk/issues/octdec208/article/reviewarticle1.html http://www.pjms.com.pk/issues/octdec208/article/reviewarticl...
  - euyyn 10y ago
    > until you tan Not all of us have your superpower :) I've managed to tan 1/32 of my summers.
harryh 10y ago
There is an Arthur C. Clarke short story called Reunion in which Aliens send a message indicating that humans are actually descendants of alien colonists and that the aliens have finally found a cure for white skin.
- drdeca 10y ago
  , but we can already do that I think? Like, I think taking some hormones can make one's skin produce more melanin . Idk if one has to keep taking it or not to keep it up, but from the pictures it looked fairly thorough.
  - harryh 10y ago
    TBH I have no idea. Just mentioned the Arthur C. Clarke as an amusing related anecdote.
    - drdeca 10y ago
      The technology might have been developed after he wrote it, idk. Tbh I was also just mentioning what I mentioned because I thought it was amusing/interesting/novel or uh, thought it would look good to mention or something What you mentioned was amusing

by rntz 10y ago

yummyfajitas 10y ago

Why are people uncomfortable with this? While it's not important enough for genetic engineering on it's own, I'd probably edit my children to be darker. Having spent a few days on the beach in Thailand, the genetic inferiority of my own fair skin is quite visible and painful.

up_so_floating 10y ago
Your body evolved skin to suit an environment other than a Thai beach. I would not consider that genetic inferiority.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  Pale skin is thought to have evolved as a rapid (last ~5k years) and crude adaptation to avoid vitamin D deficiency shortly after farming was developed and allowed non-animal-based diets at the very high latitudes of northern Europe. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved-white-skin http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved... It is reasonable to think that there the significant drawbacks associated with that hacked-together solution are no longer necessary because modern diets easily give adequate vitamin D.
  - Tycho 10y ago
    So you're saying pale skin is a "hacked together" solution but modern vitamin supplements are not?
    - jessriedel 10y ago
      No, that's not what I'm saying.
      - cb18 10y ago
        No, what you're saying is that "hey look at me! I'm joining in and parroting the modern destructive and discursive forces and saying that nature in her infinite wisdom made my skin pale, but pale skin is bad, bad, bad, oh the noble savage, oh to not be so pale, oh and race doesn't exist, but hey let's disparage whites, and promote inflated and romantic notions of all other races. " Oh, and also in this ridiculousness I was quickly caught up in a logical fallacy, but no, no "that's not what I'm saying." crude adaptation Who are to you to say what adaption is and isn't crude? It is reasonable to think that there the significant drawbacks associated with that hacked-together solution Uh yeah, highly doubtful https://i.redd.it/iwhuv6wyklgx.png https://i.redd.it/iwhuv6wyklgx.png And once again, how is pale skin a "hack-together solution" in some way all the other countless biological adaptations aren't?
krapp 10y ago
> Why are people uncomfortable with this? Some aspects of cultural, ethnic and religious identity are associated with and expressed by genetic factors like skin color. For African Americans, just to give an example, the premise of "editing" children to be "whiter" might appear to enable racial genocide. It doesn't apply only to skin color - some deaf people would consider genetically engineering away deafness an attack on "deaf culture."
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Normally "genocide" is considered bad because it results in living people being killed. I think we can all agree that killing a living person against their will is bad. But with what you describe as "genocide," not a single person is harmed. To me, an African American person has the same intrinsic value as a white person or anyone else. Therefore, I can't see any particular reason why I should care if we have more or fewer African Americans in the world. I'm familiar with the argument made by deaf people. But those advocates never seem to address the reversal argument; why shouldn't we also produce new deaf people (e.g. by sedating some children and painlessly puncturing their eardrums) in pursuit of this goal?
  - krapp 10y ago
    Bear in mind that many people consider abortion to be murder even when the people it "kills" only exist in the theoretical future. It's not a rational way of thinking, but it is common.
    - drdeca 10y ago
      I believe the usual argument is that the person already is a person, not that they could become one.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      The people who consider abortion to be murder consider it to be an actual, non-potential baby. Thus, killing that baby is murder. Your argument is merely a straw man that left wing types smugly create and then dismiss to portray those they disagree with as stupid.
philwelch 10y ago
Having spent a week in Cabo I agree with you, but having spent the entire rest of the year in Seattle I need all the Vitamin D I can get.
cb18 10y ago
I'd probably edit my children to be darker. Having spent a few days on the beach in Thailand, the genetic inferiority of my own fair skin is quite visible and painful. Is this like reductio ad absurdum of PC signalling? Where do you spend the other 362 days of the year? In an environment that fair skin provides advantages for things like vitamin D production perhaps?
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  I spend the rest of the year in places that are not Norway or Sweden - places where even the darkest African or Tamil does not suffer vitamin D deficiency. I find it very entertaining to be accused of PC signalling a few days after being accused of white supremacy.
duckingtest 10y ago
What does it have with skin color? Just limit the sun for two or three days until you tan, no sunburns after that. It's not like Thais are black. Compare: https://pixabay.com/p-199674/?no_redirect https://pixabay.com/p-199674/?no_redirect https://tonycavanagh.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/5005.jpg https://tonycavanagh.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/5005.jpg Hardly a big difference. For genetic modification, the best solution is to increase range of tanning rather than changing the constant. It's already possible to get black skin [0] with eg. melanotan-2, so it's not that big of a change. [0] http://imgur.com/a/I428E http://imgur.com/a/I428E
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Perhaps I can chemically supplement myself to have the same powers that my African and Indian friends are born with. Why wouldn't I want my children to be born with that power? Similarly, I'd like them to be born intelligent and naturally athletic.
  - duckingtest 10y ago
    Power to be D3 deficient? [0] Do you have some inferiority complex? It's objectively better to have white skin that can tan instead of a darker one. It's always possible to cover from the sun. Only disadvantage: in sunny climates, ~4x higher risk of skin cancer, but the absolute risk is still a minuscule ~25/100k. "It is evident that as much as 69%-82% of the South Asian populations in India had 25(OH)D levels in plasma less than the minimum acceptable levels of 20 ng/ml" Skin colors evolved when most people were outside for the entire day. Now the opposite is true. [0] http://www.pjms.com.pk/issues/octdec208/article/reviewarticle1.html http://www.pjms.com.pk/issues/octdec208/article/reviewarticl...
- euyyn 10y ago
  > until you tan Not all of us have your superpower :) I've managed to tan 1/32 of my summers.

harryh 10y ago

There is an Arthur C. Clarke short story called Reunion in which Aliens send a message indicating that humans are actually descendants of alien colonists and that the aliens have finally found a cure for white skin.

drdeca 10y ago
, but we can already do that I think? Like, I think taking some hormones can make one's skin produce more melanin . Idk if one has to keep taking it or not to keep it up, but from the pictures it looked fairly thorough.
- harryh 10y ago
  TBH I have no idea. Just mentioned the Arthur C. Clarke as an amusing related anecdote.
  - drdeca 10y ago
    The technology might have been developed after he wrote it, idk. Tbh I was also just mentioning what I mentioned because I thought it was amusing/interesting/novel or uh, thought it would look good to mention or something What you mentioned was amusing