5 ms·

Designing blond babies because society slightly prefers blonds, takes an implicit preference and makes it explicit. Not everyone will be able to afford all the

Designing blond babies because society slightly prefers blonds, takes an implicit preference and makes it explicit. Not everyone will be able to afford all the "premium" upgrades on designing their babies (and you can bet that cosmetic features will be premium). People who can't afford blond babies or cute-nosed babies or skinny babies or w/e the hell the fad is, will find that their children grow up to be second-class citizens. Blond babies might be grateful to be born and not mourn their unborn non-blond selves, but there still exist plenty of less fortunate other babies who do get born non-blond and will suffer as a result.

Nihilartikel 9y ago
Not everyone will be able to afford it until a robust private financing infrastructure and means based state or federal subsidy program is instituted!
ghurtado 9y ago
All of your arguments could apply to cosmetic surgery just as well. I don't agree with your wholesale assertion that all of those who are unable to afford cosmetic surgery (larger breasts, hair implants...) are suffering, however.
- strgcmc 9y ago
  Cosmetic-only editing is pretty analogous to cosmetic surgery, I grant you that. But if cosmetic surgery made you smarter, then clearly all who couldn't afford it would suffer (relative to those who could). We don't worry about that because cosmetic surgery doesn't have that potential (or does it? I dunno), but with gene editing I think it's a very real potential. That's not to say I'm wholesale against it, nor would I support banning research or anything along those lines. But I think it's clear that it will be a huge shock to society if/when this becomes practical, and I don't think our society is particularly good at dealing with this kind of change that can only exacerbate existing issues of inequality.
  - ghurtado 9y ago
    Completely agree. Let's hope that as a civilization we have enough sense to sort out making it available to everyone by then, at minimum in the most obvious areas (preventing disease, avoiding birth defects, etc...)

Nihilartikel 9y ago

Not everyone will be able to afford it until a robust private financing infrastructure and means based state or federal subsidy program is instituted!

ghurtado 9y ago

All of your arguments could apply to cosmetic surgery just as well. I don't agree with your wholesale assertion that all of those who are unable to afford cosmetic surgery (larger breasts, hair implants...) are suffering, however.

strgcmc 9y ago
Cosmetic-only editing is pretty analogous to cosmetic surgery, I grant you that. But if cosmetic surgery made you smarter, then clearly all who couldn't afford it would suffer (relative to those who could). We don't worry about that because cosmetic surgery doesn't have that potential (or does it? I dunno), but with gene editing I think it's a very real potential. That's not to say I'm wholesale against it, nor would I support banning research or anything along those lines. But I think it's clear that it will be a huge shock to society if/when this becomes practical, and I don't think our society is particularly good at dealing with this kind of change that can only exacerbate existing issues of inequality.
- ghurtado 9y ago
  Completely agree. Let's hope that as a civilization we have enough sense to sort out making it available to everyone by then, at minimum in the most obvious areas (preventing disease, avoiding birth defects, etc...)