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I love stuff like this. What we need now is a service that can estimate potential genetic outcomes when having children with a partner. This can finally open th

I love stuff like this. What we need now is a service that can estimate potential genetic outcomes when having children with a partner. This can finally open the door to making genetic information a standard in dating profiles. Instead of choosing partners based on short term metrics and hoping for the best, people would be able to select with more confidence that their children with someone would come out the way they like. To me this kind of tech is a great way to leave a dent in our universe. A world filled with smarter, stronger, and calmer children is a world that is eventually filled with smarter, stronger, and calmer adults, who then go on to have even better offspring and accelerate the evolution of mankind into a more civilized species. Perhaps then we can finally see the end of war and ridiculous squabbles over matter. I personally may take a stab at creating a dating service like this if the pieces are all there someday, but I’d hope by then someone else will have beaten me to it.

announcerman 9y ago
You're going to leave a lot of people behind with this. Which is good or bad depending on your worldview. Purging people with bad genes by profiling them could be deemed unethical though and that's exactly what will happen once you're forced to show your gene quality to everyone that's interested. It can happen indirectly through dating or directly through genocide.
- matte_black 9y ago
  There is no “purge”. People with bad genes can still have children, and will. However, over time as societal awareness grows it becomes harder. Two people with bad genes might mate less commonly, however a person with great genes may settle for someone with bad genes, producing OK children. To me this is good, and is basically what happens now only a lot less efficiently. Genocide is completely unnecessary, and is basically for governments with bad agendas and impatience to wait for genes to improve naturally.
  - zeth___ 9y ago
    >impatience to wait for genes to improve naturally. Improve relative to what? The ideal human in 12,000 BC was a furry mess who would hunt mastodons with their nails. The ideal human in 4,000 BC was a farmer that could bend double in their waist to plant and pick produce from the ground. The ideal human in 1,200 AD was a bow legged hugely muscular chest that would stand being on a wet saddle for a week at a time.
    - arethuza 9y ago
      And in some places the ideal human in the 20th century was someone whose ancestor "was a bow legged hugely muscular chest that would stand being on a wet saddle for a week at a time" 800 years ago....
gaius 9y ago
It’s a sci-fi trope of a kind of human bred or engineered for ultimate survival: tall, strong, smart, brave, chiseled abs and cheekbones. But real survival characteristics are small, hairy, lazy, put on fat easily, avoid danger wherever possible, etc. So what are you actually optimising for?
- zeth___ 9y ago
  TIL: I am the ultimate human.
- TangoTrotFox 9y ago
  You're conflating survival with success in passing on genes. They're very different. The most obvious example here, and one that goes all the way back to perplexing Darwin, is peacocks. Male peacocks (which is a tautology - 'female peacocks' are peahens) have absurdly enormous tails and their entire body screams 'Hey, I'm here - come eat me.' And predators do just that with much greater ease than they do for peahens. But ladies dig the peacocks with the biggest, loudest, most absurd set of feathers - and so that's what we get. Evolution is fundamentally not so much about survival, but about passing on genes - having babies. Surviving longer generally correlates with this, but evolution would happily pick for shorter life expectancy in exchange for a greater probability of passing on those genes.
  - gaius 9y ago
    You're conflating survival with success in passing on genes. Right, it’s partly a trope because it looks good on screen, but also because it superficially seems to make sense. But it’s what killed off the Spartans...
ilamont 9y ago
people would be able to select with more confidence that their children with someone would come out the way they like. In other words, a eugenics profile. Why stop at dating apps? You could put the data mortgage applications, insurance profiles, and more. I can imagine some of the conversations wouldn't be too far off this: "I love you, but with a 22% chance of our kids having brown eyes and a 56% chance of high cholesterol, I have to end the relationship." "The bank denied the application, because you're at a higher risk for a myocardial infarction by the age of 50." "My car insurance rates will go through the roof if I put you on my policy because you're genetically predisposed to drive more aggressively than me."
- matte_black 9y ago
  I imagine you’re trying to illustrate a problem, but the solution is very simple: You simply implement government regulations that allow for cut offs so that people born way before the eugenics era aren’t disadvantaged unfairly. You could even have the cutoffs occur in phases, such that more recently born children have more scrutiny compared to ones born in the previous generation.
- wiz21c 9y ago
  We need many more examples like those ! Thx !
- cm2187 9y ago
  But doesn't that eugenics happen naturally already? Like people of similar race, centers of interest, character or intelligence having a higher likelihood to form a couple and if DNA has anything to do with these characters, re-enforce these traits in their children? All that will change is that people will be aware of it.
  - matte_black 9y ago
    Agreed, people like to pretend eugenics doesn’t happen for whatever reason, but people aren’t just breeding randomly or fairly. They are consciously selecting partners based on traits they like, essentially genes. We have been OK with this for a long time.
cousin_it 9y ago
My guess is that only a few years after this tech, we'll have better tech that can give your child the desired genes no matter who your partner is. And then we'll have a new age of reproductive competition the likes of which the Earth has never seen. Not a utopia, that's for damn sure.
- arethuza 9y ago
  "They used to say that a child conceived in love has a greater chance of happiness. They don't say that anymore." Gattaca
- matte_black 9y ago
  Actually, if you could edit genes so easily it wouldn’t matter who you mated with, so there wouldn’t be much more competition, it is merely a matter of having the money and ideas for what you want in your next child.
arethuza 9y ago
How would you be able to check that the genetic information that someone has on their profile is actually theirs?
soVeryTired 9y ago
I think you're being a bit cavalier about an issue that has massive philosophical and moral implications. Maybe we can build a site like that, but you've ignored the question of whether we should build it.
- matte_black 9y ago
  It’s no more controversial than Tinder. I’m not going to lose sleep over debating whether I should or shouldn’t build it: I’ve made up my mind, I will build it if the necessary services all exist and no one has done it well yet. When you’re trying to change the world there is always going to be resistance from people who want to preserve the status quo. In this case, you are that resistance.
  - soVeryTired 9y ago
    Well it's nice to know you've thought it through.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > Maybe we can build a site like that, but you've ignored the question of whether we should build it This train of thought never terminates. People say this and then someone does the thing and then people keep saying it because it sounds good.
  - soVeryTired 9y ago
    So we shouldn't ask the question?
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > So we shouldn't ask the question? The problem with this Jurassic Park question [1] is it says nothing. If you think we shouldn’t, say so and give your reasons. If you think we should, but with limits, suggest those limits. If there is a group whose needs are not being thought of, state that and proffer a solution. [1] http://quotegeek.com/quotes-from-movies/jurassic-park/397/ http://quotegeek.com/quotes-from-movies/jurassic-park/397/
saiya-jin 9y ago
You are dangerously naive my friend. An exceptionally good example how road to hell is paved with good intentions. At least yours are so outright wrong that many already commented on the details which can't be properly fixed in any real global society.
defgeneric 9y ago
This is sarcasm right?

announcerman 9y ago

You're going to leave a lot of people behind with this. Which is good or bad depending on your worldview. Purging people with bad genes by profiling them could be deemed unethical though and that's exactly what will happen once you're forced to show your gene quality to everyone that's interested. It can happen indirectly through dating or directly through genocide.

matte_black 9y ago
There is no “purge”. People with bad genes can still have children, and will. However, over time as societal awareness grows it becomes harder. Two people with bad genes might mate less commonly, however a person with great genes may settle for someone with bad genes, producing OK children. To me this is good, and is basically what happens now only a lot less efficiently. Genocide is completely unnecessary, and is basically for governments with bad agendas and impatience to wait for genes to improve naturally.
- zeth___ 9y ago
  >impatience to wait for genes to improve naturally. Improve relative to what? The ideal human in 12,000 BC was a furry mess who would hunt mastodons with their nails. The ideal human in 4,000 BC was a farmer that could bend double in their waist to plant and pick produce from the ground. The ideal human in 1,200 AD was a bow legged hugely muscular chest that would stand being on a wet saddle for a week at a time.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    And in some places the ideal human in the 20th century was someone whose ancestor "was a bow legged hugely muscular chest that would stand being on a wet saddle for a week at a time" 800 years ago....

gaius 9y ago

It’s a sci-fi trope of a kind of human bred or engineered for ultimate survival: tall, strong, smart, brave, chiseled abs and cheekbones. But real survival characteristics are small, hairy, lazy, put on fat easily, avoid danger wherever possible, etc. So what are you actually optimising for?

zeth___ 9y ago
TIL: I am the ultimate human.
TangoTrotFox 9y ago
You're conflating survival with success in passing on genes. They're very different. The most obvious example here, and one that goes all the way back to perplexing Darwin, is peacocks. Male peacocks (which is a tautology - 'female peacocks' are peahens) have absurdly enormous tails and their entire body screams 'Hey, I'm here - come eat me.' And predators do just that with much greater ease than they do for peahens. But ladies dig the peacocks with the biggest, loudest, most absurd set of feathers - and so that's what we get. Evolution is fundamentally not so much about survival, but about passing on genes - having babies. Surviving longer generally correlates with this, but evolution would happily pick for shorter life expectancy in exchange for a greater probability of passing on those genes.
- gaius 9y ago
  You're conflating survival with success in passing on genes. Right, it’s partly a trope because it looks good on screen, but also because it superficially seems to make sense. But it’s what killed off the Spartans...

ilamont 9y ago

people would be able to select with more confidence that their children with someone would come out the way they like. In other words, a eugenics profile. Why stop at dating apps? You could put the data mortgage applications, insurance profiles, and more. I can imagine some of the conversations wouldn't be too far off this: "I love you, but with a 22% chance of our kids having brown eyes and a 56% chance of high cholesterol, I have to end the relationship." "The bank denied the application, because you're at a higher risk for a myocardial infarction by the age of 50." "My car insurance rates will go through the roof if I put you on my policy because you're genetically predisposed to drive more aggressively than me."

matte_black 9y ago
I imagine you’re trying to illustrate a problem, but the solution is very simple: You simply implement government regulations that allow for cut offs so that people born way before the eugenics era aren’t disadvantaged unfairly. You could even have the cutoffs occur in phases, such that more recently born children have more scrutiny compared to ones born in the previous generation.
wiz21c 9y ago
We need many more examples like those ! Thx !
cm2187 9y ago
But doesn't that eugenics happen naturally already? Like people of similar race, centers of interest, character or intelligence having a higher likelihood to form a couple and if DNA has anything to do with these characters, re-enforce these traits in their children? All that will change is that people will be aware of it.
- matte_black 9y ago
  Agreed, people like to pretend eugenics doesn’t happen for whatever reason, but people aren’t just breeding randomly or fairly. They are consciously selecting partners based on traits they like, essentially genes. We have been OK with this for a long time.

cousin_it 9y ago

My guess is that only a few years after this tech, we'll have better tech that can give your child the desired genes no matter who your partner is. And then we'll have a new age of reproductive competition the likes of which the Earth has never seen. Not a utopia, that's for damn sure.

arethuza 9y ago
"They used to say that a child conceived in love has a greater chance of happiness. They don't say that anymore." Gattaca
matte_black 9y ago
Actually, if you could edit genes so easily it wouldn’t matter who you mated with, so there wouldn’t be much more competition, it is merely a matter of having the money and ideas for what you want in your next child.

arethuza 9y ago

How would you be able to check that the genetic information that someone has on their profile is actually theirs?

soVeryTired 9y ago

I think you're being a bit cavalier about an issue that has massive philosophical and moral implications. Maybe we can build a site like that, but you've ignored the question of whether we should build it.

matte_black 9y ago
It’s no more controversial than Tinder. I’m not going to lose sleep over debating whether I should or shouldn’t build it: I’ve made up my mind, I will build it if the necessary services all exist and no one has done it well yet. When you’re trying to change the world there is always going to be resistance from people who want to preserve the status quo. In this case, you are that resistance.
- soVeryTired 9y ago
  Well it's nice to know you've thought it through.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> Maybe we can build a site like that, but you've ignored the question of whether we should build it This train of thought never terminates. People say this and then someone does the thing and then people keep saying it because it sounds good.
- soVeryTired 9y ago
  So we shouldn't ask the question?
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > So we shouldn't ask the question? The problem with this Jurassic Park question [1] is it says nothing. If you think we shouldn’t, say so and give your reasons. If you think we should, but with limits, suggest those limits. If there is a group whose needs are not being thought of, state that and proffer a solution. [1] http://quotegeek.com/quotes-from-movies/jurassic-park/397/ http://quotegeek.com/quotes-from-movies/jurassic-park/397/

saiya-jin 9y ago

You are dangerously naive my friend. An exceptionally good example how road to hell is paved with good intentions. At least yours are so outright wrong that many already commented on the details which can't be properly fixed in any real global society.

defgeneric 9y ago

This is sarcasm right?