5 ms·

Especially since regulations won't meaningfully impact the very richest - they'll travel to Thailand or wherever to have their kid's embryo edited and implanted

Especially since regulations won't meaningfully impact the very richest - they'll travel to Thailand or wherever to have their kid's embryo edited and implanted. What it will do is prevent those innovations from coming into the reach of the rest of us.

sho 8y ago
Assuming nation states don't hoard what could be considered to be a long term strategic advantage. My fear would be that the West, in paroxysms of misguided equal-outcomes ideology, ban genetic improvements - whereas China mandates it, and bans its availability to outsiders, setting themselves up for a long-term fundamental advantage which we might never be able to overcome. In a sense, it doesn't matter what the West "decides". If China et al have this technology - and they do - and if they decide to exploit it - and they will - we have no real choice but to follow, or face our inevitable and profound outcompetition in the medium to long term.
ben_w 8y ago
Hm. Depends how you do it. Given how much it costs childbirth costs in the USA, I’m surprised there isn’t already health tourism from the USA to literally anywhere else. The cost of genetic modification will probably be small compared to the cost of childbirth, if the current existence and price of amateur CRISPR bio-hacking kits is anything to go by[1]. Could this be overcome by requiring all newly registered children to have full genome DNA tests, along with their parents, and prosecute on the basis of clear genetic modification? Or is that likely to get too many false positives? [1] http://www.the-odin.com/bacterial-crispr-and-fluorescent-yeast-combo-kit/ http://www.the-odin.com/bacterial-crispr-and-fluorescent-yea...
- iguy 8y ago
  Indeed, there is some health tourism, but much less than I would expect given the prices. I can't imagine that setting up a "Department Of Prosecuting New Parents" would go down well. Or even be possible. For example, most first-world countries today have millions of residents with no legal right to be there, most of whom the state does not prosecute/deport/fine. I think both for the lack of capacity to do so, and for lack of popular support for doing this at full scale. And deciding where someone was born (and who their parents are) is much much easier than deciding whether they got 100% of their DNA the old-fashioned way.

sho 8y ago

Assuming nation states don't hoard what could be considered to be a long term strategic advantage. My fear would be that the West, in paroxysms of misguided equal-outcomes ideology, ban genetic improvements - whereas China mandates it, and bans its availability to outsiders, setting themselves up for a long-term fundamental advantage which we might never be able to overcome. In a sense, it doesn't matter what the West "decides". If China et al have this technology - and they do - and if they decide to exploit it - and they will - we have no real choice but to follow, or face our inevitable and profound outcompetition in the medium to long term.

ben_w 8y ago

Hm. Depends how you do it. Given how much it costs childbirth costs in the USA, I’m surprised there isn’t already health tourism from the USA to literally anywhere else. The cost of genetic modification will probably be small compared to the cost of childbirth, if the current existence and price of amateur CRISPR bio-hacking kits is anything to go by[1]. Could this be overcome by requiring all newly registered children to have full genome DNA tests, along with their parents, and prosecute on the basis of clear genetic modification? Or is that likely to get too many false positives? [1] http://www.the-odin.com/bacterial-crispr-and-fluorescent-yeast-combo-kit/ http://www.the-odin.com/bacterial-crispr-and-fluorescent-yea...

iguy 8y ago
Indeed, there is some health tourism, but much less than I would expect given the prices. I can't imagine that setting up a "Department Of Prosecuting New Parents" would go down well. Or even be possible. For example, most first-world countries today have millions of residents with no legal right to be there, most of whom the state does not prosecute/deport/fine. I think both for the lack of capacity to do so, and for lack of popular support for doing this at full scale. And deciding where someone was born (and who their parents are) is much much easier than deciding whether they got 100% of their DNA the old-fashioned way.