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My point is that "ethics issues" with things like CRISPR and cloning are not real issues, and people talking about them do more harm than good. For instance if

My point is that "ethics issues" with things like CRISPR and cloning are not real issues, and people talking about them do more harm than good. For instance if not for multiple countries banning human cloning, we could already have human clones, which would have been very useful in studying how much of human behavior is determined by genes. There already should have been multiple clones of prominent scientists like Feynman, Gell-Mann, Penrose.

jddj 7y ago
As great as it might be to snap our fingers and arrive at that reality, between here and there there's a big dirty transition period riddled with potential human suffering. Given that a significant number of people identify many ethical and technological issues with human CRISPR, and that public opinion is far from reaching a consensus (if anything, my intuition tells me that in the West your stance is in the minority for people who are thinking about the problem), I'd say that talking about it is actually likely to do more good than harm.
teh_infallible 7y ago
The ethical issue has to do with medical consent. It terrifies me that so many here on HN think it’s ok to experiment on an unborn human being. “Hey, I just gave you cancer before you were born, but hey, it’s all in the name of science, so it’s all good.”
- nightwing 7y ago
  The decision on risk/benefit can be handled only by parents and doctors, not some bureaucrats or hn commenters who do not know enough about the context. "Hey, you are going to be deaf, because someone decided that 10% increased chance of cancer in 50 years is too serious" is not much better than your example, especially considering that in 50 years cancer will most likely be treatable anyway. (for context https://futurism.com/five-couples-crispr-babies-avoid-deafness https://futurism.com/five-couples-crispr-babies-avoid-deafne...)

jddj 7y ago

As great as it might be to snap our fingers and arrive at that reality, between here and there there's a big dirty transition period riddled with potential human suffering. Given that a significant number of people identify many ethical and technological issues with human CRISPR, and that public opinion is far from reaching a consensus (if anything, my intuition tells me that in the West your stance is in the minority for people who are thinking about the problem), I'd say that talking about it is actually likely to do more good than harm.

teh_infallible 7y ago

The ethical issue has to do with medical consent. It terrifies me that so many here on HN think it’s ok to experiment on an unborn human being. “Hey, I just gave you cancer before you were born, but hey, it’s all in the name of science, so it’s all good.”

nightwing 7y ago
The decision on risk/benefit can be handled only by parents and doctors, not some bureaucrats or hn commenters who do not know enough about the context. "Hey, you are going to be deaf, because someone decided that 10% increased chance of cancer in 50 years is too serious" is not much better than your example, especially considering that in 50 years cancer will most likely be treatable anyway. (for context https://futurism.com/five-couples-crispr-babies-avoid-deafness https://futurism.com/five-couples-crispr-babies-avoid-deafne...)