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Biology is the New Tech: Letter from a conference on CRISPR
- Noos 7y agoIs this even possible? Buying the best genes as if you could buy an Armani suit. What this should say is "Should the rich be able to saddle their children with untested, unproven genetic technology in the hopes they can select for traits that give them competitive advantage in their social world, no matter what the side costs are?" The answer should be no. If you want to breed children like show dogs, it doesn't matter how smart they are in the end, you've diminished them.
- nyolfen 7y ago>The answer should be no. If you want to breed children like show dogs, it doesn't matter how smart they are in the end, you've diminished them. this is called 'choosing a partner'
- defertoreptar 7y ago70% of rich families lose their wealth by the second generation. http://money.com/money/3925308/rich-families-lose-wealth/ http://money.com/money/3925308/rich-families-lose-wealth/ 90% is lost after that. https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/why-wealth-barely-lasts-for-3-generations-d409e5f28106 https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/why-wealth-barely-last...
- VectorLock 7y agoMaybe if they were able to put superior genes in their offspring they'd be able to move that metric.
- gingabriska 7y agoHow much is higher intelligence corelated to being able to manage wealth well?
- defertoreptar 7y agoThat implies that it has to do with genes in the first place. Perhaps there's an argument there. However, I would also consider that the size of an estate may grow, but not exponentially (at least not indefinitely). Yet, the size of a family tree does grow exponentially.
- codeisawesome 7y agoGenghis Khan would like a word with you.
- 2_listerine_pls 7y agoYou are assuming all is in the genes.
- VectorLock 7y agoI assume that at least part of it is in the genes.
- foolrush 7y agoAs a counterpoint: “The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest families in Florence” https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-1427-are-still-the-richest-families-in-florence/ https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-14...
- xenospn 7y agoI think that's an anecdote for someone coming up with a system that works and not deviating. Obviously most people are very bad at that.
- gingabriska 7y agoAnd the catch was it's not the same family. People sharing a last name today can't be traced back to specific family which existed in past.
- consciouskernel 7y agoThat article cites the Williams Group, which appears to be some sort of consultancy with the tagline "we prepare heirs." This isn't the first time I've heard the 70% number, and I've never been able to find a single scientific study supporting it. There's also never any clarification on what "rich" means, or what qualifies as "lose their wealth."
- vixen99 7y agoHow about this by Gary Becker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Becker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Becker Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1986. "Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 1-39, July. "The authors examine a number of empirical studies for different countries. Regression to the mean in earnings in rich countries appears to be rapid. Almost all the earnings advantages or disadvantages of ancestors are wiped out in three generations."
- DuskStar 7y agoThere is a massive difference between earnings and wealth.
- MiroF 7y agoyou see how that's completely different though right?
- soVeryTired 7y ago> The authors examine a number of empirical studies for different countries. Regression to the mean in earnings in rich countries appears to be rapid. Almost all the earnings advantages or disadvantages of ancestors are wiped out in three generations. That's deeply at odds with what I know about the world (think about the existence of the "middle class", and how middle class parents tend to have middle class children). That, and the fact that the article was written by Gary Becker (he of "all crime is a rational cost / benefit tradeoff" fame), and published at a time when economists did very little emperical work, make me more or less immediately dismiss the claim. But if anyone could give me the gist of the argument they make, I'd love to be proven wrong.
- landryraccoon 7y agoI’m more than happy to let the rich buy the best genes first, if that means that everyone else will get to buy them later. Is the implied attitude that if the rich get something first it shouldn’t exist at all? If gene therapy follows a progression like mobile phones, that would good for humanity. First it’s super expensive and only a few get them, but it becomes much cheaper within a few decades and eventually almost everyone can have one.
- btmorex 7y agoWouldn't it make more sense to compare the likely progression with standard drug development rather than mobile phones? Last I checked, drug development is in a terrible state. I mean we're killing 70k+ people a year from opiate overdoses that were primarily driven by our capitalist drug development system (and a lack of even an ounce of morality at some of these companies). And that's just one problem among many. Not everything is the tech industry.
- rayiner 7y agoThat “evil capitalist drug development system” that turned AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic illness, using anti-retrovirals some of which are already becoming generics?
- reallydude 7y ago"Already" 30 years later. https://hab.hrsa.gov/livinghistory/timeline/1995.htm https://hab.hrsa.gov/livinghistory/timeline/1995.htm
- rayiner 7y agoA blink of an eye in the history of a disease.
- reallydude 7y agoHumanity is the blink of an eye in the universe. Claiming the suffering is always worth it (ie doesn't matter), is defeatist. Not sure how that's an argument for how dissemination of medical tech is "working".
- test6554 7y agoWhat's the point of money if you can't spend it on the things you want?
- defterGoose 7y agoWhat's the point of life if the things you want can only be bought with money?
- asdf9240 7y agoi mean, the rich already gets the best education, the best healthcare, etc...
- xenospn 7y agoHaving your tuition paid for does not equal getting the best education. Lots of dummies graduate from the world's top schools simply because of pedigree.
- gingabriska 7y agoBut such people with connection can often be found employed in powerful organizations.
- ZhuanXia 7y agoThe tourism angle mentioned is the real deal killer for these regulations. If you outlaw this, people like me (who think inflicting stupidly and ill-health on their children by withholding these technologies is morally wrong) will just fly to Singapore. Even if you could enforce this, not every country will. 5+ standard deviation increases in many traits is on the table: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection#iterated-embryo-selection https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection#iterated-embryo-selec... If we make this illegal here, we will be as children compared to those in China or Singapore. The potential increase in IQ is so high that any country that defects from a global ban, even a smallish one like Iran say, would quickly be producing the vast majority of all genius-level intellects. A global ban is just is not a stable equilibrium. From a balance-of-power perspective, we would expect huge shifts in future power to those countries that embrace the technology. An absence of taboos against human enhancement may be a more important factor in this than current scientific achievement for predicting global leadership in the next couple generations. In islamic culture, traditional scholarship places the point of ensoulment anywhere between 40 and 120 days after conception. Our western taboos around this topic, likely even our western secular taboos, derive from a belief in ensoulment at conception. This simple doctrinal dispute may end up having huge consequences. And may allow islamic cultures to return to a position of scientific power, likely shared with China and other Asian countries who similarly do not share our taboos.
- doctorpangloss 7y ago> 5+ standard deviation increases in many traits is on the table... Sure dude, go ahead and subject your kid to experimental genetic modification in Singapore to chase this compelling evidence.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bufferoverflow 7y agoIt's not a genetic modification of a kid. This is embryonic preselection.
- 7y ago
- icxa 7y agohow about the hubris that we could ever possibly know what the "best" genes are, save whatever is currently desired for our current, extremely limited viewpoint on what "best" is. It's like reaching a local maxima and thinking you found the peak, but in the grand scheme of an evolutionary timeline were a factor of 100x away from what the real "best" was
- Ygg2 7y agoI heard one fascinating story https://www.nature.com/news/2004/040322/full/news040322-9.html https://www.nature.com/news/2004/040322/full/news040322-9.ht... Apparently human big brains evolved after a mutation that left human jaw much weaker than their ancestors. Who can say if we prune unwanted traits, we aren't also pruning some desired traits as well.
- percentcer 7y agoDon't worry, this technology is promising both strong jaws and big brains
- Ygg2 7y agoApparently those are mutually exclusive :P
- ben_w 7y ago“Best”? No. But evolution isn’t even trying, and only gave us what we have by trial and error. Most of those errors are worse. We’re descended from the mutations which were not worse, but every mutation was random and unplanned (by any reasonable use of the word), all the way back to the primordial soup.
- mirceal 7y agohmm. this view is superlimited. we understand how evolution works and why it happens but the arrogance to believe we could do better is definitely a human trait.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoBe very careful what you wish for. There is some evidence that debilitating, even deadly, genetic disorders correspond to higher-than-average intelligence. Only about 2% of the U.S. population is of full Ashkenazi Jewish descent, but 27% of United States Nobel prize winners in the 20th century, 25% of the winners of the Fields Medal (the top prize in mathematics), 25% of ACM Turing Award winners, a quarter of Westinghouse Science Talent Search winners, and 38% of the Oscar-winning film directors have either full or partial Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. ... Today's Ashkenazi Jews suffer from a number of congenital diseases and mutations at higher rates than most other ethnic groups; these include Tay–Sachs disease, Gaucher's disease, Bloom's syndrome, and Fanconi anemia, and mutations at BRCA1 and BRCA2. ... At least one of the diseases in this cluster, torsion dystonia, has been found to correlate with high IQ. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligenc...
- agumonkey 7y agoAbout social position of the jewish group, there's also a link to the religious notion of usury in catholic places.
- ZhuanXia 7y agoEliminating mendelian disease is on the table too. We are on the verge of getting gobs and gobs of selection power. This will allow us to select on multiple dimensions simultaneously.
- Alex3917 7y ago> Only about 2% of the U.S. population is of full Ashkenazi Jewish descent, but 27% of United States Nobel prize winners in the 20th century, 25% of the winners of the Fields Medal (the top prize in mathematics), 25% of ACM Turing Award winners, a quarter of Westinghouse Science Talent Search winners, and 38% of the Oscar-winning film directors have either full or partial Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. So what percentage of the population has partial Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry?
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
- cafebeen 7y agoThe bigger issue seems to be determining what "best" means. While there are a handful of diseases associated with specific genetic variants that could obviously be cured, the traits people would likely try to optimize (e.g. intelligence) seem to involve a complex combination of genes and environment, and an attempt to select for such genes could incur some potentially negative side-effects.
- jlawson 7y agoIt seems like your two sentences don't really fit together. "Best" pretty clearly means higher IQ in this context. The fact that the practical engineering required to accomplish that will involve setbacks, failures, costs, and suffering doesn't mean that we can't define the goal.
- cafebeen 7y agoAgreed that intelligence is a good thing, but the question is about whether there is a set of genes that are “best” for producing it. At the moment it’s unclear which genes those are, and even if we found some genes related to intelligence, they may have other negative consequences that make the idea of a “best” set of genes questionable
- jlawson 7y agoWell, to add some data: Intelligence genes discovered by scientists The Telegraph, Dec 21 2015 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/12061787/Intelligence-genes-discovered-by-scientists.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/120617... Many similar articles, not all about the same discovery, at this DDG search: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=genes+for+intelligence+found&t=ffab&ia=news https://duckduckgo.com/?q=genes+for+intelligence+found&t=ffa...
- cafebeen 7y agoYes, there is surely evidence that intelligence is heritable, but it's worth giving the research on this a close reading. Current approaches can only explain 10% of the variance in intelligence (https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg.2017.104 https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg.2017.104), plus the effects from the environment. My main issue with the article though was the assumption that a "best" set of genes exists without futher discussion (in addition to obvious ethical concerns)
- rowanG077 7y agoYes!
- noisy_boy 7y agoThey are rich - I don't have the confidence that they can be stopped in this age of lopsided wealth/power concentration. Better to let them be the guinea pigs evolving the technology to become stable and inevitably common. When everyone is able to buy genes, we will all be at a new square one.
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- cconroy 7y agoI am sure these best genes will "trickle down".
- ASalazarMX 7y agoCome on, you made me imagine street beggars picking up skin flakes as the übermensch walk by.
- tachyonbeam 7y agoYou're right in the sense that these genes will propagate into the rest of the population. However: 1. Rich people are more likely to get into a relationship with other rich people. 2. At least for the next 100 years, it's likely the tech will improve at a rapid rate. That means by the time those high IQ genes spread to children, we will already have identified even better genes. People who can intentionally apply this technology to their designer-babies will stay ahead of the curve. 3. Sexual reproduction is a random process. If we begin to understand genetics well enough, we will almost always be able to get a better, more effective combination of genes by hand-picking them (or letting a computer decide) than by letting sexual gene recombination spin the wheel of fortune. We're definitely looking at a future where the ruling class will have a huge genetic advantage, and will be able to maintain that advantage because of the huge cost associated.
- thaw13579 7y agoA counter point, it seems that wealth and the power it provides already provide such a huge advantage that the effects of genetic editing may end up being a negligible. I wonder about the preservation of wealth though. As other posts have pointed out, most wealth is lost within a generation or two. Genetic engineering could end up being used to modulate risk taking behavior and decision making, in an effort to mitigate this. That could have a big effect on the structure of society if successful...
- tachyonbeam 7y agoRight now, in America and Europe, if you work hard, you have a decent shot at becoming wealthy, or upper middle class. Once genetic engineering enters the picture, wealthy people will have a genuine intrinsic advantage.
- AlexCoventry 7y agoDidn't bother to read the article, because the title seems silly. Firstly, we don't have a clue about the genetic architecture of intelligence, so genetic engineering is a ways off. Secondly, what is GRM ("Genetic Rights Management") going to look like? Copy-protection of genes almost seems like a contradiction in terms.
- mlguy456 7y agoGRM can be as simple as a corporation owns rights to certain genes and thus owns a part of the income of those who happens to have these genes. Yes, children inherit the genes and thus owe to that company. The GRM rights can be bought or sold, like IP rights. Various regulations will determine how much we owe per gene.
- tw1010 7y agoLook at it this way: a lot of smart people contribute to common goods, e.g. scholarly progress. So in a way, it'll benefit everyone. I understand the counter-argument. But isn't a bit of a strange feature of the world that people kinda don't want more people to be produced with a higher IQ than themselves?
- ASalazarMX 7y agoGenius-level heirs who aren't psychopaths would be a great thing actually. If we had this a generation ago, maybe our leaders would have been smart enough to act responsibly about climate change.
- YaxelPerez 7y agoThe climate problem we have right now wasn't caused by incompetence.
- ASalazarMX 7y agoSomeone has to beta test genetic enhancement before it becomes mainstream. If it is currently expensive, only the rich can pay it... or pay other people to be the guinea pigs. It understandably hurts traditional western sensibilities, but genetic engineering is the inevitable cusp of evolution. At the base it's natural selection, then civilization added social selection on top, and finally tech will finish the pyramid with genetic engineering.
- vecplane 7y agoPerhaps a different way of asking the question is 'will the rich be buying the best genes?' And the answer is 'yes' because they already are, in limited ways. But we may be overlooking the breadth of the 'rich' in the future. Most humans today are far more rich than anyone else alive in the recent past. If this trend continues into the future, the accessibility and affordability of gene selection will make it commonplace.
- austincheney 7y agoThere are superior gene combinations that are not known or are poorly understood, such as high bone density, resistance to acute radiation exposure, faster environmental adaptability, greater pulmonary volume. By higher bone density I mean 3-5x greater than normal. These supposedly superior conditions are things that actually exist and boost performance, but they also impose stress on other health systems. After accounting for complexity superior is in the eye of the beholder after consideration for what factors/goals are most desirable.
- lanstin 7y agoStrong bones but death st sge 50. It will take as long as fifty years to learn that. Or maybe this system will be easy to fix forward and hack. I mean evolution is clearly going to result is modularism as a design principal and separation of functions of chemical pathways. Not like hacking some hand crafted assembly code by a dead mad genius, it wont be like that.
- esturk 7y agoI wonder whether anti-vaxxers are against gene modification or not? On one hand, their children may truly be immune and not need vaccines. But on the other, they might think the procedures will give them even more diseases.
- mirceal 7y agothis whole article is hilarious. biology and genetic engineering is way way more complicated than anything we’ve done as far as software and hardware goes. performing a few tricks does not equal we can enhance anything we want any way we want it. my guess is that we’re a few decades away from really understanding the underlying mechanisms that would allow us to truly enhance ourselves. some will say that we can edit DNA today - while that’s true we have a limited understanding of what we’re doing or what the effects might be. Evolution is great because it wipes out all of its errors and you only see the beautiful end product. Now, do you want to be a guinea pig and/or be the unfortunate outcome of these experiments? also: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667997/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667997/ another point that a lot of people miss is that super intelligence means nothing if you don’t have the right environment and the right opportunities. being wealthy exponentially increases your chances of a good outcome and it’s almost orthogonal to your IQ. yet another point is that if we continue to destroy our ecosystem no matter how smart individuals get we’re all collectively doomed.
- shpongled 7y agoI can pretty confidently say that we will never fully understand human cell biology/biochemistry. The interplay between proteins, genes, metabolites, etc is mindbogglingly complex. I say this as someone who works as a chemical biologist and uses CRISPR/Cas9 in my work to perform gene editing in cancer cells. We are still quite a ways away from performing real editing in humans, and even then it's gonna be a crapshoot. Most traits are polygenic, and we don't understand how tweaking one gene will effect distal biology.
- mirceal 7y agonever is a long time but I definitely agree with the sentiment of what you’re saying/describing
- joe_the_user 7y agoYeah, what people miss is that nano-machines have been stalled for a while despite being a clearly simpler problem than repurposing biological life. Silicon based computation really lots like extraordinary and particular situation which allowed humans exploit miniaturization fantastically. And people have been aiming to duplicate this success in other fields futilely for many years now. Editing DNA is far, far away from creating chips, which a ways from writing software. It's very likely well in the realm of "AI-complete problems".
- buboard 7y agoTech became tech because it was unregulated. Biotech is anything but, in the west.
- Finnucane 7y agoWas biotech previously not tech? What an odd thing to say.
- carapace 7y agoPeople have been calling IT the "Information Revolution", but that has really only just begun. The singularity will (has) happen(ed) in meat before silicon. Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-circuit_model_of_consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-circuit_model_of_conscio... This is activation in the "neurogenetic" circuit. We know that the soma thinks: "What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Outside the Nervous System" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736698 With a little practice you can establish two-way communication with this aspect of yourself ("neurosomatic" circuit) and engender e.g. accelerated healing, &c. Now that we know that CRISPR-style genesplicing is possible, it seems likely that it could be taught as well. In other words, go into a trance and mutate yourself. Our DNA already contains the coding for self-splicing, in fact it's littered with quiescent viruses in all degrees of viability. So we have all the biotechnology we need to practice self-modification of DNA now. Grok your cells! Go forth and mutate!
- redisman 7y ago> Now that we know that CRISPR-style genesplicing is possible, it seems likely that it could be taught as well. In other words, go into a trance and mutate yourself. Well that seems like a "bit" of a logical jump...
- carapace 7y agoIt's not easy to unpack the train of thought there, and it would take a book (at least) to do it justice. Let me see if I can sum it up... Your brain is a powerful feedback-based information processor. It's whole deal is to get your DNA into the future. Now it's learned about the existence of DNA. (Maybe from reading Dawkins.) And it's also learned about easy gene splicing with CRISPR. So as a bio-computer dedicated to self-replication, it has entered into a very strange loop. I'm saying that this loop doesn't require any external hardware. You have a brain, you have cells, they are already connected, so you have your lab and Neural Network General (non-)AI already. If you can convince your brain to try it (and this is where hypnosis comes into play) there is no reason to suspect that it wouldn't be able to figure out how to self-hack your own DNA. Just explain what to do and let 'er rip.
- peter303 7y agoI attended Isaacson's Aspen panel on CRISPR this June. He said his next book is on biotechnology. He wrote the definitive biography of Steve Jobs and some major scientists.
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- _coveredInBees 7y agoI'd highly recommend Radiolab's "G" Series of mini-podcasts that cover material pretty pertinent to the discussions in these comment sections. I really enjoyed the entire series. Here is the abstract for it: Radiolab’s “G” is a multi-episode exploration of one of the most dangerous ideas of the past century: the concept of intelligence. Over six episodes, the series unearths the fraught history (and present-day use) of IQ tests, digs into the bizarre tale of one man’s obsessive quest to find the secret to genius in Einstein’s brain, reveals the ways the dark history of eugenics have crept up into the present, looks to the future with a controversial geneticist who has created a prenatal test for intelligence, and stages a raucous game-show throwdown to crown the smartest animal in the world.
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- codeisawesome 7y agoPeople don't seem to be talking about Crime and Policing, btw. If Criminals get super-intelligent, then we are going to need super-intelligent Policing. This is a smaller fractal of the Military competition aspect, but the dynamics are similar. Ultimately, once this tech becomes reality, it will be impossible to contain for this reason alone. You can't have Enhanced Cops themselves imprisoned in a way that they can't spread their genes.
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- sasaf5 7y agoGenetic improvement, just like eyeglasses and unlike college admission, is not a zero-sum game.
- mettamage 7y agoI see a major tasks for philosophers to collaborate with these scientists so that they have the best awareness of what they are doing. Not that it will ever happen but one can dream.
- credit_guy 7y agoThis guy thinks gene A makes you smarter, gene B makes you stronger, gene C makes you taller. And then rich people will buy gene A, B, C and become smarter, stronger, taller, and then richer still. And poor people will be poor forever. In reality gene A makes a protein a, which triggers an increase in the expression of genes B,C,D, and a decrease in the expression of genes E,F,G. They in turn trigger other and other effects, so there's a cascade of cause-effects that we have no chance to model/simulate/understand, at least not now, and not in the next 30-50 years. The end result is that gene A may make you smarter, but also more prone to macular degeneration or leukemia. Do you think rich people will take the chance ?
- joquarky 7y agoI've long wondered if genes are more like seeds to a fractal. Evolution works great, but I suspect it results in a chaotic system.
- bayesian_horse 7y agoNo. I don't believe Human gene-editing will enhance socio-economic divides. For one thing genetic enhancements is incredibly hard. There will always be some risk of side-effects. Even without side-effects there will be huge problems in coordinating multiple changes and making sure they are actually beneficial. This is especially so for traits like intelligence. And you don't get a do-over in Humans. If the treatment doesn't work as intended, you still have a child. We're very far from routine genetic enhancements. Multiple Decades, in my opinion. Even single-mutation treatments for serious diseases should not become routine in the next 10 years. On the other hand these treatments could be relatively cheap, once the technology has progressed far enough. At the very least, it would be beneficial for any society to pay for any health- or intelligence-improving treatment for any parents who want it. Next issue: Virtually any improvement in Health, especially during childhood, will lead to higher intelligence, body height and muscle mass. The reason is that the foundations for those traits are "grown" in a specific period of time, using the resources available. If a child gets less nutrition, less time in school or gets sick, those traits are negatively affected. That means not only gene-treatments improve intelligence, but so do vaccinations, antibiotics, antihelmintics and better hygiene.