44 ms·

I think it's annoying people get upset that people who do this potentially damage their bodies. First of all, it's that individuals body. They can take whatever

I think it's annoying people get upset that people who do this potentially damage their bodies. First of all, it's that individuals body. They can take whatever risks they want. I don't see how trying to alter your own DNA is any worse for you than skydiving. Both have inherent risks, none of which affect others. Secondly, because there is no red tape or ethical scientific practices required, this gives us the opportunity to study some anecdotal evidence and (hopefully) these people donate their bodies for research after death. We can't truly know these affects if we constantly just act so tepid about the procedures. Imagine if we had the scientific process about literally every aspect in human life since the dawn of civilization? We'd still be making bricks with straw, manure, sand, and water because there wasn't a government sponsored test of the quality of "Roman Cement" therefore we should not use it. Some of these people who criticize a lot of science do so just for the sake of disputing it. It's a good thing this stuff happens. The more anecdotal evidence we have, the more likely it can be subject to legitimate scrutiny and understand certain pitfalls that these individuals encountered and why. Just telling these people "you're stupid, it's bad for you!" is an ultimate waste of time and just stagnates data collection.

tialaramex 5y ago
> Both have inherent risks, none of which affect others. If you make germline edits, this does potentially impact others - you can have children who inherit the edit. They don't have any choice about that (depending on the edit they might randomly not receive a copy of the edited material, but that's luck) and its consequences in them may be undesirable even if the outcome for you, an adult, was fine and anyway your choice.
- coryrc 5y ago
  That is the line of reasoning that leads to banning abortions*. People have a right to alter their bodies. EDIT: and preventing young women from choosing sterilization.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    Precisely. Otherwise if we're going to walk the line of "well even though it's your body, 'us smarter people' say it's bad for you there for you cannot do it" will inevitably lead to the logic of dictating abortion rights as well. This is exactly the logic conservatives use with the Covid Vaccines but because liberals "know what's good for everyone," people shouldn't be allowed to make the "my body my choice" when it comes to a vaccine. Regardless of who is more logically correct in the scenario, the current stance of American liberalism is "my body my choice" only applies in terms of abortion. Which conservatives when they get in power again, will utilize as rationale to make it illegal as many have been doing for the past decade.
    - coryrc 5y ago
      I didn't say you have the right to not alter your body, the public health requirements for contagious diseases seemed reasonable until people have started lumping gun control and "possibly altering your non-existent children"... maybe I'll one day feel as you do.
      - coryrc 5y ago
        And those restrictions should only apply to people in the public; if you choose to live off the land somewhere isolated, then those requirements should not apply to you.
    - didibus 5y ago
      It isn't about knowing what's best for you, but what's best for others. So where ethics come into play is when what you're seemingly doing to yourself could actually have impact on others as well. For abortion, you can claim it impacts others both ways, are you impacting a new born from having its life, or are you preventing a yet to be born child from having a troubled life, and saving family, parents and society its burden. For a vaccine, are you putting others at risk of a disease by not taking the vaccine? For bio-hacking, are you possibly creating dangerous virus or bacterias that could harm others, are you making modifications to yourself which will put a tole on the medical system if you later need assistance or special treatment if you mess up, etc. This is the same reasoning with drugs often, will your modified behavior cause harm to others if you consume them? Etc. None of this is black and white, but I think having these discussions on "what harm to others it can cause" is justified.
- karmicthreat 5y ago
  In the particular context of Though Emporium this wasn't going to happen. It used an adenovirus that couldn't reproduce so it was only going to alter a limited number of cells in his intestine. The technical requirements to this kind of limit the number of people that are going to really mess themselves up. I would be more worried about people accidentally releasing edited bacteria or viruses.
  - ch4s3 5y ago
    > releasing edited bacteria or viruses. From what I understand it’s hard to order the sequences of DNA or RNA you’d need for this without someone noticing. It’s probably not impossible, but not something anyone is going to bungle into.
    - karmicthreat 5y ago
      That's what is usually said. I don't think I've actually heard of this getting triggered. I'd like to think that global governments have this totally under control. Maybe the US does, but does China? In any case so far it's seemed like a whole "this rock keeps away Tigers" sort of thing.
      - ch4s3 5y ago
        I think it more a result of companies that synthesize the raw material being unwilling to whip up things like SARS variants, and it being quite difficult to figure something out like that from scratch. That may change or turn out to be incorrect, this is just my understanding at the moment.
    - stuntkite 5y ago
      I am 100% pro bio hacking, I would go as far as to say that I think the bio hacking community might be the only place I can see solutions to our largest problems coming from. I mean the bio hacking community too, not acedemia. Not that acedamia isn’t crucial to that process. Anyway, Maybe a few years ago the barrier to entry was too high for most people but that is so not the case anymore. Even just this year a friend sent me a link to a $2000 gizmo that was about the size of a pack of gum that could do desktop sequencing. Generating your own custom DNA in your bedroom is considerably harder (but not impossible) but it is not at all difficult to order a custom sequence from a half dozen different retailers. The file you send them is just a big chunk of a few letters. It’s assembly code with no comments (yes I know folks do put in comments in text sometimes and sometimes biologically but just like always comments lie more than not), they functionally cannot be checking for what it could do if what you’re working on is even remotely novel. For the price of a playstation you can have it delivered to your door next day air. There are very real risks here for our entire planet. Possibly one of our largest risks. To hide behind “it’s too difficult for a malicious actor” is not helpful. I think genetic literacy is maybe the only thing we all can do as we might be entering very weird territory as a closed system that has a bent towards global narcissism and self harm. Something that gives me some comfort is that to be good at it you really have to do a gross and difficult deep dive into how all life works and I think there are very few people that could do that and still feel like it’s ok to do harm at even a small scale. The things we are going to see in the next few years will be pretty fucking weird. I guess when you get down to this level, the only thing to have is something like faith. Eeeek.
AbrahamParangi 5y ago
I think it’s sometimes a gatekeeping behavior, instinctual and unconscious. If writing software required being a licensed engineer then you would without a doubt see reactions to open source, calling it deeply irresponsible and dangerous.

tialaramex 5y ago

> Both have inherent risks, none of which affect others. If you make germline edits, this does potentially impact others - you can have children who inherit the edit. They don't have any choice about that (depending on the edit they might randomly not receive a copy of the edited material, but that's luck) and its consequences in them may be undesirable even if the outcome for you, an adult, was fine and anyway your choice.

coryrc 5y ago
That is the line of reasoning that leads to banning abortions*. People have a right to alter their bodies. EDIT: and preventing young women from choosing sterilization.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  Precisely. Otherwise if we're going to walk the line of "well even though it's your body, 'us smarter people' say it's bad for you there for you cannot do it" will inevitably lead to the logic of dictating abortion rights as well. This is exactly the logic conservatives use with the Covid Vaccines but because liberals "know what's good for everyone," people shouldn't be allowed to make the "my body my choice" when it comes to a vaccine. Regardless of who is more logically correct in the scenario, the current stance of American liberalism is "my body my choice" only applies in terms of abortion. Which conservatives when they get in power again, will utilize as rationale to make it illegal as many have been doing for the past decade.
  - coryrc 5y ago
    I didn't say you have the right to not alter your body, the public health requirements for contagious diseases seemed reasonable until people have started lumping gun control and "possibly altering your non-existent children"... maybe I'll one day feel as you do.
    - coryrc 5y ago
      And those restrictions should only apply to people in the public; if you choose to live off the land somewhere isolated, then those requirements should not apply to you.
  - didibus 5y ago
    It isn't about knowing what's best for you, but what's best for others. So where ethics come into play is when what you're seemingly doing to yourself could actually have impact on others as well. For abortion, you can claim it impacts others both ways, are you impacting a new born from having its life, or are you preventing a yet to be born child from having a troubled life, and saving family, parents and society its burden. For a vaccine, are you putting others at risk of a disease by not taking the vaccine? For bio-hacking, are you possibly creating dangerous virus or bacterias that could harm others, are you making modifications to yourself which will put a tole on the medical system if you later need assistance or special treatment if you mess up, etc. This is the same reasoning with drugs often, will your modified behavior cause harm to others if you consume them? Etc. None of this is black and white, but I think having these discussions on "what harm to others it can cause" is justified.
karmicthreat 5y ago
In the particular context of Though Emporium this wasn't going to happen. It used an adenovirus that couldn't reproduce so it was only going to alter a limited number of cells in his intestine. The technical requirements to this kind of limit the number of people that are going to really mess themselves up. I would be more worried about people accidentally releasing edited bacteria or viruses.
- ch4s3 5y ago
  > releasing edited bacteria or viruses. From what I understand it’s hard to order the sequences of DNA or RNA you’d need for this without someone noticing. It’s probably not impossible, but not something anyone is going to bungle into.
  - karmicthreat 5y ago
    That's what is usually said. I don't think I've actually heard of this getting triggered. I'd like to think that global governments have this totally under control. Maybe the US does, but does China? In any case so far it's seemed like a whole "this rock keeps away Tigers" sort of thing.
    - ch4s3 5y ago
      I think it more a result of companies that synthesize the raw material being unwilling to whip up things like SARS variants, and it being quite difficult to figure something out like that from scratch. That may change or turn out to be incorrect, this is just my understanding at the moment.
  - stuntkite 5y ago
    I am 100% pro bio hacking, I would go as far as to say that I think the bio hacking community might be the only place I can see solutions to our largest problems coming from. I mean the bio hacking community too, not acedemia. Not that acedamia isn’t crucial to that process. Anyway, Maybe a few years ago the barrier to entry was too high for most people but that is so not the case anymore. Even just this year a friend sent me a link to a $2000 gizmo that was about the size of a pack of gum that could do desktop sequencing. Generating your own custom DNA in your bedroom is considerably harder (but not impossible) but it is not at all difficult to order a custom sequence from a half dozen different retailers. The file you send them is just a big chunk of a few letters. It’s assembly code with no comments (yes I know folks do put in comments in text sometimes and sometimes biologically but just like always comments lie more than not), they functionally cannot be checking for what it could do if what you’re working on is even remotely novel. For the price of a playstation you can have it delivered to your door next day air. There are very real risks here for our entire planet. Possibly one of our largest risks. To hide behind “it’s too difficult for a malicious actor” is not helpful. I think genetic literacy is maybe the only thing we all can do as we might be entering very weird territory as a closed system that has a bent towards global narcissism and self harm. Something that gives me some comfort is that to be good at it you really have to do a gross and difficult deep dive into how all life works and I think there are very few people that could do that and still feel like it’s ok to do harm at even a small scale. The things we are going to see in the next few years will be pretty fucking weird. I guess when you get down to this level, the only thing to have is something like faith. Eeeek.

AbrahamParangi 5y ago

I think it’s sometimes a gatekeeping behavior, instinctual and unconscious. If writing software required being a licensed engineer then you would without a doubt see reactions to open source, calling it deeply irresponsible and dangerous.