4 ms·

Eugenics has obvious issues when applied to mature individuals or groups, but I'll need convincing that the same moral position is warranted if we're talking ab

by sdhfjg 5y ago

Eugenics has obvious issues when applied to mature individuals or groups, but I'll need convincing that the same moral position is warranted if we're talking about cells.

danuker 5y ago
> We want to help parents have kids when it otherwise wouldn’t be possible. Sounds to me like those eggs are bound to become mature individuals.
- sdhfjg 5y ago
  I could have been more clear, the distinction is semantic. I was referring to culling/sterilization to prevent reproduction in the sexually mature. Unborn persons are not adults, even if they will be.
  - dang 5y ago
    Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
NaNDude 5y ago
science fiction reference for cells eugenics: gattaca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca
- delecti 5y ago
  I always felt like Gattaca was unrealistically pessimistic. I'm unconvinced that the "best possible person" (if you grant such a thing even exists) is that much different from an average person. It seems more likely that we would just eliminate some genetic diseases and cancers, and vain/rich parents would select for taller children. Most other differences seem to be too weakly correlated with genes we've identified to result in such a stark change to society. It's less like taking a bunch of dials tuned to 5 and turning then all up to 11, and more like increasing some dials from 5 to 6, and arbitrarily spinning some others because they weren't labeled to begin with.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    > I'm unconvinced that the "best possible person" (if you grant such a thing even exists) is that much different from an average person. This seems like an absurd thing to believe for anyone who has a solid grasp of how evolution by natural selection works. Or rather, it's absurd to believe that even a small improvement from the average isn't a HUGE advantage for a person's success in life and genetic legacy.
    - Bender 5y ago
      We bypass natural selection all the time. Some people are more vulnerable to certain pathogens. We give them medicine or vaccines to mitigate mortality. Natural selection would have us let nature take its course. Some people have religious beliefs that in fact route people towards nature or God determining mortality rather than medicine.
      - anonporridge 5y ago
        True, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's right and good to alleviate suffering where we can. But we still stand to suffer as a civilization if the average quality of individuals doesn't improve, or even declines. Especially as the challenges we are capable of facing become more complex and challenging. Idiocracy comes to mind. Then again, maybe our future is one where we develop sentient AIs that can independently keep civilization running, while humans can be left to degrade into a kind of pet that doesn't do any work and exists only for the benefit and good will of the AI.

by sdhfjg 5y ago

Eugenics has obvious issues when applied to mature individuals or groups, but I'll need convincing that the same moral position is warranted if we're talking about cells.

danuker 5y ago

> We want to help parents have kids when it otherwise wouldn’t be possible. Sounds to me like those eggs are bound to become mature individuals.

sdhfjg 5y ago
I could have been more clear, the distinction is semantic. I was referring to culling/sterilization to prevent reproduction in the sexually mature. Unborn persons are not adults, even if they will be.
- dang 5y ago
  Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

NaNDude 5y ago

science fiction reference for cells eugenics: gattaca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca

delecti 5y ago
I always felt like Gattaca was unrealistically pessimistic. I'm unconvinced that the "best possible person" (if you grant such a thing even exists) is that much different from an average person. It seems more likely that we would just eliminate some genetic diseases and cancers, and vain/rich parents would select for taller children. Most other differences seem to be too weakly correlated with genes we've identified to result in such a stark change to society. It's less like taking a bunch of dials tuned to 5 and turning then all up to 11, and more like increasing some dials from 5 to 6, and arbitrarily spinning some others because they weren't labeled to begin with.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  > I'm unconvinced that the "best possible person" (if you grant such a thing even exists) is that much different from an average person. This seems like an absurd thing to believe for anyone who has a solid grasp of how evolution by natural selection works. Or rather, it's absurd to believe that even a small improvement from the average isn't a HUGE advantage for a person's success in life and genetic legacy.
  - Bender 5y ago
    We bypass natural selection all the time. Some people are more vulnerable to certain pathogens. We give them medicine or vaccines to mitigate mortality. Natural selection would have us let nature take its course. Some people have religious beliefs that in fact route people towards nature or God determining mortality rather than medicine.
    - anonporridge 5y ago
      True, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's right and good to alleviate suffering where we can. But we still stand to suffer as a civilization if the average quality of individuals doesn't improve, or even declines. Especially as the challenges we are capable of facing become more complex and challenging. Idiocracy comes to mind. Then again, maybe our future is one where we develop sentient AIs that can independently keep civilization running, while humans can be left to degrade into a kind of pet that doesn't do any work and exists only for the benefit and good will of the AI.