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A lot of autistic people (including me) see this as eugenics - the idea of genetic research is to prevent autistic people from being born, not to improve the li

A lot of autistic people (including me) see this as eugenics - the idea of genetic research is to prevent autistic people from being born, not to improve the lives of autistic people.

cjbgkagh 4y ago
The gene mutations are going to be found eventually while searching for other things, so at best it’s delaying the inevitable. By identifying the gene mutations it can make treatments much easier to find as you can often see which exomes are effected and thus which proteins may be missing. Could give rise to an effective peptide treatment similar to an insulin injection.
- wpietri 4y ago
  The knowledge may be inevitable, but the eugenics isn't. It's perfectly plausible that as a society we are not ready for knowledge yet. Look, for example at the plague of sex-selective abortion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-selective_abortion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-selective_abortion It's perfectly possible that knowledge of and tests for, say, genes related to homosexuality would currently result in a huge eugenics campaign in many places. The same could well be true of all sorts of cognitive "deviance", which could be not only a moral horror, but cause long-term damage to the fate of the species.
  - cjbgkagh 4y ago
    Imho eugenics is already inevitable. It can confer too great of an advantage and the technology is already eminently accessible. People already do it on the small scale with discretionary abortions for various genetic defects. Going from that to pre selecting IVF embryo candidates is a minor detail of a relatively small amount of money. It can also be done in secret so it’s perfect for a black market. And there is a first mover advantage so maintaining an anti-eugenic cartel would be impossible in the long term. I do agree that it could result in the nightmare scenario.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      Will some number of people do it on a black market? Possibly! But I think that's worlds away from broadly accepted eugenics for non-dangerous characteristics. So I think eugenics is only inevitable in the same sense that slavery is inevitable: we may not be able to eliminate it totally, but we can certainly keep it very much to the margins.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - cjbgkagh 4y ago
        I don't think the taboo of eugenics has any particular durability to it. I think it'll flip rather quickly. You'll get places like Eastern Europe, Russia, and China doing it and all of a sudden we'll have to do it to in order to 'remain competitive'. Weaponizing drones was taboo for about a nanosecond, now we can look forward to a future WWIII with flying robots raining down death from above, all because it was more convenient at the time.
        wpietri 4y ago
        That one taboo falls quickly is not proof all of them will. The eugenics taboo has endured for more than a century, which sounds like particular durability to me.
Dma54rhs 4y ago
I don't know how to not be too blunt but we already do it with down syndrome and others we can detect. It's not called eugenics because they the word has a bad meaning but essentially this is what it is.
- banannaise 4y ago
  Oh, I am quite aware that eugenics is already a thing we do. That doesn't make it right, and it certainly doesn't mean it's something we should be looking to expand. One might note that down syndrome individuals are often quite happy, and can make others around them quite happy as well. They just don't succeed under capitalism - they can't really work, and because caretaking is not financially compensated, they greatly reduce someone else's ability to work. In a more collectivist society, caring for them would be quite straightforward. Eugenics based on who can be "productive" takes you directly to Nazi territory, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Once you've accepted it, the only question left (assuming we can get "accurate" predictions) is where you draw the line: autistic? deformed limb? mentally ill? criminal? gay? short? black? And I realize this is a slippery slope argument, but slippery slope arguments are particularly compelling in cases where there is direct historical precedent. Mass sterilization to reduce "undesirable" populations has been done by law in the United States. From there, coerced or even forced abortion is just an improvement in technology.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

A lot of autistic people (including me) see this as eugenics - the idea of genetic research is to prevent autistic people from being born, not to improve the lives of autistic people.

cjbgkagh 4y ago

The gene mutations are going to be found eventually while searching for other things, so at best it’s delaying the inevitable. By identifying the gene mutations it can make treatments much easier to find as you can often see which exomes are effected and thus which proteins may be missing. Could give rise to an effective peptide treatment similar to an insulin injection.

wpietri 4y ago
The knowledge may be inevitable, but the eugenics isn't. It's perfectly plausible that as a society we are not ready for knowledge yet. Look, for example at the plague of sex-selective abortion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-selective_abortion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-selective_abortion It's perfectly possible that knowledge of and tests for, say, genes related to homosexuality would currently result in a huge eugenics campaign in many places. The same could well be true of all sorts of cognitive "deviance", which could be not only a moral horror, but cause long-term damage to the fate of the species.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  Imho eugenics is already inevitable. It can confer too great of an advantage and the technology is already eminently accessible. People already do it on the small scale with discretionary abortions for various genetic defects. Going from that to pre selecting IVF embryo candidates is a minor detail of a relatively small amount of money. It can also be done in secret so it’s perfect for a black market. And there is a first mover advantage so maintaining an anti-eugenic cartel would be impossible in the long term. I do agree that it could result in the nightmare scenario.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    Will some number of people do it on a black market? Possibly! But I think that's worlds away from broadly accepted eugenics for non-dangerous characteristics. So I think eugenics is only inevitable in the same sense that slavery is inevitable: we may not be able to eliminate it totally, but we can certainly keep it very much to the margins.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - cjbgkagh 4y ago
      I don't think the taboo of eugenics has any particular durability to it. I think it'll flip rather quickly. You'll get places like Eastern Europe, Russia, and China doing it and all of a sudden we'll have to do it to in order to 'remain competitive'. Weaponizing drones was taboo for about a nanosecond, now we can look forward to a future WWIII with flying robots raining down death from above, all because it was more convenient at the time.
      - wpietri 4y ago
        That one taboo falls quickly is not proof all of them will. The eugenics taboo has endured for more than a century, which sounds like particular durability to me.

Dma54rhs 4y ago

I don't know how to not be too blunt but we already do it with down syndrome and others we can detect. It's not called eugenics because they the word has a bad meaning but essentially this is what it is.

banannaise 4y ago
Oh, I am quite aware that eugenics is already a thing we do. That doesn't make it right, and it certainly doesn't mean it's something we should be looking to expand. One might note that down syndrome individuals are often quite happy, and can make others around them quite happy as well. They just don't succeed under capitalism - they can't really work, and because caretaking is not financially compensated, they greatly reduce someone else's ability to work. In a more collectivist society, caring for them would be quite straightforward. Eugenics based on who can be "productive" takes you directly to Nazi territory, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Once you've accepted it, the only question left (assuming we can get "accurate" predictions) is where you draw the line: autistic? deformed limb? mentally ill? criminal? gay? short? black? And I realize this is a slippery slope argument, but slippery slope arguments are particularly compelling in cases where there is direct historical precedent. Mass sterilization to reduce "undesirable" populations has been done by law in the United States. From there, coerced or even forced abortion is just an improvement in technology.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]