5 ms·

Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. - Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park)

by _2z1p 3y ago

inglor_cz 3y ago
Infertility is a pathology. Perhaps we should treat it as such and nothing more. No one morally sane would deny a person in a wheelchair a chance to walk, or a blind person a chance to see, just because they were born "naturally" lame or blind. Same with having kids, no?
- lockhouse 3y ago
  We’re meddling with far larger forces here. Some fertility issues are a sort of quality control system for our species. If this technology becomes widespread it could ultimately change human evolution dramatically. If this were to supplant normal biological reproduction and reproductive organs atrophy we could eventually become wholly dependent upon technology to reproduce as a species.
  - inglor_cz 3y ago
    "Some fertility issues are a sort of quality control system for our species." I am not discounting your argument, but quality isn't a stable value. A short-sighted or asthmatic person in a hunter-gatherer society might have been useless; nowadays, they may be an excellent engineer or doctor. With technology like the one being described in the article, you actually have a much higher chance of producing viable embryos free of known genetic problems. Dependence on technology, well, it is sorta dangerous, but also unavoidable. For example, the # of people who produce their own food is very small in the West. And that small number would become almost zero if we added further constraints (as in "don't use any industrially produced chemicals in the process"). Our ancestors from 200 years ago would probably consider us unviable. (And the actual hunters and gatherers would consider them unviable. What, you depend on good weather and rain not to starve?)
  - kps 3y ago
    If we put all-natural you, with no products of technology, at a random point on Earth, you'll be dead before the search party finds you.
    - lacrimacida 3y ago
      Kind of a non sequitur here. This is about messing with the fundamentals of nature and our species in a way we do not understand its consequences.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - BasedAnon 3y ago
      >hey maybe messing with things we don't really understand that could affect our genepool is potentially a bad idea <wow so you hate glasses!
  - nulld3v 3y ago
    By the same argument you could also argue that certain genetic traits are part of the "quality control system". E.g. Before the modern era having a gene that makes you disabled would lower your chance of reproduction. This is an extremely dangerous path to set out on. We have already completely changed human evolution, and I would argue with great success. Do we really want to start undoing this?
  - Mizoguchi 3y ago
    Biologically a healthy woman can have kids well into her 50s and even 60s yet her eggs reserve starts to deplete the moment they are born, accelerating exponentially as they approach 40. From an evolutionary point of view this could have made sense 200 years ago when the lifespan of a human was 45 years. Our bodies are not perfect and we have been able to understand and to certain degree fix many issues with it such as infectious and cardiovascular diseases and some types of cancers. For example we never saw polio as a quality control system for our species. Our understanding of infertility and methods to treat it have remained unchanged for decades. We basically pump an awful amount of drugs into a woman's body hoping to harvest a few good eggs via surgery. It is a brutal and painful process, physically, emotionally and financially that most times has very poor odds of succeeding. If we can do the same with a few drops of blood, removing the drugs, the cost and the randomness of the current procedures while increasing the odds 10x, this would be an amazing feat of science in a positive way.
    - quickthrowman 3y ago
      > From an evolutionary point of view this could have made sense 200 years ago when the lifespan of a human was 45 years. The lifespan of a human was not 45 years in the 18/19th century. The average lifespan may have been, but that number is extremely misleading due to infant/child mortality being much higher prior to modern medicine. If you made it to adulthood prior to modern medicine, you stood a good chance of making it to 70.
      - inglor_cz 3y ago
        Depends on what you mean by "good chance". This is the mortality curve in England in the half of the 17th century, which was already a fairly modern society; for example, not suffering from as frequent famines as in the Early Middle Ages. [0] Out of 1000 people born then, approximately 680 reached 20 years of age and approximately 170 reached 70 years of age. So, 25 per cent of all the adults lived to be 70. Not a "good chance" in my understanding of the word. "Somewhat of a chance", perhaps. [0] https://www.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/shorthand/214792/7UHPdymR2R/assets/OMJ2XrCAVU/figure-2-1197x569.jpeg https://www.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/shorthand/21...
  - not_your_mentat 3y ago
    There is an growing body of evidence that points to change in environmental conditions (ubiquity of microplastics, forever chemicals, etc.) as a significant driver of infertility. I guess you could make the argument that humans just need to adapt or die. It seems a little Victorian. "Then they should do it and reduce the surplus population" kind of thing. Say no to your inner Scrooge. Life is sad and hard and complicated and exciting and wonderful and absolutely worth living. Babies are wonderful, children are hard, teenagers are a nightmare, and I absolutely don't want to die alone.
  - rkagerer 3y ago
    Millions of years of biology have brought us nearly to the point where we can take the evolution of our species into our own hands. We're new at this and like any other human endeavor in its earliest days are bound to make some horrible mistakes. So the arguments toward caution are well-justified. We've yet to prove our civilization is responsible enough to handle such consequential abilities - e.g. nuclear arms, climate change, genetic engineering. But I anticipate several generations from now, today's cultural taboo will be ancient history and our "meddling", "treatments", whatever you label it will be just another aspect of humanity that has been normalized. I bet my progeny will be able to go and get a tail just as easily as someone today would acquire a tattoo.
- klrxc11 3y ago
  Obviously not the same. You are not just curing a "disease" (I actually would not even call infertility a disease), you produce a new human in the process. With an experimental technology. Perhaps new humans have a right not to be produced by whatever means current Brave New World technology allows?
  - inglor_cz 3y ago
    "Perhaps new humans have a right not to be produced" The problem is asserting such right on behalf of someone not yet born. Personally, I couldn't just demand that someone not be born because of my own opinions regarding technology. I just don't feel justified to deny other people procreation. And remember, in the 1980s, there were similar attitudes towards "regular" IVF. Frankenstein, ungodly, lab kids etc. Fortunately these prejudices mostly died out.
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    Though obviously it could be no other way, it's always struck me as odd that new humans can never consent to their creation, no matter the method. One of many reasons I will never create one.

Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. - Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park)

by _2z1p 3y ago

Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. - Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park)

inglor_cz 3y ago

Infertility is a pathology. Perhaps we should treat it as such and nothing more. No one morally sane would deny a person in a wheelchair a chance to walk, or a blind person a chance to see, just because they were born "naturally" lame or blind. Same with having kids, no?

lockhouse 3y ago
We’re meddling with far larger forces here. Some fertility issues are a sort of quality control system for our species. If this technology becomes widespread it could ultimately change human evolution dramatically. If this were to supplant normal biological reproduction and reproductive organs atrophy we could eventually become wholly dependent upon technology to reproduce as a species.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  "Some fertility issues are a sort of quality control system for our species." I am not discounting your argument, but quality isn't a stable value. A short-sighted or asthmatic person in a hunter-gatherer society might have been useless; nowadays, they may be an excellent engineer or doctor. With technology like the one being described in the article, you actually have a much higher chance of producing viable embryos free of known genetic problems. Dependence on technology, well, it is sorta dangerous, but also unavoidable. For example, the # of people who produce their own food is very small in the West. And that small number would become almost zero if we added further constraints (as in "don't use any industrially produced chemicals in the process"). Our ancestors from 200 years ago would probably consider us unviable. (And the actual hunters and gatherers would consider them unviable. What, you depend on good weather and rain not to starve?)
- kps 3y ago
  If we put all-natural you, with no products of technology, at a random point on Earth, you'll be dead before the search party finds you.
  - lacrimacida 3y ago
    Kind of a non sequitur here. This is about messing with the fundamentals of nature and our species in a way we do not understand its consequences.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - BasedAnon 3y ago
    >hey maybe messing with things we don't really understand that could affect our genepool is potentially a bad idea <wow so you hate glasses!
- nulld3v 3y ago
  By the same argument you could also argue that certain genetic traits are part of the "quality control system". E.g. Before the modern era having a gene that makes you disabled would lower your chance of reproduction. This is an extremely dangerous path to set out on. We have already completely changed human evolution, and I would argue with great success. Do we really want to start undoing this?
- Mizoguchi 3y ago
  Biologically a healthy woman can have kids well into her 50s and even 60s yet her eggs reserve starts to deplete the moment they are born, accelerating exponentially as they approach 40. From an evolutionary point of view this could have made sense 200 years ago when the lifespan of a human was 45 years. Our bodies are not perfect and we have been able to understand and to certain degree fix many issues with it such as infectious and cardiovascular diseases and some types of cancers. For example we never saw polio as a quality control system for our species. Our understanding of infertility and methods to treat it have remained unchanged for decades. We basically pump an awful amount of drugs into a woman's body hoping to harvest a few good eggs via surgery. It is a brutal and painful process, physically, emotionally and financially that most times has very poor odds of succeeding. If we can do the same with a few drops of blood, removing the drugs, the cost and the randomness of the current procedures while increasing the odds 10x, this would be an amazing feat of science in a positive way.
  - quickthrowman 3y ago
    > From an evolutionary point of view this could have made sense 200 years ago when the lifespan of a human was 45 years. The lifespan of a human was not 45 years in the 18/19th century. The average lifespan may have been, but that number is extremely misleading due to infant/child mortality being much higher prior to modern medicine. If you made it to adulthood prior to modern medicine, you stood a good chance of making it to 70.
    - inglor_cz 3y ago
      Depends on what you mean by "good chance". This is the mortality curve in England in the half of the 17th century, which was already a fairly modern society; for example, not suffering from as frequent famines as in the Early Middle Ages. [0] Out of 1000 people born then, approximately 680 reached 20 years of age and approximately 170 reached 70 years of age. So, 25 per cent of all the adults lived to be 70. Not a "good chance" in my understanding of the word. "Somewhat of a chance", perhaps. [0] https://www.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/shorthand/214792/7UHPdymR2R/assets/OMJ2XrCAVU/figure-2-1197x569.jpeg https://www.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/shorthand/21...
- not_your_mentat 3y ago
  There is an growing body of evidence that points to change in environmental conditions (ubiquity of microplastics, forever chemicals, etc.) as a significant driver of infertility. I guess you could make the argument that humans just need to adapt or die. It seems a little Victorian. "Then they should do it and reduce the surplus population" kind of thing. Say no to your inner Scrooge. Life is sad and hard and complicated and exciting and wonderful and absolutely worth living. Babies are wonderful, children are hard, teenagers are a nightmare, and I absolutely don't want to die alone.
- rkagerer 3y ago
  Millions of years of biology have brought us nearly to the point where we can take the evolution of our species into our own hands. We're new at this and like any other human endeavor in its earliest days are bound to make some horrible mistakes. So the arguments toward caution are well-justified. We've yet to prove our civilization is responsible enough to handle such consequential abilities - e.g. nuclear arms, climate change, genetic engineering. But I anticipate several generations from now, today's cultural taboo will be ancient history and our "meddling", "treatments", whatever you label it will be just another aspect of humanity that has been normalized. I bet my progeny will be able to go and get a tail just as easily as someone today would acquire a tattoo.
klrxc11 3y ago
Obviously not the same. You are not just curing a "disease" (I actually would not even call infertility a disease), you produce a new human in the process. With an experimental technology. Perhaps new humans have a right not to be produced by whatever means current Brave New World technology allows?
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  "Perhaps new humans have a right not to be produced" The problem is asserting such right on behalf of someone not yet born. Personally, I couldn't just demand that someone not be born because of my own opinions regarding technology. I just don't feel justified to deny other people procreation. And remember, in the 1980s, there were similar attitudes towards "regular" IVF. Frankenstein, ungodly, lab kids etc. Fortunately these prejudices mostly died out.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  Though obviously it could be no other way, it's always struck me as odd that new humans can never consent to their creation, no matter the method. One of many reasons I will never create one.