Build-a-baby

[Dogbreath]

Not sure if this is worthy of an entire thread, but hell, there haven't been too many threads as of late, so why not?

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/03 ... ty_cl.html

Basically fertility clinics are taking screening for diseases and gender to the next level, and are allowing aesthetic selection.

Now I think the entire idea of fertility clinics are absolutely repulsive. We live in a world that's vastly over populated, where thousands of children die of starvation every year, and rich yuppies would rather spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in fertility clinics "building" a perfect baby, when there are so many needy children waiting to be adopted.

Then again I live in a family with adopted siblings, and realise some people aren't as comfortable with the idea... but still, why on Earth would you spend that much money building a baby when adoption is an option?

[dosraider]

Modern times ......
Amazing ... , hmmmm, in fact more something as repugnant.

And yet, we only can watch it happen.
It exist, it can be done, and they will apply it.

[Dogbreath]

I feel like this is one of the things that people 200 or 300 years from now will look back at and wonder "how could they be so foolish?"

I actually find the arrogance and selfishness of the people in rich nations (I'm thinking N. America, Europe, and Eastern Asia) to be absolutely astounding. They've had the unique blessing of being born into the economic top 1% of humanity, have had a great education thanks to rich parents or government loans, use that education to make buttloads of money...

and then instead of gratefully realising how lucky they were to be born into luxury and using a lot of that money to help those not so fortunate, they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building custom babies - enough money to feed hundreds of hungry people, or put dozens through university.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating Marxism, but there should be a limit to the incredible waste of resources that's going on here.

[dosraider]

My problem with such technics isn't when it serves to avoid passing hereditary diseases to your offspring, let's face it, when you have multiple sclerosis -to name one- the last thing you want is to pass it on your children/grandchildren ...etc.

My problem is it won't stop there, it will become an instrument to have a kid with blue eyes, or determine the gender, or get a basketball player, a better swimmer, faster sprinter ...... and that's a whole other matter.

Laws won't change nor avoid that kind of baby design.
They never did and never will avoid anything when money comes in.

Alas, as proven over and over again in human history you can't expect that 'medical ethics' will be some kind of restriction.

Where it will end? Probably when the whole human kind or natural habitat will be completely screwed up.
Way things are going, most likely sooner then we expect.

Just think about it, many factories here in Europe 'buy' clean air from third world countries to get a valid CO paper ..... what the benefit is of that kind of idiocy for the population, I really have no idea.

[CPT Worm]

I'm all for removing congenial diseases, but I feel we don't know enough about tinkering around with this to stay flipping switches on genes. Of course, this makes me very hesitant about improving physical appearances and other inborn abilities.

Reminds me of an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Statist ... _(episode)

[Dogbreath]

I'm all for removing congenial diseases, but I feel we don't know enough about tinkering around with this to stay flipping switches on genes. Of course, this makes me very hesitant about improving physical appearances and other inborn abilities.

Reminds me of an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Statist ... _(episode)

The process isn't quite flipping switches... they're not actually altering an embryo, they're fertilising several hundred embryos, running tests on all of them, and implanting the embryo most genetically compatible with the parents aesthetic choices - aborting the rest except for a few other likely matches who are saved in case of miscarriage, etc.

The point is legitimate, though, that we don't really know what all of our 3 billion + genes do exactly. You might create a physically perfect baby who, for some reason, is also wired to be a serial killer.

I've got no problem with screening embryos for congenital diseases - I think all parents should do so, if only to prepare them for it if they choose to keep the child. My problem is that the process of creating and selecting this embryos is *incredibly* expensive, and very dodgy morally. (right now an ordinary "test tube" baby costs parents about $100,000... the price for the aesthetic selection must be hundreds of thousands) This could in a couple generations break humanity into 2 casts - those who had parents rich enough to make them super-athletic geniuses, and those who were born poor.

Morally, I get very repulsed by the idea of eugenics. I don't have a problem with genetically editing crops to make them grow better, for example, but all of human society is built around the randomness of the birthing process. You never really know what a child is capable of until he grows up - that's why we have an egalitarian society, with education and work opportunities for everyone. "All men are created equal" doesn't suppose they actually are, just that we should treat people as if they're equal and give them a chance to prove themselves.

When you start making humans instead of leaving it up to chance, you pretty much destroy everything our society is founded on, and go back to the rule of nobility over serfs.

Also, I don't like seeing human life intentionally destroyed or discarded so thoughtlessly, even if it's a brainless embryo, all those hundreds of embryos are still genetically distinct... a potential person.

[GAMER]

I'm going to say first off that i'm not totally against "normal" fertility centres.
Yeah adoption is something people should strongly consider, but although it's completely selfish... a lot of people want their own flesh and blood, just to know they created it, they made it, blah blah. Because of my illnesses it will be hard for me to conceive naturally... I will definitely choose the fertility treatment path before i adopt...

Now to the actual discussion we're having... I'm not even sure i like the idea of removing disease as a possibility... It reminds me of some of the points in Theodore Kaczynski's "Unnamed Essay" ...

The first point discusses "Education" of children... In my belief, the process of Education he discusses is easily synonymous with the Selection of genes for the same purpose he describes, and will no doubt have the same effect he describes:

The most important aspect of this process will perhaps be the education of children, so let us use education as an example to illustrate the way the process works. Children will be taught—by methods which will become increasingly effective as educational psychology develops—to be creative, inquiring, appreciative of the arts and sciences, interested in their studies—perhaps they will even be taught nonconformity. But of course this will not be merely random nonconformity but "creative" nonconformity. Creative nonconformity simply means nonconformity that is directed toward socially desirable ends. For example, children may be taught (in the name of freedom) to liberate themselves from irrational prejudices of their elders, "irrational prejudices" being those values which are not conducive to the kind of society that most educators choose to regard as healthy. Children will be educated to be racially unbiased, to abhor violence, to fit into society without excessive conflict. By a series of small steps—each of which will be regarded not as a step toward behavioral engineering but as an improvement in educational technique—this system will become so effective that hardly any child will turn out to be other than what the educators desire. The educational system will then have become a form of psychological compulsion. The means employed in this "education" will be expanded to include methods which we currently would consider disgusting, but since these methods will be introduced in a series of small steps, most people will not object—especially since children trained to take a "scientific" or "rational" attitude toward education will be growing up to replace their elders as they die off.

For instance, chemical and electrical manipulation of the brain will at first be used only on children considered to be insane, or at least severely disturbed. As people become accustomed to such practices, they will come to be used on children who are only moderately disturbed. Now, whatever is on the furthest fringes of the abnormal generally comes to be regarded with abhorrence. As the more severe forms of disturbances are eliminated, the less severe forms will come to constitute the outer fringe: they will thus be regarded as abhorrent and hence as fair game for chemical and electrical manipulation. Eventually, all forms of disturbance will be eliminated—and anything that brings an individual into conflict with his society will make him unhappy and therefore will be a disturbance. Note that this whole process does not presuppose any antilibertarian philosophy on the part of educators or psychologists, but only a desire to do their jobs more effectively.

Consider: Today, how can one argue against sex education? Sex education is designed not simply to present children with the bald facts of sex, it is designed to guide children to a healthy attitude toward sex. And who can argue against that? Think of all the misery suffered as a result of Victorian repressions, sexual perversions, frigidity, unwanted pregnancies, and venereal disease. If much of this can be eliminated by instilling "healthy" (as the social mainstream interprets that word) sexual attitudes in children, who can deny it to them? But it will be equally impossible to argue against any of the other steps that will eventually lead to the complete engineering of the human personality. Each step will be equally humanitarian in its goals.

In short (if you didn't want to read all that), once you remove the "unacceptable" extremes of life - mental or physical disease, the new parameters for "normal" are moved. The outliers of "normal" are now considered "unacceptable" and are "treated" once again leaving a smaller variation among individuals. In time, the new outliers of this society are considered "unacceptable" and so on and so forth.

Another point from his essay talks directly about genetic engineering:

By way of a further example, let us consider genetic engineering. This will not come into use as a result of a conscious decision by the majority of people to introduce genetic engineering. It will begin with certain "progressive" parents who will voluntarily avail themselves of genetic engineering opportunities in order to eliminate the risk of certain gross physical defects in their offspring. Later, this engineering will be extended to include elimination of mental defects and treatment which will predispose the child to somewhat higher intelligence. (Note that the question of what constitutes a mental "defect" is a value-judgement. Is homosexuality, for example, a defect? Some homosexuals would say "no." But there is no objectively true or false answer to such a question.) As methods are improved to the point where the minority of parents who use genetic engineering are producing noticeably healthier, smarter offspring, more and more parents will want genetic engineering. When the majority of children are genetically engineered, even those parents who might otherwise be antagonistic toward genetic engineering will feel obliged to use it so that their children will be able to compete in a world of superior people—superior, at least relative to the social milieu in which they live. In the end, genetic engineering will be made compulsory because it will be regarded as cruel and irresponsible for a few eccentric parents to produce inferior offspring by refusing to use it. Bear in mind that this engineering will involve mental as well as physical characteristics: indeed, as scientists explain mental traits on the basis of physiology, neurology, and biochemistry, it will become more and more difficult to distinguish between "mental" and "physical" traits.

The actual essay is about Technology encroaching on freedom... You can read it here: http://www.corrupt.org/data/files/unabo ... (1971).pdf

GAMER

[Dogbreath]

If genetic engineering indeed leads to conformity as that article suggests (nobody but a sadist will purposely make a deformed child, and what deformity constitutes grows narrower as the old definition of deformity is eliminated), then it could be bad, if not fatal for the human species. Diversity gives a species survivability - what if, 200 years in the future, there's some incurable plague that instantly kills blue eyed blonde haired supermen? (or whatever the narrowly defined norm is at the time) Tough luck, humanity.

It's the odd and unusual elements that usually end up moving humanity forward - from the primates who were "weird" and were born with the mutation that let them walk upright (and were probably shunned by their quadrupedal tribes), to modern day examples like John Nash or Steven Hawkings, and almost all the great inventors were pretty whack. Pretty much all the miscreant and marginalised of the human population (except for maybe rapists and serial killers) are potentially beneficial for our survival and adaptability as a species - having everyone be happy or fit in isn't necessarily a good thing.

So I think it's a bad idea to mess around with what makes us tick until we completely understand it.

Not that my posting here is going to stop rich people from building their perfect babies.

I will definitely choose the fertility treatment path before i adopt...

I'm just curious about this, why would you want this? Is it the experience of pregnancy? Some urge you have for a child that carries your DNA?

I'm not trying to attack your beliefs or anything, I just don't understand it is all. Well... I certainly feel the urge to make babies, but when I imagine actually having them and raising them, I don't really feel different about whether they're genetically mine or not.

edit:

Went and read the whole article: this part made me laugh:

Bear in mind these computers will be wholly under the control of the scientific, bureaucratic, and business elite. The average person will have no access to them.

[GAMER]

Yeah, i think the whole pregnancy thing plays a major role. And it binds you to another person. It's a mix of you... It's the ultimate tribute to love. But i totally understand the adoption argument...and i wouldn't love my child less if it weren't biologically mine. I've already discussed it with my partner, and it's definitely an option if i can't fall pregnant.

It's also about the whole nature vs nurture thing... I want them to be part of our family and feel like they belong. I know that some children with adoptive families never have a problem with identity, and many children with biological parents do and whatever, but it just sounds tough to go through... I'd be scared that at some point they may want to leave me to be with their "real" parents if times got rough and whatever. All silly fears i know, but they're there all the same.



Haha, yeah. Some of the article is amusing...but other parts are just freaky. Have you read his Manifesto?

GAMER

[Santhosh CHRiS]

Hmmm... this whole thing sounds like a plot for a sci-fi movie. Sort of like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/">Gattaca</a>

Perhaps we have now come to a point in time where our past science fiction are slowly becoming a reality.

[Dogbreath]

Hmmm... this whole thing sounds like a plot for a sci-fi movie. Sort of like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/">Gattaca</a>

Perhaps we have now come to a point in time where our past science fiction are slowly becoming a reality.

It's been happening for a while. Look at all the things Jules Verne predicted, for example.

I think one of the reasons science fiction from the 50s and 60s set "in the year 2000" seem so off is they're almost always an extrapolation of astronautical and social sciences. The United States crippled it's own space program in the 1970s (and has yet to restore it to anything meaningful), and the hippy movement and widespread use of psychedelic drugs at least postponed the massive social engineering projects of the late 40s and 50s.

I think, with little doubt, if the space program had retained the same (proportional) funding in the U.S. throughout the past 4 decades, we would have landed a man on Mars by the early 80s, and would probably now have launched several interstellar probes by now, with heavy research and experimentation being done on all the pseudo-science FTL theories being thrown around now. (instead, they're looked and filed away by NASA, which can barely afford to keep a handful of shuttles in orbit now)

Also, very few foresaw the enormous impact computer technology has had on our day-to-day living (and even those few who did, such as Vernor Vinge, still saw computers as huge room sized devices), and that's why there's so little predictive fiction that applies to us... but you have to admit that compared to the steady flow of history up until the 20th century, the last 40 years have been absolutely absurd - we've had radical changes to the way we live, and they've been very unexpected.

[Santhosh CHRiS]

Hmmm... this whole thing sounds like a plot for a sci-fi movie. Sort of like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/">Gattaca</a>

Perhaps we have now come to a point in time where our past science fiction are slowly becoming a reality.

It's been happening for a while. Look at all the things Jules Verne predicted, for example.

I think one of the reasons science fiction from the 50s and 60s set "in the year 2000" seem so off is they're almost always an extrapolation of astronautical and social sciences. The United States crippled it's own space program in the 1970s (and has yet to restore it to anything meaningful), and the hippy movement and widespread use of psychedelic drugs at least postponed the massive social engineering projects of the late 40s and 50s.

I think, with little doubt, if the space program had retained the same (proportional) funding in the U.S. throughout the past 4 decades, we would have landed a man on Mars by the early 80s, and would probably now have launched several interstellar probes by now, with heavy research and experimentation being done on all the pseudo-science FTL theories being thrown around now. (instead, they're looked and filed away by NASA, which can barely afford to keep a handful of shuttles in orbit now)

Also, very few foresaw the enormous impact computer technology has had on our day-to-day living (and even those few who did, such as Vernor Vinge, still saw computers as huge room sized devices), and that's why there's so little predictive fiction that applies to us... but you have to admit that compared to the steady flow of history up until the 20th century, the last 40 years have been absolutely absurd - we've had radical changes to the way we live, and they've been very unexpected.

Very true. When I was a kid watching 'The Jetsons' I used to think we'd have flying cars, robot maids and talking dogs by the year 2000

[Dogbreath]

When I was a kid, it was the year 2000...

[Santhosh CHRiS]

When I was a kid, it was the year 2000...

Oh I was pretty over the hill by then... 14 I think. Dosraider was pretty young though at the tender age of 84