I genuinely wonder where the line is between curing defects and eugenics. It seems razor thin how it can swing easiy into dark territory.
I remember this was literally the question posed to us by an ethics professor 20 years ago. Now it’s a reality.
A person with Down’s can live a happy fulfilling life, but most parents would never choose to have a child with Down’s if it could be born ‘normal’ instead. So we’re essentially removing them from the gene pool and human race.
It’s eugenics for sure. I’m not sure if it’s unethical though. It’s pretty complex.
The one thing you can guarantee of the human race though is we will do it before we really put the thought in to “if” we should do it.
I have ADHD and have 2 boys on the spectrum. Despite the challenges with my younger and higher needs son I don’t know if given the opportunity to play God if I would. As you said it’s an extremely complex question I don’t know if anyone is truly equipped to answer and I’d argue we definitely aren’t mature enough to start playing God.
Here be dragons.
we’re essentially removing them from the gene pool
I don’t think Downs works like that.
It’s already being removed, since people choose abortion over downs and since people with Downs don’t have children (normally).
It is not hereditary. It’s an error or mutation that can occur for anyone. The chances are higher the older the parents are.
My understanding is that women with down syndrome only have a 30-50% chance of fertility, and men are generally infertile. Additionally there are laws in place to prevent those with mental disabilities from being taken advantage of sexually, which lessens the chance of children even more. It’s a spontaneous mutation, so they wouldn’t be removed from the gene pool.
If 99℅ of pregnancies are screened and the gene’s edited then, yeah, you’re effectively eliminating people with Down’s from our world.
Unless society collapses and the Quirk returns naturally.
Reminds me of Cyprus with Thalassemia,
they were mostly against termination, but when they introduced screenings, and optional termination. the disease mysteriously disappeared. even though publicly they were against it
(it’s a story I read about it a long time ago, so take it with a grain of sand)
This isn’t eugenics or close to it, it’s fixing actual problems before someone is born, not choosing who has rights to breed. If they announced a therapy to guarantee a child will grow up immune to corporate propaganda or be able to use their brain in a rational, well-planned and thoughtful way, and have exceptional language skills, we should voluntarily hand the world over to them. Because what’s happening right now is the opposite of that.
Right now capitalism is imposing eugenics on us. The system and the cost of life has created a very real system deciding who can have families. If tools emerged that could guarantee the kids we DO have aren’t subject to the same weaknesses and limitations, we need to capitalize on every advantage we can.
Isn’t eugenics more about choosing who can reproduce for the best outcome? Curing after the facts doesn’t seem to fit that.
I think what is talking about is like everyone now forced to have blue eyes with gene editing so is it considered a type of soft genocide or something.
Nah, man, forget blue eyes. Think neon purple. With natural blue hair. Fucking anime shit.
And just imagine what furries will do to themselves once they get their paws on this tech…
Batman beyond. They will create batman beyond.
Nono, the paws come after
Yeah now you’re talking! Cat girls/boys here we come!
Blade runner or deus ex timeline
it considered a type of soft genocide
Not saying this is what you’re saying, but it’s attitudes like this that make me see red. We gotta stop letting our society become so atomized that we’ve replaced tribalism with Turbo Tribalism.
Not clear to me what you are trying to say.
Groups who are so desperate to maintain a group identity that they think something like a child getting cochlear implants or other actual remedies to handicaps is equivalent to “genocide” against their group. (that’s a thing.)
Everyone is susceptible to this syndrome to some degree, but you see it the most when you see people suggest the possibility of positive change.
Ah thanks for the clarification.
a child getting cochlear implants
Well, deaf people at least have the argument that they do have their own languages and cultures.
Of course they lose that argument when they ignore the fact that they can still teach their children their language and culture even if said children can hear, though, so it isn’t a very good argument, but it is an argument, I guess. 🤷♂️
Watch The Sound of Metal, it’s very good
Yeah this is scary. Down syndrome is definitely in the gray area too where it can be viewed negatively but plenty of people have it and lead fulfilling lives. Wipe cystic fibrosis out of a fetus and all but the most staunch biological purists would agree it was a good thing. Make your fetus white, blonde, and blue eyed and it’s obviously eugenics. I don’t know how I feel about this.
Completely apart from the ethics, I think this technology is really cool though.
They live fulfilling lives at the detriment of others who have to live less fulfilling lives, maybe they don’t see it that way, but its added responsibility
There are a lot of reports and interviews with ppl who have down syndrome that are not happy at all with their situation. Ie. Unable to have a driving licence, go to university, huge disadvantage on the dating market… the list goes on. I’m not saying they can’t have fulfilling moments but we also shouldn’t kid ourselves and look at down syndrome with rosy eyes. If it could be cured everyone would do it instantly.
Phenotype vs biological normative.
Deaf people will decry “fixing” a person hearing impaired in the womb. Yet, it’s a correction to biological normative.
Adjusting a gender to a different one in the womb would not be.
Adjusting physical traits for looks wouldn’t be.
Adjusting a physical trait like spinal deformity would be.
Adjusting for general height would not be.
If there is something diagnosable in the ICD-10 codes we have, and it’s preventable in a population, it would not be eugenetics. Remove gene editing as the tool, but just say “magic” a cure. Cures apply to diseases, not traits.
You don’t cure being black. You CAN cure sickle cell.
I think the line is pretty clear.
You simply use existing diagnostic criteria of deviation from biological normative function.
The diagnostic criteria and the culture that determines that criteria are both subject to change. lots of things that people consider perfectly normal now would be classified as a disease or disorder in the past.
Who defines the diagnostic criteria?
Gattaca is the semi-dystopian vision of our future if we just walk blindly down this path without legislating it properly in advance.
For those who haven’t seen the movie: Rich people start paying for perfect “designer babies”. A person’s genetic information becomes their whole identity; businesses only hire employees with the most genetic predisposition towards being good at the job, while regular people conceived “the old-fashioned way” get McJobs. Even wearing glasses is treated like a crippling disability that immediately and visibly marks someone as “inferior”.
It is extremely important that we pass laws to ensure that genetic engineering doesn’t create a new caste system.
they should poll people with down syndrome. not carers, not family, no people who work with them.
if they consider they idea obscene, them or should be considered obscene, of they consider it a must, then it’s ok.
I think a fair line is removing debilitating genetic conditions, but not for cosmetic uses.
If the person grows old enough that they have dysphoria for some reason then cosmetic surgeries are pretty routine these days.
You’re definitely right how this without proper regulation could get out of hand with unethical individuals trying to edit genes. I’d say from my non-geneticist perspective the line would be “would editing this gene improve the individual’s quality of life or improve their life expectancy”. Operationalizing"quality of life" is obviously crucial here and can’t be defined socially but medically such as “no debilitating pain”.
I do wonder how things like this will impact existing communities of individuals with disabilities. I’d expect it would probably increase discrimination as it will increase the perception of people with disabilities as being “curable” which isn’t always possible or even desirable.
I’m fine with it at this point.
This is the beginning of countless sci-fi stories. According to the TV and movies I’ve seen, this will lead to customizing fetuses, mostly for intelligence, and then the question becomes does society accept those people as their leaders (Brave New World) or criminalize their gene-enhanced intellect (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)?
As I recall, the reason the Federation outlawed genetic manipulation is due to what happened with the Eugenics Wars, the details of which are murky due to temporal interference, but one of the root causes was clear. While the end results of genetic engineering (Khan Noonien-Singh and his Augments) were undoubtedly superior to normal humans in every way, they also incredibly aggressive and arrogant, a flaw their creators could not correct, as the science was still in its infancy. One of the scientists remarked that “Superior ability breeds superior ambition”.
Being raised in labs by dickheads may have also been a contributing factor in their personality flaws.
Homelander says hi.
Or enforce social hierarchies based on genetic traits? (Gattaca)
I was thinking red rising, but that sounds similar. Hadn’t heard about this, gotta watch this, thanks :D
Hm, well red rising was more about specialization and exploitation. While they were some great books, automation and AI should have made reds unnecessary. But pinks, they may not be covered enough by robots and AI and would be the first thing I bet the rich would go for.
checks correlation of education to voting outcomes
Checks news
It will be seen as an anti-control danger and banned entirely by the nearly single-circle Venn diagram of government officials, oligarchs, and religious figures.
They will be quiet about the true nature of their decision. Instead, it will be called a danger to society, ungodly, and unnatural. Rumors will be started that it creates autistic psychopaths, and that anyone in any country that touches the technology will need to be permanently ostracized.
I believe this will happen, only slowly enough that it will feel normal. First genetic diseases for a generation. As our understanding and editing improve, humans will start to edit for benefits, maybe something small like eyesight, so kids don’t need glasses. Eventually, it will just be a part of our medical culture. If everyone is edited, it won’t be taboo to keep going, after all, who wouldn’t want their kids to be better off than they are? 1000 years from now, our species won’t be recognizable to us today. Slightly related, have you seen what they’re doing with lab grown human brain cell organoids connected to microchips? 1000 years (or significantly less!), unrecognizable.
I have not seen this but would very much like to. Do you have a link?
You can rent one today for $500 a month here:
https://finalspark.com/neuroplatform/
Here is the wiki on the organoids themselves:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_organoid
Here is a 2021 med journal publication on potential uses:
https://jbiomedsci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12929-021-00728-4
Here is a nature article on their use in AI:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41928-023-01069-w
And finally a Bloomberg video report:
One of my favorite details is that they sometimes grow little eyes. 👀 🧠
Pleasant dreams!
Black Mirror episode
Holy crap. The obvious use for this would be in vitro. However, I cannot wait to see how this affects those already born. Could it be used on someone who is a 7 year old to rid them of this? What if they’re 50? So cool. Can’t wait to see where this goes.
And in the US, religious assholes want to ban IVF for exactly this reason, because it’s “playing God”.
“if your god wasn’t such a loser fuckup, we wouldn’t need to fix this mess”
The article mentions the technique worked on most (differentiated) skin cells they tested on, in addition to working on (undifferentiated) stem cells.
But, there’s a lot of steps between this article and any sort of treatment, if I understand correctly.
It might be easier to just edit the gametes before they form a zygote at all. That would also make consent for treatment much clearer.
Until someone who knows more tells me otherwise, no. It would have to be applied to a human at the stage of a single cell
You are right (at the 8 cell stage you can still separate them and treat them one at a time, giving you multiple shots at IVF)
Two of the main issues regarding gene editing when not talking single cells are the transfer into the nucleus, and then accessing the DNA you want.
In bacteria, the DNA kinda just swims around in the cell, which makes editing easy if you can get the CRISPR/Cas9 complex in the cell. But animal cells have another membrane surrounding the DNA, making the transfer less than straightforward.
Regarding access: our DNA isn’t lying around like mom’s spaghetti, but rather pretty tightly packed around histones - a protein octamer.
This means that your target might not be reachable (the cell itself has 3 options iirc: slide the DNA over the surface of the histone, replace a part of the histone with an alternative, or remove the histone altogether) Since the way the DNA is wound around the histones affects gene activity (something tightly packed is not active, something in a loose area is getting transcribed into mRNA and therefore possibly active), you cannot just unwind all of it.
The only time this is not the case is during cell division, where the nucleus is getting dismantled so the DNA can be duplicated and both new cells can get their own copy. But many cells do not divide in an adult (except for a reservoir of stem cells which are there to replace lost cells)
So, it’s all very complicated.
can we induce nucleus “dismantling” without inducing cell division?
(sorry if bad question, you’re way out of my depth)
from what i remember (it’s been a few years since i studied this stuff lol) you can only arrest the cell cycle (dismantling -> duplication of chromosomes -> separation of chromosomes -> completion of division) at specific points, and can’t go in reverse. Theres a whole cascade of signals, that when started, are running their way to specific checkpoints. if a cell is stuck for too long at any checkpoint, it commits suicide, because that’s THE sign for unrecoverable DNA damage. And if a cell starts ignoring checkpoints and suicide signals, it’s called cancer.
Many antibiotics work that way btw - they look a lot like nucleotides (A C G T), but if a bacterium adds them when copying instead of one of the “letters”, the machinery gets stuck, and the bacterium cant divide anymore. That gives the immune system time to kill them off. Bacteria replicate a lot and have no proofreading of what they are copying, so they are susceptible to this. Animal cells have proofreading AND the ability to correct an error, so we are fine.
I loved studying this stuff. i did NOT love the crapload of chemistry i had to learn, but even that was highly interesting.
Could it be used on someone who is a 7 year old to rid them of this?
No. Gene editing works in this case since they’re just working with a few cells. But a whole human is way more cells. Not only that, but the cells have already developed into structures that are much harder to access, and difficult to change. Any gene therapy may only affect a few cells.
On top of that, there’s also a bunch of ethical issues around altering a human when they’ve already formed, and we don’t really know if it would be possible to do so, or if it would make things worse.
Hard to say at this point. This early testing was on cells in a petri dish. It will take a lot of study to convert this to a treatment on living humans and determine the best time to intervene.
i can’t tell if you’re serious.
Humanity, one step closer to get rid of all of the genetic defects that we have accumulated because of our own reproductive stupidity.
I wish for a future in which genetic diseases do not exist. 👐
I wish for a future in which genetic diseases do not exist. 👐
That’s nice, but unambitious. Be bolder, think where we’ll be able to take this after that.
Me, I’m thinking catgirls.
We can solve the Fermi paradox by uplifting our animal friends
Can it remove my depression and make me love myself?
Yes but you will get that extra chromosome back
I see no downsides.
I don’t think I understand. Are you saying i’d be mentally challenged?
Yes it was a joke because there is a prejudice that mentally handicapped people are always happy
Here I am! What’s the squared root of 27,545,987531,885578,5884789.0644789* 367464787644.654224577!^675434784321347998900974376789.753345!
Don’t use a calculator.
At least 3
gonna be bold and say: more than 4, even.
While this is fabulous news I do worry that there could be similar done for other genetic conditions that are far more contentious as to whether they’re a disability not.
Neurodivergence is the one that springs to mind right away. The majority of people on the autism spectrum are at level 1. While it has negatives there are positives into thinking and seeing the world differently.
How many of those would have been ‘curered’ in the womb by scared parents who’ve just been told that their child will be born autistic? Scared parents who’s fear will mean when hearing that they think of someone at the far end of level 3.
Then what about for ADHD and dyslexia.
What about other physical conditions like dwarfism etc.
I don’t know if you personally have any disabilities, but generally, when I see this take, the person doesn’t.
I’d take a crispr treatment without hesitation. And everyone I know would do the same. My partner and I are doing IVF not for fertility reasons but to ensure certain genes don’t get passed down to our kids.
That whole disability-is-a-positive view is a very privileged thing to say.
Not the person you replied to, but this is a nuanced conversation, much beyond the simplicity of disabled or not.
Deafness is the one that comes to mind, there are others that do as well, but I grew up in a Deaf household so I know a bit more about it.
For a group of Deaf people, they quite like being Deaf, they have their own language and schools etc. Those schools arent particularly decent, but for the group that like being Deaf they dont care. They’d rather fix the schools then fix their kids.
The notion that disability is a social issue is true, but fixing society to cater towards most disabled groups is a far greater task in most cases. Obviously Deafness and others are the expection where it is felt that it is easier/better to fix society.
Deafness has been “curable” for a while, yet i was raised to see that cure as a form of genocide, trying to erradicate a linguistic minority, rather than fix them. As without deaf children, it was very unlikely anyone would pick up their language.
I frankly think that there is no downside to try to be positive about disablilty, i say this from the uk, where the rhetoric has been destructive beyond belief. That said it is all very case dependent.
Thanks for the response. I understand what you’re saying, and I wholeheartedly agree that society should be more accommodating of disabilities. No argument there.
However, you’re mixing up a coping mechanism for a true belief that ones disability is a net positive. I am not deaf, but I see this all the time in my circles and my own upbringing. Growing up, my parents would regularly visit religious authorities and psychics to assure them my circumstances were for the greater good, and I’d have met a horrible end without it. In my teens and early 20s, I believed this too. Many caregivers and disabled need to believe this to get through the day and find meaning in their lots.
I dont throw shade on anyone coping like this. It’s a much better path than the other ones I’ve seen, such as depression, suicide, and drugs. But at the end of the day, that’s all it is, a coping strategy. I promise, in their heart-of-hearts, if they could “reroll” their genetic lottery and avoid their disability. Every single person would. No sane person would voluntarily sign up for this.
While one could attempt to make an argument that society as a whole benefits from disabled people. And I dont disagree. A society that cares for disabled would be more humane and a nicer place to live in. But no rational person would seek it out for themselves. I’m not directing this at you, but imo those that subscribe to the belief, like OOP, are either misinformed about disabilities or are hand waving away the harm it does to the person.
Pretty sure Autism is a lot more complex genetically and we don’t even know just how complex.
Very true. I’m not saying it’s something that would be soon. These are discussions that should be now, to help determine morally where we as societies want to go with the new technology.
Personally I see this rift in the trans community rather often (although not as much right now anymore, there isn’t much room for controversial arguments when being threatened from ‘outside’). On one hand the absolute majority will tell you that they “wished to be born in the right body”. On the other hand many dislike or even reject science into how being trans happens (like this study) out of the very reasonable fear that it will be used to, again, pathologize our existence or outright eradicate us. I’ve heard similar hard questions and controversial discussions from other communities over the years as well. They usually somewhat reach academic circles at best but are never really discussed in public.
In the end it boils down to what the ulterior motive behind the science or technology is; care for- or eradication of humans (or their natural expression). And of course where we out the line between the definition of diversity and illness, something society has a really bad track record for.
So…Remember the X-Men series of movies? I forget which of the films it was, I stopped giving a shit about superhero movies a decade before it was cool, but one of them involved a “mutant cure.” Most of Professor X’s mutants saw it as an existential threat, but Rogue–whose ‘powers’ utterly sucked–saw it as something she wanted to do.
Ultimately I think the key here is individual consent. Yes and No need to be equally valid answers otherwise it gets pretty fucked up.
Some folks make a pretty good living for themselves looking at the world slightly differently than everyone else, other folks would like to do something with their life other than drool. Surely we the civilization that can split the atom and splice the genome can help both of these people live their best lives? Otherwise what the fuck are we even doing here?
other folks would like to do something with their life other than drool
Not trying to be an ass, but how would you know that? How could you get consent from someone in that state?
Okay I suppose force vegetables to be vegetables. I’m honestly to burned out to give the first two half-flaccid thrusts of a reluctant pity fuck about basically anyone.
powerful wording!
I also meant more like, even if they “come back,” would they even be able to integrate? Can they (re)learn language and motor skills? Sorry to bother you.
I’m not like the other girls, I stopped caring about superhero movies long before others
No seriously, why did any of you continue to give a shit about Marvel after, like, 2006? That was about the time I realized I lost track of how many Incredible Hulk movies they made, and I would learn later that’s when my interest in movies overall died because that’s all they would ever make ever again
Son you sound young, there’s a lot more to cinema than popcorn flicks like marvel movies, they didn’t stop making good movies, it’s just harder to find and requires people put their money and time to go watch something other than summer blockbusters, expand your taste and maybe also watch older movies, many local theatre’s do reruns of older classics
What this guy said. Or, even better, why doesn’t Captain Aggravated just go make their own movie? It’s not super complicated to do, but it does require getting others involved, since nobody can do everything.
I’m 38 years old. The last time I remember having a good time at a movie theatre was Inglourious Basterds, and if the movies require effort to glean enjoyment out of it I hope I never see a movie again in my life. Used to be you could look up what’s playing at the 4-plex and there’d usually be something fun on. That hasn’t been the case since the last time I felt an emotion and I don’t think either thing is ever going to happen again so fuck it.
See that’s the thing, you want an amusement ride that’s fun, but movies can be more than that, if you can’t have fun anymore, try watching something that’s not trying to be fun, and maybe something clicks, I recently watched 12 Angry Men on a whim, it’s about 12 jurors discussing on a virdict for a man accused of killing his father, this movie came out in 1957, it’s black and white, I didn’t think I could even sit through such a old movie let alone like it, but it was one of the most engaging movies I’ve ever seen and the plot felt so relevant to the current times.
Some other stuff I saw recently that I liked : Predator Killler of Killers
Sinners
Warfare
The Rule of Jenny Pen
Friendship
The Life of ChuckIf you want to watch some old movies that are genuinely special, look up the movies that Alfred Hitchcock made in the 40s and 50s, both color and B&W. I’m especially fond of the bunch he did at the end of the 50s - The Man Who Knew Too Much, North By Northwest, Vertigo, Psycho, and my favorite movie of all time, Rear Window. A few other really interesting ones are Strangers On A Train, Lifeboat, Dial M for Murder, Notorious, Rebecca, etc.
Absolutely mind-blowing, they’re so good. His stuff from the 30s and the 60s is okay, but his middle period was incredible.
Yeah, on the one hand it isn’t fair to let someone be born with a condition that negatively effects their life when there’s a treatment to prevent it happening. On the other hand, as you say it’s good to have divergent people in society - there really is strength in diversity.
If the world would accomidate for Neurodivergent people more they wouldnt have a problem
Fewer, not none. Adhd for example tends to interfere with the pursuit of longer term goals in some ways, regardless of society’s pressures and expectations. Those make it asymmetrically harder on top of everything else.
The social model of disability is essential, but it’s not the only perspective to keep in mind.
In a way, accommodations can erase disabilities.
I’m still waiting to be tested but I swear if we were still hunters and gatherers in a small tribe then my suspected ADHD would be irrelevant.
I did not realize CRISPR was so powerful as to remove chromosomes entirely. Can CRISPR be used to change someone’s genetic sex? Republicans would freak out.
CRISPR on our gonads to produce estrogen instead of testosterone?
🤔 It’s pretty tempting, and as long as it’s not hereditary, I’m all up for it. 🏳️⚧️
Or testosterone instead of estrogen. Though I’m doubtful that exchanging X and Y chromosomes will change the physiological function of your existing organs that much.
I honestly just meant to do this for no other reasons than to flip the bird to conservatives who arbitrarily define sex chromosomally.
RED ALERT! WOKE LIBERAL COMMUNISTS ARE USING CRISPR BEAMS FROM LOW IRBITING SATTELITES TO FORCIBLY CHANGE OUR GENDERS! BUY MY ANTI-WOKE SUPPLIMENTS TO PROTECT YOUR MANLINESS.
By my limited understanding that might be feasible right now in utero, which obviously is not exactly what we want.
I think that maybe in the future we could change someone’s sex when they’re older. Honestly I think it’s maybe just the matter of research on this not being focused on genetic changes after the womb.
The article was not clear about what stage in someone’s life the CRISPR treatment can be applied. I would have assumed early in gestation. But this raises questions such as how down syndrome would be detected at that stage. If in vitro is the method, then why not simply filter out down syndrome at that stage?
I’m fully expecting in our lifetimes for CRISPR to be able to flip the genome or whatever in the body that produces sex hormones such that testes and ovaries could swap functions and produce the opposite sex hormone.
Between this and using your own DNA to apply to scaffolding to grow an organ, the future is bright. I also expect to see sex organs of the opposite sex grown in a lab from your own DNA and then transplanted into you, and the body wouldn’t reject them.
I also expect to see sex organs of the opposite sex grown in a lab from your own DNA and then…
I’m kinda glad that didn’t go where I thought it was gonna go but you know it will.
it’s basically just masturbation.
The latter technology exists, but nobody seems to be interested in expanding it past this pilot.
“Gattaca” and “Brave new world” are becoming reality.
CRISPR is the uranium of biology. Could use it to make cheap, reliable, clean energy, or could use it to make nukes.
deleted by creator
It’s a metaphor.
Make an air transmitted virus, extremely contagious but with a long dormancy period, that causes a rabies-like incurable and 100% deadly neurological disease on individuals with a certain genetic marker, and is asymptomatic in everyone else.
Hate to break it to you, but nuclear power isn’t cheap, that crown goes to the renewables (unfortunately even fossils are cheaper than nuclear). Arguably rather reliable and ‘acceptably’ clean though (if used in good locations with sufficient cold water and with modern technology & proper recycling concept).
Edit: After looking up the most current studies regarding nuclear power I found out that by now fossils are indeed more expensive than nuclear (although nuclear usually gets calculated without the costs of permanent waste storage, so… who knows). So disregard what I said about that. 🙃
That’s not even really accurate. Over the long term of you’re 100% looking at price, nuclear can be cheaper. It’s more expensive because it’s more regulated than fossil fuels. Remove a lot of the regulation and the initial investment is expensive, but you’ll make more money over time.
To be clear, nuclear isn’t inherently bad. Indeed it will most likely be very important to massively reduce CO² emissions quickly and cover bigger chunks of the base-load of our energy infrastructures. However to argue that nuclear could be cheaper or even a replacement for renewables is just completely and utterly wrong. Neither can it be less expensive in any universe, nor is it able to replace renewables since nuclear reactors are very slow regulators (indeed the slowest - they’re best at delivering a lot of power constantly). Meanwhile solar can literally be simply switched off, and “rotating” renewables be turned into or out of wind / water flow / whatever else.
To quote some studies, this one from the Deutsche Bank has the following to say:
For nuclear power plants, different statements on the LCOE can be found in the existing literature. The U.S. investment bank Lazard estimates it at about 14 to 21 US cents per kWh for new nuclear power plants (in the US; for comparison, onshore wind power: 2.4 to 7.5 US cents per kWh). The cost of treating radioactive waste is explicitly not included here. In its latest Word Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency (IEA) put the LCOE for nuclear power plants in 2030 at 10 US cents per kWh in the US, 12 US cents per kWh in the EU, and 6.5 US cents per kWh in China. Wind and solar power are cheaper in all three countries/regions. For the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant that is under construction in the UK, the operator has agreed a guaranteed power purchase price of 10.7 pence per kWh. The LCOE of investments in extending the operating lives of existing nuclear power plants is significantly lower than that for new nuclear power plants. According to an IEA study from 2020, they ranged from less than 3 to less than 5 US cents per kWh.
Meanwhile the World Nuclear Report focuses on the LCOE which might be better suited for comparison (and even that says nuclear is 2 to 3 times more expensive) and points out massive delays and problems with nuclear reactor projects.
All of this doesn’t include the dependency problems (only very few countries can produce refined uranium rods), and even specifically excludes the long-term costs. And “It’s cheaper if you remove lots of the regulation on the most powerful and dangerous technology humanity ever developed” is probably the worst take one can have. Just as a reminder, the very reason for the almost total blackout on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain & Portugal) recently was due to miscommunication and a lack of proper regulation. It wasn’t the renewables (the power stations that started the cascade were mostly fossils, and the energy companies didn’t care enough to keep sufficient reserves that day), no matter how much right-wing media wants you to believe that. Enormous, continental grids would become unstable if we build it upon badly regulated nuclear reactors.
- renewable energy is still cheaper
- nuclear also comes with other risks, such as geopolitical dependency for many countries, and the exploitation of resources in other countries (consider the recent France - Niger conflict as an example)
- the reason why so many regulations for nuclear are in place is because they make sense. they’re not going to disappear anytime soon, so your argument is irrelevant
Nuclear fusion has made great strides. There currently an experimental Tokamak in China that set a new record for sustained fusion in 2023, then earlier this year broke that record again.
Still far away from commercial viability though, nothing we can count on right now.
Dark Angel doesn’t seem too far fetched now, but seemed impossible in my lifetime when it aired.
This is from the future I always dreamed about, amazing
Jesus freaks will always complain about playing god when any type of genetic modification is used.
You’re not wrong, but why are you bringing that up in response to that?
Not that’d it’d convince them, but that argument only makes sense if God is real, and you shouldn’t be making laws based on your religion.
To actually convince them, I’d say that, if God is real, he created us with the capacity to understand this, and his creation has the capability to be modified by us. If he didn’t want us modifying it he would have made it not modifyable, which he can do because he’s omnipotent. Clearly this is a desired outcome if he’s real.
It’s my argument for drugs and stuff too. People use religion to say it’s bad, but in my opinion it only proves that it can’t be. He created it and us. Obviously it’s intended to have these results and he wanted us to have access to it.
Because the Jesus freaks will block positive progression, as always 😑
Also true, but where does that tie in to a comment saying this is a good thing? Like where did the Jesus freaks come in? We could just as easily be happy about a good thing happening.
it’s just hard for some people to appreciate the good things in life. that’s valid considering the state of the world right now, but we still need to celebrate victories where they appear. overt pessimism does no good for anyone
The lab did specify that there’s a looooong road between here and putting this in the clinic, but it’s a good to see.
God that was such a bad intro tune. Adding the acoustic guitar didn’t help. Loved the show until they went full “Timecop”.
Never go full Timecop.
The intro sequence completely slapped though. A Wright Model A taking off, Glamorous Glennis rolling away, OV-101 Enterprise being pushed out of the hangar, the Spirit of St. Louis taxiing out, Saturn V’s launching, LM Eagle’s gear check, Actual footage of Sojourner rover rolling up to sample a Martian rock making this the first sci-fi show to feature footage actually filmed on another planet, Bruce McCandless’ untethered spacewalk from Discovery, the International Space Station taking shape…it’s a shame an intro that fucks that hard was wasted on Bakula’s Enterprise.
“We’ve built a new kind of apparatus and we are going to god damn mother fucking learn something even if it kills us in a new and exotic way.”
Absolutely. Fantastic opening sequence.
I’ll leave this here for anyone who doesn’t know. The credits song “Archer’s Theme” lines up really well with the into and sounds more “Star Trek”.
I think that was supposed to be the song until they made the terrible switch.
I wish the steaming sites, would have an “Archer’s Theme” edit, so I don’t have to listen to the terrible intro each time I watch Enterprise.
You’re right and yet now it’s a beloved classic
IT’S BEEN A LAWWNNGG ROAAWWWDDDDD GERRIN FROM DERRRR TOOO EEEEEARRRR
#FaithOfTheHeart
That’s a dilemma. The kids and parents not having the challenges is great, but also people with Downs are often some of the best humans to exist.
No one’s saying they’re not. But Down syndrome also predisposes kids to cataracts, hearing loss, heart disease, leukemia, thyroid problems, severe constipation, and gum disease. It’s a disorder that causes a litany of health problems, and it’s not fair to saddle a person with potentially life-threatening conditions on the grounds that many with the disorder are nice people.
I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with that. Please read the other comments.
It’s fine and not at all contradictory to care for existing people with Downs and also work to eliminate the condition.
What a commendably gentle way to caution against that logical fallacy. 🙇🏼♂️💚
♥️
I work with special needs adults. Your experiences, while valid, with many of those that arent so disabled that they actually can engage with society, do not represent those with more extreme versions of this disability.
Often they will never get to experience the fullness of life they could without. Basically, people with Downs who dont have caretakers with means are fucked pretty hard.
Of the 6 I interact with daily, I think they all would rather not have the disability, and 2 have said they would trade places with the guy in the wheel chair that has seizures sometimes, but is otherwise living a normal life.
I would agree with you on that as well. I do some volunteering with the special Olympics, have family members, etc. it’s like you said and in these cases they are able to interact with the general public, maybe have basic jobs, live in group homes, and so forth.
I also agree they are fucked without support. I am not advocating for more people to have the disease so much as I wish more people had the vibes of the population I’m referencing.
I think you have a super healthy view of this dilemma through your experience. As a person who has experienced the worst Down’s has to offer with a very close relative, i can’t imagine a happier thing they could have told my mother than, “your child doesn’t have to be born with down’s syndrome”.
Due to religion, terminating the pregnancy was never an option, so a set of cosmic dice was spun in how positive or negative this experience would be. Let me tell you right now, I wouldn’t wish my family’s experience on anyone, and that breaks me apart to say more than I’m willing to admit.
Sending love
But how would them not having the disease make them worse people?
I kind of understand because I worry about it purely in my own case. I have severe ADHD and, overall, I really wish I could just function without it being a struggle every single day. But in my case and many others with my type of ADHD, its comorbidity with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria makes me extremely empathetic. A lot of my friends over the years have told me that, when they need someone to truly understand them and see them and give perspective that resonates, they come to me first.
If someday, a doctor would be able to snip off some chromosomes and suddenly I’m cured, it would be positively life-changing. But I would hesitate. The emotional resonance that comes easily to me is something I hold dear to my heart. Would I Iose that part of myself? Would I care? I don’t know. I love that part of me, and while I wouldn’t necessarily be a worse person, losing that part of me means a lot of people that love me lose something they love about me too.
Sounds kinda biblical like eating from the tree of knowledge.
It wouldn’t, necessarily.
Then what the heck is your point? If they would not become worse for being cured of down syndrome, then what’s the dilemma?
They become worse for having to interact with society the same way as everyone else. Most people are assholes. The specific population of people I know are awesome and I consider them better humans than most because society is fucked.
That is a compelling argument. I can’t deny society sucks. But in this case, should we not be promoting down syndrome? Wouldn’t it be better for everyone to have down syndrome? Do we have reason to believe that a society run exclusively by people with down syndrome would be better than other societies, or are the people you know with down syndrome better than the typical person because they receive a lot of care? These are earnest questions by the way, and not meant to be rhetorical.
they still can be.
I’ve known plenty of people with down syndrome that were abused and were some of the most vile people I’ve ever known.
perhaps they are the best because they are treated differently and we should treat everyone that way.
I agree. We should treat others differently. Case in point: several people trying to pick a flight with me about this.
Of course I’m not saying “we shouldn’t try to cure this disease.” Maybe I’m saying, “these people are 'Innocents ’ who don’t have to have the same interactions with society as we do, and in some ways that’s better because society is fucked.”
Idk man, having down syndrome also gives you a much greater chance of things like heart defects. Life expectancy has improved recently to 50-60yrs old for them according to a quick search. I don’t think there’s a dilemma here at all. I wouldn’t want a disease that decreases my lifespan.
Where is the line with eugenics being bad and it being good?
It’s a really deep pool, and I’m going to juuuust touch the edge here and say that consent should absolutely count, if they’re in a condition to give informed consent. In general, I expect that people with disabilities would prefer to not have the disability, and I would love to give them that choice. What shouldn’t happen, though, is people being changed or treated without their consent.
I mean, this will be used in utero waaaaay before it’s applied to a full adult human. Far easier to change the cells when there are only a few, and they haven’t already started to effect development.
But it’s hard to get informed consent in utero.
Parents consent on behalf of their children all the time. In utero takes that to 11.
Imo, then it’s between the parents and the clinicians involved. My son has autism severe enough that it hinders his learning and his social growth and stuff. I go back and forth about whether he’ll have the ability to live independently, or to have a partner and not beat the everloving shit out of them for what seems to be no reason. I love him, AND it’s a burden for everyone in the family, not just him, not just us parents. If given the choice, yes, I absolutely would have chosen to give him the chance at a life where he doesn’t spend every day frustrated by invisible barriers and possibly a life in prison or long term clinical detention (I forget the term) if we can’t get him to manage his physical outbursts by the time he’s an adult.
I have autism and i love it. it’s a significant part of me and i wouldn’t be the same person without. it has caused me some difficulties in life, but has also enabled me a lot of things that would otherwise be impossible.
i have very much the fear that my mother would have gotten me genetically engineered while in utero too, and i hate the thought of that!
I have ADHD and, given some shared traits with my diagnosed kids, likely autism as well. I like myself the way I am as well, but it’s definitely made my life harder. While it isn’t a disability for me, my wife, or my daughter, it is for my son, to the point where, even as he nears double digit age, we’re still unsure if he’s ever going to be able to participate in society and care for himself independently. I honestly worry, with how free with violence he is*, that he’s going to end up institutionalized or in and out of jail once he gets big enough to actually start hurting people. That’s not a life that I want for him.
*A specialist broke this down for us. Basically, he gets so frustrated and has no means of dealing with it or communicating the frustration that it manifests as a fight response.
Could this even be an option in late pregnancy, much less after someone has been born? There are some significant physical changes that could take place… and I can’t imagine what the mental changes would be like to go through.
This isn’t eugenics. This is taking advantage of crispr to make genetic modifications.
I agree that it’s not eugenics, at least not as we normally think of it, but it’s definitely edging into GATTACA territory.
Read the other comment eugenics won’t be realistic in a capitalist environment class division would be more common.
Try reading MY comment. You are talking about a central element of the movie GATTACA from 1997. I know it’s old and many younger people haven’t seen it so I provided a link to the Wikipedia article about the film.
This issue was widely discussed, at least in American society, almost 30 years ago. The film is still heavily referenced in any discussion involving bio-ethics and genetic manipulation.
I mean, sure, if you ignore all of history. What if I was using CRISPR to prevent a child from being born black or brown?
Hell, what if I used it to keep a kid from being born deaf? The deaf community is one that’s very outspoken about exactly that kind of treatment as a form of eugenics, as it is a potential existential threat to their culture.
What if I was using CRISPR to prevent a child from being born black or brown?
What if was used to prevent a child from being born with Spina bifada? What if it was used to correct SB so that the child wasn’t aborted?
Hell, what if I used it to keep a kid from being born deaf?
Or what if its used to cure deafness after the effected person is no longer a minor?
Being born brown is not a disease. 😅
Pretty sure that’s the point they’re trying to make.
This isn’t going to lead to eugenics. You are living in a capitalist environment this is going to lead to only a population with a certain amount of income is going to be allowed to use this technology. Eugenics is a vocal minority and everybody that goes with eugenics does not have a basis as its always been disapproved from psychology to biology. You can find patterns but nothing is perfect and everybody has quirks. Also race is a social construct so eugenics can be completely useless as your parents and direct lineage matters more than anything for your biology.
I think it’s presumptuous that only a certain income level is going to have access to this. It very much depends on the scalability of the treatment. Nearly everyone in the entire nation got the COVID vaccine, and those that didn’t weren’t due to lack of financial means. Just because you assert this will be reserved for the ultra wealthy doesn’t make it so.
The rest of what you said is borderline unintelligible, but I’ll give it a shot.
Sure, it would probably be difficult to “un-black” a baby or something, as there are a ton of genetic markers that inform what we think of as “blackness.” But just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
And you say that Eugenics “is a vocal minority,” which I presume to mean that most people are anti-eugenics. But, as you say, we live in a capitalist hellscape. It would be entirely possible for a billionaire to run a “un-black your baby for a chance to win a million dollars” campaign (a’la the Elon Musk voting drive), and have that take off in a big way.
And all that assumes that people wouldn’t be driven to it by simple desire for conformity. It’s easy to justify a lot of things under the “my child would have a much better life if they just weren’t… fill in the blank.” In the modern climate as an example, there would probably be a lot of Hispanic people saying things like, “my child probably wouldn’t get abducted by ICE if they just were more white passing.” And that’s terrible, obviously, but I guarantee it would happen. Not every mother. Not even a majority. But a good number would.
You are the genetics they want to remove.
Rude!
This seems good initially.
I just really really hope they won’t try to “cure autism” with this next.
Autism is an important and fundamental part of me. The fact that it’s often classified as a disease is understandable, but nevertheless sickens me.
They don’t even know what autism is. Genetics play a role, but most likely they simply affect the chances of developing autism. And really autism is a spectrum, so think like a clock. If the minute hand is between 10 and 2, it is autism, the rest isn’t. So it is less a thing you “have” and more about being in a range from thing that ends up causing a snowball effect. My kid is autistic. It is like there is a missing feedback channel that would cause a typical kid to modify there behavior. All that really translates to is a lower sensitivity to a specific feedback. Typical people will have a range, he is just very low on that range.
Please straight up cure my ADHD. I do NOT want it!
double it and give it to the next person
I would not wish it on my worst enemy.
Don’t worry. Autism is more complicated.
I don’t want them to “cure autism” by erasing it, either. I’d rather they try to “cure autism” by improving on what it can help a human be capable of doing. That way, if we have a real-life “Butlerian Jihad” like from the lore of Dune, we have Mentats (human computers) to replace “thinking machines”(AI and computers).
Wasn’t CRISPR used to clone Dolly the sheep that had a very short lifespan? Aren’t there better editing techniques than it? Didn’t we learn that there seems to be a huge checksum in the DNA and if something changes somewhere, the checksum doesn’t add up and things go… well, dead.
No, CRISPR has little to do with Dolly the sheep. Dolly was born in 1996. While CRISPR saw some fundamental research from 1993-2005 it wasn’t used for gene editing untill 2012 and was named breakthrough of the year in 2015.
Dolly did not have a very short lifespan. She lived for six years and was eventually put down to a lung disease that has no connection to her cloning.
The wikipedia page has details and citations, I will only quote the relevant paragraph here:
Dolly lived at the Roslin Institute throughout her life and produced several lambs.[5] She was euthanized at the age of six years due to a progressive lung disease. No cause which linked the disease to her cloning was found.[6]
It is better to either do some basic research before making direct claims or ask more open questions. Stating wildly erroneous things is sowing disinformation, and putting a question mark at the end is not a very good loophole. You are actively spreading misinformation.
Dolly happened long before CRISPR was a thing.
No. An entirely different technique was used for Dolly.
