Designer babies

>>7909166
It should be a human right, for those that can afford it of course.

>>7909166
I'm upset that future generations will be so smart that they'll effectively make us obsolete. But I recognise that it's inevitable and that a smarter human population overall is actually a good thing.

>>7909166
It would be so much better than now. People are afraid because they subconsciously think that you wouldn't let your child have the "choice" to be born like nature would have wanted to (?). This is quite clearly absolutely retarded, and I don't think that people that come into this world stupid, ugly and prone to diseases are happy because of le nature meme.

It would lower sufference and therefore hate between humans (but everyone should be able to do it; if it's only for the rich than it will only widen the gap between ubermensch and shitty poor people. This would be very very, very fucking bad).

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Probably inevitable at this point. But there are many risks in terms of furthering the divide between humans.

Pic related, good movie on the subject.

>>7909166
How designer are we talking?

It'd be nice if we could design babies with separate holes for breathing and eating so they won't choke to death, and then for the oppressed black folk an option to get rid of their problematic pigmentations

Actually, if designer babies become a thing would affirmative action have any moral or practical basis?

I'd choose away all genes that correlate with depression and mental problems. I would not wish depression or schizophrenia on anyone, and those genes should be removed.

>>7909206
You w/could potentially lose a lot of great art if you did. I suppose you value individual happiness over cultural contribution? Or maybe you don't count those correlations as valid.

>>7909166
>choose your own offspring's characteristics
>eye colour, hair colour, muscle fibres, etc
...more importantly, freedom from inherited defects, genetic disorders, etcetera.

>>7909210

The latter, besides just because you remove genes that correlate with depression doesn't mean you remove it, you just lessen the chance of it happening.

>>7909210
>great art
>cultural contribution
>correlations
...one person out of a hundred million contributes to "great art", and you're worried about losing that? fgt pls

>>7909212
>>7909215
It's impossible to say without testing and iteration but simply removing or altering those corollary genes, if they were to exist, could have other unintended affects on the individuals you were messing with. It could be those genes that correlate with mental illness might only be triggered by certain environmental factors and would otherwise be beneficial.

I suppose the moral question comes down to how much power you are willing to give to a parent over the genetics of their child and the testing needing to determine that line but I would say that for now the practical question is still in the realm of the efficacy of gene selection.

>>7909216
>how much power you are willing to give
>to a parent over the genetics of their child
...currently it's 100%, what do you foresee?

>>7909223
at most it's about 50%

>>7909226
this is not about contribution, this is about power

>>7909231
So you are satisfied with power that increments at 50% intervals?

>>7909233
Is this now an abortion debate?

>>7909233
this is not about satisfaction, this is about power

>>7909236
>>7909234
no one man should have all that power

one woman though...

>>7909237
So a woman should have the power to genetically modify her baby?
Should she be allowed to take harmful chemicals while pregnant?

>>7909242
yes

who the fuck cares it's her baby just kill it if it becomes a burden on the state

>>7909243
So the state should be allowed to kill people for being a burden?

>>7909244
Anyone should be allowed to kill everyone if they are physically capable and have the means and the state is just a group of individuals.

>>7909247
Well that's just dumb. You're dumb.

>>7909251
Probably. But even a dumb clock in the wrong timezone running backwards is right some times.

Irrelevant. Plastic surgery and cosmetic gene therapy will reach a point in 20 years when everyone will be able to change their appearance to what they damn like.

>>7909253
Will it be affordable or will beauty become a state sponsored right?

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>>7909247
Nigga you crazy.

>>7909254
If there is a demand, it will be affordable, and since Japan and Korea exist, it will most likely be.

>>7909256
If technology keeps advancing it is a future that is going to be here very soon. Instead of school shooters we will have angsty teens synthesizing biological weapons in their basements.

Human survival depends as much on cultural/social development as it does on technology.

It should be compulsory that genes that correlate with empathy are selected.

>>7909198
>muh human spirit
>muh genetrash underclass
>muh genetics cant determine everything.

Is as good, as it talks about the fears of common people becoming obsolete in the future.

>Do you even gene therapy?

>>7909268
what if you accidentally select for genes that result in the convincing facsimile of empathy and accidentally breed a generation of manipulative genius sociopaths?

>>7909271
Cringed on reading the word 'psychopath'. Stop using that word as if it were real, thanks.

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>>7909271
>Implying its a bad thing

>>7909274
I am glad you didn't cringe.

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>>7909262

I demmand a biopunk scenario so I can breed my own race of catlike-waifus.

>>7909280
Why we haven't already started a selective feline breeding program to achieve this is beyond me.

>thread about designer babies and gene editing
>not one mention of CRISPR-Cas9

I thought this was /sci/, not /pol/. Anyways designing babies is a long way off. Only one lab in the world (UK) has been granted permission to test genome editing in human embryos and they only use non-viable triploid embryos at that. In a recent publication they were able to successfully change the gene to what they wanted in about 7 of 89 samples or something, and all of those sample experienced debilitating off-target effects.

Long way off might be an exaggeration, but it's not something any of us are are going to get to use on our children, and even our children using it for our grandchildren seems highly unlikely

Depression and mental health problems are often related to intelligence. Ignorance is bliss.

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>>7909290
True intelligence leads to the realization of your own perpetual ignorance.

Which is the culprit here?

>>7909288
China exists. They are heavily pushing this, and the public opinion is overwhelmingly in favour of it over there. It will come much faster than you think.

>>7909295
The problem isn't whether or not people are in favour of it, it's the unavoidable (at this point) off-target effects. I don't doubt that China does literally whatever science they want though

The problem with the current system in place is that it recognizes such a common consensus DNA sequence (NGG, where N is literally any nucleotide) because that's just how the Cas9 nuclease works. Getting over that hurdle would mean causing a mutation in Cas9 so it recognizes a more specific sequence related to the gene trying to be edited, then still being able to provide a template that won't be digested before being used to fix the DNA.
The trouble-shooting alone will take another 20 years

>>7909166
It would come across as gay and tryhard. I don't like to choose things, I want everything to happen to me by natural necessity. Anything else is bullshit. It's just like sex with a prostitute or a rubber doll. I want the universe to love me and give me beautiful things by its own will, not me forcing it or taking from it.

Germline modification causes genes to be passed onto the future generations, could this cause any problems?

I am pretty sure this will interfere with future cloning/designing.

>>7909274
Good thing he never wrote psychopath

Its inevitable, and because humans need to be somewhat standardized (to be able to reproduce, use same tools, eat same foods, understand each others thoughts) it wont get too out of hand.

It will basically be stronger and more informed evolutionary pressure. Normal evolution is pretty slow to distribute information (so many 'decisions' and so bottlenecked mechanism to select the good ones). With internets, we can more quickly distribute good mutations and eliminate bad ones. Of course, whether this is a good idea, depends on how ignorant the people making the decisions are. Evolution is guaranteed to not make completely retarded solutions long term (because it operates long term, although limited to the past). Humans on the other hand, could easily doom the entire society (maybe stupid parents all want their kids to be selfish cheaters because theyll be richer that way, although itll destroy humanity long term)

>>7909323
Sounds like you don't want to evolve the human race you cuck

>>7909381
Hello Adolf!

>>7909324
Genome editing takes place at the single-celled embryo stage, so any edit that is made is inevitably incorporated into every cell beyond that. As a result the germ cells will take on these modifications and they will be passed on to the offspring. So yes, you're right. Once you design one baby, all of it's relatives downstream are inevitably designed as well (until it starts breeding with normies and these "defect" that we've removed are incorporated back into subsequent generations)

This is obviously in an ideal situation and we are nowhere near this level in humans yet, however they've successfully used genome editing to cure cataracts in mice, albeit with consequences to other sites in the body.

>>7909397
nice to know bro

>implying human nature wouldn't necessitate genetalia, physical appearance and current trends over objective enhancement
>implying perceived and actual outcomes won't spark lawsuits and social divisions
>implying geneticists will not inevitably botch an entire generation of children

Traits will become like parachute pants, puffy jackets and gold chains, frivolous and discarded within years. Designer babies can only be designed with what has been, while natural gene mutation will determine what will be. Why would you want to live in the past?

>>7909418
great point, I see where you're coming from

>>7909418
Yeah this is a good point. You can't actually make humans better, you can just make them a little less worse

>>7909300
Nah, what China will do is just edit thousand's of embryos at a time, discard the ones with off-target effects, and raise the survivors.

The survivors would have some defects which weren't identified, but they would still have much better DNA than the random DNA produced from two people fornicating.

But since it takes a couple decades for those kids to grow up, we probably won't see any manufactured geniuses running around for awhile.

>>7909457
That's not really how it works though. You will always have off-target effects. Like I said, I definitely agree with you that Chinese scientists probably aren't held to a very strict code of ethics, and will inevitably do whatever they want, but it's just not feasible to see any sort of major result from this method of genome editing just yet. The framework is there, but there's no real level of control.

And >>7909418 made a good point. You can't predict what mutations will inherently lead to "genius babies", all you can really do is change problems that arise in certain genomes (ie. susceptibility to disease). Unfortunately, there's no gene for "stupid" that can be altered to "genius"

>>7909418
You are a faggot

Genetic modification in adults will become possible too, and so engineering your child to your likes won't be something permanent, just like now parents try to instill beliefs and behaviours in their children, but once the children grow up they can do whatever the fuck they want.

>>7909468
>Unfortunately, we haven't found yet any gene for "stupid" that can be altered to "genius"

Ftfy

It won't probably be a single gene and the boost won't be too extreme (normal--->above average, and not chimp--->einstein) but we'll get there

>>7909477
Genetic modification will never be possible in adults. By definition it's impossible. You can edit the genome of a single cell, good luck editing the genome of every cell responsible for a certain trait.

>>7909480

great point, I guess you can modify a bunch of cells that will further replicate but it would be a waste to modify all the genomes in a single human

>>7909166
just let them do whatever, not like it matters.

>implying the world needs more people

>>7909178
computers will make humans obsolete

>>7909478
That's true, it's more than likely a series of synergistic effects from several genes, coupled with desire to learn. Point being, it's not something that can be edited in the foreseeable future. Intelligence may be partially hereditary, but environment definitely has a significant effect as well

>>7909480
Impossible is a word that gets used a lot for too many things. It will be incredibly difficult to do but "by definition" it will be possible. Overcoming problems like self immunization (or simply better vectors to deliver stuff) might take a century but WILL happen.

>>7909477

> Genetic modification in adults will become possible too, and so engineering your child to your likes won't be something permanent,

You don’t know that, you are working off the premise of perfect knowledge for geneticists in reverse engineering. And there are some modifications that can't be taken back later without major repercussions in the health of said child.

> just like now parents try to instill beliefs and behaviours in their children, but once the children grow up they can do whatever the fuck they want.

The issue with that is beliefs and behavior work off on the concession and system of memories. Things that you can actively disregard but will still remain dormant in some fashion outside direct head trauma.

A person who is taught to be christian as kid can disregard the belief system as an adult but will still exhibit some the characteristic tendencies of such group.

>>7909503
I would argue that WILL happen is equally as unlikely. But you're right, my previous comment was probably just me being cynical; editing genes in adults could be possible one day. It would be incredibly difficult to do though. Once you're an adult the difference will likely be one of editing gene expression, not necessarily the genome itself. For example, the difference between blue eyes and brown eyes is the silencing of one gene (and thereby preventing formation of the subsequent protein) by way of methylation. So I could definitely see this being possible with genes that increase susceptibility to something like Alzheimer's, as long as you can identify the correct gene in the correct cell type.

Although, I do still think it would be incredibly difficult to edit the actual genome of an adult, at that point the genome is already established and the different cell types are already differentiated.