Penny

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@PennyI never said nature was all good (in fact I purposefully didn't because I figured you might use your above point). I said randomness is fair. But to tackle your point, drugs and vaccines are preventative to diseases to increase your chances of surviving. Changing a humans physical traits to suit your whims is simply giving control to those who shouldn't have it.

Most people would agree that a good parent raises their kids, and a poor or overbearing parent controls them. In nearly every case (at least in western society), a parent has a responsibility for their kids life, not a domination over their kids life. Changing physical traits goes beyond the nurturing and teaching, and it simply makes the kid into another tool to suit their tastes. Yes, it's my opinion and in the end I can't prove how it would make the world worse. We'd just need to wait and see. I just cannot see what benefits it would it have other than making a kid easy on the eyes to a (likely) high maintenance parent.

@POOHEAD189

I still fail to see how a selection by the parents is any more objectionable than a random selection for a pool of alleles. Why shouldn't parents who hope for a girl with brown eyes have the option of selecting one? They are already choosing to bring a child into the world, its hard to imagine a more deterministic action than that. People can abort a fetus (in some places) a choice that is orders of magnitude more impactful than picking curly hair over straight. If the parents then decide this gives them some sort of creepy divine right over the child, that is an argument against those particular parents rather than the use of the technology itself.

Randomness isn't fairness its just randomness.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Penny>
How can anyone objectively claim that tailoring a child to potentially be taller than their peers is ethical, while they claim that tailoring a child to practically be a smurf is unethical? Aren't ethics fundamentally subjective, as they're based on culture?

@catchamber

Ethics are subjective of course but that dosen't preclude the existence of ethical arguments for or against something within the norms of society. For example is engineering a child to have a higher likelyhood of Parkinson's disease medical malpractice, or child abuse, or both.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Fair to the fact that no fallible human decides your looks based on their tastes.

@POOHEAD189

Rather than a random grab bag from nature? Nature is not some abstract good that ought always be respected. Polio is natural and seriously fuck polio. I can understand how it might make you personally uncomfortable but I don't think that is a sufficient reason to not develop a technology.

Any technology has potential abuses by assholes, it isn't a reason to stay in the paleolithic.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@POOHEAD189

'Fair' according to what standard?

Kids often resent their parents choices in a wide vareity of situations. Parents can be controlling already, people already treat others differently due to accidents of birth and genetics.

The technology isn't responsible for engineering societies and citizens that aren't heartless assholes.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Penny>
True, but most decisions aren't as permanent as that. Choosing whether your kid gets certain medications or if they go to a certain school is what the parent thinks is best, not what the parent exactly feels like they want. To me it's like they're treating a baby like a cheese burger. "Oh, no pickles. Lots of lettuce. And yes, ketchup. But not TOO much ketchup."

@POOHEAD189

Currently its like taking a few handfuls of ingredients and tossing them together at random. I don't see how intentional choice is going to be any worse than random distribution.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Still, the idea of parents being able to design their kids to simultaneously have oligodactylism, pygmyism, methemoglobinemia, and naturally white hair is bound to make lots of people uncomfortable.

@catchamber

Obviously there would be bright future for medical ethicists, but all medical advances bring new ethical debate. Still fighting some people because jesus hates blood transfusions.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Penny>

Forgot to ^ this though. People just never listen with the vaccines.

@POOHEAD189

Poliomyelitis is a compelling argument, but a little too late.

I feel like that would be a huge violation of the personal identity of the kid. I love my parents and I think they're better at most at being parents, but I don't trust them with certain things because of their personalities. Thinking about them having a choice on how I physically am by their whims is chilling imo. I'm their son, not their project or experiment.

Edit: I never even liked them dressing me.

@POOHEAD189

Parents make dramatic life altering decisions for kids all the time. This is just starting a little earlier. You wouldn't be any less your parents son if they decided you should be a red head.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

It is going to be a long while before the design your own baby kit is practical. Genetics and gene expression aren't as cut and dry as people sometimes think and that dosen't even take into account the things we are learning about epigenetics.

If it were practical though, and people did want to design their own babies, I don't think I'd have a particular problem with it.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

God its impossible to convince people to vaccinate, imagine pitching gene tailoring.

I think that in the future it will be a widespread practice. It will certainly open up a few ethical dilemmas, similar to some we currently have in the abortion and vaccination debate but at a much earlier age.

The Sunday Group

Well for those still with us Ill hopefully have the arrival in Maine up tomorrow night