a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
OftenBen  ·  2976 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Should you edit your children’s genes?

    Should we changes the genes to ensure there are no gay children?

I wasn't aware being gay was a problem like Tay-Sachs or (NSFW Warning) Harlequin Icthyosis

    Should we change the genes to ensure that nobody has a different mind than the average?

Schizophrenia runs in families. Feel like passing that one on to your kids, grandkids? Or do you make the choice to remove that danger from their lives before they even exist?

    Should we change the genes to ensure that everyone matches the fitness, height, and other standards that society typically encourages?

I know what changes I would want made in my own genome. Can't speak to anybody else though. People are already allowed to fuck up kids in all sorts of ways, including fetal exposure to all kinds of things. Hell, what your dad was eating, his smoking status, in the months before your parents conceived you determine your propensity towards obesity. Why can't you fuck them up like this too? What makes genes so different, so 'sacred' from all of the other ways parents are allowed to doom their children?

Where is it written that genius requires physical suffering and deep social ostracization?

I grew up a sick kid. My experience has so deeply affected me that I am actively looking for a doctor to neuter me so that I cannot accidentally pass on my specific brand of fucked up. I would not knowingly inflict what I had to deal with on any other human being.

I understand it's a slippery slope argument, but I have chosen to believe that individual human lives are valuable, and valuable enough that illness should be prevented when possible.

By your logic we should ban vaccinations because FDR had polio and wouldn't have been as good of a president without it.