The Silicon Valley push to breed super-babies(www.washingtonpost.com)
20 pointsby ironyman3 days ago9 comments
  • Stevemiller073 days ago
    Wild times. The ethics and long-term risks here seem huge. Are we really ready for designer genetics at scale?
    • JohnFen3 days ago
      If there are two things SV tends not to care about, they are ethics and long-term risks.
      • red-iron-pine3 days ago
        "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."
    • gavinray3 days ago

        > The ethics and long-term risks here seem huge.
      Do they?

      If we have the ability to screen embryos to determine which ones are likely to have the least health problems, and to live as fulfilling and successful a life of possible, do we not then have a moral imperative to do this?

      Supposing it were free: to choose NOT to do it, would be to say, "I don't care if I bring avoidable pain and suffering into the world."

      • culopatin3 days ago
        Every time I talk to my gf about this we get to the “where do we draw the line” question. You can keep expanding the list of filters until you have people with money taking off not only in opportunity but now also genetically.
        • trod12343 days ago
          Also, lets not forget the key concept of counter-party risk.

          What assurances and real resolutions do you have that what they market is actually true; and the baby your gf is carrying isn't in fact a mini-musk with no related DNA from you. Like a cuckoo bird.

          Interestingly the term cuckold, referring to a man whose wife was unfaithful, originates from the Cuckoo bird, where the bird is tricked into raising children biologically not their own; as happens with brood parasitism.

          These advances bring into question long-term fitness and survivability. We know mono-cultures die out quite easily.

          Before long we might have a "Surface" event, like what happened in that TV show. There are things that cannot be undone, and there are blind people more than willing to ensure those things are full steam ahead.

    • bithive1233 days ago
      Even absent ethical or practical risks, it seems presumptuous to assume that we know what direction our evolution should take. The inferior beings that need improvement are the same beings that will do the improving? That would imply an implausible level of knowledge about the future and what characteristics will be desirable.
      • ben_w2 days ago
        > That would imply an implausible level of knowledge about the future and what characteristics will be desirable.

        Why?

        The default is evolution doing the same thing by randomly mutating each of us a little bit and seeing what sticks. It also doesn't have a plan, or insight into the future conditions we might encounter or create.

    • mc323 days ago
      The soviets had been thinking about this at least since their socialist revolution with the idea of the new soviet man[1]

      [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Soviet_man

    • rvz3 days ago
      > The ethics and long-term risks here seem huge.

      They [0] will do it anyway. Ethics, risks and morals be damned.

      Dystopia capitalism is highly profitable.

      [0] https://mynucleus.com/

  • arjie2 days ago
    My family is featured at the bottom of the article. If you're curious about the process I wrote most of it down here as it occurred and some after from memory: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/IVF

    The actual process of our pregnancy is written here: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Pregnancy

    And a quick primer on our gene mutations is here: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Gene_Mutations

    Feel free to ask me any questions.

  • more_corn3 days ago
    I only know seven sci-fi films and shows that have warned about how this will go badly.
  • bitbasher3 days ago
    Pretty sure this was the prologue to Gattaca.
    • thijson3 days ago
      I posted a youtube link to the Gattaca prologue in a similar post on here. It got flagged. Pretty sure it's virtually identical to the movie's premise.
  • envp3 days ago
    Am I missing something… why does this sound like eugenics with extra steps?
    • Tadpole91813 days ago
      I mean, curing genetic diseases is good. And it doesn't hurt to make sure your kid is attractive and charismatic. On the other hand, this will absolutely and unequivocally be used for babies with... specific phenotypes associated with wealth or class.

      And, worse yet, it inherently encodes a poor tax into the very fiber of a human being that will exacerbate inequality. Something that will only grow as the designer genes become even more effective.

      I guess, in the end, the rich will claim to be justified when they call the poor "less human".

  • greenhearth3 days ago
    What's the point of these superbabies if their brains are going to be full of plastic anyway?
  • Hatrix3 days ago
    Next headline: AI Is Replacing Babies
  • jasonthorsness3 days ago
    I get the few single-mutation-equals-fatal-disease screens, but I think with what little we currently know about most other genes and more complex effects, and how long it takes to see any outcome of your decisions based on this (and you’ll never be able to know what exactly to attribute to the selection vs. chance or other factors) this might just end up a very expensive pseudoscience/scam for a while.

    Also I am surprised you can take five cells from an embryo with no effect! I guess at this point that’s probably well-proven through more basic screens.