so they approved testing on human embrios. If those embrios do survive, what kind of life are they going to have? Being tested all ur life like a lab rat? Is that a life standard? What if the experiment goes wrong? What do they do with them then? Kill them or let them suffer the rest of their life?
I'd volunteer to be one of those babies lol i'd be happy to help with something that could progress all of mankind for the better one day... they might not share my view ofc so it would be bad for the ones more interested in self gain than the gains of humanity as a whole
You bring up good points about side effects. Like I said earlier, if we look at the food GMO debate as a predictor of how the human GMO debate will pan out, it doesn't look good for nature. There's been a huge resistance to GMO proliferation that has been all but muted by the lack of media coverage. It's like they don't exist. One of the largest worldwide protests in history was against Monsanto last year. Millions of people protested it worldwide, but the media didn't cover it, so it was like it never happened. As far as cost, CRISPR is cheap. They even sell home gene editing kits, so you can mutate stuff at home.
There's a really good movie that asks that same question called GATTACCA.I don't know if anyone mentioned it yet.
They're not allowed to let it grow for more than a few weeks/days. They have to terminate it, which I think is a major issue for some people on other grounds, like the anti-abortion folks who strangely call themselves "pro-life." It's funny how word play can be used to conflate a movement to either lend itself more credibility or to discredit opponents.
That's kind of the whole point of this debate. It's not whether a person would volunteer. Nobody can volunteer for this. You have to DO THIS to an unborn child, against its will.
yeah i understand that, sry, what i meant here was if some1 is forced to do something against their will but in the name of a greater good i think its ok to do...like dropping nukes or torturing enemies of the nation or experimenting on children... which i will mention are still things that are lawful but frowned upon in many nations today, UK, USA & Aust included.
The greater good in this instance to me means eliminating disease and mental/physical disabilities, reducing overpopulation or progressing the overall physical & mental abilitities of mankind to a point where we can solve more of life's "big" questions and adapt better to our environment or even that perhaps we could eliminate genes that make us discriminate negatively.
It'd be interesting to see how the world would be if everyone was a super baby. But would they be raging mutants or competent?
I don't think it's clear what society would look like. Sure, the might be buff, smarter and cancer-free, but what will their personalities be like? That would be the key to understanding the long term consequences. I predict that in terms of society and the way life is, nothing will change - we'll still have a small group of powerful people controlling the world
Wasn't Khan from "The Wrath of Khan" a super baby? ..Or something similar? ...he had a charming personality (they'ld prob all be just like him lol)
Ive seen this thread a lot as a common debate topic. For me the morales are plain and simple. Allow the modification of the genome to prevent disease and not to alter who they would be as a person. Like height and specific character traits. The reason I say that is because if humans can pick and chose what their characteristics are for their children then you reduce the level of biodiversity within the population because people would find trends that they like. Aka I think the idea of designer or super babies is wrong but removing disease should certainly be allowed. Reason I say disease should be removed is because no person deserves to suffer a disease. Everyone deserves a full life and sure we have treatments for people but it's never going to 100% replicate or allow for a full human life.
It's strongly believed that personality is not an inherited trait but a nurtured one, eg you grow up with serial killers teaching their way is right and the kid believes it.
If you were an employer offering healthcare coverage for your employees, would you hire a super baby over a natural human if you knew the super baby would cost you less both in terms of healthcare costs as well as time off for illness? And to play devils advocate, don't partners choose each other based on their physical appearance, which show superior genetics? How is selective mating different from selective genetic editing?