[MiddleEndian]

Regardless of how well this particular case works, I'm in favor of people being able to modify their bodies as they see fit. If he wants to become more muscular, morbidly obese, or ten feet tall, that's his right.

Unfortunately, I could see things like this becoming illegal solely because they help people play sports too well.

[EpicEng]

>If he wants to become more muscular, morbidly obese, or ten feet tall, that's his right.

Not necessarily. We as a society have come up with many activities which seem, on their surface, to only harm the individual, but are illegal. This shares many concerns with drug use, gambling, etc.

Killing yourself harms others, and society has a vested interest in the population being healthy and productive. If you harm yourself an ER has to treat you regardless of whether or not you can foot the bill. Perhaps most importantly, you can procreate and pass on defective generic material.

This is far from an issue which only concerns the individual in question.

[MiddleEndian]

You can purchase tons of things with which you can kill or severely injure yourself today, and you will still receive medical care.

If you can edit your genes in a bizarre way for cheap, I imagine it wouldn't be very expensive to reverse such a modification.

[jchallis]

As anyone can attest who has seen a $300 M building burn to the ground, very simple permanent changes can be extremely expensive to reverse.

[MiddleEndian]

Buildings do burn to the ground periodically, but the costs of fire men and fire property insurance aren't particularly outlandish.

[EpicEng]

You addressed zero of the concerns I mentioned. You seem to believe that any problem which occurs will be easily reversible and have no side effects. I can't imagine that would ever be the case. You did not address death (possible) or passing on genetics which have negative, perhaps unforseen consequences.

Alerting the human genome is not as simple as pushing a patch to a website.

[MiddleEndian]

Currently it doesn't work at all, and AFAIK only this one guy is trying it. If he gets an infection in an area covered by my insurance, I won't be too stressed about it.

If, in the future it is as easy as a $20 modification, I'd wager two things. One is that most people would use it for mundane things like resistance to the flu, stronger bones, and other things that would ultimately lower the cost of medical insurance on average. The other is that the mechanism will be so well known that changes will be rewritable.

[drak0n1c]

I agree, but there are externalities. Medical care resulting from personal choices should be paid by the risk-taking individual (or the research firm, if it's a sponsored experiment), rather than society or other people in the insurance pool.

[asdkhadsj]

I could actually see an argument being made for the government to pay for the bill, if they're allowed to heavily monitor your health, stats, etc.

Imagine all the data we're just throwing away with people biohacking. That data, properly done by 3rd party non-biohackers, could be invaluable long term. Sure, it wouldn't be as valuable as a massive double blind trial (or w/e), but we're basically talking about "mad scientists" doing experiments in their basements.. I imagine lots can still be learned, if we simply watch.

[MiddleEndian]

If this becomes cheap enough for a person to effectively do for $20, I imagine the cost of resulting medical care would end up proportionally cheap.

[EpicEng]

Why do you believe that? The cost of medical care is proportional to the cost of treatment, not the cost incurred while performing the injurious act. I can down a cheap bottle of aspirin and rack up a large medical bill. I don't see the correlation.

[MiddleEndian]

For your aspirin example, you can already do that without breaking any laws, and you will still get medical care in pretty much any country. Not that many people do it, and medical costs haven't been ruined by people chugging aspirin.

For instance, if there were a way to make yourself extremely susceptible to becoming obese with $20 on-the-fly gene editing, presumably you (or medical staff) could reverse that. And I can't imagine many people doing the first thing.

[EpicEng]

All I asked is why you believe the price of altering your genetic material is proportional to fixing any mistakes which arise as a consequence. Legaility has nothing to do with it.

I don't imagine the only issues we'd face are the completely and easily reversible with no side effects kind.

[MiddleEndian]

I'd wager that more people would end up relieving conditions with gene editing than doing wackier shit as mentioned before. If you genetically cure a bunch of diseases and unhealthy susceptibilities across the population, the marginal cost of the handful of people who make themselves ten feet tall will be trivial.

[steelframe]

As someone who pays taxes to support socialized health care, I am not willing to pay toward the extraordinary chronic medical expenses incurred by someone who has catastrophically injured themselves in an ad-hoc gene editing experiment.

[MiddleEndian]

Are you willing to pay medical costs of people who currently might overdose on prescription drugs. When people modify their bodies in spite of the law, would you pay to incarcerate them and/or treat them when they lie to medical professionals to avoid criminal penalties?

[fwip]

Even steroids aren't illegal, you just need to get a doctor to prescribe them.

[MiddleEndian]

Sure but "I want to be more muscular" usually won't get you a prescription.

[beaconstudios]

I think the ethics on this wander close to the ethics of personal drug consumption, or at least smoking. Sure, it's his body and he should have personal autonomy, but there's a possibility (maybe high, maybe low, I don't know) that he could end up sick and reliant on others (medical professionals, family). I know its slightly different in the US what with the lack of socialised medicine, but it seems reasonable for society to place some restrictions on this behavior to deter or limit the potential impact on society at large. Personally, I lean more towards permitting experimentation but there's an argument to be made there.

[phkahler]

> he could end up sick and reliant on others...

He could also get that way from driving a car, being thrown from a horse, or any number of activities that are a personal choice.

Maybe a bunch of people try this and end up with terrible side effects. Researchers will still be interested in the results if they know what a person did to themself. And then maybe some of them will have good results and then we'll all know. It's a mixed bag and probably a very tiny percent of the population. I say let em go for it.

[beaconstudios]

So do I, but I'm accepting it on the belief that the benefit to liberty is greater than the cost to society and potentially themselves. I don't think amateur injections would provide any meaningful data due to the sample size of 1 plus most likely lower standards of protocol and rigour. But you need a damn good reason to curtail individual liberty.

[drak0n1c]

It's still a big factor in the US. Unpaid hospital bills get factored into prices charged to other patients, and insurance premiums go up as costly treatments increase. Especially since ACA, which legally requires insurance to cover medical care in additional ways. There would have to be an additional law allowing insurers to charge different rates for people who voluntarily wounded themselves or grown obese.

[beaconstudios]

is it not legal to charge fat people more for health insurance? If not, that's ridiculous.

[MiddleEndian]

I'm in favor of decriminalizing and/or legalizing most drugs as well. To be honest, if something actually worked to modify one's body as well as this guy is imagining crispr to work for $20, medical costs will likely drop substantially.