[nightwing]

Why do you think CRISPRing embryos is a bad thing?

Eugenics in 20th century was evil because government was trying to decide which people could have children together. The normal eugenics where people decide for themselves, worked well for all species so far. So with CRISPR a law that prohibits using it, dooming people to have ill, or not very smart children is the same kind of evil, as the laws prohibiting interracial marriage in 20th century.

[jddj]

If that was your interpretation, maybe I could have been more clear.

I don't think gene editing of embryos is necessarily a bad thing (nor are there any international treaties as far as I'm aware), I was simply throwing it out there as an obvious example of something we're likely capable of in this space since many countries, including the US, already have laws which prohibit it.

My personal opinion leans more towards a moratorium while the issues with the technology and ethics are ironed out, because of the inherent complexity in that domain.

The linked article touches on the difficulties in achieving gene drives in mammals, and it would be easy to demonstrate that the scale of ethical concerns dwarfs those for attempting to eliminate malaria over a few mosquito generations and only after careful consideration of the consequences and implementation of failsafes. Nobody is concerned that CRISPR will only be available to socioeconomically advantaged mosquitos, for example.

Edit: trying to use fewer parentheses

[nightwing]

My point is that "ethics issues" with things like CRISPR and cloning are not real issues, and people talking about them do more harm than good.

For instance if not for multiple countries banning human cloning, we could already have human clones, which would have been very useful in studying how much of human behavior is determined by genes. There already should have been multiple clones of prominent scientists like Feynman, Gell-Mann, Penrose.

[jddj]

As great as it might be to snap our fingers and arrive at that reality, between here and there there's a big dirty transition period riddled with potential human suffering.

Given that a significant number of people identify many ethical and technological issues with human CRISPR, and that public opinion is far from reaching a consensus (if anything, my intuition tells me that in the West your stance is in the minority for people who are thinking about the problem), I'd say that talking about it is actually likely to do more good than harm.

[teh_infallible]

The ethical issue has to do with medical consent. It terrifies me that so many here on HN think it’s ok to experiment on an unborn human being. “Hey, I just gave you cancer before you were born, but hey, it’s all in the name of science, so it’s all good.”

[nightwing]

The decision on risk/benefit can be handled only by parents and doctors, not some bureaucrats or hn commenters who do not know enough about the context. "Hey, you are going to be deaf, because someone decided that 10% increased chance of cancer in 50 years is too serious" is not much better than your example, especially considering that in 50 years cancer will most likely be treatable anyway. (for context https://futurism.com/five-couples-crispr-babies-avoid-deafne...)

[jacobush]

Except we don't know exactly how these things work yet. It's not like CRISPR or even our understanding of the genome is very good. (Except a few mutations we know are very bad.)

So I can agree to a certain point, but it's not like we are at "sure, fire away" levels like in Star Trek.

[nightwing]

I agree that as with any new and powerful tool, caution is required, and it is important to make sure that parents fully understand the risks and are not misled to believe that CRISPR is the only solution when it isn't. But i think it is important to remember that we do not use it because it is not ready yet, not because it is somehow inherently evil.

[jjwhitaker]

Theoreteically the capacity to have smart, healthier, longer living children is amazing and a victory for all mankind.

But it won't be for all mankind, just those in wealthy nations and even then only to those who can afford it similar to In Vitro fertilization. The worry becomes further inequality but at a genetic level over just wealth.

If we can eradicate a genetic disease in a few generations, we probably should. But if only the wealthy and powerful are able to then we head toward even more ethical and moral questions.

[nightwing]

The world where some people are smarter or healthier is always better than the world where everyone is in equally bad state. Inequality by itself is not a bad thing, it's like climbing over a high wall, one needs to push the the other, then the other will pull the first up.

By the time treatments like this are tested and proven to work, everyone will get them for free, because it will be much cheaper to apply required treatments, and not deal with unproductive member of society later.

[ZhuanXia]

If you vote it illegal here, I will just fly to Singapore. You will only make things more unequal.