[jandrese]

For the most part mutations like that simply reduce the reproductive viability of the offspring. We can't really poison the entire human genome worldwide without going to absolute extremes.

Could we engineer a human so irresistibly sexually desirable and voracious that they could spread their genetic material with a subtle recessive defect across the globe in the span of a generation so that it could take effect before people realized what was going on?

[deusofnull]

Dunno, but all kinds of things could happen with novel co-dependent alleles with devistating effects when the express. Imagine theres a cool gene edit in 100 years that lets you live to 200 easy and it becomes normal for most people to get it. But, it just so happens that thers an early gene edit that was available 20 years from now, less ethically created and expensive. but hundreds of thousands of people get that first life extender.

Then, turns out the better / safer one 70 years from now has a co-expression with the decendents of the people who got it 20 years from now that makes you infertile, senile, or whatever.

thats the danger. If these edits become available broadly, youre not only worrying about co-expressions of edit genes developed at the same time, but edit genes developed at any time in the past (oh and also the rest of the human genome, which we still dont understand fully, and is a base concern for any gene editing whatsoever)

[imtringued]

I'm now wondering what measures scientists use to prevent genes that reduce child mortality but also decrease life expectancy. It's unlikely that the company that designed your genes will stay in business for 70 years so that it can update its gene designs to fix this fatal flaw.

[bsder]

> thats the danger. If these edits become available broadly, youre not only worrying about co-expressions of edit genes developed at the same time, but edit genes developed at any time in the past (oh and also the rest of the human genome, which we still dont understand fully, and is a base concern for any gene editing whatsoever)

<shrug> Then people who chose that mating pair will get weeded out. It sucks to be the individual victims of that, but that's not a big deal for the species.

In addition, biological systems almost always have variation. Even Ebola isn't 100% fatal. So, even if you have an interaction, some people will have another mutation that deactivates the interaction.

[omegaworks]

You don't need to. Read up on gene drive. Just need to engineer the next generation to only produce males.