[little_panda]

I'm feeling bewitched by this entire story of rejection of He Jiankui. Could someone here please describe in layman's terms what's wrong with the _ethics_ of germline editing?

Edit: yes it's gonna be crazy expensive and 10+ years will pass before the tech is ready for mass use, I realize that.

[ficklepickle]

We don't know all the potential implications. These genes will be passed on to their children. What if it causes disease?

Not to mention the splitting of humanity into separate species, based on wealth.

It is a whole mess of ethical concerns. I am astonished that you can't see that.

[michaelt]

It's impossible to have a steroids-optional elite sports league because all the non-steroid-users would get outcompeted, effectively turning it into a steroids-mandatory league. Either everyone uses steroids or they're completely banned - there's no middle ground.

In the jargon of game theory, in the absence of a ban, everyone doping is the only strong Nash equilibrium.

The fear is gene edited babies would trigger the same effect: If I'm in my country's richest 3% and I know parents in the richest 2% are gene-editing their children to be healthier/smarter/prettier, can I afford not to do the same?

And we can't rely on national governments to provide bans - if I'm Country A's leader, can I afford to ban gene editing if our rival, Country B, is making full use of it?

[Hermel]

I see the problem with steroids in sports. They are unhealthy and sports is a zero-sum game.

But what's the problem with manipulating people to be healthier, smarter and more attractive? Wouldn't that improve the world? Everyone benefits if humankind becomes less dumb.

[michaelt]

Well, this is all very hypothetical stuff. There might be no downsides at all! Hell, if I could safely make my future children 6 inches taller and 20 IQ points smarter, I'd do it.

But many people have imagined dystopian consequences - creation of a lifelong underclass; negative side-effects that take decades to manifest; having big corporations and government gatekeeping conception; monoculture and loss of genetic diversity; what would become of us pre-editing humans; impact of state control of genetically-predicated personality traits; and so on.

[wincy]

The movie GATTACA comes to mind which, while fictional raises some interesting ethical questions.

[zbrozek]

I watched that movie and wished that I could have been the beneficiary of such editing. Once it's possible it seems obvious to want to do it. What's the problem?

[wincy]

I don’t have a problem with it, but certain worldviews would driving motivators in the world would be very upset about gene editing. Like imagine if in 50 years billionaires are biologically immortal. That’d be quite something.

[nl]

What about the countries, ethnic groups and religions that can't afford to edit the genes of their children.

Is their destiny to be out-competed by those groups with the best gene editing technology?

What if a particular highly effective gene editing technique is perfected and patented in country A and they refuse a license to country B because they are rivals?

What if in country Z only ethnic group X is allowed to receive the treatment?

[s1artibartfast]

What do you mean by out-competed? For humans, reproduction has very little to do with the traits that people might want to select for. Just about every group that could afford such treatment is already has a low fertility rate.

[wincy]

The Uber-Han has arrived.

[8note]

It's not like there's a fair competition between people today. The richest babies already have extraordinary advantages over poor babies.

It really just exposes that people in power don't want to make it obvious that they've got an unfair advantage, and that basing society off of competition is what's bad.

[eunos]

>The fear is gene edited babies would trigger the same effect: If I'm in my country's richest 3% and I know parents in the richest 2% are gene-editing their children to be healthier/smarter/prettier, can I afford not to do the same?

Can't you say the same about private school?

[bobthebuilders]

Isn't this the exact same situation with nukes? Why are we banning gene editing when nuclear proliferation is all but expected at this point? Is it because MAD does provide some stability, or because we're more used to nukes as a concept?

[zamadatix]

I'm struggling to see the similarities with nukes to the point I'm not sure what to put forward as a key example of why they are different. Following with your call out though yes, nukes stopped being something you could do to further your position and turned into something that is very negative for everyone's position a long time ago. Even before this point nukes seem like a completely different dynamic though, they only move you "forward" in use by moving the other side back making the average worse and you can't exactly use them against a section of a population rather other geographic groups as a whole.

The only similarity I can draw is that both have been restricted internationally.

[nl]

> when nuclear proliferation is all but expected at this point

The (pretty effective) nuclear non-proliferation treaty does beg the question here...

[jcranmer]

Against He specifically, the biggest factor that causes consternation is that He seems to have been more motivated by winning the accolades of being first than by actually doing good work. The work came out of nowhere, wasn't exactly successful (in that neither of resulting gene edits actually reflected the intended result), and it's unclear if the parents actually understood what they were consenting to.

To the broader topic, one of the major issues is that genes are nowhere near so cut-and-dried as they are portrayed in science fiction. Rather famously, the mutation that confers sickle-cell anemia also confers resistance to malaria. But for most genes, we don't know what the side-effects of their mutations will be. How can you properly ask for consent to a procedure whose consequences are often unknown and perhaps unknowable? All the more harder when the person on whom the greatest burden is borne is not yet in existence, let alone capable of giving consent.

[Pulcinella]

And even the case of sickle-cell is extremely straight forward compared most genes and what traits they influence. Even hair color is controlled my multiple genes and is not full understood.

It’s why I am personally a bit watery on predictions that CRISPR is going to be a miracle cure anytime soon. CRISPR is like having a modern machine shop complete with high precision CNC machines in the Bronze Age. You know there is big potential but do you really know what to do with it, or how? Can you use it to its full potential?

[Retric]

Human experiments without consent is about more than just the parents. A huge factor is early experiments will result in a lifetime of suffering for the infants due to any mistakes or unknown consequences etc. The ethics might be more debatable if we knew what was going to happen, but there are huge unknowns here.

[copperx]

I can already see the headline coming: "I was a CRISPR baby, and I wish I wasn't born".

[Nasrudith]

I got downvoted for expressing this opinion before but the only real issues are implementation related.

#1: The technology isn't mature enough and has some "mistargetting" that adds or deletes where it shouldn't.

#2: It is a reckless disregard for human life to not do generational animal trials before humans. If we cannot say make mice redfurred or immune to a mouse disease without major side effects like vastly increased cancer risk doing so in humans is unconscionable.*

*Medical ethics has a bit of weirdness in that if someone is certainly doomed otherwise it is more permissible to try something crazy.

If we could accessibly edit DNA mistakes with no more risk or difficulty than say preventing blood type mismatch related miscarriage then it having a few people with "bad traits carried onto offspring" wouldn't be a big deal.

It is often en vogue to complain about it cementing a class divide but under that logic education is unethical because it priveledges those who can afford it over those who cannot.

[nl]

> education is unethical because it priveledges those who can afford it over those who cannot

No, unequal access to education is unethical.

While it might be impractical to guarantee absolutely equal education, most people agree access to a basic education is a human right.

[ficklepickle]

Your attempt at whataboutism failed.

It is not at all equivalent. In developed countries, education is accessible to most or all. (The USA is not a developed country by this measure)

If you aren't worried about humanity splitting into multiple species along economic lines, I don't know what to tell you. I guess the film Gattaca was just a fun romp for you? I guess you must assume you will be one of the "haves" and to hell with everyone else, if you get yours?

[eloff]

No, they make a good point. If you restrict your focus to countries where higher education is expensive, it definitely is one of many ways in which parental wealth translates into an advantage for offspring. To say it's free or cheap in some countries is just missing their point.

There are also ways in which parental wealth is a disadvantage. It can weaken that grit, ambition, and drive to accomplish things.

While I worry about the implications as much as you do (Gattaca was a great, thought provoking movie) I think the grandparent comment is completely correct that there may be no way to prevent it. If we outlaw it our country, other countries may not. It only takes one group from now until the end of the human race to pursue this for that bifurcation of the human race to be possible.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing. If we don't make ourselves better, whatever the cost, we may find ourselves replaced by artificial life one day.

[8note]

If you're in a country where education is democratized, there's no reason to believe that gene editing won't be.

Ignoring the US for education is silly because it's the place where gene editing is likeliest to be restricted to the richest.

[mechEpleb]

It boils down to the fact that there are large potential (if improbable) downsides to messing with DNA, and people have a strong cognitive bias against actively inflicting harm vis a vis just allowing harm to happen on its own.

I personally don't think it's possible to prevent this kind of thing in the long term, so everything ranging from edited children born with horrible disabilities to deleting some potentially beneficial mutation paths in the human genome from existence is going to happen anyway.

[1996]

People don't like that it's permanent, and transmitted.

If you have money, you can make your kids AIDS (and Cholera, and Smallpox) resistant.

They see that as "unfair", and conveniently forget money buy high education and network.

Some other people disagree for religious reason - they say it's "playing god", but I do not understand their arguments. Humanity has done selective breeding for centuries, and nobody ever complained.

It's just doing the same with better methods, as the CCR5 mutation discussed in the article was not created by humans, but naturally selected.

[gmfawcett]

> Humanity has done selective breeding for centuries, and nobody ever complained.

Nobody has ever complained about eugenics? About master races vs. inferior breeds of human, or about hereditary caste systems? I think you need to brush up on your history before making such claims.

[Fezzik]

I imagine OP is talking about how we get to select our partners, not eugenics. And how, generally speaking, the wealthier and better looking a person is the wealthier and better looking their partner and then children will be.

Edit, to add: the same is likely true for realized intelligence as well.

[alisonkisk]

And it's absurd to say that no one ever complained about that or aren't still complaining about that.

[JesseMReeves]

Human overconfidence about sums it up.

[EamonnMR]

No culture on earth is ready for the ability to directly edit the germline. It's gonna get used to try and get privilege based on appearance.