[rvkennedy]

Does this mean that someone born with synthetic DNA is guilty of infringement if they have children? Do they need to buy a licence to keep living? Perhaps as a compromise, the court can decide that they count as three fifths of a person.

[eldude]

A historical correction to the misplaced tone of your 3/5ths reference, the 3/5ths compromise was by the anti-slavery republican north to prevent the southern democratic slavers from dominating the House of Representatives and the electoral college.[1]

[1] http://www.redstate.com/jeffdunetz/2010/07/18/were-our-found...

[tanzam75]

> ... the anti-slavery republican north to prevent the southern democratic slavers ...

The party system did not form until George Washington's first term. There were certainly factions, but nothing like the "Republican" or "Democratic" parties of today.

When the party system began during George Washington's first term, the two parties were called the "Federalist" and the "Democratic-Republican" parties. New England was primarily Federalist. The Mid-Atlantic and Southern states were primarily Democratic-Republican.

The Democratic-Republican Party is, in some sense, the ancestor of both major political parties today. The Democratic-Republican Party split into the Democratic Party and the National Republican Party after the 1824 election. This division forms the basis of the two major political parties we have today. (With several messy breakups, reunions, splinterings, and Third Parties.)

[djcapelis]

For whatever it's worth, the 3/5ths number originally came from negotiations over modifying the original government documents of the united states: the articles of confederation where the question was whether or not slaves would count for the purposes of taxation. When the constitutional convention came around and the same debate showed up again, except now instead of taxation the question was representation, the proponents flipped positions but the 3/5ths number ended up getting picked up once again. Plus a ban on slave importation was set for 20 years in the future, which is a portion of the compromise often ignored in retrospect. (Mostly because it turned out not to be as effective as people hoped.)

The main thrust of your argument is absolutely correct though, in that the northern folks generally argued that slaves were treated as property (and so should be taxed as such) and the southern folks generally argued that they should count as people. (And should be represented as such.)

No one seemed to get to the idea that if you were going to count someone for the purposes of representation, maybe you also had to let them vote. That would have also brought up interesting questions around the disenfranchisement of various other classes of people, namely women, some white men without property and freed slaves right from the start. Instead we had to wait a long time to start solving those problems.

Politics can be weird.

[michael_miller]

I know you meant well with your comment, but in general, it's best to avoid well-actually comments. This is one of Hacker School's core rules; they elaborate on why it's a good idea to avoid these types of comments at https://www.hackerschool.com/manual.

[joshmlewis]

What you linked to wasn't the HN 'manual'?

In the actual guidelines found here: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html it doesn't say anything about well actually comments. It says be smart in your discussions and don't just get opinionated, it says to present facts and actually address the thing that you're arguing over. I believe having proper arguments and discussions is one of the core things HN is about. It lets people learn and see other points of view. If you don't like a comment just downvote it.

[rickhanlonii]

Furthermore, the character of 'well-actually' comments are that the orignal comment was close to, or intended to be close to, a certain fact, and the well-actualer is pedantically correcting the original without adding any substantial value to the conversation.

This is not what happened here. rvkennedy did not make a statement of fact, he made an off-the-cuff remark. eldude challenged the substance and tone of that remark in order to prevent further misrepresentation of the point. He corrected and clarified the remark in a clear and substal way, thus falling well outside of the 'well-actually' category.

Oh dear. I've spent way too much time reading SCOTUS rulings/blogs today.

[nsxwolf]

This is also such a terrific "well-actually" I'm glad he broke this non-existant rule. It is absolutely maddening to hear people misinterpret the 3/5ths rule, and I'm convinced basically no one in this country understands it.

[acjohnson55]

Isn't this reply sort of a meta-well-actually comment in itself?

[obstacle1]

Well, actually this is Hacker News, so "hacker school"'s rules don't apply.

IMHO a much better rule is "avoid acting as thought/discourse police."

[6chars]

HN comment pages would be pretty darn empty without well-actually comments.

[clarkm]

Ok, what's your point?

I don't think "well-actually" comments are bad. Wikipedia says to avoid weasel words and "expressions that lack precision" [1], and I think well-actually statements often help clear up such ambiguity.

If someone follows up their "well, actually..." with a legitimate correction of the facts, then I don't see a problem with it.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words

[niels_olson]

I think that in verbal parley well-actually comments are a lesser degree of the same offense as shooting down someone else's idea in a brainstorming session. Not only does it tend to silence the first speaker by shaming, it tends to derail the larger conversation. In this written context, it's less of an issue, though nested comments do create a similar potential context.

Granted, sometimes you gotta break some eggs. But don't be surprised when the hen who laid that egg isn't to be happy about it.

[gnaritas]

This isn't hacker school.

[andrewfong]

That's an interesting scenario given the recent ruling in Bowman v. Monsanto. If planting the offspring of synthetic Monsanto seeds infringes Monsanto's patents, then by extension, conceiving the offspring of a person with synthetic DNA could infringe patents as well.

In practice, this would be limited by the 14th Amendment. The prohibition against slavery trumps patent law, period. But I'm curious how far biotech companies would go before they got shut down.

EDIT: As pointed out below, 13th not 14th. My bad. Although due process in 14th would probably kick in as well.

[dragonwriter]

> In practice, this would be limited by the 14th Amendment. The prohibition against slavery trumps patent law, period.

The prohibition against slavery and involuntary servitude (except as punishment for a crime) is the 13th Amendment, not the 14th Amendment.

[Symmetry]

It's possible that conceiving in those circumstances could be copyright infringement, but that's just a civil tort. So the parents might get sued for lots of money, but there wouldn't be any claims against the child. I don't see how slavery enters into it.

I'd hope that a court would hold differently with human reproduction than Bowman v. Monsanto, but even if they don't it wouldn't be anything to do with the 13th Amendment.

[akiselev]

IANAL (and for this hypothetical I don't think it matters) but with this SCOTUS ruling, you could argue that even though the original DNA strand was synthetic and patented, once it was injected into the embryo, nature takes over and copies and makes it its own. The very dynamic nature of mutations and sexual reproduction should (rationally) invalidate the "infringement" of reproduction. You could also argue that penalizing a child for what is unarguably random chance on the part of their parents is cruel and unusual, not to mention this would mean that the debt (licensing agreement) is essentially inherited by the child, which is illegal if not outright unconstitutional to my knowledge (i.e., unless the debt is under a joint card with the deceased, you cannot inherit their credit card debt, although the creditors get rights to part of the estate covering the debt).

Edit: Apparently Myriad patented more than just strands for the BRCA genes, including some methods and tests, which is one of the reasons their case is important to SCOTUS. With our current patent system, I think you'd have to patent a lot more than just the gene to be able to sue people over having it, especially children of genetically engineered parents.

[rgbrenner]

The parents would have bought the license for their child when they agreed to have the DNA modified. By the time that child has children, the patent would have expired.

[andre]

Unless they change that, and keep on extending it, as it has been done with copyrights.

[rgbrenner]

That's true... but I imagine if they extended it that far, reproduction rights of the child would be included in the license. Unlike corn, I can't imagine many parents would agree to sterilize their children just to include some synthetic DNA sequence. Even if the parents were very desperate (because of some genetic problem), they would still want their child to be able to reproduce.

[moron4hire]

assuming the parents understand the contract in which they are entering.

[icebraining]

They wouldn't need to sterilize the children, nor would the corporation be interested in that. Just think of the recurring revenue!

[wcfields]

So... expect numerous patent lawsuits in Kentucky?

[jasonjei]

Another possibility: the kid is a teen parent...

[toufka]

In combination with the recent Monsanto case, it'd be consistent that the individual would owe licensing fees for each additional reproduction.

[RabbitAngstrom]

Once you are born with synthetic DNA, is it not "existing in nature?" An interesting point, but cloning is not very popular among bioethicists.

[anonymfus]

Why cloning? In vitro fertilisation is common.

[RabbitAngstrom]

IVF doesn't actually change the genetic makeup of the sperm or egg in question. To do so would create a genetically altered human.

[Androsynth]

I always thought a good compromise would be that you can sell genetically modified seeds (or eggs or whatever) but you shouldnt be able to own anything that is produced by those seeds. ie children, saplings etc

in other words, you own the process of genetically modifying an organism, not the genes.

I dont know how realistic or unrealistic this is, since ianal.

edit: someone else mentioned the monsanto ruling, which makes this idea sound unrealistic

[craigyk]

I take this ruling as protection from infringement if a synthetic sequence happens to emerge naturally.