Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by EvaK_de 4075 days ago
Sometimes Hacker News feels like a really cold place. Today is one of those days - and the tone of this discussion is why I'm shuddering.

Please tell me that you at least so much as hesitated an instant before you typed "embryo hacking", please?
1 comments
DanielBMarkham 4075 days ago
My purpose was to draw the contrast between what we do as technologists and what kinds of people we are.

"Embryo hacking" did that quite nicely. It was jarring, and it was supposed to be jarring.

link
TheOtherHobbes 4075 days ago
It's jarring because it's wrong. Hacking DNA is nothing like hacking code.

Genes are not code. Genes are visible elements in a much larger system that is horribly complicated, and which no one fully understands.

So by hacking embryos you're guaranteeing there will be unexpected results and outright defects.

Does anyone have the right to create embryos that are defective? I don't think they do, and I don't think the ethical issues are particularly fuzzy.

link
scarmig 4075 days ago
I agree with your last sentence, but:

Any particular bit of code is a visible element in a much larger system that is horribly complicated, and which no one fully understands.

The issue with hacking human embryos is that it's like working on a four billion year old legacy code base, written by toddlers smashing keys on a keyboard, in a language with no abstraction and where all variables are globally scoped. And the only testing you can do is to watch embryos die quickly or develop into people to die new and uniquely grisly deaths.

link
xkcd-sucks 4075 days ago
>unexpected results and outright defects.

This seems pretty close to the original meaning of "hacking," before "hacker" became a synonym for "Dilbert with VC funding"

link