Sam Altman and husband reportedly working to genetically engineer babies from having hereditary disease
Sam Altman and husband reportedly working to genetically engineer babies
The ability to reduce diseases and disorders in newborns sounds wonderful, until you find out which techno-fascist is behind the movement.
The other issue I have is that this is an example of a recurring issue in which the tech obsessed ultra wealthy declare their plan to solve a problem for which a very straightforward policy solution already exists.
We don't need tech to extend lives or feed the hungry. We just need to remove the paywalls to existing resources.
Oh come on.
This guy couldn't even get a train to run on time.
Not for a lack of trying
I mean, the original flavor didn't either
Odd way to learn altman is gay.
Kinda shocked I've never seen a "worlds richest gay man!" Headline. That feels like low hanging fru-
Does Thiel not have more money?
Thiel killed the outlet that outed him.
Honestly I don't think it's any of our business. Even rich assholes are allowed to have a private life. Although with some (Musk, Trump) that private life is so fucked up it's impossible to ignore, but generally I'm totally fine with not knowing who they fuck.
Gay is only bad if the poors do it, of course /s
the headline misspelled eugenics.
In before this turns into "I want my baby to have blue eyes and 150 IQ"
It's an interesting ethical debate.
I have a hereditary condition which passes only by the X chromosome, so should I, as a man, abort a daughter? Because now the risk is too high and I've elected to simply not have children. It would be great if I could fix the single swapped base pair that would otherwise cause disfigurement and life-long health problems.
Yeah I'm always conflicted. Like eugenics is the end goal for these fascists but also... We should try to prevent hereditary defects rtct
This is why billionaires should be kept away from sciences and tech but unfortunately they are all over it. The fact that these require lot of funding does not help.
This really reminds me of “Brave New World”, kind of scary actually.
And everyone already has the ability to pick their Soma
Shit, thanks for reminding me I'm scrolling instead of reading the copy in my bag.
I'm not sure I get the universal negativity to this. Like sure, Altman sucks as a person, and an individual having enough money to significantly bankroll research like this is a sign of an economic failure, but surely curing or preventing genetic disease is just about the most uncontroversial use human genetic modification could have?
He's a bad person and he's always lying.
It'll only be available for the super rich, will expand to other augmentations/engineering, and will result in further reinforcing social mobility boundaries.
The response to something beneficial being only available to the rich shouldn't be to avoid developing that thing, it should be to make it available to everyone. The failures of the US healthcare and economic systems don't suddenly make developing new medical techniques a bad thing. Human augmentation is another issue from curing genetic disease, though I'd personally argue that wouldn't be a bad cause either, with the same caveat about it availability. It at least has more potential to improve somebody's life somewhere down the line than just buying a yacht with his ill gotten gains or some other useless rich person toy would.
"What's bad with eugenics for the rich?"
Right. Currently the ways we avoid genetic disease are screening partners, screening IVF embryos, and in utero testing + abortion.
Is that his motivation though? Wanna make a bet that this does or doesn't end as he says at face value?
Because the US health care system already serves the wealthy and abandons the poor, any expensive treatments are seen as just further steps into a Gattaca future of even more dystopian disparity, especially when driven by a rich asshole personally.
Universal negativity is also kind of the norm around here. A lot of folks on Lemmy believe we are slaves sucking Satan’s cock for breakfast, and anything that isn’t a complete burn down of our system and way of life is a negative.
Bruh. I wish I was sucking Satan’s cock for breakfast. That at least implies some kind of reward coming down the line.
There's nothing uncontroversial about human genetic modification.
It's a pandora's box that just shouldn't be opened.
This isn't really an answer to the 'universal negativity', but for a somewhat reasonable analysis of the pros and (surprisingly high number of) cons as well as some interesting grey areas, there's an old LWT episode on this topic: https://youtu.be/AJm8PeWkiEU
Please review the glimpse into our future titled "Gattaca" to see why people might be concerned.
It's fiction.
You can find actual discrimination based on genetics or wealth or class into the present and past of the real world.
Engineer some humans who can survive in zero gravity without peeing out their bone minerals. Humans who can survive hard radiation in space without having their cells crippled from destroyed DNA.
Maybe start with simple organisms. Like algae. :)
I’d just like to have to trim my nails less frequently
The same guy who admitted he couldn't raise his child without ChatGPT btw.
If it works as good as AI, people will be chronic liars, have multiple fingers, and be annoying attention removed always asking if they can "help" you.
So we’re skipping the Bell Riots and straight into Eugenics War?
Give me Butlerian jihad or give me death!
No thank you, I like Computers
I'm actually pro genetic engineering for this usecase. By expanding our medicine, we created an evolutionary problem: Carriers of genetic diseases keep passing their genes, passing the defects further. This will result in more and more health issues unless faulty genes themselves are fixed
There are more capable, actual medical professionals that can advance this field in a non-wallstreet all eggs in one basket kind of way.
Rich asshole says he'll invent something good but very expensive and so only available to the elite. People ITT: "Good things are bad!"
Yeah so, good for Altman, best idea he's had probably. Spend the money before the bubble pops my dude.
This is the usual front to further develop "designer baby" tech (which we already have, it's just the use is considered unethical). Mask investment as "saving the children" and altruistic to later flip the tech to billionaire friends so they can make little aryans on a d5 roll for a an AC of 1... Much like the open that turned for profit...
Oh hell no, don't bring Jurassic Park to the real world, please.
(JP did this with dinos, but this is the exact thing that movie warned about, just in this case with humans instead of dinos)
No no. Do it with dinos!
If (and is a really, really big if) this open the door to a better understanding of this type of pathologies and a way to somewhat cure them, I would say that it would be for the better.
But of course I am sure it will not end this way...
This guy can.
You know, everybody makes a idiot of himself as best as he can, and this guy can.
ah, ok, so GATTACA is up next. got it.
TIL Sam is gay
further proof their homophobia is performative to have the peasants infighting about trans people they probably never met in their life.
The trans people they never knew they met.