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[Naryar]

Nice eugenism discussion there.

And yes i am on weird's side on that matter. Babies that are born with basically no cognitive function should be left to die, because they are only shells in the form of a human. And emotional crutches to the parents, but you can buy a cat/dog or have another non-braindead child and it'll give you back far more affection than a braindead son/daughter. Relationships are made to be twofold : one-sided ones end poorly.

I'm not saying we should kill babies that are deformed, no, because we don't kill people that lose legs, and even without legs they can live meaningful life.

Babies that have a few organs seriously malfunctioning and cannot live on their own, however, or people who have such weak immune systems they cannot get out of a bubble... it's another thing. Because a life without meaning is not a life worth living.

All things are without meaning.

Maybe at the start. Then you can put meaning on it.

Even though, I'm pretty damn sure a pencil's meaning is to be used to write.

[Caz]

Should people be allowed to buy that technology at the risk of creating an upper class of gene-engineered humans? What methods can be employed to prevent that outcome? What other problems could arise from successful gene-engineering?

There's no 'allowing' about it. People will do what they want, and people with lots of money usually get what they want. Unless this is a hypothetical situation where Bay12 controls the fabric of reality. As soon as it's available, people will use it, just like they use caffeine, medications, nutritious food, prescription glasses, hip replacements, day planners etc etc to 'enhance' themselves beyond what they would be. If the world doesn't blow up in the next century or three, it's gonna be pretty normal to be 'modified'. Shit, it already happens now, they just didn't figure out how to do the cool stuff yet. At least not outside of the secret research centre.

As for the class problem, I think that a sufficiently high tax should take care of the problem. Say you're in the top 10% of the richest people in the country, you would have to pay a 900% tax so that one person from each wealth level (10%) below you can all buy the same genetic modification you bought.

Lol, good luck with implementing that.

[Aerval]

Now all that being said, wierd certainly has a point that allowing severe genetic defects to spread through the population via treating the symptoms so that those who suffer from them can lead a relatively normal life and pass those defects on, could certainly have disastrous consequences down the road. Possibly leading to large die-offs of humans, or even human extinction if it goes on long enough. And everyone needs to decide for themselves whether or not they believe that potential future harm to the species/society outweighs the immediate needs of the individual. I'm personally of the opinion that the best course of action is "Treat the individual (to the extent that they desire treatment, and resources to treat them are available), but acknowledge the long-term problem that can create, and devote as many resources as feasible to figuring out a way to mitigate or prevent the long term issue".

I hope this is all coherent, because it's nearly 4am and I haven't slept yet.

Well, it is not coherent in so far that this is the gene-engineering thread and not the generic-medcine thread. If you alter the human dna, why should you do so only for somatic cells and not germline? The only exception would be cancer which (usually?) is only somatic.

Another argument by weird was that we may not want to lose some currently unwanted traits from the gene pool (like sickle-cell trait that gives resistance against malaria) as we do not know which advantage they may have in the future. This is a valid point but I think does not correlate to much with the most advanced progress in genetic engeneering in single base exchanges via nucleases like zink-fingers, TALEN and (most recently) the CRISPR-Cas system. In these systems (you could already use them to make test-tube babies resistant against HIV via altering the gene for CCR5, to name something usefull) only a certain base is exchanged (the process in theory is reversable). So, if the SNP is harmfull, it would either die out or be replaced. In neither of these cases it stays in existance, so there is no real loss in the gene pool. It might be a different for deseases that only manifest in higher ages, but then again, you just treat yourself and not your children and there is only no loss in the gene pool.

Futhermore, since the thread started with it: Since genetic engeneering is basically a software update to the body, the usage of it is pretty cheap, it is the development where money is burnt. Therefore the upper-class problem only exists in a world where people restict technology to much (see the current discussion about Hepatitis C treatment) and slightly different obvoiusly race specific research (not neccessary targeted but people in europe have different inheritate diseases than asians). None of this is genetic engineering specific.

What really could become a problem (as always) is weaponizing. Again, not specific to this field but gene drives could become horrifing (and/or a blessing). Also note that we are not really talking about future anymore. If there was a sudden fashion of having blue eyes or blond hair in china (or anywhere somewhat developed else) now, in ~half a year I think someone could develop an (unapproved) CRISPR to change the color permanently.

Note: I am talking about genetic engineering, not tissue engineering which is a totally different field.

[wierd]

Indeed-- Money talks, bullshit walks-- as the saying goes.

You have the money, there's no shortage of unscrupulous medical care providers ready to take it from you, to give you what you want.
If you are rich and stupid, and you want really bizarre genes spliced into your germ line so that you can have gene augmented kids that are horrible freaks, and end up with your own immune system rejecting your testicles? That's your problem.

Related, for fun.

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

How would...
What would an immune system rejecting it's own body's testicles look like? Nothing pretty, I bet.

[ChairmanPoo]

Why would it result in rejection?

[wierd]

The testicular tissue does more than just produce little soldiers.  It also secretes hormones, and responds to hormones. Depending on what kinds of mods you put on your progenitor cells lining your epididymis, receptor types expressed on cell surfaces can change, signaling your immune system to go batshit on them.

Say you want your kids to grow soft fuzzy fox tails, as was discussed earlier--- so, you get hox gene mods (which work with cell receptors), and gene mods controlling hair follicle growth (which also work with cell receptor alterations), and now your progenitor tissues also express new cell receptor protiens-- BOOM-- your body goes "OMG! Kill it!" and your testicles shrivel up over time.

[Aerval]

Indeed-- Money talks, bullshit walks-- as the saying goes.

And trolls live under the bridge 

Why would it result in rejection?

Because immunology is not teached yet in fourth grade

[ChairmanPoo]

The testicular tissue does more than just produce little soldiers.  It also secretes hormones, and responds to hormones. Depending on what kinds of mods you put on your progenitor cells lining your epididymis, receptor types expressed on cell surfaces can change, signaling your immune system to go batshit on them.

Or not. It'd need for whatever you transfect to be expressed or presented to the surface of the cell, to be antigenic, and to actually trigger an immune response. This won't necessarily happen. Or be particularily virulent.

[wierd]

There's a reason why tissue typing is a thing, CP--  Even simple changes on cell membranes can ignite an autoimmune response. Hell, just inflammation can cause runaway autoimmune disorders, and that's not even a genetic cause.

Changes in the cell membrane are like-- Numero Uno on a white cell's hitlist for detecting things like cancer cells. If your receptor sites dont match the rest of your body, your immune system flags it as foreign, and starts tearing it down.

[wierd]

The problem is that in the case of "fuzzy fox tail"-- the very genes that make the fox tail happen, cause changes in the cellular membrane, because you have to replace the genes that code for the membrane to get the fox tail.  (This is because the membrane has to react differently to intercellular hormones to cause the new fetus to grow the fox tail.)

The same would be true for scales, or feathers, but probably be more severe, because whole new pathways would have to be added for those.

The resulting progenitor cells would not be able to produce host-compatible cell membranes, and the immune system would flag it.

[wierd]

As for long-term consequences of designer babies (with exotic features) being a thing--

Increased intra-species histo-incompatibility, resulting in increased infertility, would become a SERIOUS thing.


Such things are suspected to have been a problem when early modern humans first encountered the Denisova and Neanderthal peoples, who where mostly genetically compatible, but not completely.  It is suspected that the hybrid offspring produced may have only been possible with certain pairing types-- EG, EMH male and neanderthal female, but not the other way, due to histo-incompatibilities with neanderthal Y chromosome genes. (This is speculative, but has some circumstantial evidence; there are no neanderthal Y chromosomes in modern human populations, but we have been able to collect them from bone and tooth samples from pure neanderthal corpses-- Our ability to model biochemical interactions in a computer are limited, but the data suggests incompatibility was a major issue.)

I suspect that given a sufficiently large influx of new, exotic, genes that similar intra-species incompatibility problems will arise.

[Aerval]

The problem is that in the case of "fuzzy fox tail"-- the very genes that make the fox tail happen, cause changes in the cellular membrane, because you have to replace the genes that code for the membrane to get the fox tail.  (This is because the membrane has to react differently to intercellular hormones to cause the new fetus to grow the fox tail.)

The same would be true for scales, or feathers, but probably be more severe, because whole new pathways would have to be added for those.

The resulting progenitor cells would not be able to produce host-compatible cell membranes, and the immune system would flag it.

That's why you also modify your immune cells to include these genes and you do not get autoinflammatory response. I am not saying this is easy but not impossible.

[wierd]

That means you can only get it done once--  Continual revision of your immune system is not a wise idea.

Pick your mods kids-- It's like a tattoo, only more extreme.

[Aerval]

Well, against inheritated diseases.

Also, promoter mutations (like for hair color) are not catched by the immune system.

Edit: I am not talking of the foxy-hair tail for a reason