[Carlhole]

SH

The Fertility Institutes recently stunned the fertility community by being the first company to boldly offer couples the opportunity to screen their embryos not only for diseases and gender, but also for completely benign characteristics such as eye color, hair color, and complexion. The Fertility Institutes proudly claims this is just the tip of the iceberg, and plans to offer almost any conceivable customization as science makes them available. Even as couples from across the globe are flocking in droves to pay the company their life’s savings for a custom baby, opponents are vilifying the company for shattering moral and ethical boundaries. Like it or not, the era of designer babies is officially here and there is no going back.

The other day, I asked a pretty black woman what sort of natural hair she would want if she could take her pick. I expected her to say straight, dirty blond, or maybe her own, but it was thick, red, wavy hair she wanted. She didn't even miss a beat.

I wonder if a kid will ever be able to sue his/her parents for having bad taste?

[Sixstrings]

Why do you post this crap Carlhole? You know it's only going to prompt derision that will make you angry, and cause high blood pressure (remember that the silent killer has no symptoms ). You will then discover first hand the singularity does not exist (and even if it did, it would not give a sh#t about you.) and certainly will not be able to cure you.

Why are you guys so hard on him. The stuff he posts is true.

Just because a lot of us will go down with the ship into collapse doesn't mean everyone will. Tech will continue, the elites will live large, and they will have designer babies.

[Outcast_Searcher]

What surprises me (though, I guess it shouldn't) is what the priorities seem to be.

I would think things like good health, and perhaps intelligence would be paramount. Yet things like height and hair color typically seem to be at the forefront of people's thoughts in this area.

....

Then again, our socety is so irrational that the vast majority of folks believe in supernatural beings despite a complete lack of evidence, yet the vast majority of that same crowd become incensed at the mention of the possibility that human cryogenics might someday be possible.

[Keith_McClary]

Lots of good Google Images of Designer Babies

[Sixstrings]

What surprises me (though, I guess it shouldn't) is what the priorities seem to be.

I would think things like good health, and perhaps intelligence would be paramount. Yet things like height and hair color typically seem to be at the forefront of people's thoughts in this area.

I think scientists are closer to being able to select things like gender, hair and eye color than they are at preventing genetic disorders. So one step at a time.. first blonde hair blue eyes or whatever then next comes perfect health.

My only criticism is whether it's smart to mess around with the human genome. What if everyone wants blonde hair blue eyed babies.. isn't that really eugenics all over again? And it's not smart to restrict the genepool just because people like certain features.

Funny thing is that Nordic people are LESS GENETICIALLY DIVERSE than Africans. So if we favor Nordic / what we think to be perfect features, it's actually dangerous as we're limiting diversity:

The pattern matches that for human genetic diversity: As a general rule, the farther one gets from Africa—widely accepted as the ancestral home of our species—the smaller the differences between individuals within a particular population.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/04/language-may-have-helped-early-h.html

Lastly, it's kind of weird if parents start picking out racial features just for the hell of it -- japanese eyes maybe, nordic complexion, maybe Irish red hair. Or even new hair colors and new features. It's craziness.

The whole thing is just creepy.

[dinopello]

The Blasian designer baby was all the rage, but what's hot in babies today ? I don't keep up with these things !

[Dreamtwister]

Doesn't this movie end with the hero going into space with his stolen genome and the original owner incinerating himself?

[dinopello]

I want a George Carlin baby !

[Carlhole]

The Blasian designer baby was all the rage, but what's hot in babies today ? I don't keep up with these things !

They are just sorting through embryo's to select the most desired one (or kind). Or to select those embryos that do not carry bad genes. I

But, sooner or later, people will be able to take genetic sequences that do not appear in their own genomic types and insert them. So if I like Venus Williams legs and Julio Elesias' voice, well, why not?

[Sixstrings]

But, sooner or later, people will be able to take genetic sequences that do not appear in their own genomic types and insert them. So if I like Venus Williams legs and Julio Elesias' voice, well, why not?

But what if folks who don't have Venus Williams legs or a golden voice also happen to have some genetic advantage we're not aware of. If a new devastating virus crops up, you want genetic diversity so our species can survive. Diversity can't be engineered.. to the contrary, engineering forces conformity.

In practice though I'd assume the world will always have lots of poor folks who will be born au natural so they'll inherit the earth if some virus wipes out all the designer elites.

[Carlhole]

But, sooner or later, people will be able to take genetic sequences that do not appear in their own genomic types and insert them. So if I like Venus Williams legs and Julio Elesias' voice, well, why not?

But what if folks who don't have Venus Williams legs or a golden voice also happen to have some genetic advantage we're not aware of. If a new devastating virus crops up, you want genetic diversity so our species can survive. Diversity can't be engineered.. to the contrary, engineering forces conformity.

In practice though I'd assume the world will always have lots of poor folks who will be born au natural so they'll inherit the earth if some virus wipes out all the designer elites.

You would have to include genetic diversity into any model of gene pool health, I suppose. The whole field will necessarily become an Information Technology field - combining, comparing genomes and determining the relationships between genes, etc.

It's a touchy subject because it smacks of eugenics and nazism and all that. But, it seems quite obvious to me that there is great demand for designer babies which always be there for whatever possibilities science allows. As long as there is great demand, there will be strong progress in the field.

There is no reason to believe that Nature has discovered any perfect way to equitably distribute genes and their traits. Nature throws shit against the wall and sees what sticks. I don't think it will be much of a problem for the Human Race to do better than this. I mean, the whole field lends itself to IT so well that genetic diversity and individual traits might be optimized within a supercomputer.

[Carlhole]

Nature's genetic game is: He/She who is fittest and most sexually attractive will reproduce most successfully on average. Those who are NOT fit to the environment and who are NOT attractive, will probably not reproduce. This is how Nature maintains gene pool health.

And the actual lives of those who are not well-fitted to their environment because of some genetic flaw? Nature don't GAF - you gotta live your life out despite all that inherited hell. And some genetic flaws can really make Life tough or painful or demoralizing. There is nothing good about genetic flaws. Nature's way of weeding them out is not a prescription for happy living.

Much better to have control over that whole process. Eliminate all that suffering if possible.

[Carlhole]

I'm observing the strong demand for designer babies and seeing that everyone else has some ideal that they don't mind imposing upon their unborn children - whether that is an Aryan conceptualization or some other thing. The demand is there for choice. What will be the predominant choices that people will make for their children? -Those things that they (the parents) wish to be themselves.

If they could choose, how many parents would want dumbass, butt-ugly children with expensive genetic medical conditions?

The breeding of domestic animals has proven that people will actively seek out desired genes and separate them from undesired as much as possible. When it becomes easy to do in a clinic (as opposed to thousands of years of selection), then of course, it will happen. The demand for it is strong and has been with us since time immemorial.

[Sixstrings]

There is nothing good about genetic flaws. Nature's way of weeding them out is not a prescription for happy living.

Much better to have control over that whole process. Eliminate all that suffering if possible.

Eh..

Dude that sounds like eugenics. Who's to say what traits are desirable and what aren't? "Eliminate all that suffering.." you're painting with an awfully big brush there, who's fit to live and who isn't.

Example.. Stephen Hawking. Horrid, terrible, debilitating genetic disease. He's also one of the most brilliant minds ever. Now.. how do you REALLY know his disease hasn't made him the man he is? It could well be that his extreme disability has allowed him to focus on physics in a way that a "healthy" able-bodied person couldn't.

And what about something like bi-polar. If we breed that out, then we'll have far fewer brilliant artists, writers, scientists. Should Van Gogh have never lived, since he wasn't a perfect "designer" human? And who will be making these decisions, what is perfect and what is defective.

Bottom line.. what you think you WANT your child to be is not necessarily what is good for humanity at large. This is short-circuiting evolution, removing nature as the arbiter of what counts as success.

[Carlhole]

This is short-circuiting evolution, removing nature as the arbiter of what counts as success.

Well, what are you going to do about it? Create an expensive black market by making it illegal? Create money traffic to countries which allow it vs. those that don't?

People will do what they are going to do - it's not up to me or you; it's just how people are.

[EnergyUnlimited]

This is short-circuiting evolution, removing nature as the arbiter of what counts as success.

Well, what are you going to do about it? Create an expensive black market by making it illegal? Create money traffic to countries which allow it vs. those that don't?

People will do what they are going to do - it's not up to me or you; it's just how people are.

Provided that they have money available... and that is changing fast.
After few mess ups with damaged babies born and few other where misformed/underperforming babies were returned to vendor and resulting lawsuits practice will be probably outlawed.

[ian807]

Evolution enhanced by money. This will obviously favor the wealthy. If you could guarantee that your child was a genius for $10,000, or $50,000, you would do it. Eventually, the price comes down, but it will always cost something.

And so we speciate, just as we have since chimps, gorillas and homo sapiens all went their separate ways. It's life. The results will be mixed, and there will be winners and losers, but it's inevitable. If we were to ban genetic manipulation in the USA, all other countries would immediately start cranking out genius superwarriors, which would simply hasten our demise. Competition never goes away.

So, you can winge or you can deal. I suggest the latter. Weak pseudo-moralistic hand-wringing is unlikely to win the day anywhere.