GATTACA is coming.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 8:04 pm

Self Explanatory to those who have seen the movie.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 8:05 pm

'Three-parent baby' fertility technique could be made legal

Although the resulting babies would inherit a small fraction of their DNA from the donor and not their mother or father, the procedure would spare all future generations from a host of rare and debilitating conditions.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scie ... legal.html

choff · Post by **choff** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 8:22 pm

Or let government doctors swap out the expectant mother's fertilized embryo on routine visits to the clinic without her knowing.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 1:33 am

It can be fixed by SWAT teams and drug raids.

There is no problem in the world that can't be fixed by sufficient police. Except the problem of too many police.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 2:33 am

Of course the religious right and the religious left are both scared of genetics because it goes against their ideologies and whatever does that has to be demonized in whatever media possible.
Meanwhile millions of lives are saved by it, but of course that does not matter either.

Stubby · Post by **Stubby** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:17 am

However one cannot deny there is huge potential for abuse.
Look at how fetal gender detection is changing India/China.
Those 2 societies are royally fubar'ed because there are so few women that they will become commodities to be sold or traded (even more than they already are)

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:21 am

However one cannot deny there is huge potential for abuse.

What doesnt have that potential?

Look at how fetal gender detection is changing India/China.
Those 2 societies are royally fubar'ed because there are so few women that they will become commodities to be sold or traded (even more than they already are)

Nonsense! There are plenty of women in China, especially in the more rural areas. Those few that can afford this sort of selective procreation are too few to really affect much in the long term and are restricted to the richer cities.

djolds1 · Post by **djolds1** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 4:41 am

Skipjack wrote:
Stubby wrote:Look at how fetal gender detection is changing India/China. Those 2 societies are royally fubar'ed because there are so few women that they will become commodities to be sold or traded (even more than they already are)
Nonsense! There are plenty of women in China, especially in the more rural areas. Those few that can afford this sort of selective procreation are too few to really affect much in the long term and are restricted to the richer cities.

In China there's long precedent of the countryside rebelling and conquering the urban areas. That's precisely what Mao did. And the cities are now denying wives/ women to the country boys. Numerous surplus males are a recipe for social instability - they form packs, and tear at social order. If you don't export them of kill them off in a war, something is going to give.

bennmann · Post by **bennmann** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 5:40 am

I believe there are science fiction stories about races using genetic engineering so much that eventually they find a long term side effect hidden within themselves that was significantly bad.

Everything in moderation. And it's not like at this point we couldn't have an FDA of genetics so to speak, regulating and requiring some sort of long term testing of specific modifications - 10 generations of modified pigs or something, thousands of flies?

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 11:46 am

And the cities are now denying wives/ women to the country boys.

As I said, there are plenty of women in the rural areas where the government counters cant go. There certainly are too many males in China, but the true numbers are usually put out of proportion due to the official numbers being wrong.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 11:51 am

I believe there are science fiction stories about races using genetic engineering so much that eventually they find a long term side effect hidden within themselves that was significantly bad.

Of course and there is usually an ideological/religious motivation behind that.

Stubby · Post by **Stubby** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 12:26 pm

Skipjack wrote:
And the cities are now denying wives/ women to the country boys.
As I said, there are plenty of women in the rural areas where the government counters cant go. There certainly are too many males in China, but the true numbers are usually put out of proportion due to the official numbers being wrong.

Do you have a source for your assertion?

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 1:47 pm

bennmann wrote:I believe there are science fiction stories about races using genetic engineering so much that eventually they find a long term side effect hidden within themselves that was significantly bad.

Everything in moderation. And it's not like at this point we couldn't have an FDA of genetics so to speak, regulating and requiring some sort of long term testing of specific modifications - 10 generations of modified pigs or something, thousands of flies?

God help us if the government controls anything significant.

DeltaV · Post by **DeltaV** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:29 pm

Mucking about with DNA is bad news. Sheer arrogance.

If no human alive can predict exactly what will happen with the man-made, binary logic algorithms of Windows, how much less predictable is the long-term, multi-generational behavior of the poorly-understood yet far, far more sophisticated DNA system. What they've been calling "junk" DNA is now seen to be important.
Don't mess with my junk.

Stubby · Post by **Stubby** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 4:56 pm

DeltaV wrote:Mucking about with DNA is bad news. Sheer arrogance.

If no human alive can predict exactly what will happen with the man-made, binary logic algorithms of Windows, how much less predictable is the long-term, multi-generational behavior of the poorly-understood yet far, far more sophisticated DNA system. What they've been calling "junk" DNA is now seen to be important.
Don't mess with my junk.

This