The paper, "Designing humans: A human rights approach," was published in Bioethics in 2018 and builds on Liao's previous writings, including The Right to Be Loved, a 2015 book in which he makes the case that children, as human beings, have the right to certain "fundamental conditions" necessary to pursue a good life (love is one such condition, according to Liao; so are food, water, and air).
In "Designing humans," Liao applies the same approach to gene editing and argues that part of the fundamental conditions necessary to have a good life are so-called "fundamental capacities," which might include but are not limited to: the capacity to act, to move, to reproduce, to think, to be motivated, to have emotions, to interact with others and the environment, and to be moral.
"The basic idea is that if we think about what human beings need in order to pursue a good life, maybe from there we can generate some principles that can guide us in reproductive genetic engineering," he says.
Liao introduces those principles with four "claims" on the ethics of genetic engineering:
Claim 1: It is not permissible to deliberately create an offspring that will not have all the fundamental capacities
Claim 2: If such an offspring has already been created, it is permissible to bring that offspring to term
Claim 3: It Is Not permissible to eliminate some fundamental capacity from an existing offspring
Claim 4: If it is possible to correct some lack of fundamental capacity—without undue burdens on parents or society—it may be impermissible not to do so
Liao's four claims neglect the question of superhuman augmentation.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday March 10 2019, @01:22PM (5 children)
My petri dish, my choice.
Stopping genetic experimentation will be impossible. And it's unethical to deny people their right to create offspring, even if they do it by themselves (no bumping uglies or partner of any kind needed), in the lab.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by RandomFactor on Sunday March 10 2019, @03:17PM (4 children)
Are mindless clones that may have their organs harvested later considered offspring? Asking for a friend.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 5, Funny) by takyon on Sunday March 10 2019, @03:29PM
What you do in your basement is between you, your God, and the NSA.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Sunday March 10 2019, @09:05PM (2 children)
Everyone seems fixated on the idea that clones used for organ harvesting should be mindless.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday March 10 2019, @10:56PM (1 child)
If they aren't mindless they may escape from Takyon's basement, and then third parties beyond God and the NSA would end up sticking their noses in.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 11 2019, @04:09PM
"The Island" (I think that was the name of the movie) was a really fun movie, based on that concept.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @01:26PM (2 children)
Give them a mouse to love, nutraloaf as food, contaminated water to drink, and polluted air to breath.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 10 2019, @02:28PM (1 child)
That right to love seems pretty damned preposterous. What about incels? Are they going to file a class action suit against all of the women who don't want to fall into bed with them? FFS, that's just insane.
Right to love - that means what, exactly? I'm somebody's baby, after all. That means I have the right to sit/lay on my lazy ass, and expect that someone should love me enough to feed me, water me, screw me, bathe me - and whatever else this "love" might entail?
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @08:29PM
He could have went with "peruse happiness/love"... But we all know how that turned out to be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @02:03PM (3 children)
making a baby is pretty simple .. as we can see in 5 billion babies alive today and maybe just as much that have lived and died
since climbing down from the tree.
the problem is: making a super baby is not easy. it is also not cheap. and herein lies the rub.
ofc the chinese mentality and ethics is different then western.
human rights and equality is a western philosophy trait. not so in chinese and their sphere of influence: if you have (lots) money this fact PROOFS that you are superior, thus it is permissible to use it to improve your and your offsprings life ... even if it clashes with human rights?
anyways, put it simple: naturally made babies are free or very cloes to it. technically engineered Super babies ... well ... uhm ..errr ... not so much ^_^
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bot on Sunday March 10 2019, @02:35PM (1 child)
> human rights and equality is a western philosophy trait
Hehehe I notice propaganda worked well.
Those came out after the industrial revolution, which in hindsight is the shittiest thing happened to our planet ever. Luddites were right, but their prophecies took too long to materialize. People 400 years ago would not put up with what we are putting up with (what do you mean I can't get water from the well but I must pay somebody? what do you mean my bees die because of what you use to poison your field? what do you mean you want more than 1/10 of my income, and what do you mean I must pay with those colored pieces of paper instead of my surplus goods? what do you mean i cannot go around armed? what do you mean I need a permit to build a house in my own land?)
human rights = entirely sidestepping the hypothetical authority of the hypothetical god
equality = control over everybody's wealth
social democracy = we don't bother with small fish but try getting big, either you get assimilated or you get destroyed
Now, I too believe in those human rights (with the exception that I consider equality a compromise for the situations where Justice can't be enforced.
Account abandoned.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @09:43PM
People 400 years ago would, however, put up with digging the land 12 hours a day rain or shine and would put up with going hungry for a few days and would put up with a few dead kids. Ah yes, proof by good ol' days.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday March 10 2019, @03:28PM
Unfortunately(?), the "expensive" card might not last forever. People can use CRISPR pretty cheaply. There are problems such as off-target mutations that might not be solved, and implanting an embryo in a female womb poses potential surgical risks and adds related costs that would keep in in the range of tens of thousands of dollars, or $100k+. But you could see fully synthetic embryos being produced from scratch instead, with incubation done in an artificial womb. It may even be possible to link two such machines together to reduce the contamination risk while transferring the embryo. With no patient acting as a surrogate, you can do a lot more "trial and error" until you get the process done right.
There are communities of people devoted to doing chemistry and biology at home, on the cheap. Get some of them interested in these technologies, and you could see costs come way down.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @02:18PM (4 children)
In a super competitive society, an IQ under 111 could be defined as lacking. Now add in that your children will be competing with robots. The responsible parent is going to crank that IQ way past 11 as soon as the means are available.
Captcha GATTACA
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Sunday March 10 2019, @02:39PM (3 children)
Sure, when attacked by a tiger you don't need to outrun the tiger. You only need to outrun your friend. But this particular tiger never stops being hungry. Today you need to work hard and get indebted for schooling. Tomorrow you will need stellar IQ. The day after you will need neural implants and always on connection. Afterwards you will need to worship satan or something. Afterwards you will need to sell your body. Afterwards you will need to sell your children. Afterwards you will need to sell your soul.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @03:10PM (2 children)
which lead us to the kind of non-diversity discussed here https://fs.blog/2019/03/stormtrooper-problem/ [fs.blog] as the Stormtrooper Problem:
Diversity is how we survive as a species. This is a quantifiable fact easily observed in the biological world. From niches to natural selection,
diversity is the common theme of success for both the individual and the group. ... Without variation, selection cannot improve the lot of the higher-level group.
++ for getting at the core 'of the problem of the rich (who value conformity over diversity)'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @03:44PM (1 child)
Good article. It explains why we have to kill off the mutants.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday March 11 2019, @10:11AM
Meatbags. It's spelled meatbags.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @02:29PM (2 children)
The type of thinking we all know from atom bomb research: If we will not do it, the other side of the conflict will.
And definition of these "fundamental conditions" is quite funny when we think that simultaneously we build society which literally prevents many of these conditions to some groups of naturally-bred humans who just have genes determining some appearance aspects not as in advertisements.
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Sunday March 10 2019, @03:33PM (1 child)
Good to know that we have a built-in circumvention for meddlesome "ethics".
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @09:51PM
Yep it's like decommissioning nuclear reactors. If it's in our country it's a careful process that takes years. If it's in Iraq, all that's required is two unguided Mark-84 2,000-pound delay-action bombs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera#The_attack [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @03:04PM (1 child)
> In a surprising twist, in April 2017 scientists discovered that octopuses, along with some squid and cuttlefish species, routinely edit their RNA (ribonucleic acid) sequences to adapt to their environment.
https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-octopus-and-squid-evolution-is-weirder-than-we-could-have-ever-imagined [sciencealert.com]
so there, precedent from before we ever learned to weaponize rhetorical questions, from a species likely to be more intelligent than the person behind this rent-seeking headline.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Sunday March 10 2019, @03:59PM
If you quoted that correctly, you need to be aware that for octopi the hereditary molecules are DNA, not RNA. Some viruses use RNA as their hereditary molecule, but I'm not aware of any eukaryote that does so.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10 2019, @07:36PM (1 child)
Photosynthesis would be great. We could even use the new optimized form that was recently invented and proven effective in tobacco.
Of course, greens will be a new race, and they will need light exposure. It's racist to make them put on clothing.
(Score: 1) by r_a_trip on Monday March 11 2019, @03:35PM
Just engineer severe photosensitivity into the skin on the genital area and they'll wear loin cloths "voluntarily". As a bonus, they will make love in the dark as God intended.