7 Comments

Like many episodes in regulation, despite the countless benefits of an innovation, it takes only a small number of high profile controversies to subject it to stifling red tape. I have no clue what the right strategy is for genetic enhancement, but it risks the same hurdles that nuclear energy has been facing.

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"I suspect many negative articles will backfire. The natural appeal of having a healthy, smart, and happy child is very strong for many."

I think it's quite plausible that you're right, and that some of those who write such articles will gleefully use the technology (if they are young enough) within a few years of writing such articles! As with Charles Murray's The Bell Curve, they may even succeed in Streisanding the idea of genetic enhancement by making more widely known a technology -- embryo selection for complex traits -- that few people alive right now know anything about.

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Sounds like what happened with substack—lots of journos who tried to bury the platform now blog here!

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Has anyone here done IVF?

It is very difficult. The strain on the body is intense. And of course most people undergoing it today are old, and thus the gains are lower per cycle.

I think the best way to get higher adoption of genetic selection is to find ways to make IVF easier. I admit this is a technical question most people can't directly impact, but if you're a professional specialist or rich donor that is where I would put my effort.

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Nov 25, 2022Liked by Ives Parr

Yes, people need to arrange, engage in, and upload public panels. Venues high and small, just use youtube.

Especially with patients, or potential patients, that is how to win! Anybody can interview a potential PGT-P patient! Or tell their own story!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Ev_ffb-Cw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE5ADe7BgdM&t=1432s

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Nov 27, 2022·edited Nov 27, 2022

>Extreme controversy may be beneficial if it does not result in a ban.

That "if" is crucial. It's obvious that most parents in an unrestricted-eugenics world would do it themselves, because taking everyone else's stance as static it clearly benefits your own offspring to do it (Moloch/Prisoner's Dilemma), but it's not so obvious that they'd prefer a world where it's unrestricted to one where it's restricted.

(I've already made an argument that leaving it unrestricted would be extremely dangerous because the individual, Molochian incentives are to make your child evil - whether or not you realise that's what you're doing. But leaving that aside, there's also the issue that a great many parents, particularly in the 'States, are conservative and dislike "unnatural" things; they might surrender to Moloch on an individual level, but that doesn't mean they'll value being able to access it themselves above *other* people *not* being able to access it when that's on the table.)

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Maybe off-topic but the new CDC data shows that more vaccinated than unvaccinated are dying from Covid. I say that is impossible because how can the unvaccinated still be getting infected by a three year old virus that should be extinct by now. it does make sense that the vaccinated are generating new variants and infecting themselves and each other. But this shit have nothing to do with the unvaccinated who are naturally immune to Covid in the first place. if viruses were around forever we’d all be dead by now.

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