Are there any solid rational reasons to be against designer babies?

Without a greater understanding of genetics, isn't it possible we'd fuck up our future generations' genes trying to play russian roulette with them?

It'll create an even larger rift between classes. Face it, you and me aren't going to be able to afford it while the rich are. It'll be a class of huge 7' geniuses with perfect senses running the whole country while the pleb manlets just toil away.

Nope. You have to understand it is a statistical method. For instance:

There are 8 embryos.
2 test positive for cystic fibrosis
They are discarded and the remaining 6 are used.

In this situation. Is the chance of a good child improved or reduced?

Of course, one of those 6 could have a crazy genetic disease we don't know about yet. But, statistically, we are much better off after eliminating known genetic disease chances.

So the chance of a both carrier couple will go from 25% chance of Cystic Fibrosis , to a normal level of chance of genetic disease.

In any case, the scientific methodology assures we reduce the chance of problems.

There will always be a rift. No reason to worry about its size for the sake of the chaff of society.

I find it amusing these kinds of protesters always have nice slogans but no arguments. Just yelling but no content. Muh feelies.

>the chaff of society.
You mean 99% of people?

Yeah

Would you rather be a peasant in the medieval times or someone in poverty in modern Europe?

Also the current costs are not that extreme. PGD+IVF probably already crossed the cost effective mark in general use. Meaning a society that did PGD+IVF would be saving money in the long run.

Will the 1% pass laws that stop babies from being able to be brought in from other countries?

America immigration is going to just ban any foreign born american baby?

Yeah, just go ahead and ban it domestically to "protect the 99%" by making it multiple times more expensive.

The year is 2025
Genetic enhancement is illegal in America
A 4 year old gifted girl is believed to have been the result of a designer baby clinic from South East Asia.

Now, what is America in 2025 going to do about an "illegally created" cute and smart 4 year old girl with American parents?

Deport her?
Allow her to stay and out-compete normies?

top fucking kek if anyone actually thinks this will be illegal.

Are designer babies limited to changing eye and hair colors and getting rid of some diseases ?

>30" cocks in your lifetime

Not really. The people against it are generally only able to say that it's eugenics, which is bad because the Nazis did it (nevermind the difference between positive and negative eugenics).

Popular vs superior
=
Fashion vs function

We are several decades away from doing any significant "enhancement" anyway, so I wouldn't worry. For now it's some simple disease prevention tops.

Wrong.

We are exponentially increasing in capacity to predict phenotype based on genetics.

Dude Gattaca was awesome

Can someone simply sum up the procedure og how these genes are edited and why does it cost so much ?

You are just vomiting out stuff.

Popular vs superior
cans vs glass

Lay out an actual example. Is there some gene you know of that makes someone more attractive but also stupid?

There is no service right now so all prices are speculative on gene editing/synthesizing.

PGD with IVF is around ~$15,000 a round and currently offered services are mainly genetic disease screening and gender selection. Although intelligence selection is currently possible in theory there has been no report of it being done, yet..

Not him, but I tough about peafowl's tail when I saw his comment, beautiful but useless .

genetic disease correction = sweet... everyone wins

artificially selecting for the 'best' genotypes = clone wars extinction 2100

they pour little scissor-men into your body that are instructed to only cut matching sequence markers, they never make mistakes, very reliable!

"clone wars extinction 2100"

Excellent argument. Very amazing of you to base your perception of things off low IQ aimed Hollywood movies.

I think the jury is out on that. From the quick searches I did on the subject, I couldn't find anything saying the tail hurt survival or made the peacock stupid.

>hurr durr why is it bad to play god???

Tell us.

>play god
>god exists

I think God could send a prophet or smite people if if he didn't want it.

Not sure why he needs maggots to interpret his mind through an old shitty book with tons of inconsistencies.

What is more "playing god"

- Imagining you know what it wants.
- Doing some shit to try to help make people healthier and happier.

>useless
you must be trolling

>what is a metaphor

You might want to stop taking everything literally

I don't know if this counts as an "ethical" reason per se, but I think it's worth being against the idea just for the sake of preventing an endless race to the bottom. Consider American school admissions. You won't find a lot of people extolling the virtues of a system where students are forced to start preparing for college in middle school, or one where a student's future depends largely on their score on one standardized test. But think about it from an individual parent's perspective: if you want your kid to get into college, this is really the only game in town. Furthermore, you can only help your kid's chances by starting college prep even earlier and even more intensely. But if everyone thinks this way, then the goalposts shift and what used to be considered excessive becomes the new bare minimum. Now imagine if parents could tweak their babies. Sure, objectively you might not want your kid to be a 200IQ savant whose only desire is to study for 16 hours a day, but if you know if you don't chose those specs, then your kid will be outcompeted by the kids of the parents who didn't have your same moral qualms. This reasoning doesn't just apply to college admissions of course. One could argue that the reason that regulations exist at all is not because they are "ethical" but rather because they are the only way that humans have so far discovered to mitigate these pointless arms races. So maybe designer babies are "good" or maybe they're "bad", but either way it's very likely that the mass proliferation of the technology in the absence of thoughtful and well-enforced regulations would lead to a gigantic prisoner's dilemma that leaves everyone worse off.

*tips fedora*

>I couldn't find anything saying the tail hurt survival
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection#Modern_interpretation

Great answer

CRISPRCAS-9 is meant to be used for everyone. They have plans to make it cheaper like a blood test. The intention was to genetically engineering teh human race not just a select few. Its not for babies as well. It was designed for adults. The designer baby was teh commercial product of the gene editing tool. They want to edit out adult junk genes that will wreak havoc in their later years. Let's face it we all have some time marker for inevitable disease or disorder. They want to eliminate these flaws. Right now babies are easy to edit but at the moment there is a clinical trail going on in China to test it on adults with cancer.

Flawed logic.

1. Your premise of studying 16 hours a day for advantage is false. Long work hours result in less productivity. The brain requires rest to properly learn. The reason some cultures like Korea have insane work hours and long study hours has more to do with unscientific social pressures.

2. You also assume that intelligent people are only interested in studying.

There are already cultures and societies with insane work hours and insane study pressure. They don't actually gain anything from these practices and actually lose from them. In both physical activity and mental activity, over-training leads to negative results.

hbr.org/2015/08/the-research-is-clear-long-hours-backfire-for-people-and-for-companies

etc

It is far more likely that a more intelligent society would have to work less.

Basically, your argument is based on false premises.

continued:

Also you lack the understanding of a few key factors.

- Most estimates predict that a 10-15% cognitive increase society wide would increase total GDP by 6x.

Basically, black people in America are better off than black people in Nigeria. Why? Despite being at the bottom of the economic ladder, they enjoy the benefits of living in a more intelligent overall society.

Yes, it might be more competitive to be a genius. But the society you are in improves dramatically in all aspects.

You are basically completely wrong in your perception of what the results of a more intelligent society would be.

Also

Relativity. In today's world we have a wide range of genetic intelligences and economic situations.

The competition you envision already exists. We are not all equal now, we exist on a pretty normal bell curve. That bell curve's general shape would stay pretty much the same with the advent of positive eugenics.

The only thing is we would be improving overall. Meaning better research, better technology, better decision making, and better problem solving.

Those 150 IQ average people could come up with far better solutions to prisoner's dilemma and ensuring happiness and time off than we can now.

Most of the basis for your views is actually entirely stupid at heart and based on faulty assumptions.

It's similar to the "But then there would be a rich class and inequality would abound" arguments. Those people and you should realize inequality and competition is happening now.

Think you missed the main thrust of his argument, deciding to declare it entirely "false" based on nothing more than an adjunctive postulate.

Well done, retard.

His argument is shit.

It's a race to the top. We can look at current societies and nations to get an idea for what differences in genetics and IQ result in.

No one is trying to immigrate to Nigeria because there is less school pressures.

When answering questions of applying technologies in the future most people seem to forget that they don't appear isolated from other technological improvements.
Augmentation is also in the play. We're already in it being equipped with a pc enhancing our individual processing power. In the case of the internet this even has a homegenizing effect. A solution a smart person might have come up with can be applied by a less gifted person almost as quick as if it would have been his on thought.

I think sophisticated cultivation and decision making are the bigger questions. A harmonically functioning society with low individual iq's might be able to outcompete a smarter one that lost its connection to the wilderness and therefore is trapped in some kind of organic chaos.

Also the whole "smart = study 16 hours a day, no life"

And by the same stereotype, stupid means doing meth and shitting out 4 kids you can't take care of.

It's not like 130 IQ people are devoid of any life and happiness. Pretty much every study shows the opposite.

But muh stereotypes, enhanced intelligence must be equivalent to 16 hours per day worker drones with no personality.

>that lost its connection to the wilderness
>just google the answer

Nothing paradox about it.

It was retarded

>trapped in some kind of organic chaos

You're just making up buzzword salad.

Also having access to google doesn't stop people from being fucking idiots.

Now you come up with completely different points.
First you saw a paradox where there is none:
>you can't save the trees when using technology, duh
And now you start name calling.

The main point of his argument was that designer babies would result in some kind of biological arms race (he used a poor example of high IQ and excessive work hours, but the point still stands, I think).

Besides, intelligence is only a small factor. It's entirely reasonable that you may be able to produce not only more intelligent humans, but ones with better motivation (and therefore harder-working), and better looking, to name a couple. You could list many, many factors from as trivial and common-sense as eradicating disabilities to as radical and drastic as Ubermensh.

He made the point of this being game theoretic, and I completely agree. From a point of self-interest, why wouldn't you want your child to be the best it possibly can be? Is it not cruel to give them anything other than they best when the competition will be so high?

He also alluded to social pressures; I would add that it's also reasonable to anticipate some kind of caste system developing, if not everyone is on board with designer babies (or some people can't afford it).

In short, I think he's right and you're giving too much attention to an auxiliary postulate, rather than addressing the main argument he's making.

In a world without natural selection but pure artificial selection?

Is not an option, but rather necesary.

The arm's race portion is natural. It's evolution++.

It's natural that it creates competition and even in some cases, risky advancement.

That is how evolution works. None of these are bad things.

>designer babies
>that is how evolution works
>it's natural

Are you joking?

Humans are animals last I checked.

The key component of nature is survival.

We should be funneling that money into improving people already alive.

I want to crush genetically engineered skulls with my mighty robo legs desu

Nature, in the broadest sense, is the natural, physical, or material world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general.

Most often the term nature is being used as a substitute for wilderness. Maybe that's why you're confused.

I'm not confused. Both are you are implying that natural selection = eugenics. I think you're the confused ones.

Have you read "A Brave New World"?

The problem with designer babies is the potential for governments to misuse the technology to create the opposite of the perfect baby. Imagine, a whole race of underling humans genetically designed to do grunt work. Or a military consisting of people designed just for fighting. It's the same with cloning, the "ethical" argument isn't about consent, it's about the caste system issue.

>Evolution works by people manipulating genes
You're thinking of the caste system the wrong way. The technology will inevitably be used to create worse specimens, not better ones.

>A class of people who are stupid and easily manipulated into voting for a specific political party
>A class of people created for medical testing
I could go on

Yes,
1) our understanding of genetics is still fairly basic. Often when multiple genes work together they produce certain effects and the mechanism for those effects aren't really understood (see any study that involves polygenic scores such as the one those /pol/ morons keep reposting about EduYears). In suppressing certain genes we may accidentally be suppressing some desirable characteristic and vice versa.
2) Humans select for retarded shit based on cultural beliefs rather than stuff that's objectively better and healthier. It is very unlikely that these techniques will boost our performance in our environment and far more likely that they will be detrimental.

It's a natural outcome.

The various types of competition between countries and within societies will put a natural impetus for this type of eugenics.

Whether it is fear of having an ugly, unhealthy child or wanting it to be successful. On a macro level countries will not want to fall behind.

Because the natural order of life still exists in humans. Which is that survival is important, and survival is mainly about being competitive.

1. Worked pretty well in agriculture. Also the most immediate step is eliminating known very negative genetic disease. We still haven't eliminated things like cystic fibrosis.

2. I see no evidence for this.

>Worked pretty well in agriculture
If you're talking about selection then that's entirely different. There you're passing over large portions of the genome and destroying the descendants that don't produce the characteristic you're interested (after the fact). You're also observing new previously unheard of characteristics and selecting those.
If you're talking about GMO's that's different as well. Here one only introduces a couple genetic markers that are known to produce certain proteins and are hypothesized to create a certain effect. You aren't even looking at complicated polygenic characteristics like intelligence.
It is important to remember that genes produce proteins, they don't produce characteristics. You don't have a gene for X, you only have genes that produce proteins that are involved in the mechanism of X as well as the mechanisms of countless other things.
2) You are literally retarded. Go ask any other board what they think a genetically modified ubermensch should have. Try /pol/, /r9k/, Veeky Forums, and /b/. For some obvious examples.

youtube.com/watch?v=cIoJRXm9tdA

Just let us try to keep the balance.

You just want to reap the benefits for yourself by focusing on the current generation rather than future ones.

Anyway
Eugenics seems a pretty good option to me. As we allow almost every kind of human to live with the help of modern medication, our gene pool is diversifying quickly. We're bound to have more and more humans that are unable to function in our society, or just have to otherwise live with constant pain etc. because of bad genetic mutations. To combat this we should either make sure that defect human beings don't reproduce, or we could alter the bad genes and let everyone have a family. Latter could be used to quickly eradicate all genetic diseases and more.

We just really need to make sure the genes we alter don't end up destroying something important. That's where the main problem is. Until we completely understand every part of our genome I think we should stick to just eradicating diseases on the larger scale.

It's only sensible with regards to well understood genetic disorders (probably a highly regulated list with a number of qualifying criteria for each genetic disorder on the list). Unfortunately as soon as the topic comes up you'll have retards on both sides assuming that you want to use eugenics for poorly understood social issues.

Altering genes is a more complicated issue because as described above, problems often don't necessarily arise from individual genes/mutations. That is they often arise from polygenes. Personally I don't think this is a good approach currently.

There is another unmentioned danger to these "solutions". That is that by restricting evolution in this blanket way we may accidentally end up missing out on some evolutionary breakthroughs. Like it could be that there's a 1/1,000,000 chance that a person who has a certain genetic mutation also has another genetic mutation that not only fixes the problem but actually has other wildly beneficial effects (i.e. it may actually play part in a beneficial polygenic characteristic).

They won't be much different from a class of today's handsome and healthy people. Even if their faculties of knowledge are improved it won't change that they'll be taught in a factory model school and raised by non-modified parents (who will most likely treat them improperly).

>handsome
>genetically optimal
[citation needed]

Genetically designed humans for intelligence AND personality would be a great future. Having today's 150+ IQ along with being genetically predisposed to being good with teamwork and overall wanting to help society. Would be a utopia desu.

>Doing some shit to try to help make wealthy people healthier and happier
ftfy

>>handsome
>>genetically optimal
People who genetically alter their children will most likely make their children more handsome, because handsome people reproduce more that non-handsome people which is optimal in their eyes because they are vain and wish to continue their line.

Depends.
How advanced are these babies gonna be?
Immortals? Disease free?
What are you designing? How long is the design meant for?
Will you breed the baby for cognitive power?
Will you make it so he is empathetic?
Will you make him so that he cannot cry but can express pain?
Would you rather a robot?

>I won't actually elaborate in depth on either of them.
this is how you know OP is just trolling

Why would you ellaborate on those points if they are contradicting each other?

crispr is cool as fuck
china gets on our level

Have you ever been to a primarily Hispanic, run-down city. Handsome people don't reproduce more because they are found attractive by more mates, dipshits do because they can't understand how not to get pregnant everyday or are trying to get measly checks for child support

That shows cost to sequence, not rate of annotation- which is what you were trying to suggest. Linking those reads to functionality is still trailing far behind. Most of what is already annotated is very conserved throughout species (between us and common model organisms)- mostly essential metabolic pathways components and developmental factors. Of course this is still good for disease prevention, but that day of the über baby master race is still a ways away

ITT: Reminder that people for some reason still think that evolution is a never-ending path to improvement and don't realize it doesn't work when the desired traits don't affect reproductive fitness

thats just the point you want to argue against

The tech isn't good enough right now. CRISPR experiments on human embryos do not work very well right now.
newscientist.com/article/2083833-second-crispr-human-embryo-study-shows-there-is-a-long-way-to-go/

It's so bad that Chinese researchers are coming out against designer babies until the tech improves. The Chinese aren't limited by ethics.

>please no ethical arguments in this ethical argument

>having a society with healthier and more-capable people is a "race to the bottom"
>geniuses have to study for 16 hours a day in order to be productive

Good reasoning. This is what I've come to expect from a flat earther board.

How broad should I take "designing"? Are we talking about giving your kid a 10 inch dick or just making sure he has no serious genetic illness or the like?

>strawmanning that hard

GATTACA

Not that user, but your post was fucking retarded.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_bottom

>>geniuses have to study for 16 hours a day in order to be productive
Learn to read, moron

Are none of you faggots old enough to have seen Gattaca?

But here is the catch mr. goodpoint: why?

>released in 1997
>thinks you need to be "old enough to have seen it"
fuck off summerchild

Because you can't blame the luck if something fucks up?

the question is why would you care?
>i-if my baby is healthy it'll be happy!
>i-if my baby is smart and strong it'll be happy, I-I promise!

desu if you want the best for your child you should never let it be born

>Are there any solid rational reasons to be against designer babies?
>"ETHICS" buzzwords arguments about consent do not count.
If we cant talk about ethics, I'm not entirely sure what argument there is left. It is entirely an ethical question.

rational reasons:
it is not cheap
the outcome might be bad (borderline ethical reasoning, dont kill me OP)

OP is a faggot

>Your argument is flawed if P or Q are true.
>hurr but P and Q can't be true at the same time.
Fuck off retard. Learn proper formal logic or gtfo.