Imagine affordable STD test kits adjacent to the pregnancy testers on the shelves of your local store.
The prostitution story looks a lot different if every encounter can realistically incorporate a predicated broad-spectrum STD test of both parties.
Edit: Usual dating would be a lot less risky as well. Has it become standard practice for couples to both get tested before becoming intimate yet?
No, i'm not bullshitting you.
The Broad Institute is sitting on radically superior IP, including the US patent on CRISPR Cas9 and global control of CRISPR Cpf1, which MPEG LA does not have any access to or control over. MPEG LA also doesn't have any rights to Sherlock.
Nearly all global rights to all forms of CRISPR are controlled by Berkeley, Vienna and the Broad Institute (with some smaller IP held by a few universities, and some corporations like Editas, Intellia, CRISPR Therapeutics, etc). MPEG LA has essentailly zero power over CRISPR, they own zero patents on CRISPR, they're trying to skim money by being a deal connector of the Berkeley & Vienna patents.
Keep CRISPR-Cas9 out of MPEG-LA. Y'all have been warned. Form a pool using defensive patent licenses, do whatever it takes if you really want to reduce "transaction costs", but do it without that community.
Source: I'm on the intellectual propety working group. The only other active member is MPEG-LA. Send help immediately.
For an overview of the GP-write project, see the following:
1) Science article: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bio/The%20human%20genome%20p...
2) timeline: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bio/Synthetic%20human%20geno...
3) fact sheet: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bio/HGP-write-Fact-Sheet.pdf
Really I'd like to somehow get EFF to ride to my rescue but I've sort of got myself into this mess on my own so it's not really on them. EFF doesn't focus on biological freedom issues like these, anyway. At least not yet.
[1] For example, in a few years you won't hear anything about the gene editing any longer since that was never going to work (it is too toxic by its very nature of causing DSBs). These other uses may or may not be OK, I haven't looked into it.
If you could build a whitelist of known benign strains of bacteria and viruses, and then create a device that tests your urine and dings whenever it detects things that are (positive match) bacterial antibodies or viral capsids, but that aren't (negative match) in its whitelist, that seems like it'd do a lot to help people.
Everything else is perfectly treatable, no?
I'm no expert but IIRC that's not possible with any test right now.
The ideal would be a rapid 'fever' panel that tests for all the viruses we currently pay a ton of money for. This sort of test could pick up early-stage HIV which, if symptomatic, don't feel much different from a cold/flu.
[1] - https://www.aafp.org/afp/2014/0215/afp20140215p265-f1.gif
Disease spread is such a drop-in-the-bucket among the (moral, ethical, personal, societal) issues surrounding prostitution that I have a hard time understanding how this news changes the story.
It's great news; but prostitution is an issue that deserves a lot of time and discussion -- and likely the solutions will be social, not technological.
When men and women have some kind of parity where women are not routinely considering their bottom line when deciding how much crap to take in an unhappy relationship, then you can talk to me about the immorality of prostitution. Until then, wow, what a way to put on blinders as to how the vast majority of relationships work.
This is a dirty tactic. It is not good faith engagement.
I'm a woman who has a strict no dating policy, by which I mean that I don't establish romantic relationships based on some man spending money on me. I am entirely satisfied with the positive impact that policy has had on my life.
From what I have read and heard over the years, no, most women don't have sex with their husband because they like him. There are relationships like that, certainly. But the financial factor pretty clearly poisons quite a lot of relationships.
I often think this should be the foundational argument as to why men should be more invested in helping make gender parity happen. If you are a well paid man and tired of feeling like women only date you for your money, fostering a world in which women have money of their own on pat with men is the single best antidote to your dating problem.
As just one supporting citation, this article talks about the fact that pro athletes frequently marry their high school sweetheart because you can't trust that women who met you after you struck it rich really like you. They may just be there for the money. (The article does not use those exact words, but that is the gist of it.)
https://www.si.com/vault/2009/03/23/105789480/how-and-why-at...
There are also rap song lyrics about how poor men from the hood can't get a date, but once they strike it rich "it's a puss buffet."
I have read articles where, for example, a guy lost his job and his wife quit having sex with him. He stated that he learned his paycheck was the most attractive thing about him. A friend of a friend lost his well paid job and his wife left him because "it wasn't any fun anymore."
The term gold digging whore is a gendered term. It exists because men typically make a lot more than women and a lot of women are primarily interested in finding someone to pay their bills. This is compounded by the difficulties women face in pursuing serious careers of their own.
While I was homeless, no one wanted to open doors for me career wise. But lots of men wanted to offer me money or a place to stay if I would sleep with them.
In my experience, this problem runs shockingly deep. If your romantic relationships are unaffected by it, count yourself lucky.
It's not a dirty tactic, it's an analogy meant to snap the reader out of reductive thinking. It's easy to throw out these kind of generalizations when you reduce people to animals, but when you're forced to consider individuals from a human perspective (like in the case of your own mother) suddenly there is a wave of humanizing rationalizations to explain why characterizing marriage as glorified prostitution doesn't really apply in grandma's case.
> most women don't have sex with their husband because they like him
Neither one of us can prove what is in the head of most women when they get into bed with their husbands, but it seems absurd to generally ascribe a financial motivation for married sex-life. Women like sex too, some more than others, it doesn't make a woman a whore if she also enjoys financial support (and you know, all the other qualities that people care about in lasting relationships.
> If you are a well paid man and tired of feeling like women only date you for your money, fostering a world in which women have money of their own on pat with men is the single best antidote to your dating problem
This simply isn't a problem for the vast majority of people. Most eligible bachelors do not make enough money to such an effect where they have to be worried about goldiggers beyond the normal common-sense signs.
> As just one supporting citation, this article talks about the fact that pro athletes frequently marry their high school sweetheart because you can't trust that women who met you after you struck it rich really like you
Individuals with multimillion dollar salaries are clear outliers that have to contend with the impact of their wealth in every personal relationship, trying to generalize that example to the general population doesn't make sense.
> There are also rap song lyrics about how poor men from the hood can't get a date, but once they strike it rich "it's a puss buffet."
Once again, if you become rich and famous you are an outlier that is pointless to apply as a general rule. Also, as someone from the hood, where almost every individual is poor, I promise you that there are LOTS of dates and LOTS of sex, even for broke guys, the most common distinction between guys getting dates and those who are not is confidence, looks, and a sense of humor.
> a guy lost his job and his wife quit having sex with him
Yeah... nobody is saying that doesn't happen, but that is obviously not a common occurrence as any married man who has been unemployed can attest to.
> While I was homeless, no one wanted to open doors for me career wise. But lots of men wanted to offer me money or a place to stay if I would sleep with them.
The fact that men have solicited you has means nothing with regard to the nature of sex within marriage.
Thoughtful conversation works better on a peer basis anyhow, not when one party presumes higher consciousness than the other.
That is simply a matter of perspective and implementation. There are many countries and areas where prostitution is legalised (an sometimes even unionised), and evidence shows that on the whole, the majority of problems associated with prostitution are caused by prohibition.
This topic reminds of an excellent and relevant Mitch Hedberg skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8pvD0TaO3Y