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Comment by im3w1l | Hacker News Reader

So uhm, can/should we start cutting these proviruses(?) out of our genomes? Unintended consequences?

We can't (currently) cut them out because there's too many cells and they're brain cells. But if we could make complementary RNA, that could potentially neutralize them.

A gene-editing inquisition against anything viral could definitely go too far. For example, we already know of syncytin [0], a protein essential for normal reproduction (placental formation) which is encoded by an ancient proviral genes.

Let's imagine some antiviral inquisitors who are either ignorant of that fact, or else operate in a world where there are very similar genes that haven't been discovered.

If they were editing gametes/embryos, they'd probably discover the problem quite quickly, and either make an exception or abandon their work.

However if they were enacting some kind of retroviral edit on adults (which would be kinda-hypocritical) then things might look fine for a little bit... until someone realizes that there are no more babies anymore and the population is going to go extinct without a fix.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncytin-1

Definitely not. Current estimates put viral DNA at about 8% of the human genome.

Would it be possible to consider them separately though? Like maybe it will turn out that say 10% of them are beneficial, 65% of them are neutral (either they do nothing at all or a mixture of benefit and harm), and 25% are slightly bad for us (can't be too harmful or we would have already known ig).

Delivering gene therapies into brain cells is a non-trivial task. Also, there's alternatives to cutting the original sequence out; you can also dampen the transcribed RNA with downstream therapies.

I thought this was more of a 'designer babies' suggestion than a 'mess with the source code after it's finished compiling' one.

'Bad' is notoriously hard to figure out. It might be good for the group to have a few people with major psychiatric disorders even if it's not ideal for that individual or the people who have to directly interact with them.

I love humans, we discover a new interesting thing, think we're big boys who understand everything there is to understand and that we can shape things to our will with no adverse consequences

That's how we got asbestos in walls, lead in gas/paint, freon, pfas, &c. The same story over and over and over again. But sure go ahead and start slicing our dna, what could possibly go wrong?

Of course there are risks. The question is how big the risk is, and how well we can mitigate it.

And antibiotics, computers, fertilizer, electricity, cars, stem cells, etc

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying throw caution to the wind, but ludditism also isn't the answer.

> And antibiotics, computers, fertilizer, electricity, cars, stem cells, etc

What did it bring ? At what cost ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

The Holocene extinction was started when pointed sticks were state of the art and we ate most megafauna to extinction. It would be more the Anthropocene to blame if anything. Blaming high technology is thus rather anachronistic.

Personally I'm of the opinion that the world was already on fire as it were, what with the mass extinctions caused when we became an invasive species out of Africa. If we were still stuck in the stone age like our predecessors we would still be an ongoing mass-extinction. There is some hope to eventually not be an ongoing mass extinction but that would require some combination of even better technology and the right priorities.

That's also how we got fire, stone tools, agriculture, microprocessors, vitamins, hospitals that were more than just places to go die... and the very computer network you're using to post.

Did you have a point?

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