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Comment by binarymax | Hacker News Reader

"You want to give your child the very best start...Keep in mind this child is still you, simply the best of you." - Gattaca

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Yep. And what's so bad about that?

You should probably watch Gattaca - the answer to your question is pretty much the whole point of that film. Or if you don't want to watch, at least to read the first two paragraphs of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca.

Watching Gattaca is very recommended to everyone.

It raises many important questions on how to properly and ethically handle genetic improvements in society, but in my opinion it doesn't at all say that the genetic improvements shouldn't be done, it simply warns about the social, political and legal issues that the society should discuss and solve alongside with the actual biological/engineering challenges.

So, I was 15 when Gattaca came out. 15 year old me was very much "Look at the protagonist succeed against all odds! Take that cold science!".

30 year old me is much more pragmatic. The world is changing very quickly, and even though I'm still somewhat young, I know things will get harder for me as I get older (I work in the tech sector; "The Benevolent Treadmill"). I have a wife, and soon kids on the way. I need to be able to get more done in the day, concentrate more, remember more, and continue to constantly learn while competing against kids half my age.

30 year old me would select the best traits for my child(ren) in a heartbeat. I want better for them than I had, as all parents do.

You're right, we need the best from among us to build the brave new world.

Brave new world castes where created by inducing birth defects, not avoiding them

Thinking that the genotype adds value to a person's existence. If this is good, then eugenics is good as well, or at least 'not that bad.'

A better genotype does add value to a person's existence - For example, all other things being equal, a healthy person both individually feels better and is better for society than the 'same' person with a genetic defect that causes a horrible death in his/her childhood. If we can fix that, then it's a noble cause. If a genotype doesn't add value to existence, then it can't be called a "better genotype", then it's simply a different genotype.

And, by the way, "If X, then eugenics is not that bad' is in no way an acceptable argument against or for X; it's worse than irrelevant.

No, that is what I contend: a better genotype makes no sense because there is no such thing as a "better" person from the physical standpoint. That is what I contend and that is why I take the natural conclusion: if you can "choose" between people based on their genotype, then you are treating them as 'things', not as 'people'.

Which is what leads to eugenics, for example, with people with Down syndrome. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21555947).

"It is worse than irrelevant," I do not know why: I assumed the Parent was against eugenics, that is why I tried to make him realize it.

My personal moral opinion is that it would be extremely good if there was some way to make the kids/embryos with Down syndrome be cured, preferably before birth (because earlier in development there are less irreversible changes).

And if we had such a cure (as far as I know, we currently don't and won't for quite some time), then not applying it wouldn't be okay - not using that cure would be pure evil, and comparable to torture or, say, forcibly denying someone their eyesight or hearing or limb.

I now realize I have made myself not as clear as I supposed, sorry.

I wanted to refer only to "designing" children and/or "choosing them", not to, for example, a cure for Down's syndrome (assuming there could be one): what we have achieved with prenatal diagnosis is -in this case-, I reckon you will agree with me on this, is equivalent to eugenics.

I do not think medical interventions (apart from say quarantines for contagious diseases etc) should be compulsory: illness and its acceptance is part and an important one of our lives. Suffering is unavoidable, and one can lead a very human and happy life in sickness and pain. But this last point is something on which I have not made up my mind clearly yet, certainly.

But torture? It would depend on too many issues to compare not giving a treatment with torture. I might agree in some cases (very easy, very cheap and a "huge" rate of succesa).

But I am digressing. Thanks for your points anyway, this is a thorny and difficult topic.

Our current practical possibilities for many severe genetical defects (many of them less common but much harsher than Down's - say, an expected lifespan measured in weeks) in essence is a choice of (a) suffer or (b) early prenatal detection followed by abortion. Unlike my earlier example (if a cure existed), this is not a nice choice to make, it's rather horrible; but I've had both the opportunity and need to think about it seriously and I wouldn't (couldn't) judge anyone who chose (b) in such situation, although it can be labeled as eugenics.

Thus, I have a deep dislike for reasoning such as "X leads to eugenics, ergo X is bad". Eugenics is a loaded, biased label. Any decision should be judged as okay or evil on its own; and if okay decisions lead to the label eugenics, then it doesn't make them less okay in any way and shouldn't affect the evaluation of that decision.

However, the word 'torture' and denying senses comes from me earlier reading about (hopefully rare) incidents of deaf parents intentionally choosing (via selective artificial insemination) to have kids that will be permanently deaf as well. I don't agree with that and consider it equal to, say, those parents cutting the ears of their infant after birth.

And from that comes the reverse argument - if the procedures become cheap, easy and safe, then in practice 'not-fixing' a damaged gene is almost the same as intentionally damaging a gene; since you could easily have had both options; chose the damaged one; and forced that choice and consequences on the kid. The main difference is choice of action vs choice of non-action, which are psychologically perceived differently; the Trolley problem is the classic example.

Thanks for your detailed reasoning.

Just to clarify: saying something is not OK per se does not mean judging the people who do that as 'bad.'

Theft is not OK per se but who am I to judge the hungry robber, for example?

The deaf people example is another example of dealing with human beings as things (choose one or the other as if both belonged to you. And the other is doomed to die, moreover), which is what puts me against these techniques.

We should definitely talk, this is a cumbersome means of communication.

So you're saying children with severe genetic defects shouldn't be aborted?

You get the idea. That is what I think, definitely.

Is not so good if you are invalid.

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