Gattaca is here now.
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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Well, in the same way that Mars colonies are here now. Techbros with more money than sense throwing it at things with futuristic aesthetics doesn’t make them real.
Huh? It's already here in use today... They can already test an embryo for generic defects.
It is still in it's infancy, but the technology is here. Where decode more of human DNA every day
Actual intelligence testing may not ever be possible. But in general this is going to happen.
Testing for genetic defects is very different from the Gattaca-premise of most everything about a person being genetically deterministic, with society ordered around that notion. My point was that such a setting is likely inherently impossible, since “heritability” doesn’t work like that; the most techbros can do is LARP at it, which, granted, can be very dangerous on its own – the fact that race is a social construct doesn’t preclude racism and so on. But there’s no need to get frightened by science fiction when science facts tell a different story.
I actually read a Red Dwarf fanfic about this once where Rimmer's parents had paid for embryo selection to make sure all their kids had high IQs and good genes because they wanted to make sure they all got into the Space Corps
Good luck having an embryo pass an iq test. Most of them can't even read.
Legitimately though, it's a nonsensical metric to screen on.
The thing with IVF is that it's already incredibly weirdly eugenicist.
Like, read some of the parameters they'd screen you for if you wanted to donate sperm. You get bonus points for having a PhD? I'm sorry? You're looking for a better-educated sperm?
And when you apply for IVF and choose a donor you get their education and job. "I want my cum to be a pilot!" The fuck.
IVF isn’t required if fertility concerns or frozen eggs aren’t involved, they can give you the home game.
And it should be no surprise that sperm banks want to be able to compete on the “quality” of their donors.
Just watch out for the bank that is 75% doctor jizz but it’s all from the proprietor.
A fertility doctor here in Sweden took sperm from men who were undergoing investigations for infertiliy and used it as donor sperm.
Imagine their surprise when decades later they found out they had kids.
Not sure why he chose those particular samples, maybe all he had available.
Lamarckian eugenics!
I think it's understandable. Intelligence is partly hereditary and people want clever children. Education and job can give you at least an overall idea of the person you're having a child with. It's kind of weird anyway to have a child with someone random, isn't it?
It’s kind of weird anyway to have a child with someone random, isn’t it?
In my mind "being inseminated by" is like 1% of "having a child with", if that. It's probably the least consequential thing your father may do in your overall upbringing.
I think for many women "being inseminated by" IS a big thing.
OK, you could in principle have made that sound worse, for example by saying "females" like a goddamn Ferengi, but still, pretty impressive.
god I was wondering how to express this, and you nailed it
(the other thing that came to mind was all those “femoids” quotes that came up in (iirc) münecat’s manosphere video)
And that was my whole point, I was reacting to V0ldek's: "being inseminated by...is the least consequential thing", which they proposed was not important from the child's point of view. I wanted to point out it's rather different (in a bad way) from the woman's point of view.
Is that a bad thing? Where did I go wrong in expressing myself? Or did I misunderstand V0ldek's comment?
starter tip: stop talking about women as if they don’t have any agency, and stop using them as a reasoning device in your unnecessary posts
What? I still don't understand. Would you mind genuinely eli5 to me what from my post makes you think I talk about women as if they don't have any agency? I'm asking genuinely for patient explanation.
Alright, since you're asking nicely, I'll give you a commentated play-by-play just this once. Apologies to @self for playing dad and to everyone else for the wall of text.
Consider the context for starters. V0ldek was talking about how shopping for sperm based on the donor's level of education and occupation is weird and eugenicist and making a jab about how jobs are not genetic.
Your reply pointed out that education and job can be proxies for intellect, which some here might dispute, but which is probably not a foreign concept to anyone here. "[Some] people want clever children" is certainly true, but that doesn't make it any less eugenicist.
It’s kind of weird anyway to have a child with someone random, isn’t it?
This is a question with many layers, and V0ldek picks at one of them. Having your child conceived using a stranger's sperm does not constitute having a child with them, in a cultural sense. Consider a couple who commit to having a child together, opt for IVF (for any of many possible reasons), the mother carries the child to term, gives birth, and then the couple raise the child together. It's pretty damn insensitive to say the mother has had a child with the anonymous donor (this also applies if the mother is single or the number of parents is otherwise not a clear two).
I would add that even if you mean "have a child with sb." in a purely genetic sense and still think the gamete of "someone random" being used for insemination is weird, knowing that "someone random" has a fancy diploma and a highly sought job shouldn't make it less weird.
I think for many women “being inseminated by” IS a big thing.
The awkward phrasing makes it sound like you're talking about a breeding kink or something, which doesn't really help.
It is strictly speaking true, that many women consider the identity of the sperm donor a big deal. That is why fertility clinics are screening for donors with high status and providing information on their education and career. The point is, if a woman is willing to have her child conceived using the sperm of an anonymous doctor or pilot, but not someone with unknown level of education or profession, that is eugenics. To deny or downplay that is either condoning eugenics or denying the woman's agency as a moral actor.
Also it's weird to single out women, because embryo recipient mothers are not the only people for whom, uh '"being inseminated by" is a big thing'. The partners of those women frequently also have eugenicist preferences about the children who may not be their genetic descendants, but will probably still be their children. The system is perpetuated by fertility clinic administrators and doctors of all genders, who practice eugenics either due to their own beliefs or to cater to their customers' eugenic choices.
Charitably, you're being Captain Obvious. "Some women want the ability to choose a champion athlete supermodel with a PhD for IVF sperm donor." Yes, and we're discussing that very thing and why it's a problem.
Uncharitably you make it sound like all them women just be wanting to be impregnated by genius chads so shikataganai I guess.
no thx, nobody here is your dad and I don’t think anybody needs to explain why
I think for many women “being inseminated by” IS a big thing.
is a weird fucking thing to say in the context of the post you’re replying to
To be fair they all too often have less agency about getting pregnant than they should, and getting pregnant is something women may fear or dread depending on the circumstances such as “was it rape” “is he abusive” “that’d really fuck up my career that is finally getting going” and “am I in Texas or Florida or Georgia or…”
Also, accidents happen, probably even with birth control defense in depth.
yikers
There's one born every minute, this is a great way to have them self-select for financial benefit.
training your sperm to pass raven's progressive matrices
At least corvids are smart. Better that than some birdbrain's progressive matrices.
Can we do this after they're born, grow up, and acquire a drivers license?
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