Are you for or against 'Designer Babies'?

It is inevitable.
Also, that is what mate selection is all about. To get the best genes for your offspring.
Genetic modification is just a more direct and controlled way of doing the same thing.
In any case, it is still better than supporting torture and drone terrorism.

I think the call for serious debate is a legitimate one. While many people have a instant intuitive opposition to any kind of genetic modification, it’s not clear to what degree people will object to certain parts of this. For example, I suspect people will have less opposition to issues surrounding diseases. Many people already will get an amniocentesis to test for DS. If there were a procedure that could target chromosomal trisomy, it might not be that different or opposed. There is a serious ethical debate to be had here. It might be unethical to withhold medical treatment (genetic modification) when doing so would result in great suffering.

What people seem to really reject to has more to do with the so-called superficial traits, such as beauty, height, and intelligence. But I don’t think there are easy lines that can be drawn here. I might have an intuitive dislike for such things, but I’m not sure these are easy issues to dismiss. And because they are inevitable, as @ragingloli points out, we are going to have to deal with these issues.

Many of the real ethical concepts that will be involved in these discussions will also touch on human projects that receive little to no opposition, such as modern medicine and the quest to cure disease. And it is worth noting that @ragingloli‘s point about mate selection is a good one. The inevitable breakthroughs in genetics will result in a more accurate process than we currently have – not necessarily a completely different project. I’m certainly not clear on what I think about all of this, but I do know that the discussion can’t end with simple declarations of “it’s wrong” or “Hitler” or “playing god”.

Gosh. I don’t know. A baby is a baby.

A concern, to me, would be the lawsuits filed if the baby turned out ugly and stupid.

@Dutchess_III As a parent one of my biggest fears is my child coming down with a serious disease. Wouldn’t it be grand knowing your newborn would grow up without ever getting cancer, diabetes etc. And that that baby in your arms will not have mental health issues and always make their bed and clean up their toys and never ever talk back to you?

Yes, I’m all for eradicating disease. The looks and intelligence part, not so much. I mean, can you imagine how a kid would feel if their parents sued who ever picked the combination because the child wasn’t pretty enough, or smart enough?

If it can guarantee smaller phone bills, then yeah, go for it.

The technology is getting more and more sophisticated, but this is not a new debate by any means. Medical ethicists have been discussing this for decades, the Lebensborn being about the best known example. Eugenics programs have risen and fallen throughout history in a number of cultures.
Sperm banks tend to test prospective donors for all sorts of physical issues, if there is a genetic marker for a disease or debilitating condition, the donation is refused. Even a tendency for allergies can eliminate a prospective donor.
Embryos used for in vitro are screened as to sex, and physical characteristics.

My point is that there are already designer babies, and have been for a long time. The debate is ongoing, but as each new breakthrough in testing and/or genetic manipulation is reached, the line of where outrage should occur is moved.
The percentage of babies conceived in such a way (where the outcome has been manipulated) is still so small as to not register on any scale. The vast majority of babies are still conceived the old-fashioned way, and even the majority of people who go through infertility procedures use unaltered gametes to try and conceive.

I’m in favor of increasing increasing individual freedom in nearly all cases, provided that does not infringe upon others’ freedoms. I favor that even when I do not particularly care for the ways in which people manifest their freedoms. That is, I do not automatically approve of others’ choices simply because they are freely made. However, I still respect their freedom to make choices that I do not approve.

This question tends toward a gray area, because while making “super humans” might appear to be a great thing for the people born with those great genes, creating them with ends in mind may limit their own children’s ability to make their own choices. That is, the very fact of being somehow better-than-normal from birth might limit their freedom. So that’s a caveat for me.

However, as others have pointed out already, the thing that we do quite naturally is to try to pick out the best mate for us to improve the chances of survival for our offspring, to perpetuate our genetic line as well as possible. So in theory I have no problem here. Specific practices may require ethical oversight, even ugh government regulation, but I’d have to see or at least be convinced that the actual problems were real before I would agree to a priori regulation.

It seems a little scary but in the end I would go for it. Insuring good health would be hard to pass up as would physical strength and agility. Intelligence would also be high on my list of desirable traits. Beauty would be difficult. I’ve seen some very attractive couples with down right scary kids and some pretty ugly parents with very beautiful ones. Hell look at some of the plastic surgery out there, it is at best a crap shoot.

Over all I have no ethical qualms but I would worry that those unable to afford or unwilling would have severely limited off spring. Then again maybe it would be the genetically improved kids that would not be allowed to compete in any normal endeavors. Kinda like those using steroids are not allowed to compete.

The wrath of Khan may also be a drawback. Can we genetically modify them to be nice people?

If you were a gene baby…you wouldn’t get to stay home sick and we would have a nation of kids deprived of that experience. And no way you could use “I’m sick and not feeling well” to get our of work.

We really, really don’t understand genetics that well yet. When we do…have at it but with very strict regulation. (disease elimination only)

I’m not thinking about things like the flu or a cold. I’m thinking about eliminating actual birth defects.

@Cruiser – I don’t know. If we’re able to boost their IQ by a few hundred points, I would think they could come up with a pretty convincing story.

@ARE_you_kidding_me – What is the problem with boosting the intelligence?

In the recognition of how this world operates it’s real behind the scenes leader, I would not oppose ”designer babies”. It is better to orchestrate the creation of lie over the selfish termination of it in the womb. It is what it is, a process, how people use it might be in some way disadvantageous to someone else, but it is neither good nor bad in the secular construct, which is the position I am taking for this question.

I think two things are inevitable:

Everyone who’s religion allows it will have ‘designer babies’ in that some easy disease prevention will eventually be covered by insurance.

There will posh, clandestine clinics where people of the Kardashian mentality can go and ‘order’ a baby.

Truly a scenario of “The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.”

@ibstubro Oh…great…we can look forward to a whole race of Bruce Jenners

At least it wasn’t a selfie, @Cruiser.

This is where I am glad I’ve read enough sci-fi to see a variety of extrapolations with varying degrees of plausibility.

While I see it as inevitable, and a bit of a “Pandora’s Box”, I think we have a bit more growing to do as a society before we can handle “designer babies”. We haven’t even adapted to things like social media, or developed social norms for the proper cellphone etiquette, so what makes you think we can tweak genes responsibly?

One issue I see is that, with many cultures favoring sons over daughters, there may be a bit of an imbalance between the genders that, if unchecked, would affect our species’ ability to survive unless we also have the technology for two men to have a child with no females involved in any way, shape, or form.

There is also a small part of me that worries that it may wind up eradicating those like me. I doubt many people would want a child with even a touch of Autism, even if that kid were a genius like Nikola Tesla, a beauty like Daryl Hannah, or talented entertainers like Dan Akroyd, or Nobel Laureate like Vernon L. Smith. (All except Tesla are confirmed; Tesla is mere suspected, as are Mozart, Einstein, and Bill Gates.) So I see us accidentally doing a lot more harm to our species than would be readily apparent at a glance by pursuing perfection; it may cost us our science and art.

@Jaxk You raise a number of good points; things that we at least have to consider, and that I would’ve brought up myself if you hadn’t. Specifically:

“Over all I have no ethical qualms but I would worry that those unable to afford or unwilling would have severely limited off spring.”

Given the divide between “Haves” and “Have-nots” in this world already, I see it as pushing social tension higher than it already is. I can’t see how taking something that is already a problem and amplifying it could turn out good. At best, we’d have Gattaca if not a full-on divide that’d make medieval Feudalism look like egalitarian by comparison.

“Then again maybe it would be the genetically improved kids that would not be allowed to compete in any normal endeavors. Kinda like those using steroids are not allowed to compete.”

Unlikely. In fact, likely the opposite as those with the money to even have access to the technology are also usually the ones with the power to make the rules. Though after a few generations there will likely be enough “designer babies” breeding with “natural” people to create “enhanced natural” children, and make governing genetically-altered humans a hassle.

“What is the problem with boosting the intelligence?”

I see one issue; our understanding of the human brain is quite limited compared to our knowledge of the rest of the body, including genetics. I see us as being able to blend in feline genes to grant night vision before I see us figuring out how to increase intelligence without severe side effects.
Given that even without genetic tinkering, people of above-average IQ tend to be a bit more eccentric than those closer to the median, and that there seems to already be some correlation between intelligence and things like anxiety, megalomania, schizophrenia, OCD, bipolar disorder, ASDs, and other mental abnormalities (enough for many research papers), my reservations are even stronger.

I’m all over the map on this issue. I think we are bound to have side effects we didn’t anticipate, and that is a little scary. Like, sickle cell helps guard against malaria. What if my bad trait of high cholesterol guards against somendisease we don’t realize, and when we fix the cholesterol problem I wind up with something else that is worse. That is debilitating and kills me at a younger age? I think there is so much we know, and so much we still don’t know. If it can help people not suffer with horrible diseases that would be a really good thing. I am all in favor of genetic research, just not sure what I am favor in regarding doing something with the knowledge. It depends on the thing,

As far as blond haired, blue eyed babies, I don’t worry about that too much, because I think most people want babies that look similar to themselves. I would never favor having a blond child, I am not blond, no one in my family is blond, and my husband’s family is not blond. I would guess black people would not put in an order for a white child, etc.

In the end, if I have to choose, I am for continuing down the path of genetic engineering.

Quite aside from the real objections that @jerv raises – and which I had not considered – the fact is that once reliable tests are available for various mental and physical conditions that are on any tail of “normality” in a fetus, those fetuses are already at extreme risk whether we go the “designer baby” route or not. With abortion on demand and most parents already wanting as near to perfect as is possible via a “natural” genetic process, when a doctor tells a prospective first-time mother “We have a 95% certainty that your baby will be born and identifiable as autistic,” then you tell me the survival rate of those fetuses. And that is the society that we live in today, as soon as the tests / markers are identified and available.

Obviously, once conception and “design” can be controlled with greater certainty, that’s one feature that will be designed out. Obviously, too, Down’s Syndrome babies will no longer be born, and some would rue their absence, too.

@CWOTUS I once read something like 90% of fetuses found to have significant genetic an abnormalities are aborted. This was a good ten years ago, so that would be things like Downs Syndrome. The statistic flies in the face of bunches of pro-life women seeing their Down’s children to term. I doubt pro-choice people are significantly more likely to have the genetic mutation occur.

My point is two fold. I agree there will likely be more abortions as we learn more. I also am pointing out a lot of abortions are already happen regarding this. If anything science has helped the ability to do the abortion earlier. Now we have a test that is a good month and half (I think) earlier than the old amnio test. Amnio is still used today though. Maybe there are more improvements in testing I am unaware of.

With all due respect, @jerv, “we have a bit more growing to do as a society before we can handle “designer babies”” is not a reasonable expectation.

I mean, we knew for a century that being closed in a room with a gas powered engine would kill you before it occurred to us that air pollution might be an issue, much less global warming.

Damn the consequences, full steam ahead.

“I hate you! I can’t believe you ordered brown hair, blue eyes, and little boobs for me! So what if my IQ is 376? Nobody wants to shag me. I hate you, I hate you. I am getting a lawyer. I am going to sue you for making my life miserable.”
Can we find yet more ammo for teens to hate us over?

Yeah, the affect on the kids isn’t really measurable, is it.

I would have liked to know that my kids did not suffer from nearsightedness and could have gone through life without glasses. That and that they got the genes for my teeth and not their mothers cavity prone ones.

I’m against anything that goes against nature.
Cloning, designer babies, GMO foods.
We don’t need any real Frankensteins wandering around and I think messing with mother nature is dangerous 99.9% of the time.

@Coloma – What do you mean when you say that you’re “against anything that goes against nature”? What criteria do you to determine if something is “against nature”? Does this include modern medicine?

@Coloma
“I’m against anything that goes against nature.”
...she said, wearing clothes, using the internet, typing on a computer, using electricity, sitting on a chair, in a house, located in some sort of artificial settlement

I was born with a congenital hip defect. If it hadn’t been caught, and corrected when I was an infant I would have been crippled.

I was born with a gene for really POOR eyesight. I’ve worn glasses since 4th grade. If not for that, I’d be legally blind.

My teeth were a God-awful mess. Braces fixed them.

So if not for going against what nature gave me, I’d be crippled, blind and have scraggly teeth and people would probably have assumed I was retarded. I would have had a completely different life.

GMO foods will feed the starving masses.

It’s very easy to wildly generalize what’s good and what’s not. I’ve seen the argument about vaccinations get wildly heated, here, yet without them we might have bred up a bunch of immunes.
As @Dutchess_III says, some GMO foods will feed starving masses, but there are also GMO foods that can barely be classified as food, and are damaging.
Is giving a fertility drug to a person to help them have a family a bad thing?
Is altering the physiology of an already-born human that much different from altering the gametes and/or zygotes of potential humans?
I am on the fence about the subject, as it is a two-edged sword. For every beneficial modification, the possibility of a non-beneficial modification exists.
We probably won’t see this be a significant problem in our lifetimes, but our children and grandchildren may have to deal with it.

And @Coloma , do qualify your post, please, your life, and your ancestors lives for generations have been “against” nature. You often refer to your “happy brownies”. Even those are against nature, as cocoa beans are not native to your area.

I don’t really care for it one way or another but I feel that it would have more positive benefits that detrimental effects for the human species as a whole.

@ragingloli
@hominid
@candidmajor

To clarify.
I mean messing with nature in the sense of altering organisms such as designer babies, cloning animals, things that have the potential to cause suffering and ethical issues. No need to take my simple statement to absurd levels. I agree with the double edged sword line of thinking, my sentiments stem from these exact thoughts. 9 out of 10 times we create new problems. Importing cocoa beans is not on the same continuum as genetically altering embryos and fetuses to create a designer child.

@Coloma what about selective breeding of dogs, demons cats, horses, or any other domesticated animal? Do you find that to be wrong? Just curious.

Edit: Also curious about forced/artificial insemination.

@Coloma: “No need to take my simple statement to absurd levels.”

I don’t think there is anything simple at all about what you said. I don’t know what it could mean. If you didn’t mean “anything that goes against nature”, then I suppose that makes sense. But you said it, and it was very confusing.

@Coloma: “I mean messing with nature in the sense of altering organisms such as designer babies, cloning animals, things that have the potential to cause suffering and ethical issues.”

These are very specific things you are against, and they are hardly the only things with the potential to cause suffering and ethical issues. Everything fits into that category, and that’s why we have discussions about them.

To bring it back to this specific question – what is it about genetic modification at the level of this discussion that you are opposed to?

And, @Coloma, as per part of my post, fertility drugs and other methods (alternate insemination, IVF etc) “alter organisms” to a degree, are you against those methods as well?

Everything you eat today, animals and plants alike, has been genetically altered via selective breeding.

@hominid Allow me to correct my misleading wording, not anything, but many things, such as designer babies. I don’t agree with designer dog breeding either. Both smack of pandering to human ego and personal taste at the expense of the organisms involved.

@Winter Pariah Again, it depends. A farmer selectively breeding horses 100’s of years ago to create a strong work horse is not the same as developing an animal for purely aesthetic and selfish reasons. The animals he chose to cross already existed they were not genetically altered by human hands. Crossbreeding occurs naturally amongst many species of the same genre. Many of our purebred dog and cat breeds have health issues due to their breeding practices.

@candidmajor I have mixed feelings about fertility treatments.

@Raginloli Selective breeding of organisms already in existence is, again, not the same as creating new organisms which may or may not be of meritorious effect.

All dogs are designer dogs. I know you’re referring to the specific fad of breeding two pure breds that are miles apart in looks, and giving them hybrid names. However, in reality all domesticated dogs are designer dogs.

All domesticated horses are designer horses. The original wild horse still exists. They are very small steppe horses.

However, I agree that breeding dogs and horses for specific traits isn’t the same as breeding humans for the same reason.

@Coloma – I’m very confused, as it appears that you’re not identifying the criteria which you find objectional and why. I’m not exactly sure where you stand on any of the relevant medical and ethical issues related to this topic.

I want to say thanks to everyone for adding some thoughtful answers to this question. Let’s keep the discussion going!

@hominid I already did. I said I have ethical concerns when it comes to altering human life.

@Dutchess_III Yes, that is all I am saying. Choosing to breed a Thoroughbred to a Quarter horse to get the best of both breeds traits, is not the same as pandering to human ego to create Ken and Barbi babies. Yes, just look at all the pug faced breeds of dogs and cats and other crosses that have serious genetic issues. Hybrid vigor you know?

Humans can breed themselves selectively without science intervening.
I’m sure there are dating sites based on health, education, intelligence and physical fitness.
Choose your own champion mare or stallion and leave the petri dishes out of it. lol

If your breeding gives you a screwed up horse, you get rid of it, sell it, whatever.

What if your breeding gives you a screwed up human? What if you just don’t like the results?

@Dutchess_III Right. Are we going to start selling or giving away “pet quality” humans whose designer breeding keeps them out of the show ring or arena or race track?

@ibstubro I’m not naive enough to honestly expect us to actually grow wiser. Have you ever heard, “Just because you can, that doesn’t mean you should”? The corollary there is, “Just because they have to, that doesn’t mean they will”. I don’t expect rationality from a society that allowed Jersey Shore and Honey Booboo multiple seasons on TV while giving _Firefly the axe.

@Dutchess_III Soylent Green!

^^^You’re old @jerv!!

Who cares if a baby could be designed to specification, looks, or some other personal reason, babies get terminated for inconvenience and selfish reason……so…….

But what if the parents didn’t like the results?

I am not against the process when used for saving or enhancing a life, medically for someone who would otherwise suffer. I am excited that those things are getting easier to recognize early, and be helped. I think with the technology though, there is the predictable batch of idiots who will try to take it to an insane level. That was the point I was trying to illustrate with my first answer. There are so many ways for it to go down the dumb dumb trail.

@Hypocrisy_Central For me this now becomes a bigger debate over the have’s and have not’s. I have kids who played the cards they were dealt with by the grace of God and a couple of those cards brought them extreme to severe grief at the hands of peers who took advantage and then some of their “defects”. How do you temper or balance superior genetically enhanced kids that could take this teasing, bullying to a whole other level no one at this stage can predict. Once that genie is out of the bottle you cannot put it back.

In the end GMK (Genetically modified kids) will undoubtedly will have an big advantage over the natural kids and where will that take our society for better or worse? That is the question….

@Cruiser How do you temper or balance superior genetically enhanced kids that could take this teasing, bullying to a whole other level no one at this stage can predict. Once that genie is out of the bottle you cannot put it back.
We take genies out of bottles all of the time that we can’t put back. If somehow it was discovered that brain matter from unborn babies had the cure for autism, do you think no one would use it because it is ghoulish? I don’t think kids will not be bullies or be bullies more because of genetics, I think if any kid is a bully or a compassionate soul it was formed in he home; either bad traits and habits were not nipped in the bud or good habits and traits not fostered.

In the end GMK (Genetically modified kids) will undoubtedly will have an big advantage over the natural kids and where will that take our society for better or worse? That is the question….
Unless everyone could do it, I do not see any larger impact as now, those kids born in desperate poverty in the 3rd world already start 8 miles back of those born in industrialized nations. Add poor health and shoddy diets, no wonder there are so many cleft palates there and then some. Even if there were never GMK in industrialized nations, I suspect somewhere near 3/5 of the children in this world are already behind and disadvantaged. How is the world shortchanged by that? The kid who could be the one to break the mystery of nuclear fission could be languishing away in some 3rd world slum, never having the opportunity to solve the mystery.

@Hypocrisy_Central You are missing the point that today for the most part rich or poor we are on equal footing….you make babies based on your choice of partner and the genes they unknowingly bring to the party. Yes some can make babies based on choice of test tubes but to take this to the level where you can choose a baby from a menu based of resistance to cancers and disease, or their ability to leap tall building in a single bound, or memorize the encyclopedia in hours seems to put ordinarily conceive babies at a disadvantage and if you cannot see this than you are the tip of the iceberg as to why this debate needs to continue until more cognizant brains can sort this our.

To put @Cruiser‘s argument into perspective, say they identify 1,000 modifications, from eye color to Alzheimer’s and each modification costs $10,000 on average. How many people can afford $10,000,000 to have “a perfect baby”?

^^^^^ My cousin. But she’s done having kids. Plus she’s happy with the ones she has.

And…. what about the whole new realm of discrimination that would be created?

Where is Gary Larsen when we need him, I see an entire new series ” The Far Side of designer babies.”

” That’s it Betty, you keep that Smith boy away from our Anne, I won’t have my daughter dating someone from the wrong side of the petri dish.” lol

@ibstubro Just like heath care….gene modification will be afforded to all and paid for by the rich.

And, also like health care, those who pay the huge dollars at the bleeding edge of technology will enable the technology to be further developed, commercialized and eventually available (and affordable) as a commodity to nearly everyone.

Compared to species that have flourished on earth for millions of years. Humans have been here for only 200,000 years, so it makes sense we’re riddled with ignorance and hate. This is definitely not even close to our pinnacle. It’s already too late for us. But eventually humans will be great, really great.

@ragingloli has always made me laugh. Freaking hilarious

”But eventually humans will be great, really great.”
In the romaticised history books of the sapient, bipedal cats that will succeed humans as ruling species of this planet.

There are a number of questions that need to be answered before we move ahead with designer babies. But it is inevitable. Like any technology, it can and will be used for good and bad. I don’t think it is useful to speak of support or opposition to it, since it will happen regardless. The conversation needs to be about limits, and how to direct the use of the technology.

@CWOTUS You totally underestimate the power of economic inequality. You may have heard me complain about being poor/struggling over the years, but I’m actually not far from the US Median Household Income. Think about that for a moment.

Show of hands; who here could afford a new mansion if they cut the price from $50m to $1m? Come on, that’s 98% off, so that means it’s much more affordable, and now nearly everyone can get a mansion, right?

You may be correct if you’re talking about Europeans, but this country would never allow the egalitarian Utopia that you depict; I see such things never being more accessible than Porches, and that’s making the optimistic assumption that our inequality levels off now instead of continuing their current trajectory.

@jerv, I think you wildly misstate how awful economic inequality is. Consider smartphones. When the technology was developed even the super-rich had a hard time justifying the enormous cost involved – but some did. The technology was developed, and now it seems every kid on every street corner has a phone that is smarter than he is.

Your example of $50MM mansions is almost laughable, in fact, because the gadgets and appliances that we now take for granted in even the meanest homes: color televisions, air conditioners, refrigerators and the like (down to computers and broadband internet access) were unattainable to most people in my parents’ days. Now? Simple commodities – available to all. It’s not utopia; it’s how economies grow when they are allowed to. (Those things were still unattainable to people in various controlled economies, and will be for who-knows-how-long in much of North Korea, for example.)

@CWOTUS – Good point. Hell I can remember when things like a washing machine were out of reach for most folks. Now days plastic surgery, face lifts, breast augmentation, Lasik, and whole variety of medical advancements are available at reasonable costs. I won’t even get into electronics which have become available to all. See if you can find a house built in the last 40 years with only 1 bathroom. Multiple bathrooms used to be reserved for the wealthy.

@Cruiser […you can choose a baby from a menu based of resistance to cancers and disease, or their ability to leap tall building in a single bound, or memorize the encyclopedia in hours seems to put ordinarily conceive babies at a disadvantage and if you cannot see this than you are the tip of the iceberg as to why this debate needs to continue until more cognizant brains can sort this our.
In short, that is what laws and rules are for, to make sure in areas where they have to be considered or compete with natural born people, the playing field is even as possible. To be able to have the best teachers, classes and implements to make use of the best education has always been available to the wealthy, the poor are getting shortchanged but not from the birth, and the way they are being shortchanged is worse because it is preventable, unlike something you can’t change from birth.

@ibstubro How many people can afford $10,000,000 to have “a perfect baby”?
There it is there, the populace will not be flooded with Gattaca like humans. So few humans would be able to afford the full package, most would only be able to afford to get more height, less disease, change in eye color or hair, but not much more. It will be decades or longer before more than 20% of the populace would be Gattaca like people.

@CWOTUS If you were correct, then healthcare costs would be a fraction of what they are… or rather, more in-line with what they are in the rest of the world. Now, if there is some sort of cultural revolution then things would be different. Until then, I don’t see it happening here.
You also assume that the technology will mature as fast as it has in electronics. Last I checked, Moore’s Law did not apply to biotech; if it did, cancer would’ve been cured no later than 20 years ago. Gene-tweaking won’t be affordable until it becomes precise, and it won’t be precise for quite a few decades. It’s not as simple as hearts or eyeballs. And considering that many drugs still have side-effects worse than the ailments they allegedly alleviate, I question whether we’re even nearly prepared to start to get ready to face that challenge.

And where the fuck is my flying car?! We were promised those how long ago? We had the technology fifty years ago, so they should be affordable by now!

@Jaxk Some things come down an order of magnitude or two, yes. Taking a $25,000 thing and bringing the price down to $250 makes it accessible. However, while taking a $25,000,000 thing and making it $25,000 is a bigger drop percentage-wise, that’s still a stretch for many people. The part that @CWOTUS (and, apparently, you) don’t get is that it’s not how many zeroes you take off, but how many are left that determines accessibility.
Even then, the time it took for computers (of average specs) to go from $4,000 to $400 was pretty damn long. If I can get a computer faster than what I have now for $20 before January 2020 then I will concede your point. Otherwise, I will respectfully disagree with your optimistic projections, and say that I see prices dropping far slower than you predict. I hope you’re right, and I wish I could agree, but I’m not seeing it.
Oh, and Lasik is still about two grand per eye; enough to dent the wallets of ~¾ of Americans, and be outright unobtainable for at least ⅓. But I don’t feel like arguing the semantics of “reasonable” aside from saying that “reasonable” is a subjective thing that we will likely disagree on anyways.

@CWOTUS our laws and rules don’t mean shit to other countries that will exploit any technology or weaponry to bring us to our knees. If we don’t acknowledge the potential of this gene shifting stuff NOW before it is too late or we will be scrambling to fend off not only genetically modified humans but weaponized genetically modified viruses or worse. This is a real Oppenheimer moment and the results could be disastrous if we do not corral this technology now!

I’ll try to take you both on in one post.

@jerv I made zero assumptions about the speed at which “luxurious extravagance” becomes “everyday commonplace”. In fact, I hardly see that it matters. But I will offer some examples from recent medical and dental history: artificial joints; pacemakers; dental implants; cochlear implants. In my lifetime these have been developed from “dream” to “potential” to “can’t possibly apply to the common person” to “yeah, I’m covered for that”. I have no idea how long it will take for gene therapy to become a routine treatment for genetic disease, no idea when spinal cord therapy and/or powered exoskeletons will enable paraplegics to walk again – but I know almost without doubt that it will happen, and that “routine” health insurance will cover the costs. We already know that the artificial heart is at the “can’t possibly apply to the common person” stage, and about to move into the “commodity” phase.

It’s not altruism that drives these developments. People have “the dream” for altruistic reasons; that’s true. But manufacturers and developers get into the market of making these “miracles” – because that’s what they seem like to the people who need them – in order to make a buck. And hallelujah to them for that! I hope they make tons.

If the federal government wasn’t so heavily invested in the status quo of medical treatment, care and mandates as to how people must be treated, by whom and with exactly what technologies, then I propose that medical treatment would be far different – even better – than it already is. And for most people it’s not bad. (It can’t make up for a populace’s basic neglect of its advice, or ignorance of their own bodies and basic health facts, however.)

@Cruiser I agree with your presumption that any new technology can be used for ill as easily as for good. (It’s why we have a Nobel Prize, after all, since Alfred Nobel wanted to “make up to the world” for his invention of dynamite, which he had intended as a highly effective and useful tool for mining, excavation and planned demolition, and which found its way into more effective weaponry.) But I do not believe in prohibition. A recent statement I read online said that “prohibitionists are pretty sick people”, which I’m still trying to evaluate. I tend to agree with it, though. Once these technologies exist – and I include nuclear weaponry in the list – they are difficult or impossible to contain and suppress. The best that we can do, I think, is to study and understand them and make the useful so much outweigh the evil that we “take the bad with the good” and press on.

Kirk: Khan… Khan, you’ve got Genetically Modified Babies, but you don’t have me. You were going to kill me, Khan. You’re going to have to come down here. You’re going to have to come down here!

Khan: I’ve done far worse than kill you, Admiral. I’ve hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her; marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet… buried alive! Buried alive…!

Kirk: KHAAANNNN!

@CWOTUS I wish I could go back to that perfect world so many continue to live in…but when I see something with so much potential for both good and evil that IMO can and would trump the discovery of nuclear fission 20 times over, I can’t help but take pause and why I asked this question. It is obvious many are blinded by the potential good of this technology can offer and cannot see the gross potential for evil. I will not let thoughts of this cobble my every day life but I will have an eye out for those that we believe are in control of our safety but I will sleep with one eye open knowing that there are sects, countries and subversive agencies that I guarantee you that they will seize upon this technology to not only further their expansionist desires but also hurt or kill all those that get in their way. And I can guarantee you that our own agencies are at the fore front of developing gene manipulation for military purposes.

@Cruiser I don’t know who you imagine – who has any sense of the real world – actually believes in a perfect world. That’s for children and the completely naïve. Don’t forget that in order to effect the kind of evil you dread will take a conspiracy or collective evil on the order of Nazi Germany or the former Soviet Union. Which is not to say that it’s impossible, but it takes a lot of evil collaboration – and no one saying “No, you can’t have that.” So far, even though the former have existed, so have the latter.

I think your fears of something worse than “the discovery of nuclear fission 20 times over” (especially when I think that the discovery and use of nuclear fission has been an extraordinarily good thing for humanity) are far, far overblown.

You may say, “But how can nuclear fission be a good thing? Look at what we did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki! Look at the nuclear weapons stockpiles that various nations have built up since then!” Exactly: we haven’t had a follow-on World War III, have we? I partly credit nuclear weapons for that. No one wants that war, so we haven’t had it, even though the provocations have often been presented to start it. I think “a bad thing that has prevented the start of another world war” isn’t such a bad thing.

@CWOTUS How much money did Salk make on the polio vaccine? As for status quo, those who sell palliatives have a vested interest in hiding cures, so therefore I would argue that your second paragraph is the real cause, or at least a more likely suspect as they have trillions of dollars worth of incentive to do so (huge revenue stream) whereas government could save a lot of money by altering the status quo. Cure a patient, you can only rob him once; keep him ill and “addicted” to your product, and you can take his money every day. Well, you can offer the rich an out that costs a few years worth of lost sales, but the majority still won’t see that sort of treatment. Not here. Not in early-21st-century America.

I do agree that that day will eventually come, but the only ways I see it within the next couple of centuries are if our nation either changed dramatically, ceases to be entirely (possibly civil war, possibly coup/revolution…), or is just left behind the rest of the developed world in more ways than we already are strictly from a technology standpoint.

The fact that this question on ethical opinions over genetics has gone back to money though. Whether it be the concern over worsened social stratification, or the “Profit is the root of all progress; altruism is a lie!” opinion, it all goes back to money.

What does that say about humanity?

@CWOTUS All very good and reasoned points but we are talking genes splicing not nuclear fission. Nuclear war carries the threat and responsibility of wiping out the entire world. Modifying genes is localized but with the same potential to inflict great harm….or good

The potential to change the human landscape in the favor of one faction or country who possesses the technology to do what ever they dream up to have the advantage of other or all countries is enormous. Imagine one having not only the technology to design a novel virus to wipe out all humans and also possess the antidote to save and protect their own?? Watch I am Legend to get a small clue to what I am talking about.

We are on the doorstep of yours and my worst genetic nightmare and no one seems to be concerned.

@jerv I don’t think that I made a claim that pure altruism can have zero benefits, but the fact that you brought up Jonas Salk’s altruistic abandonment of any patent claims for the polio vaccine – as one of very few outliers that you can find on this altruistic – capitalistic continuum – kind of makes my point. You might mention Elon Musk, who has recently done the same with all of his hard-won patents to the Tesla electric car’s recharging station – he’s basically made the design of recharging stations for the Tesla open source – in order to make the Tesla the design standard for electric cars. His abandonment of his patents may make him succeed beyond what could be possible in a world of cutthroat competition. I would not bet against him on this, either.

@CWOTUS Given the philanthropic efforts of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, I think that “continuum” is not a fitting word; it seems to be two dimensions (planar) instead of one (linear). While it may be argued that Capitalism gives the means for greater altruism, a quick check of the numbers on pharmaceutical companies gives me pause. But first, just to make sure I have it straight, profit is generally (Revenue – Overhead), where “overhead” includes the cost of R&D, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, taxes, licensing fees, rent, utilities, expansion, and all other expenses, isn’t it?

I’ve seen a few sets of numbers, and while the specifics differ, they all point the same way; R&D is pretty damn low on the list of priorities of these companies. But pharmaceutical companies have a profit margin far wider than oil/gas companies though, so it’s not like they would go bankrupt doing far more than they already do. Am I mistaken in my belief that less R&D means slower/less progress? Is it unreasonable to assume that other medical research may have similar amounts of fat in their budgets?

I’m not entirely discounting what you say, but like @Jaxk has often done, you underestimate my cynicism. That said, I would wager that, once the history books are written, the truth will be somewhere between our views rather than agreeing with either of us.

@jerv – I’m not looking for an argument here but I can’t help but wonder how you came to those conclusions. The Pharmaceutical Industry spend some where between 15–20% of revenue on R&D. That’s pretty high and comes in around $100 Billion annually. I took a quick look at Eli Lilly, and it looks like about 23% of revenue. It takes 10–15 years to get a new drug from conception to market and costs about $5 billion. Patents vary between country and by type of drug but 20 years is fairly typical. About half that time is lost during the development process leaving them 10 years to get their investment back. Let’s not ignore the fact that 19 out of 20 drugs don’t make it to market. They either don’t work or are unsafe and never get approved. Which is why ⅔ of big Pharma Companies have failed since 1980 only 6 of the 1800 biotech companies created since 1980, are cash positive.

And let’s not forget the lawsuits. They could cure a million people but the one guy they don’t cure will sue (confused rectally with orally) and people just like you will award massive lawsuits assuming big pharma is evil with deep pockets. This is not part of the development cost but can’t be ignored.

I know you like to think of yourself as cynical but maybe you’re just missing some of the data..

@Jaxk The numbers I saw covered a range of 4.5–13% spent on R&D, depending on source and company, but with variation like that, I’m hesitant to cite any particular one as truth. You’re correct about the time and money required to get a drug to market, but neglect the amount spent on marketing (generally more than on R&D), as well as profit margins, so I think that either of us could find the numbers to prove our position; a game I’m just not up for.

Lawsuits are part of why I believe our system is so flawed, as they cause all sorts of issues. However, there’s enough suits that are legitimate that I see no fix for it. We don’t trust government, I don’t trust Capitalism-as-goverment, so there’s no chance of us agreeing here unless I’ve been overestimating your faith in Mammon for a while.

You miss (or just ignore) data too. We both do. We’re both human.

@jerv…I do not think either of you miss or ignore the data….it is just the data is so complicated, convoluted and IMO deliberately obtuse so consumers have little to no ability to filter it to anything meaningful. I consider myself a semi expert on this subject and have spent countless hours perusing pre and post test data for viral remedies and would have to side with @Jaxk‘s summation as far as the financial and time investment Pharma’s have to in order to get an FDA approval. What I was truly humbled by was if you dig deep enough into the data of the trials that got said pharmaceutical approved by the FDA the efficacy of the medicine was jaw dropping mediocre at best. Take Tamiflu…it is effective in 55% of cases IF it is given in the first 24 hours. After that time frame it is as effective as an M&M yet MILLIONS of prescriptions for this drug are handed out each flu season. Big Pharma IMVHO is a scam, sham and geared to Hoover cash out of your wallet via the Healthcare/insurance alliance. The same argument can be applied to OTC meds which IMO are worse offenders. People are so damn gullible and want a miracle in a bottle and gobble this shit up hook line and sinker.

@Cruiser No doubt, and I never refuted @Jaxk‘s claim that it was/is costly, time-consuming, and a lot of red tape to go through to get a drug to market. He has that spot-on.

What I do refute is what percentage of the revenue generated goes towards the next product compared to how much of it is just pocketed, resulting in profit margins 3–4 times what non-pharmaceutical companies average. Or am I in error due to assuming increasing overhead costs reduces the percentage of revenue that can be considered “profit”, or that R&D is overhead? In fact, their margins are wider than even the insurance people

What I also refute is that pharmaceutical companies have any incentive to jeopardize existing revenue streams by putting out effective drugs; it’s in their best interest to only produce drugs of limited effectiveness in order to replace drugs that are about to “go generic” and thus lose profitability.

Regardless of views, I found this thought-provoking and relevant. Not sure how much I agree, but it’s definitely worth pondering.

@Jaxk I almost forgot – Eli Lilly was one of the highest spenders there. Pzifer is more like 12%, and most of the rest seem closer to that than to what Eli Lilly is putting out.

Beyer used to market Heroin drops for teething infants too. haha
@Cruiser What say we partner up on a race horse and name it “Designer baby.” lol

For anyone who really cares to look at it, the numbers for pharmaceutical companies’ R&D costs as a percent of total revenue are easy to find. What is not so easy to find is their “marketing” costs, as they are generally included in the “SGA” numbers: “selling and general administrative” expense, which includes all kinds of overheads – including marketing and executive salaries – and is not, therefore, all “advertising, drug pushing and marketing”.

@Cruiser – I’m not really familiar with Tamiflu or any prescription medications for that matter. I don’t take them. A quick check says you need to take it within 48 hours of the first symptoms so it seems you’re point is valid but that is what it is supposed to do. If you shouldn’t be wasting your time, I would blame the doctor for prescribing it not the drug company. The truth is we take way too many drugs but I don’t see that changing any time soon. Doctors have less time to spend with patients and they’re forced into cookie cutter solutions. Sounds like flu, take some Tamiflu. Obamacare will only exacerbate this problem.

@jerv – Pfizer is pursuing an acquisition strategy for new drugs, much like Cisco Systems does for new technology. One of the benefits of this strategy is that they don’t need to invest as much in R&D because a lot of the early research has already been done. They pay for it in the purchase price. If you believe that drug companies are incented to produce drugs that are less effective so that they won’t compete with even less effective current drugs, I’ll never persuade you otherwise. I just can’t see anyway that would work.

@jerv “What I also refute is that pharmaceutical companies have any incentive to jeopardize existing revenue streams by putting out effective drugs; it’s in their best interest to only produce drugs of limited effectiveness in order to replace drugs that are about to “go generic” and thus lose profitability.”

What you said there is complete nonsense. Yes it is true there are many marginally effective drugs but there are thousands at least of very effective drugs that if taken as prescribed will do 100% of what the were developed to do. Ibuprofen, Alleve, Tylenol, Omeprizol, steroid shot are a few I take have taken and can personally attest to their effectiveness.

@Jaxk 2 years back I felt a flu coming on and immediately went the clinic got a script for Tamilflu and took it within the first 10 hours of onset and was free of symptoms in 24 hours.

You sound like a TV ad. Are you looking to change careers? :-)

@Cruiser You probably would have been symptom free in 24 hours anyway. Every flu I’ve ever had lasted about that long.

@Dutchess_III Lucky you. I had 2 severe flu flu’s, not the 24 hour flu, 2 years in a row in ‘06 & ‘07.
Made a flu shot believer outta me. I was down for like 10 days, horrible fever, headache, sore throat, hacking up bloody chunks from my throat. headache that lasted for weeks, my doctor said it was my brain casing membrane that was inflamed.
I wanted to friggin’ DIE, seriously! haha

@Dutchess_III Then you have never had the Flu flu. Every seasonal flu I have ever had keeps me in bed for at least 5 days.

@Jaxk as I mentioned earlier I do have a lot of experience in and around flu specifically pandemic flu and have been a member at PlanforPandemic a forum dedicated to surviving a pandemic flu and that site was founded during the H5N1 pandemic scare back in 2007. I just checked there and Tamiflu is referenced 2736 times and I can guarantee you I read every one of them and wrote probably a 200 of them myself.

Well, I guess I have an immunity to the flu! I’m ‘pecial like that.

@Cruiser All palliatives though, which is my point. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my fair share of prescriptions in my life, but I’m just thinking that if you were really interested in innovation, you’d spend enough on R&D (including the building and staffing of new facilities) to trim those profit margins to only double the industry average.
It’s a little funny that, of those five you mentioned, two of those do nothing for me, and two more are only marginally effective. While there are some that do work for me, there are enough that don’t that I think “very effective” is a little disingenous. But I would rather not argue the semantics, and prefer to leave it at stating that differing personal experiences generally lead to different personal opinions, and that my current round of “Medication Roulette” is kind of souring my opinion of drug effectiveness right now.

@Jaxk To my mind, that’s the sort of operating expense you usually see in a budget.
As for the other, I’m not saying that they actually do that, merely that they do have incentive to, and far more incentive than government. But if you can’t pick up on the details like that, then you’ll always think the worst of me simply because of all your derisively wrong assumptions about me, and I’m not sure I could ever persuade you otherwise. I just can see any way that would work.

@Dutchess_III I’m generally out for 2 days and merely semi-functional for another 2–3 when the seasonal flu makes it’s rounds. Given what the flu is like for many people, I think that my yearly vaccination helps protect me at least some, even if it isn’t full immunity. On the plus side, I am immune to Poison Ivy; a plus if you ever go paintballing in the woods and belly-crawl in the stuff.

@jerv – I don’t think you understand how acquisitions work. They don’t show up in the budget nor are they an expense. Here is a brief description of how they show up in the financial statements. If you see them in any of the expense or profit statements it is usually a foot note stating that the results of the acquisition are included.