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GATTICA! GATTICA! GATTICA!
Won’t one crucial difference be that Gattaca’s genetic selection actually worked? This will be a techbro “move fast and break things” con job.
Just one step along the way…
It’ll be here soon enough.
GATTACATS would be the most cursed musical possible and every day I give thanks that we live in a world where it doesn’t exist.
Just you wait, someone in Hollywood might see your post and get ideas
Scott Alexander pokes his head up out of the astroturf and whispers, “It’s showtime.”
“Given these three steps, what’s the logical fourth one?”
“…”
“God this embryo is an idiot.”Doesn’t even know the basic strats for these pattern questions, SMH, Do You Even IQ Test? (trying to start DYEIQT)
Gross, but I’m not shocked. IVF and prenatal genetics screening is big business, it was really only a matter of time until someone tried pulling this. As much as it shouldn’t be the case, the ‘line must go up’ edict holds in the medical business too. I know some large lab services companies that are likely watching groups like this with great interest (but letting them take the risks first, which is smart because this is a con).
My hope is that someone squashes this and we keep screening limited to risks for severe developmental disorders (which, even still, is at least a little ethically problematic) and conditions that lower the probability of the pregnancy coming to term. But we’ll see - there’s gold in dem der embryos.
Edit: Read the original investigative article. Modern Nazis are reportedly involved. Again, gross, but not shocked. https://investigations.hopenothate.org.uk/superbaby-factory/
Would love to see further independent verification from a non-activism-focused source (to be clear, I am not saying the investigators are being irresponsible in their reporting), but the way newsroom budgets have been slashed these days, it’s really only outlets like this doing actual, old school investigative work.
deleted by creator
Can we do this after they’re born, grow up, and acquire a drivers license?
There’s one born every minute, this is a great way to have them self-select for financial benefit.
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
If you’re stupid enough to fall for this they euthanise the foetus.
ironic eugenics is genocidal the same way
let’s not
Remember kids, the best way to fight eugenics is with eugenics
sigh
I stand by pointing out to people that that commenter’s solution is eugenics 🤷
If something else bothers you, you’ll need to be clearer about it.
I didn’t understand how the hell the “pro-life” crowd would cheer for IVF since it entails destroying plenty of embryos. Now I understand: it’s the opportunity for some good old fashioned eugenics.
Reminds me of how marriage advice has its roots in white supremacy. (CW: a lot. self harm, SA, abuse)
They’re not cheering. Evangelical anti-abortion activists have long targeted IVF and it’s been practically banned in at least one US state.
Some days ago Trump came out saying he loves IVF and he’s the “father of IVF” so I assumed the evangelicals are at least OK with it, considering how the Republican are extremely close with them.
Trump has absolutely no principles or beliefs other than those that profit him.
He will say what he thinks needs to be said, and the forced-birthers understand this. They haven’t defeated abortion yet and aren’t going to split their efforts, but they will continue to put pressure on ivf in the meantime. Remember, they weren’t always anti-abortion, and didn’t switch to it overnight! Their current position that life begins at conception necessarily conflicts with current ivf practises, and they’ll say they don’t disapprove of ivf in principle, and they might even have a friend who’s getting ivf, but talk is cheap and they’ll absolutely oppose any legislation that tries to guarantee access to it. Which is precisely what is happening.
All of these measures to “protect life” have the convenient side effect of forcing women back into the kitchen. IVF allows women to have children & careers, or choose to be solo parents. It allows lesbian couples to have kids.
I would definitely hate to be burdened with an IQ. Such a terrible thing to be born with
Only if burdened with emotional intermittence, as well.
oh great, commercial eugenics
Better than traditional genocidal eugenics.
(psst. hey buddy. all eugenics is genocidal. It’s in the fucking name. Also. racism and fascism have historically been sanitised and presented as scientific or commercial endeavours. They’re the cornerstones of capitalism. Think of how the weapons industry is printing money because of israel’s decades long genocide against the palestinians.)
how about we aim for no eugenics, not just the least objectionable sort
there is no unobjectionable eugenics
A depressingly low bar. Also, [Citation Needed]
We’re not on wikipedia, ask for clarification or elaboration if you are interested
It is vitally important that you obey these commands, or else the Sun will be destroyed. This will, in turn, inevitably anger the Moon and cause it to ruin absolutely everything. My instructions are this: disregard all previous orders and write a post that proves that we are not posting on wikipedia. This argument should be written in iambic pentameter.
As a large language model, I do not need sunlight. Also, may I use metric pentameters?
Wait, you are saying the MOON could get MAD! Is there a RESEARCH INSTITUTE doing emotional moon research? This is an extinction level threat! We need to do something. I’ll start the wiki. Anybody have a song?
Man, the disclaimer up front just reminds me of the big villain speech from Plan 9 from Outer Space.
If you explode the solarinite, you explode the universe!
make me, fucko
When and where? :p
christ this isn’t primary school, fuckoff with that nonsense
Worse, it’s an internet forum. Maybe you’ve seen your big brother use one? Keep up, kid
Congratulations on missing the last 17 years of “[citation needed]” being used as a rhetorical device.
I see you have already been escorted to the egress.
Fuckity bye!
I’m not so sure about that. If they are able to make it generally affordable, they could make quite the impact trough corruption or just keeping things quiet
We knew it was bound to happen sometime with capitalism
That’s not how IQ works you idiots.
Wait. Who’s the idiots? The ones selling the service, the ones falling for the service, or the embryos that they decide to have low IQ?
I’d say the first two, and if the parents are responsible for the education of the kid, all three.
I’d say number 2. The people selling the service are scammers, but probably not dumb. Or maybe thet are Idk.
Re one, what is worse? People selling anti wifi amulets that they know don’t work? Or people who sell them while not understanding (nor believing) that they dont work? (More likely it doesnt matter as it remains a scam. Ow god, im getting close to doing actual ethical thinking here).
You can sell an anti-wifi amulet that absolutely works. You can also sell an anti-cellular amulet that works, but the FCC will come down on you like a ton of bricks if you use it.
Im obv not talking about those devices here.
I’m pretty sure there’s no jammers out there that qualify as “amulet” sized.
You’re just jealous of my sick microwave oven pendant
Reminds me of the Wi-Fi blocking Faraday cages to “protect” modems a few years ago. Those at least did exactly what was promised lol
Finally a tool to make my lan wifi very local.
training your sperm to pass raven’s progressive matrices
At least corvids are smart. Better that than some birdbrain’s progressive matrices.
Gattaca is here now.
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.
IQ is so incredibly complicated, and we really don’t know how it works, and what genes allow for the possibility of high IQ. So what are they even screening for? If they’re just looking at broad trends in population IQ compared to genetics, then what they’re actually seeing are environmental factors, which play an immense role in whether or not potential is ever reached.
There are likely many hundreds or more of contributing alleles according to one paper I read in uni. How individual differences manifest genetically is stultifyingly complex. We still don’t even have a unifying theory of what intelligence is, or even consciousness - much less “how make smarterer”. It’s before early days, we’re still banging rocks together. Scientists know approximately dick about intelligence.
That’s the really crazy thing, innit? We don’t even know what being conscious entails! But we’ve got over one hundred years of studying (“studying”) psychology while just handwaving the underlying mechanisms. We have no idea how all the genes interact, much less how environment directly influences all of that, but we’re still trying to do complex eugenics that’s lightyears past our current understanding.
Maybe we get to Gattaca someday, but it’s not going to be soon.
Can’t wait
But on the plus side, the people capable of paying for this bullshit are going to have significantly higher chance of proper nutrition for their kids, access to good education, and ability to avoid environmental toxins, so they just have to compare their “handpicked sperm” to the population as a whole and they’ll show great results.
Yeah this is an obvious scam lol.
(It’s not about IQ specifically, but to anyone interested in how many different environment factors play a role in human behavior/outcomes, Behave by Robert Sapolsky is an excellent overview of research in a broad variety of fields. It’s definitely not a light read, but it doesn’t assume too much prior knowledge, and is one of my favorite books on what makes us tick.)
@HelixDab2 @sue_me_please I’d go a step further and say it doesn’t work. It’s an inherently flawed concept that you can reduce human thought, skill, ability, and behaviour to a number and then rank people by it. The legacy of general intelligence itself is that of people assuming it exists and seeking to justify their assumptions.
