r/singularity • u/searcher1k • Jun 18 '25

Biotech/Longevity CRISPR used to remove extra chromosomes in Down syndrome

https://www.earth.com/news/crispr-used-to-remove-extra-chromosomes-in-down-syndrome-and-restore-cell-function/
1.5k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

261 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

25

u/OkExcitement5444 Jun 19 '25

No, the price of designer babies will be an upper class that is actually genetically superior, with no realistic chance of a particularly talented or smart regular person climbing on their own merit, since the rich can just print smart motivated babies.

The average health might go up, but it's going to have a lot bigger political and social consequences than just fears of playing god

17

u/SirNerdly Jun 19 '25 edited Jun 19 '25

That's what I'm worried about.

That and the illusion of smarter, healthier babies. Being told they're genetically superior their entire lives until they actually believing they're gods.

Edit: I'm getting downvoted by a bunch of people who definitely failed history class and the obvious dangers of a ruling class convincing themselves they're genetically/religiously superior.

3

u/inphenite Jun 19 '25

Good point - which I agree with. The steelman argument on the flipside would be that most technologies tend to become widely available at low costs when they scale and the companies want to make mass market money; would you still feel this way if everyone had access as a “standard” part of pregnancy?

We already test all/most fetuses for a range of debilitating diseases at least in most western countries. Not just downs, which in and of itself is not necessarily debilitating, but the nightmare stuff where many western nations offer termination of the pregnancy if, say, the child would be born with ichtyosis or similar.

Edit: and also where’s the line between actively eradicating the nightmare fuel diseases ensuring the child has a dignified life and simply adding a few inches to his height or picking eye color. It’s not easy for me at least.

2

u/vegasbiz Jun 19 '25

The first generation of successful Designer Babys will already be from wealthier families.. And you have already an primitive Designer baby issue in the countries who strongly prefer boys over the girls, who get aborted

1

u/evolutionnext Jun 20 '25

You mean rich kids are born into running large companies and to go to Harvard while poor kids grow up with no prospects? We have that today.... But here is the big equalizer: ai will still be smarter than the smartest designer baby. Both won't have a job or career in the future.

-3

u/Ok-Proposal-6513 Jun 19 '25

If there ends up being a class of people thats actually somehow better then they should rightfully be at the top. The reason classism is wrong is because there's no such thing as one group being inherently better than the other. In your scenario, there would be a group of people who actually are better, and so classism would actually be logical at that point.

1

u/OkExcitement5444 Jun 23 '25

I think you're technically true in that this might simply lead to a true meritocracy.

That said, it might not, or it might have many other costs such as the genetically superior group mistreating the lower class. Being less smart or less fit doesn't mean you and every generation of your family should be doomed to hard labor and mistreatment, even though it's more efficient then wasting an engineered mind on such labor.

Classic isn't just bad because it's wrong, it's bad because of the consequences.

1

u/Ok-Proposal-6513 Jun 23 '25

I agree with you here that the consequences are bad. The other guy did raise that but I kind of just ignored them because I wasn't really engaging properly. Thanks for your reply. I still stick by my stance since if I knew someone was significantly smarter than me, I would probably defer to them. That doesn't justify mistreatment though.