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Cake day: October 14th, 2024

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  • There’s very much an ethical problem here. Sure, it’s fairly clear-cut with some debilitating genetic issues. But there’s a point at which you’re veering into eugenics, and that’s sooner than people think.

    Take children who are deaf due to a genetic defect. I’m sure most parents imagine being deaf a terrible lot in life that they’d like to spare their kids from.

    Then listen to actual members of the deaf community. They’re proud of their identity, they have their own language, and they’re terrified of the prospect of being essentially eliminated in just a few generations by well-meaning folks that can’t imagine a happy life as a deaf person.

    What if we discover a few years from now that there are genetic markers for being queer? What if we can genetically engineer people to be thinner, more muscular, have a more attractive bone structure, lighter skin? Those are all things that offer an objectively more comfortable life, which I’m sure many parents would want for their kids without much thought given to what the societal implications are.

    And what if this technology becomes available to a charismatic cult leader, a narcissistic tech CEO, a fascist regime?

    Such technology doesn’t just fix genetic diseases. In a hierarchical global society that measures people’s worth by their body rather than their character, it eliminates human diversity.



  • Yep though I do think this technical distinction you bring up is really only relevant in a clinical context.

    Meanwhile the one between “pedophile” and “child abuser” is extremely important in real-life prevention of child abuse. The ideas that 1) only people with sexual attraction to kids would sexually abuse kids, and 2) if you feel sexual attraction to kids obviously you’re gonna act on it, both seem logical but have both been comprehensively disproven.

    A huge added barrier here is that people - for understandable reasons - don’t want to really try to think through and reason logically about such a disgusting and emotionally laden subject, much less empathize with a pedophile. Unfortunately that exactly is required if we’re not just looking to satisfy our vengeful sense of justice, but actually do something for the victims and prevent further child abuse.