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this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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I feel like I don't quite get the controversy. I assume it's mainly that it could've gone horribly wrong? But then so do natural conceptions... Reminds me of the ethics of self-driving cars
It's also extra fucked that he essentially experimented on what are now small children's lives without any concern that it might severely impact them in unforeseen ways, for the rest of their existence. And all for questionable gain because he apparently didn't really achieve the objective of making them immune to HIV.
There’s a reason we have ethical standards when conducting experiments on living creatures. I don’t really feel like that needs to be explained.
As for yourself self driving car example, well, unfortunately Tesla has skipped a lot of stages and just threw their shit on the road and people have died because of it. So not exactly the best example. You can do things incrementally and safely and achieve the results you want. It just cost money and time. And when lives are at stake I don’t feel like we should be pennypinching.
The issue is that this guy just kind of did it without going through any of the normal check steps to make sure he was doing it right or there wouldn't be any unexpected consequences
That's true. I guess I just figured this type of thing is inevitable, and that the first person to do it would kind of have to be a mad scientist. Like if it wasn't him it'd be someone else, so idk. Probably not a great guy in any case
No there absolutely is a way without unconsented human experiments. You can go slow and prove every step of your procedure is save (enough) before doing it. That way you dont have to lie to the other people involved.
I'm aware that it can (and should) be done ethically, but it seems inevitable that a mad scientist will make a lot of the initial discoveries due to all the red tape around "playing God" and general public disgust at the idea of genetic modifications.
... You're sweeping thousands of years of technology being considered "playing God" under the rug like that's not a thing. Even though in this case, the phrase couldn't get closer to being accurate.