SneerClub

We do not understand genetic code as code. We merely have developed some statistical relations between some part of the genetic code and some outcomes, but nobody understands the genetic code good enough to write even the equivalent of "Hello World!".

Gene modification consists of grabbing a slice of genetic code and splicing it into another. Impressive! Means we can edit the code. Doesn't mean we understand the code. If you grab the code for Donkey Kong and put it into the code of Microsoft Excel, does it mean you can throw barrels at your numbers? Or will you simply break the whole thing? Genetic code is very robust and has a lot of redundancies (that we don't understand) so it won't crash like Excel. Something will likely grow. But tumors are also growth.

Remember Thalidomide? They had at the time better reason to think it was safe then we today have thinking gene editing babies is safe.

The tech bros who are gene editing babies (assuming that they are, because they are stupid, egotistical and wealthy enough to bend most laws) are not creating super babies, they are creating new and exciting genetic disorders. Poor babies.

My favorite comment in the lesswrong discussion: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DfrSZaf3JC8vJdbZL/how-to-make-superbabies?commentId=oyDCbGtkvXtqMnNbK

It's not that eugenics is a magnet for white supremacists, or that rich people might give their children an even more artificially inflated sense of self-worth. No, the risk is that the superbabies might be Khan and kick start the eugenics wars. Of course, this isn't a reason not to make superbabies, it just means the idea needs some more workshopping via Red Teaming (hacker lingo is applicable to everything).

I feel coding people like they're software might not be much better than coding software to pretend it's people

Don't get sucked into a eugenics cult

If we're casting eugenics warriors, at least Ricardo Montalban had some bodacious pecs

Working in the field of genetics is a bizarre experience. No one seems to be interested in the most interesting applications of their research. [...] The scientific establishment, however, seems to not have gotten the memo. [...] I remember sitting through three days of talks at a hotel in Boston, watching prominent tenured professors in the field of genetics take turns misrepresenting their own data [...] It is difficult to convey the actual level of insanity if you haven’t seen it yourself.

Like Yudkowsky writing about quantum mechanics, this is cult shit. "The scientists refuse to see the conclusion in front of their faces! We and we alone are sufficiently Rational to embrace the truth! Listen to us, not to scientists!"

Gene editing scales much, much better than embryo selection.

"... Mister Bond."

The graphs look like they were made in Matplotlib, but on another level, they're giving big crayon energy.

lol these dorks don't even realise they already made a superbabies and it sucks: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/super_babies_baby_geniuses_2

So AGI is 0.5-2 years away. After which the singularity happens and due to AI alignment we either are immortal forever, or everybody is diamondoid paperclips.

A normal human takes 18 years to grow to maturity. So for the sake of the argument (yes yes, don't hand it to ISIS) a supergene baby can do that in 9 years. (poor kid). Those timelines seem at odds with each other (and that is assuming the research was possible now).

I know timelines and science fiction stories are a bit fluid but, come on, at least pretend you believe in it. I'm not saying he is full of shit but... no wait, I am saying that.

"Fund my company and your child might live to adulthood and/or have sperm that glows green."

Superbabies is a backup plan; focus the energy of humanity’s collective genetic endowment into a single generation, and have THAT generation to solve problems like “figure out how to control digital superintelligence

The academic institutions in charge of exploring these ideas are deeply compromised by insane ideologies. And the big commercial entities are too timid to do anything truly novel; once they discovered they had a technology that could potentially make a few tens of billions treating single gene genetic disorders, no one wanted to take any risks; better to take the easy, guaranteed money and spend your life on a lucrative endeavor improving the lives of 0.5% of the population than go for a hail mary project that will result in journalists writing lots of articles calling you a eugenicist.

oh no, not a eugenicist!

But could even a generation of Johns von Neumann outsmart the love child of Skynet and Samaritan from Person Of Interest?

One of the most important projects in the world. Somebody should fund it.

The Pioneer Fund (now the Human Diversity Foundation) has been funding this bullshit for years, Yud.