They [0] will do it anyway. Ethics, risks and morals be damned.
Dystopia capitalism is highly profitable.
> The ethics and long-term risks here seem huge.
If we have the ability to screen embryos to determine which ones are likely to have the least health problems, and to live as fulfilling and successful a life of possible, do we not then have a moral imperative to do this?
Supposing it were free: to choose NOT to do it, would be to say, "I don't care if I bring avoidable pain and suffering into the world."
What assurances and real resolutions do you have that what they market is actually true; and the baby your gf is carrying isn't in fact a mini-musk with no related DNA from you. Like a cuckoo bird.
Interestingly the term cuckold, referring to a man whose wife was unfaithful, originates from the Cuckoo bird, where the bird is tricked into raising children biologically not their own; as happens with brood parasitism.
These advances bring into question long-term fitness and survivability. We know mono-cultures die out quite easily.
Before long we might have a "Surface" event, like what happened in that TV show. There are things that cannot be undone, and there are blind people more than willing to ensure those things are full steam ahead.
Why?
The default is evolution doing the same thing by randomly mutating each of us a little bit and seeing what sticks. It also doesn't have a plan, or insight into the future conditions we might encounter or create.
The Affront within that series also shows how it can go badly, the point is that even our fiction isn't limited to "badly".
Also I am surprised you can take five cells from an embryo with no effect! I guess at this point that’s probably well-proven through more basic screens.
And, worse yet, it inherently encodes a poor tax into the very fiber of a human being that will exacerbate inequality. Something that will only grow as the designer genes become even more effective.
I guess, in the end, the rich will claim to be justified when they call the poor "less human".
The actual process of our pregnancy is written here: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Pregnancy
And a quick primer on our gene mutations is here: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Gene_Mutations
Feel free to ask me any questions.
ironyman•6mo ago