Its important to mention that Algernon's disorder is Phenylketonuria, the inability to break down an amino acid that damages the brain and blood as infants.
We can test babies and avoid the disorder by making them eat special diet for a while. But not those who sadly experienced brain damages first.
Such treatment may hopefully help them too. But the action mechanism must be separate than this drug, I think?
Have you ever heard of a so-called 'mild' Phenylketonuria that can escape diagnosis? I've heard of it mentioned here and there but I'm not sure if it's really well known (or if it's even proven - I don't know much about it). I know someone who I have a possibly far fetched hypothesis that they might have something on the Phenylketonuria spectrum. That is they are grew up relatively normal but suffering from some severe mental disorders as they age. When they were young they had the characteristic mousey smell that is mentioned in Phenylketonuria.
'Normal' people have not exactly covered themselves in glory in how they have been running the world lately. It's just possible that Down's Syndrome people have got it right and we are the abnormal ones.
Speak for yourself, Down Syndrome isn't just a cognitive or genetic condition, they have a lot of physiological problems where the organs malfunction, hence the usual premature deaths and suffering.
LeDeR tells us that premature death is overwhelmingly from poor access to healthcare and substandard healthcare when it is accessed, and it not an intrinsic feature of Down's.
One shouldn't generally expect the application of a single chemical hormone to improve cognitive performance. The brain is a computer, and doing this is roughly the equivalent of hooking up either side of a microprocessor with jumper cables and expecting it to "compute better". However, there could be an exception if the reduction of GnRH is one of the only significant effects of the duplication of chromosome 21, which is probably not true - but maybe.
Noopept and some of the racetams measurably improved my cognitive performance.
I've tried most everything under the sun and used my body as a walking science lab. Most things don't have a noticeable effect, but there are a handful of things that do.
As an aside, there are tomes of literature, research and arguments for and against the computational theory of mind. I don't think it's as clear cut to say that the brain is a computer, as physiologically it certainly doesn't work like a computer at all.
I'm aware, that's what the computational theory of mind touches upon, it is not a literal interpretation of the mind as having some Von Neumann architecture.
On the other hand, I've met plenty of people who believe the brain has "processing power" that's equivalent to literal CPUs.
I think the sentiment of the analogy was "the brain is a tightly integrated complex system" which would support the 'multiple changes should be required to accomplish an increase in throughput'
It's important not to apply simple tricks and hope for magic results but it's not absurd to consider that some brain subsystems are so vital and foundational that an improvement their cascades on other higher level cognitive centers.
Brains are unlikely to be simple machines that can be made better by changing a simple variable… Unless this variable is able to boost learning, which can have a huge compounding effect on cognition.
Approaching this debate from first principles while ignoring the decades of thought and research that have gone into it doesn't lead to fruitful discussion. Acknowledging what prominent researchers, philosophers, experts, etc have thought and said about this does, however.
For example, the definition of "compute" can vary greatly, which we can see here in the comments section versus what is usually considered computing when it comes to the computational theory of mind. Often regarding this topic, "computing" means symbol manipulation and representation a la Turing machines, whereas many in this comment section interpret "computing" as the action of taking input and producing output.
My point with the comment is that I'm no expert, and I'm not someone who has really thought about or tried to tackle this problem. There are plenty of people who have, though, and they can make more insightful, apt and convincing arguments that are worth looking into before accepting or dismissing the concept entirely.
The map is not the territory. Perhaps computation is a good model, but not really what's going on. Sort of like how the standard model in physics needs an understanding of quantum gravity.
It also gets into metaphysics, as some people believe that mind is not limited to the brain.
That's the opposite, an example of a computation that is outside of the set of all thoughts.
Notably, such examples wouldn't exist if computation was strictly a subset of thought, but that can be waved away by acknowledging that the brain has finite resources that it does its best to use sparingly. Also, brains definitely run algorithms with staggering numbers of variables, e.g. object recognition from noisy sense data.
Running algorithms doesn’t make something a computer. Lots of things have SoCs in them but aren’t general computers if eg you can’t change the algorithms they do.
And all the results about all computers being equivalent only work if they have access to infinite storage and power. That computation isn’t outside the set of all theoretical thoughts, it’s just outside the set of all ones in actually existing human brains that don’t have access to a pen and paper.
Maybe I was unclear, but I completely agree both that your example does not prove that computation is a superset of thought. I'm looking for an example that would at least suggest the opposite- something humans can think that a computer couldn't compute.
Yes, I can do many such calculations on 10’s of thousands of variables quite easily. Accurately throwing a ball while running for example is a complex activity.
That’s not a program
you’re running on your personal brain-computer, it’s a fixed-function DSP. You can’t reuse it to do other tasks in a way a computer could with such a DSP either - eg you can’t accurately simulate ball throwing in your head.
You learn to throw a ball while running by building on top of many processes that allow you to stand up straight, run, etc. It’s like multiple FPGA operating together rather than a DSP.
As to simulating a ball being thrown, that’s one thing that the brain already does. Visualization is a simulation.
I said "accurately simulating" though - if you're imagining something there's no way to constrain your own imagination to actually be correct.
Like if you're a bad shot you can't install an update to turn into a sniper. Of course, snipers do get to be that good by practicing enough, but I don't know if they visualize the target or do it with conscious math.
Visualization practice is part of many training programs to help people get better at making free throws etc. So it isn’t simply imagination, it’s a useful simulation.
What’s important to realize is people don’t just picture the path a ball takes but also the feel as they make a throw. Predicting the path of a thrown ball to be able to catch it is a another sign of simulation, but combining that with a simulation of how a throw takes place is useful.
Pool is clear example of the brain doing physical simulation. The exact positions are unique, but people learn how to predict what will happen to figure out what’s reasonable to attempt.
Why does this matter? Both the brain and the workstation have finite amounts of memory, since they have finite masses, and can do random errors when trying to go through a series of steps. It is just the magnitudes that differ regarding these two aspects.
I will start by saying that I personally do believe that the brain is a computer, with the minnd simply being software.
However, given our current level of understanding of how the mind works, we can't say for sure that certain thoughts are algorithmic. For example, we don't know an algorithm by which new systems of axioms can be created, nor even a general algorithm for proving a theorem in a given system of axioms, beyond brute force searching. Given that human minds do these things relatively often, it's unlikely they are arriving at it by brute force search in the enormous domain of mathematical statements.
So, we can't say we've ruled out the possibility that the mind is using some unknown non-computational process for finding novel theorem proofs. Note that proof checking is algorithmic, only proof discovery is potentially not.
Now, to me extrapolating this to a non-computational theory of mind smells a lot like a God-of-the-gaps argument, so I don't buy it. But it is worth remembering the limits of what is actually proven to be computable.
I've taken this example somewhat directly from Turing's paper on computation - there, he bases the model of the Turing machine specifically on a mathematician doing rote mechanical calculation with a pen and paper (the machine state is their brain state, the tape is the notebook, the writing head is the pen, and the reading head is their eyes). However, non-rote calculations are arguably left out of the paper's claims (or at least most of them).
Much more famous arguments about non-computational theories of mind are, to me, much less convincing. The most famous is probably The Chinese Room, where the idea is that a man locked in a room receives a question on paper written in Chinese characters, and follows lookup tables and English instructions to return another paper written with Chinese characters, but can't really be said to understand Mandarin even if he is always returning the right answer for the question asked (or so the author claims). Another such famous argument is Mary's Room, where Mary is also locked in a room where nothing has the color red, but where she gets to rid everything that can be known about the physics and biology of the color red and its perception in the human brain (much more knowledge than we have today), but where she is assumed to still have a new experience once she leaves the room and actually sees red for the first time directly.
Is the human brain doing something fundamentally different than some other animal brain, say a Chimpanzee or mouse? Or is it just doing more of it, is it just larger and perhaps a bit more efficient and maybe organized? I see no reason to say the human brain is a fundamentally different kind of computation than any other animal brain.
So is there some animal brain, no matter how primitive, that we could in principle simulate? I think so. I think that is realistically within our capacity.
There's a big difference between having an operating computable function computing on real hardware, and having the idea that a certain phenomenon is potentially computable.
I wasn't invoking any kind of woo woo, but at the same time it's easy to say "this is computable" when in reality it's not computable at all because we can't actually construct such a simulation. We have the computing power today to simulate a brain if we were so inclined.
Considering that the definition of a computer is very broad - a means of storing a state + rules for evolving that state given the state and inputs from the environment, I'm not sure how you can say the brain does not work like a computer.
I mean, if your problem is specifically that you're not able to make that chemical / not as receptive to that chemical / clean that chemical up too quickly compared to the average person, then "add more of it" would be the obvious solution.
If your microprocessor is having floating-read problems because the voltage on the 5V/12V power lines is more like 2V/4V, then "more power" is exactly what it needs.
you're example assumes you know what causing the problem though. This is far, far from the case here - "Down syndrome causes decrease in GnRH" does not imply "Low GnRH causes down syndrome", though as I said, if you get lucky it could be responsible for a good number of the symptoms.
Are you arguing against their quantified observed data that’s gone through animal and human trials based on your metaphor of a microprocessor? That’s sort of remarkably brazen.
The equivalent of hooking up jumper cables would be adding a clump of neurons.
A chemical that washes over the entire system is more akin to giving the computer a clean/wash (not with water) when the computer has grime and dirt blocking various connections (/ neural pathways).
We certainly experience interaction with people who don’t have much regard for our neurodivergence. I don’t think “neurotypical” means much other than as a lambast, but that isn’t to say it can’t appropriately describe a lot of my experience here.
Neuroatypical doesn't just mean ASD. It can be a lot of things.
GP, if you think your have it, get assessed, it will help you a lot. Don't WebMD yourself.
You also might not have it, but stuff close or related to it, like ADHD or SPD. You might not be picking up social cues for example because your ADHD is causing you to lose focus subconsciously for example, but with ADHD you can take a medication.
How would an autism diagnosis help an adult? (Lets assume otherwise functional)
Not being sarcastic at all, just wondering what specific help would apply, since there is no "autism medicine". Then what?
Would labelling it sometimes do more harm than good?
I have seen what they provide to autistic children, and it seems to me, a layperson, that most autistic adults will have figured that stuff out the hard way over time.
I assume I could be missing something but don't have a clue what that might be.
It creates self understanding that lets you figure out how to treat yourself properly. What to attribute to the autism, which is also pretty diverse in itself in what parts of it people have, and what to attribute to yourself. What to willpower through, and what to accept and work around. There is therapy, techniques, skills, occupational therapy, social tutoring, etc. You begin to figure out why you have your problems, and with that you create understanding.
It's like trying to build a house without understanding the composition of the ground underneath to create your foundation. You need to take samples so you can create the proper foundation. If you don't, your house might start to sink, or you over-engineered it and wasted money. Or trying to drive a manual transmission without any proper feedback on what your doing wrong. You might be driving your entire life lurching and stalling frequently, thinking 'that's just the way it works!' because you don't know and you completely self taught, and nobody quite gets that it's your manual transmission techniques. Or understanding how you have to modify your weightlifting technique because your tall, or short. Or to learn to not bother trying to make your calves bigger or not because it's mostly genetic. I can go on and on with the metaphors.
How you help someone with ADHD, SPD or ASD with their social or other issues is fairly different too! You might be wrong about your autism self-diagnosis, and some of it can be assisted by medication.
If you have sensory integration issues, willbarger brushing might help you integrate your senses better and not cause clothing, lights, and sounds to feel overwhelming. Or it might help you notice more things in the world and move more gracefully if your under-stimulated.
So yes, there is a lot you can do. And I think a lot of un-diagnosed autistic adults are living a life with a lot of pain and maladaptive compensatory strategies that makes their lives a lot worse. They will do better with their lives, their jobs and their happiness in life.
Also just because you have a medical diagnosis, does not mean you need to share it or label yourself in public as so, you can keep it as private as you wish. The power of self knowledge is amazing.
In case anyone else is curious. It's not a drug you might consider taking off label as a nootropic. It messes with testosterone and estrogen and a load of other stuff.
> Six out of seven patients improved their cognitive tests by 20 to 30 percent
My 9 year old daughter has Down's Syndrome, and this is the most exciting paper I've seen! I know we're a long, long way off any kind of treatment being available for people with Down's, but still, I can't help but feel some hope.
This is true, but that test is inaccurate, and only provides odds of having a baby with Down's, for example "you have a 3500:1 chance of having a baby with Down's Syndrome".
> Right, but a positive screen is usually followed up with a more specific test (karyotype, cvs, amniocentesis) which can give a definitive diagnosis.
I was thinking more of false negatives than positives, but reading it back, there was no way for you to know that from what I wrote!
The test for our daughter came back negative (well, something like 3,000,000:1 chance of Down's), but she did actually have Down's. Later, talking with other parents of kids with Down's, multiple had had similar odds, some even crazier (and in a small country with <50k births each year).
First of all, I want to be respectful of the parent comment, much much respect for all the hard work that it must be.
To your question, prenatal screening is a thing, but maybe non-invasive techniques (that don’t risk miscarriage) are newer. I don’t know how widely recommended they are throughout the country (US) or world, but they were prescribed for our kiddo born San Francisco this year. They seem to stagger the tests, so that the less invasive ones are used at first, and then the more invasive procedures are recommended if there is information that would indicate an increased risk of whatever condition.
Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) was made available in the US in 2011. It’s highly sensitive for detecting down’s syndrome. Self pay is now 100-300 USD but a few years ago I think it was as much as 3000. It’s fully covered and encouraged for geriatric pregnancies, which are much more likely to have an extra copy of chromosome 21.
The NIPT can screen for the sex of the baby earlier than it can be detected on a scan, so many women elect to have it done.
The first trimester ultrasound is around 96% accurate at detection of down’s syndrome.
We got this for free in Canada. My first kid had the soft positive marker for it in his first ultrasound (Interesting you say 96% because our doctors said it meant a 1 in 300 chance. Maybe we are talking about different things). So they sent us to Hamilton a week later for genetic screening. The geneticist walked us through the results and said that the tests are effectively negative and now his odds are something like 1 in 5000.
This is all to say: indeed they have non-invasive tests and they’re very accessible.
Without knowing the number of tests performed, you can both be correct.
Theirs would be the false positive rate (FPR) or false negative rate (FNR), and yours would be an probability, which takes the FPR (or FNR) rate, the number of tests and the base incidence rate to arrive at 1/300, 1/5000.
For example, in Canada, 1/750 of live born babies has Down's [2].
There are about 400,000 births every year in Canada [3].
So, there are 400,000 / 750 = 500 kids with Down's born every year.
Assume the test has a FNR rate of 0, and a FPR of 5%.
400,000 * 0.05 + 500 = 20,500 children test positive
Odds of positive test indicating Down's (5% FPR): 500/20,500 = 2.4%
Not quite the 1/300, but as you said "soft marker", so maybe the FPR is higher for that, vs all the markers?
To get to 1/300, the FPR rate on the marker would need to be 37.5%?
The 1/5000 is (I believe) a change from a FPR rate to the FNR rate, since the second test is indicating that the disease _isn't_ present.
1/5000 would indicate a negative genetic test will miss one Down's diagnosis in a decade in Canada.
Interestingly, it looks like the FRP increases with age, with it being 4% at age 30 (combined ultrasound/blood test)? [1]
You do realize that before Allied Mastercomputer, her intelligence and yours are basically the same? The only difference is in how good you are to others.
Worth noting that some mothers perfer not to test for it because there's an implication they'll decide to kill their baby if it's "defective" which they find horrible and unloving. Eugenics, basically.
Yes, there is now the NIPT test, which is something like 99% accurate, and involves taking blood from mother and extracting fetal DNA from it.
It's more expensive than the older, inaccurate screening test, so here in the UK it isn't routinely offered to parents, or even explained to them. It's offered by private clinics though.
I've wondered about modern education for children with Down's. My impression is that they currently show much greater cognitive development than what I remember from 50 years ago. I have assumed that this is due to improvements in special education. Can you say anything about this?
50 years ago it was pretty much assumed that anyone with Down's could do very little, and so society rarely bothered actually teaching kids. People with Down's were often shoved into a residential care home and basically left to rot there.
It's reckoned that a lot of these assumptions were down to hearing issues, which are highly prevalent in Down's - once we figured this out, and realised how easily fixed these issues were, things started to change, quickly.
Nowadays, we know people with Down's are capable of much more, though I must note there is a huge range of cognitive ability, and additional tuition and support will always be needed. Still, it's common now for kids with Down's to attend regular primary school, and some also attend regular high school.
Those are complete non sequiturs. Being smart doesn't detract from being 'good'. People here aren't anti Apple CSAM reporting. They are against routine privacy invasion for people who have nothing to do with CSAM. I am sure if the scanning had a zero percent false positive rate and there was no privacy invasion lots of people would be for it.
i wonder whether it makes sense to do a diff across all hormonal production in normal and Down person and try to correct that diff by regular injections, etc.
I remember reading a story the other year about Iceland having eliminated almost completely Down's Syndrome from their populace by aborting those fetuses which have the syndrome. Much as some parents are happy with their children who do have it, I would not wish anyone in this world to have such a syndrome. Somehow, this attitude seems controversial, and I do not understand it.
I cannot equate eugenics to aborting medically maligned fetuses. The former is based on superficial features of people that do not impact their physical or cognitive development, such as race, gender or sexuality, while the latter does, and it does so with increased suffering for the individual.
Equivocate does not mean what you think it does. More importantly, many times in history those “superficial features” have been associated by people, rightly or wrongly, with superior cognitive or physical abilities and used as an excuse for eugenics. Even more importantly, having known many people with Down’s I would caution you against saying that they have greater suffering and therefore would be better off not existing. Countless people feel differently about that.
They feel differently because they are already born. However, if they never existed in the first place, they would not have the capacity to feel that way, or feel any way at all actually. It is the same argument as the abortion debate, where those against it appeal to the people already born that might have been aborted, but that is a false equivalence.
Yes, but in this case I don’t think they are experiencing the level of suffering you think they are. But if I try to stay with you for a minute and listen to your case for there being a level of suffering that would make someone better off not existing, my question would be, where do you draw that line? You already drew it way earlier than I would’ve expected you would.
Severe mental or physical disability is where. For some reason, other people in this thread are equating eye color with severe disabilities, which is asinine to me. One is superficial, one actually produces suffering.
Are you aware that some people with Down Syndrome go to college? The effects of the genetic defect vary widely amongst the population of affected. If we take your argument of suffering then what about people born into poverty? Do they not deserve to live either?
The point you are missing is that people with disabilities are people. They deserve to live same as you, despite the challenges. Have some empathy.
That is again a post hoc rationalization. Just because some go to college does not mean we shouldn't cure their medical maladies. Some people with cancer go to college, does that mean we should not cure them?
No, that is not what eugenics means. That's what the strawman version of eugenics means (even 80 years ago it was a bit strawmannish, now it's even more so).
The steelman version of eugenics does select for features that impact physical or cognitive development. Both mental and physical talents are in part hereditary. That means you can run a breeding program to boost them.
It's one step closer to Eugenics (with a capital E) in the same sense that legalizing weed is one step closer to the entire population being addicted to heroin. Same ballpark, different game.
Eh, I would say it's closer to saying legalizing weed is one step closer to legalizing heroin. Probably yes, perhaps not, but in what capacity? The fear monger says heroin will be available for sale at the corner store and frequently used recreationally in the same capacity as weed. Regardless the legalization of weed has opened up the discussion legalization of other illegal drugs, but there is discussion as to the role of legalization that is different to what happened with weed
If they're already born then obviously there's nothing to do. However, what I'm talking about is the same as the abortion debate, about allowing a parent to choose whether they want to rear a child or not.
The difference is not in the act, but the information the decision is based on.
Choosing not to have a child because of you are unable to safely raise it, is one thing. (can't afford to raise a child; mother is too young; rape victims)
Choosing not to have a child because it's genetic code doesn't fit your notion of good. Is another. (Downs; autism; gender; eye color)
Children with Down syndrome, severe autism, and other disabilities are significantly harder to raise than children without, often requiring lifelong care. This falls under your first criterion (“choosing not to have a child because ~of~ you are unable to safely raise it”). Gender and eye color do not fall under this criterion.
(Tangentially, this is a question that supporters of unconditional access to abortion do not have a good answer for. If abortion is 100% legal, without exception, does that mean it’s OK to use it for female infanticide?)
Same for the autistic and mentally ill. I'd like to just roll the dice until I get one that'll be easy to raise. And in much of the world girls are indeed much harder to raise
Makes sense. I wouldn't wish autism on anyone, knowing how much suffering it causes me. It's reasonable then to abort fetuses with signs of autism right? Mental illness is terrible too.
A campaign of state sponsored genocide against a class of people because they may be disadvantaged or have a more difficult life, for "the greater good" is... concerning.
Assuming tests were possible (which they might be), what would you think about an intensive government campaign to eliminate homosexual and trans people from the population?
So you'd advocate against treating (or indeed, aborting) for all genetic or congenital conditions where the child may live to an adult? That seems extreme in and of itself.
I did not express my opinion about what should be done. It is a difficult problem and I would not debate it here. I was just explaining why it is controversial.
If no mother had a child after the age of 25 you'd also see a significant drop in Down Syndrome rates with a similar effect to abortions (although obviously not the 100% which abortions could in theory achieve). Effectively that would be doing the same thing except without the controversy of abortion but few would call that eugenics. What's the difference? Would people say it's bad if the rate of Down Syndrome decreased because mothers were younger?
The difference is a personal choice versus a government campaign to influence peoples' choices with the goal of eliminate those classes of people the state has deemed "undesirable".
> Would people say it's bad if the rate of Down Syndrome decreased because mothers were younger?
Probably, if the change was due to the government trying to convince people older than 25 not to have children.
The eugenics aspect is concerning, that was my opinion, and many who have similar concerns (hence it is controversial).
My opinion on the merits of an individual making personal choices about reproduction and medical treatment for themselves and their offspring was not offered.
"genocide" is extremely loaded when we're talking about something that can be detected as early as 10 weeks in a developing fetus.
And being gay doesn't cause brutal, head to toe, lifelong (albeit a short life) material suffering in the individuals, like most cases of Down Syndrome do. It's not just cognitive issues, if you're unaware.
That's fair, I was trying to frame it from the point of view of people who might disagree with it to answer OP's question. Might have come across a little strong, so we could call it a state sponsored eugenics programme, then. The systematic reduction or elimination from society a class of people deemed undesirable by the state through the funding of genetic tests and abortion services.
> And being gay doesn't cause brutal, head to toe, lifelong (albeit a short life) material suffering in the individuals, like most cases of Down Syndrome do. It's not just cognitive issues, if you're unaware.
I have known a number of people with downs syndrome who are very happy a lot of time time, and wonderful fun people too. And on the other hand, let's say trans people for example can suffer excruciating depression as well as physical suffering too. So my concern is valid.
If people with downs cross some certain threshold dreamed up by state bureaucrats that others do not, that does not give me much comfort. Where exactly are these arbitrary lines drawn, who decides them, how might they change? Pretty concerning if you ask me, and I'm not anti-abortion nor even anti-abortion for this reason.
Giving people information and freedom is one thing. Having the state encourage the abortion of classes of people it considers "undesirable" is quite another, IMO.
As far as I understand, "encouraging" here is referring to offering free access to tests that screen for this genetic disorder (among many others), and free access to at-will abortion (up to some fetal age). Or is there some kind of campaign saying "mothers, Abort every fetus with Down's syndrome!" that has gone unmentioned?
First of all, homosexual and trans people don't require the same amount of dedication from their parents to live a half-way decent life as children with Downs syndrome do. In fact, homosexual people don't require any extra care, and trans people barely more than that (depending on access to free Healthcare).
Second of all, there just isn't, and can't be, a right to be born. The hypothetical person who would turn out of if a fertilized egg is carried to term has no innate rights until they actually do get born (or, well, somewhere near - not trying to justify late term abortions or anything). At least, this is the case if you believe a right to voluntary abortion should exist at all.
Theoretically, I don't see anything unethical about aborting a fetus with some hypothetical gay gene, nor do I see anything unethical about aborting a fetus with a gene for black hair instead of blond.
In practice though, assuming the screening is not happening very early in the pregnancy, it would seem strange for expecting parents to throw away their excitement after a month of pregnancy because of such shallow reasons. I don't think the same strangeness applies though for more life-impacting conditions, like Down syndrome (or like severe non-verbal autism, if it could be screened for).
The fact that the born child would be a precious life that no one would have the right to attack or judge for their illnesses in no way reflects back in time to before they were a child.
> First of all, homosexual and trans people don't require the same amount of dedication from their parents to live a half-way decent life as children with Downs syndrome do. In fact, homosexual people don't require any extra care, and trans people barely more than that (depending on access to free Healthcare).
This is all pretty subjective and arbitrary. Are you saying it's just a matter of degree, and if it happens to be the case for one set of "experts" or bureaucrats then fine. What happens when the next set decide a different group of undesirables is over the line?
What I'm saying has nothing to do with a right to be born, or an individual's right to personally make choices about their own reproductive and medical issues. It is purely about a state eugenics campaign to systematically eliminate undesirable classes of people from society.
If you don't believe individuals have a right to be born, then what is wrong with a state eugenics program, as long as it is not coercive or manipulative (that is, as long as it is done with the free consent of the parents)?
We can probably all agree that screening for certain high-fatality conditions and terminating the pregnancy if they are found is generally better - say, Tay-Sachs disease. We can also agree that screening for other genetic traits and terminating the pregnancy if they are found is unnecessary at best and harmful to society at worst - say, aborting all female genotype fetuses.
Between such extremes lies the realm of the subjective and the messy, where some will agree and some won't. A democratic state may morally/ethically encourage or discourage opinions on these matters, ideally based on the best outcomes for all its citizens.
> If you don't believe individuals have a right to be born,
I didn't say I believe it or not. This isn't going to be some gotcha about my beliefs, I was explaining to the OP why this kind of thing is controversial.
> what is wrong with a state eugenics program, as long as it is not coercive or manipulative (that is, as long as it is done with the free consent of the parents)?
Well coercive or manipulative are not black-and-white, and there is concern that the line is over stepped. But leaving that aside, I go back to my first post.
Would you have any concerns with a government eugenics program to eliminate trans people from society using genetic screening and abortion counseling informing expectant parents about the horrible disadvantage, discrimination, and horrific physical and mental suffering that they go through at extremely high rates, and assuring them that abortions are a good treatment?
You skipped the question really. It's not where exactly you draw the line with disadvantage and difficulty, and it's not about an individual making their own personal choices. I'm asking about a government eugenics program with such a goal.
Well I don't want this to be a gotcha about your beliefs either, so I don't really need you to answer, the question is more to get people thinking about why the whole issue is not as simple as it seems.
I wasn't trying to corner you on your specific beliefs, I apologize that it came off like that. My intention was to use the rhetorical "you", arguing with hypothetical people who believe what you are describing, not with you personally, but I realize it didn't come off like that.
On to the topic itself - I think it depends a lot on the specifics of such a program, and other social context. If it's used in a coercive or manipulative way, and it is also seen as an excuse not to improve things for trans people who are already living, obviously it would be controversial. If it's more informative and optional, and it comes paired with clear proof that the government isn't simply trying to kill the undesirables (such as Healthcare coverage for trans people, protection from discrimination etc), then I believe few would be against it.
Now, could it still be controversial? Sure, apparently casting a black person to play an elf is controversial.
Downs Syndrome is caused by a random mutation. It's not inherited so the long term rate of it occuring would be unaffected. Given the massive amount of inbreeding in Iceland they have bigger concerns.
> It's not inherited so the long term rate of it occuring would be unaffected.
What? The rate of it occurring is about the number of people alive with the syndrome, not those conceived. They abort all of them, so there are less of them. It's not about inheritance.
Like any genetic disorder, Down syndrome is actually inheritable. 50% of the children of a Down syndrome parent (typically a mother, as men with Down syndrome are typically infertile) will also have Down syndrome, assuming no special technology is used. What is true is that the 50% of children who do not have Down syndrome will likely also not have any higher chance than the general population of having children of their own with Down syndrome.
Kids with Down Syndrome have a reduced cognitive ability, but an enhanced ability to demonstrate love. Removing them from the world is not only wrong, but foolish.
An absurdist thought experiment I've had recently:
Every single 'controversial' topic comes with an unspoken invisible "at current rate" percent sign/sliding scale, for any side of any debate about society.
(political/ social/ demographic/ financial/ health )
I believe lots of obnoxious contrarian things very strongly and yet I'm honest with myself that at some fuzzy unknown hypothetical percentage, my opinion would have to flip because the entire structure of society would transform, warp, and eventually collapse.
People should stop with trolley problems and start asking about the invisible number next to every prescriptive societal claim they hold.
Most people are not that honest with themselves EVEN for the categories they themselves are in.
So, downs syndrome:
Somewhere between 0% percent, iceland, all the way to 100% of all new children born are born with downs and kept... (lets say some virus or enemy action or monsanto in the water etc) ,
move the slider along one percent at a time in your mind...
What percent leading to implosion of entire US society/alternate 'children of men' disaster that upends everything demographically, every institution and economic reality that holds the country together?
All women are doomed to give up every dream they had, be it of working or of a healthy family, they are now nanny-slaves to special needs children, who will reshape family dynamics.
Half the healthy men have to break their back to keep current society infrastructure, military crawling along while the other half must rebuild all society around the new demographic burden.
Every healthy non-downs sibling becomes neglected and bitter as the special ones suck up all oxygen and finances.
All the aging adult population must now compete for healthcare with the new generation of special needs. Maybe some take one for the team, suicides to pass along resources.
The life of every useful american adult needs to now be rerouted to a future of corralling these "good hearted" but unstable giant toddlers in adult bodies, with adult strengths and "impulses" and food and resource needs.
Ethnic resentments ramp up as some group values shift at different rates, being resource drains or having an edge on others.
At what percent (10%???) would foreign powers smell blood in the water and begin planning invasion to get first dibs at the doomed superpower?
(the effect of the small covid numbers (0.1%??? ) was sobering and has reshaped everything I think about how people and societies work, and I'm grateful for that lesson)
So, yeah, what's the highest percentage of total new births of these happy loveable people that you personally would still hold your current opinion about?
> Somehow, this attitude seems controversial, and I do not understand it.
If you are not willing to kill babies and adults with Down Syndrome then your argument is incoherent.
Saying it's controversial allows lines, like killing adults with Downs would also hurt a lot of people around them who love them.
Abortion of course is controversial, the are thousands of different rules and time limits in different jurisdictions because it's so hard to understand. One assumes this is excluded from your argument since it's so obviously controversial.
Also this is not 'Iceland' this is the world where people are rich enough to care for the health of their babies. In these place most people chose to abort.
You also have other Sophies choice questions since the first test has a very high false positive you have to test properly with a 1 in 200 chance of miscarrying a fetus that is healthy.
> If you are not willing to kill babies and adults with Down Syndrome then your argument is incoherent.
To explain why I think you're being downvoted:
Imagine someone saying "I think all children should be born with at least two loving parents.". Would you say this implies they want to kill every bastard?
Did anyone have a weird 'throwback' feeling seeing this on the front page?
(This might not make a lot of sense...)
Thinking about Down's syndrome in today's world somehow doesn't 'fit', like existentially and culturally feels like a holdover from another era (except that in reality it's not)
Somehow a few days of Dall-E/diffusion posts in a row and it's jarring to 'go back' in time to 80s or whatever of worries about Downs--- rather than mRNA, autism, current medical zeitgeist.
stuff like this really makes me think about the twin-nuclei (atom and cell) problem/ idea of Eric Weinstein.
It indicates a weird unspoken tension, a tether between the last moments of old world and the first moments of a new world.
"The Twin Nuclei Era began in the space of four months in 1952-3 with the first test of the Teller-Ulam fusion device in early November of 1952 followed by the discovery of 3D structure of DNA in late February of 1953."
For over 70 years we've already have lived in a world reshaped around the tech of the atom bomb for a while, but because it's been slower going, we still don't know what a world reshaped around the tech of the cell will be.
And culturally we've mostly just avoided it like a giant dysfunctional family taboo that makes everyone tense. Barely any of our movies or cultural products have helped reckon with it seriously. Usually cultures grab onto an idea and go through an entire 4 seasons cycle/obsession with it, cross pollinating in multiple genres, recycling tropes, high and low brow versions, etc.
But somehow it feels like we jumped to the fun of AI and space instead.
One occasional Gattaca or an organ-harvesting clone sci-fi, very very few works of depth.
Like genetic engineering of individuals and populations is just too close and real and grimey to handle, too explosive. "Demographics is Destiny" as a saying has been haunting me since I read it, but there's so little to explore /dive into regarding visions of the future, fictional or non-fiction takes. (And hell, I feel we barely have a grip on basic anthropology of how our current society regarding works, power, elites, etc)
Everything feels on the cusp of a decade or so (cloning, crispr, ivf, stem cells, demographic planning of sex ratios, aging and healthspan stuff, surrogates, artificial wombs etc), but there's this huge silent inertia tension feeling of researchers working in the shadows before some nation officially shoots the starting gun starts the race and forces every society into a headlong rush towards the biomedical musical chairs/ the next balance of power.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 209 ms ] threadWe can test babies and avoid the disorder by making them eat special diet for a while. But not those who sadly experienced brain damages first.
Such treatment may hopefully help them too. But the action mechanism must be separate than this drug, I think?
Speak for yourself, Down Syndrome isn't just a cognitive or genetic condition, they have a lot of physiological problems where the organs malfunction, hence the usual premature deaths and suffering.
I've tried most everything under the sun and used my body as a walking science lab. Most things don't have a noticeable effect, but there are a handful of things that do.
(Also, YMMV, personal chemistry)
As an aside, there are tomes of literature, research and arguments for and against the computational theory of mind. I don't think it's as clear cut to say that the brain is a computer, as physiologically it certainly doesn't work like a computer at all.
On the other hand, I've met plenty of people who believe the brain has "processing power" that's equivalent to literal CPUs.
For example, the definition of "compute" can vary greatly, which we can see here in the comments section versus what is usually considered computing when it comes to the computational theory of mind. Often regarding this topic, "computing" means symbol manipulation and representation a la Turing machines, whereas many in this comment section interpret "computing" as the action of taking input and producing output.
My point with the comment is that I'm no expert, and I'm not someone who has really thought about or tried to tackle this problem. There are plenty of people who have, though, and they can make more insightful, apt and convincing arguments that are worth looking into before accepting or dismissing the concept entirely.
It also gets into metaphysics, as some people believe that mind is not limited to the brain.
Notably, such examples wouldn't exist if computation was strictly a subset of thought, but that can be waved away by acknowledging that the brain has finite resources that it does its best to use sparingly. Also, brains definitely run algorithms with staggering numbers of variables, e.g. object recognition from noisy sense data.
And all the results about all computers being equivalent only work if they have access to infinite storage and power. That computation isn’t outside the set of all theoretical thoughts, it’s just outside the set of all ones in actually existing human brains that don’t have access to a pen and paper.
As to simulating a ball being thrown, that’s one thing that the brain already does. Visualization is a simulation.
Like if you're a bad shot you can't install an update to turn into a sniper. Of course, snipers do get to be that good by practicing enough, but I don't know if they visualize the target or do it with conscious math.
What’s important to realize is people don’t just picture the path a ball takes but also the feel as they make a throw. Predicting the path of a thrown ball to be able to catch it is a another sign of simulation, but combining that with a simulation of how a throw takes place is useful.
Pool is clear example of the brain doing physical simulation. The exact positions are unique, but people learn how to predict what will happen to figure out what’s reasonable to attempt.
However, given our current level of understanding of how the mind works, we can't say for sure that certain thoughts are algorithmic. For example, we don't know an algorithm by which new systems of axioms can be created, nor even a general algorithm for proving a theorem in a given system of axioms, beyond brute force searching. Given that human minds do these things relatively often, it's unlikely they are arriving at it by brute force search in the enormous domain of mathematical statements.
So, we can't say we've ruled out the possibility that the mind is using some unknown non-computational process for finding novel theorem proofs. Note that proof checking is algorithmic, only proof discovery is potentially not.
Now, to me extrapolating this to a non-computational theory of mind smells a lot like a God-of-the-gaps argument, so I don't buy it. But it is worth remembering the limits of what is actually proven to be computable.
I've taken this example somewhat directly from Turing's paper on computation - there, he bases the model of the Turing machine specifically on a mathematician doing rote mechanical calculation with a pen and paper (the machine state is their brain state, the tape is the notebook, the writing head is the pen, and the reading head is their eyes). However, non-rote calculations are arguably left out of the paper's claims (or at least most of them).
Much more famous arguments about non-computational theories of mind are, to me, much less convincing. The most famous is probably The Chinese Room, where the idea is that a man locked in a room receives a question on paper written in Chinese characters, and follows lookup tables and English instructions to return another paper written with Chinese characters, but can't really be said to understand Mandarin even if he is always returning the right answer for the question asked (or so the author claims). Another such famous argument is Mary's Room, where Mary is also locked in a room where nothing has the color red, but where she gets to rid everything that can be known about the physics and biology of the color red and its perception in the human brain (much more knowledge than we have today), but where she is assumed to still have a new experience once she leaves the room and actually sees red for the first time directly.
Saying the mind is somehow beyond quantifiable physics is equivalent to dualism.
So is there some animal brain, no matter how primitive, that we could in principle simulate? I think so. I think that is realistically within our capacity.
If your microprocessor is having floating-read problems because the voltage on the 5V/12V power lines is more like 2V/4V, then "more power" is exactly what it needs.
The brain is a bunch of chemicals floating around in salt water.
The equivalent of hooking up jumper cables would be adding a clump of neurons.
A chemical that washes over the entire system is more akin to giving the computer a clean/wash (not with water) when the computer has grime and dirt blocking various connections (/ neural pathways).
Don't have down's syndrome. Likely on the autism spectrum. Didn't notice any significant cognitive benefits.
GP, if you think your have it, get assessed, it will help you a lot. Don't WebMD yourself.
You also might not have it, but stuff close or related to it, like ADHD or SPD. You might not be picking up social cues for example because your ADHD is causing you to lose focus subconsciously for example, but with ADHD you can take a medication.
Not being sarcastic at all, just wondering what specific help would apply, since there is no "autism medicine". Then what?
Would labelling it sometimes do more harm than good?
I have seen what they provide to autistic children, and it seems to me, a layperson, that most autistic adults will have figured that stuff out the hard way over time.
I assume I could be missing something but don't have a clue what that might be.
It's like trying to build a house without understanding the composition of the ground underneath to create your foundation. You need to take samples so you can create the proper foundation. If you don't, your house might start to sink, or you over-engineered it and wasted money. Or trying to drive a manual transmission without any proper feedback on what your doing wrong. You might be driving your entire life lurching and stalling frequently, thinking 'that's just the way it works!' because you don't know and you completely self taught, and nobody quite gets that it's your manual transmission techniques. Or understanding how you have to modify your weightlifting technique because your tall, or short. Or to learn to not bother trying to make your calves bigger or not because it's mostly genetic. I can go on and on with the metaphors.
How you help someone with ADHD, SPD or ASD with their social or other issues is fairly different too! You might be wrong about your autism self-diagnosis, and some of it can be assisted by medication.
If you have sensory integration issues, willbarger brushing might help you integrate your senses better and not cause clothing, lights, and sounds to feel overwhelming. Or it might help you notice more things in the world and move more gracefully if your under-stimulated.
So yes, there is a lot you can do. And I think a lot of un-diagnosed autistic adults are living a life with a lot of pain and maladaptive compensatory strategies that makes their lives a lot worse. They will do better with their lives, their jobs and their happiness in life.
Also just because you have a medical diagnosis, does not mean you need to share it or label yourself in public as so, you can keep it as private as you wish. The power of self knowledge is amazing.
In case anyone else is curious. It's not a drug you might consider taking off label as a nootropic. It messes with testosterone and estrogen and a load of other stuff.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triptorelin
My 9 year old daughter has Down's Syndrome, and this is the most exciting paper I've seen! I know we're a long, long way off any kind of treatment being available for people with Down's, but still, I can't help but feel some hope.
BTW, you can AMA about Down's here if you want!
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2019/11/415946/down-syndrome-mouse...
As these 2 approaches are different, it would be interesting to see if there was a cumulative effect if both were performed.
Also the screen has a sensitivity of 95% with a positive test indicating > 1/300 chance in Down’s syndrome, so the screening is not nearly THAT bad
I was thinking more of false negatives than positives, but reading it back, there was no way for you to know that from what I wrote!
The test for our daughter came back negative (well, something like 3,000,000:1 chance of Down's), but she did actually have Down's. Later, talking with other parents of kids with Down's, multiple had had similar odds, some even crazier (and in a small country with <50k births each year).
[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/down-syndrome-iceland/
To your question, prenatal screening is a thing, but maybe non-invasive techniques (that don’t risk miscarriage) are newer. I don’t know how widely recommended they are throughout the country (US) or world, but they were prescribed for our kiddo born San Francisco this year. They seem to stagger the tests, so that the less invasive ones are used at first, and then the more invasive procedures are recommended if there is information that would indicate an increased risk of whatever condition.
See for example: https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/prenatal-testing-for-do...
Some might say that these tests are being over used… it’s very personal imo.
The NIPT can screen for the sex of the baby earlier than it can be detected on a scan, so many women elect to have it done.
The first trimester ultrasound is around 96% accurate at detection of down’s syndrome.
This is all to say: indeed they have non-invasive tests and they’re very accessible.
Theirs would be the false positive rate (FPR) or false negative rate (FNR), and yours would be an probability, which takes the FPR (or FNR) rate, the number of tests and the base incidence rate to arrive at 1/300, 1/5000.
For example, in Canada, 1/750 of live born babies has Down's [2].
There are about 400,000 births every year in Canada [3].
So, there are 400,000 / 750 = 500 kids with Down's born every year.
Assume the test has a FNR rate of 0, and a FPR of 5%.
400,000 * 0.05 + 500 = 20,500 children test positive
Odds of positive test indicating Down's (5% FPR): 500/20,500 = 2.4%
Not quite the 1/300, but as you said "soft marker", so maybe the FPR is higher for that, vs all the markers?
To get to 1/300, the FPR rate on the marker would need to be 37.5%?
The 1/5000 is (I believe) a change from a FPR rate to the FNR rate, since the second test is indicating that the disease _isn't_ present.
1/5000 would indicate a negative genetic test will miss one Down's diagnosis in a decade in Canada.
Interestingly, it looks like the FRP increases with age, with it being 4% at age 30 (combined ultrasound/blood test)? [1]
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11702835/
[2] https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications...
[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/443051/number-of-births-...
It's more expensive than the older, inaccurate screening test, so here in the UK it isn't routinely offered to parents, or even explained to them. It's offered by private clinics though.
I've wondered about modern education for children with Down's. My impression is that they currently show much greater cognitive development than what I remember from 50 years ago. I have assumed that this is due to improvements in special education. Can you say anything about this?
It's reckoned that a lot of these assumptions were down to hearing issues, which are highly prevalent in Down's - once we figured this out, and realised how easily fixed these issues were, things started to change, quickly.
Nowadays, we know people with Down's are capable of much more, though I must note there is a huge range of cognitive ability, and additional tuition and support will always be needed. Still, it's common now for kids with Down's to attend regular primary school, and some also attend regular high school.
edit: I love how this is getting downvoted on a site where most people are anti Apple CSAM reporting.
The point you are missing is that people with disabilities are people. They deserve to live same as you, despite the challenges. Have some empathy.
Aside: I'd love to be a fly on the wall as you try to discuss your stance with a person with one more chromosome than you
Choosing not to have a child because of you are unable to safely raise it, is one thing. (can't afford to raise a child; mother is too young; rape victims)
Choosing not to have a child because it's genetic code doesn't fit your notion of good. Is another. (Downs; autism; gender; eye color)
(Tangentially, this is a question that supporters of unconditional access to abortion do not have a good answer for. If abortion is 100% legal, without exception, does that mean it’s OK to use it for female infanticide?)
Assuming tests were possible (which they might be), what would you think about an intensive government campaign to eliminate homosexual and trans people from the population?
But whatever you like to call it, I'm asking about the same kind of elimination campaign directed at other disadvantaged groups.
The difference is a personal choice versus a government campaign to influence peoples' choices with the goal of eliminate those classes of people the state has deemed "undesirable".
> Would people say it's bad if the rate of Down Syndrome decreased because mothers were younger?
Probably, if the change was due to the government trying to convince people older than 25 not to have children.
My opinion on the merits of an individual making personal choices about reproduction and medical treatment for themselves and their offspring was not offered.
And being gay doesn't cause brutal, head to toe, lifelong (albeit a short life) material suffering in the individuals, like most cases of Down Syndrome do. It's not just cognitive issues, if you're unaware.
That's fair, I was trying to frame it from the point of view of people who might disagree with it to answer OP's question. Might have come across a little strong, so we could call it a state sponsored eugenics programme, then. The systematic reduction or elimination from society a class of people deemed undesirable by the state through the funding of genetic tests and abortion services.
> And being gay doesn't cause brutal, head to toe, lifelong (albeit a short life) material suffering in the individuals, like most cases of Down Syndrome do. It's not just cognitive issues, if you're unaware.
I have known a number of people with downs syndrome who are very happy a lot of time time, and wonderful fun people too. And on the other hand, let's say trans people for example can suffer excruciating depression as well as physical suffering too. So my concern is valid.
If people with downs cross some certain threshold dreamed up by state bureaucrats that others do not, that does not give me much comfort. Where exactly are these arbitrary lines drawn, who decides them, how might they change? Pretty concerning if you ask me, and I'm not anti-abortion nor even anti-abortion for this reason.
Giving people information and freedom is one thing. Having the state encourage the abortion of classes of people it considers "undesirable" is quite another, IMO.
Second of all, there just isn't, and can't be, a right to be born. The hypothetical person who would turn out of if a fertilized egg is carried to term has no innate rights until they actually do get born (or, well, somewhere near - not trying to justify late term abortions or anything). At least, this is the case if you believe a right to voluntary abortion should exist at all.
Theoretically, I don't see anything unethical about aborting a fetus with some hypothetical gay gene, nor do I see anything unethical about aborting a fetus with a gene for black hair instead of blond.
In practice though, assuming the screening is not happening very early in the pregnancy, it would seem strange for expecting parents to throw away their excitement after a month of pregnancy because of such shallow reasons. I don't think the same strangeness applies though for more life-impacting conditions, like Down syndrome (or like severe non-verbal autism, if it could be screened for).
The fact that the born child would be a precious life that no one would have the right to attack or judge for their illnesses in no way reflects back in time to before they were a child.
This is all pretty subjective and arbitrary. Are you saying it's just a matter of degree, and if it happens to be the case for one set of "experts" or bureaucrats then fine. What happens when the next set decide a different group of undesirables is over the line?
What I'm saying has nothing to do with a right to be born, or an individual's right to personally make choices about their own reproductive and medical issues. It is purely about a state eugenics campaign to systematically eliminate undesirable classes of people from society.
We can probably all agree that screening for certain high-fatality conditions and terminating the pregnancy if they are found is generally better - say, Tay-Sachs disease. We can also agree that screening for other genetic traits and terminating the pregnancy if they are found is unnecessary at best and harmful to society at worst - say, aborting all female genotype fetuses.
Between such extremes lies the realm of the subjective and the messy, where some will agree and some won't. A democratic state may morally/ethically encourage or discourage opinions on these matters, ideally based on the best outcomes for all its citizens.
I didn't say I believe it or not. This isn't going to be some gotcha about my beliefs, I was explaining to the OP why this kind of thing is controversial.
> what is wrong with a state eugenics program, as long as it is not coercive or manipulative (that is, as long as it is done with the free consent of the parents)?
Well coercive or manipulative are not black-and-white, and there is concern that the line is over stepped. But leaving that aside, I go back to my first post.
Would you have any concerns with a government eugenics program to eliminate trans people from society using genetic screening and abortion counseling informing expectant parents about the horrible disadvantage, discrimination, and horrific physical and mental suffering that they go through at extremely high rates, and assuring them that abortions are a good treatment?
You skipped the question really. It's not where exactly you draw the line with disadvantage and difficulty, and it's not about an individual making their own personal choices. I'm asking about a government eugenics program with such a goal.
Well I don't want this to be a gotcha about your beliefs either, so I don't really need you to answer, the question is more to get people thinking about why the whole issue is not as simple as it seems.
On to the topic itself - I think it depends a lot on the specifics of such a program, and other social context. If it's used in a coercive or manipulative way, and it is also seen as an excuse not to improve things for trans people who are already living, obviously it would be controversial. If it's more informative and optional, and it comes paired with clear proof that the government isn't simply trying to kill the undesirables (such as Healthcare coverage for trans people, protection from discrimination etc), then I believe few would be against it.
Now, could it still be controversial? Sure, apparently casting a black person to play an elf is controversial.
That extra chromosome doesn't just go *poof* during meiosis. For the translocation type of the syndrome, it can and does happen occasionally.
What? The rate of it occurring is about the number of people alive with the syndrome, not those conceived. They abort all of them, so there are less of them. It's not about inheritance.
Every single 'controversial' topic comes with an unspoken invisible "at current rate" percent sign/sliding scale, for any side of any debate about society.
(political/ social/ demographic/ financial/ health )
I believe lots of obnoxious contrarian things very strongly and yet I'm honest with myself that at some fuzzy unknown hypothetical percentage, my opinion would have to flip because the entire structure of society would transform, warp, and eventually collapse.
People should stop with trolley problems and start asking about the invisible number next to every prescriptive societal claim they hold.
Most people are not that honest with themselves EVEN for the categories they themselves are in.
So, downs syndrome:
Somewhere between 0% percent, iceland, all the way to 100% of all new children born are born with downs and kept... (lets say some virus or enemy action or monsanto in the water etc) ,
move the slider along one percent at a time in your mind...
What percent leading to implosion of entire US society/alternate 'children of men' disaster that upends everything demographically, every institution and economic reality that holds the country together?
All women are doomed to give up every dream they had, be it of working or of a healthy family, they are now nanny-slaves to special needs children, who will reshape family dynamics.
Half the healthy men have to break their back to keep current society infrastructure, military crawling along while the other half must rebuild all society around the new demographic burden.
Every healthy non-downs sibling becomes neglected and bitter as the special ones suck up all oxygen and finances.
All the aging adult population must now compete for healthcare with the new generation of special needs. Maybe some take one for the team, suicides to pass along resources.
The life of every useful american adult needs to now be rerouted to a future of corralling these "good hearted" but unstable giant toddlers in adult bodies, with adult strengths and "impulses" and food and resource needs.
Ethnic resentments ramp up as some group values shift at different rates, being resource drains or having an edge on others.
At what percent (10%???) would foreign powers smell blood in the water and begin planning invasion to get first dibs at the doomed superpower?
(the effect of the small covid numbers (0.1%??? ) was sobering and has reshaped everything I think about how people and societies work, and I'm grateful for that lesson)
So, yeah, what's the highest percentage of total new births of these happy loveable people that you personally would still hold your current opinion about?
If you are not willing to kill babies and adults with Down Syndrome then your argument is incoherent.
Saying it's controversial allows lines, like killing adults with Downs would also hurt a lot of people around them who love them.
Abortion of course is controversial, the are thousands of different rules and time limits in different jurisdictions because it's so hard to understand. One assumes this is excluded from your argument since it's so obviously controversial.
Also this is not 'Iceland' this is the world where people are rich enough to care for the health of their babies. In these place most people chose to abort.
You also have other Sophies choice questions since the first test has a very high false positive you have to test properly with a 1 in 200 chance of miscarrying a fetus that is healthy.
To explain why I think you're being downvoted:
Imagine someone saying "I think all children should be born with at least two loving parents.". Would you say this implies they want to kill every bastard?
(This might not make a lot of sense...)
Thinking about Down's syndrome in today's world somehow doesn't 'fit', like existentially and culturally feels like a holdover from another era (except that in reality it's not)
Somehow a few days of Dall-E/diffusion posts in a row and it's jarring to 'go back' in time to 80s or whatever of worries about Downs--- rather than mRNA, autism, current medical zeitgeist.
stuff like this really makes me think about the twin-nuclei (atom and cell) problem/ idea of Eric Weinstein.
It indicates a weird unspoken tension, a tether between the last moments of old world and the first moments of a new world.
"The Twin Nuclei Era began in the space of four months in 1952-3 with the first test of the Teller-Ulam fusion device in early November of 1952 followed by the discovery of 3D structure of DNA in late February of 1953."
For over 70 years we've already have lived in a world reshaped around the tech of the atom bomb for a while, but because it's been slower going, we still don't know what a world reshaped around the tech of the cell will be.
And culturally we've mostly just avoided it like a giant dysfunctional family taboo that makes everyone tense. Barely any of our movies or cultural products have helped reckon with it seriously. Usually cultures grab onto an idea and go through an entire 4 seasons cycle/obsession with it, cross pollinating in multiple genres, recycling tropes, high and low brow versions, etc.
But somehow it feels like we jumped to the fun of AI and space instead.
One occasional Gattaca or an organ-harvesting clone sci-fi, very very few works of depth.
Like genetic engineering of individuals and populations is just too close and real and grimey to handle, too explosive. "Demographics is Destiny" as a saying has been haunting me since I read it, but there's so little to explore /dive into regarding visions of the future, fictional or non-fiction takes. (And hell, I feel we barely have a grip on basic anthropology of how our current society regarding works, power, elites, etc)
Everything feels on the cusp of a decade or so (cloning, crispr, ivf, stem cells, demographic planning of sex ratios, aging and healthspan stuff, surrogates, artificial wombs etc), but there's this huge silent inertia tension feeling of researchers working in the shadows before some nation officially shoots the starting gun starts the race and forces every society into a headlong rush towards the biomedical musical chairs/ the next balance of power.