this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2026
382 points (98.5% liked)
memes
20314 readers
1538 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think the knock-on effect of making some innate, human characteristics undesirable is probably a net bad. That's very close to labeling persons with those characteristics as sub-human--specifically due fewer "human" rights.
That said, if I were choosing between gametes or embryos and had genetic information on them available, I do not think it is a moral stance to ignore/discard that information when making the choice. We should be careful to understand our genetic knowledge is still quite limited and, even if our knowledge was perfect, (most) genotypes are not destiny.
I dunno, man. You can have only so much of a sense of humor about child mortality. Up to a certain point, gene editing is all gravy.
I agree that gene editing to reduce suffering is good. I'm not sure "designer babies" is a label that includes those gene edits. Or, if it does, it groups the with too many other gene edits so the good ones are no longer exemplary of the label.
I always imagine it to be fairly gattaca-esque in its intended conclusion. Human work horses of terrifying intellect, stamina, and resilience to breach the barriers our forebears failed to surpass. Though that’s speculation and likely beyond my lifetime.
The name is mostly marketing. You don’t feel involved if it’s an “edited baby.” But designing it, that gets the people going. It’d be near impossible to sell “baby alpha .82 patch 1.” Fortunately for their sales department, an absence of ailments also tends to produce hotter people. Current trajectory, they intend to go after major genetic issues before considering looks. That’s the only effect I expect to see in my lifetime.