[ExI] article about Rafal and his daughter

Rafal Smigrodzki rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com
Fri Jun 24 06:14:01 UTC 2022


On Fri, Jun 24, 2022 at 1:51 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 23, 2022 at 10:38 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Jun 24, 2022 at 1:12 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Jun 23, 2022 at 8:33 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jun 23, 2022 at 8:58 PM Gadersd via extropy-chat <
>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I should clarify that I approve selecting one embryo over another if
>>>>> there is a very significant genetic downside with one such as down
>>>>> syndrome. Selecting one embryo over another for a very slight improvement
>>>>> irks me for previously mentioned reasons.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ### Let's say you are faced with two possible courses of action:
>>>>
>>>> A) Results in X% risk of disease, trivial or severe, or inconvenience
>>>> or other unpleasantness afflicting your child
>>>> B) Results in X+1% risk of risk of the above outcomes
>>>>
>>>> Assume the costs of either action are the same and there is no impact
>>>> on you or third parties except through the different effects on your child.
>>>>
>>>> Are you telling me there is a plausible situation where taking option B
>>>> is preferable to option A? Under what ethics?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Because it never is like that - it's never that clean - in practice.
>>> There are always other factors and risks commingled in.  Pretending it is
>>> that clean ignores those other factors, with negative results too often for
>>> his tastes.
>>>
>>
>> ### Let's say
>>
>
> Let's not, because constructing clean fantasy hypotheticals - as opposed
> to looking at messy reality - is the problem being objected to here.
>

###  To the contrary - The form of my argument may have given you the
impression that I was talking about hypotheticals but in fact options A and
B were the specific, actual choices that I and my GF were facing when
conceiving our daughter. Option B was standard genetic testing and option A
was standard testing plus polygenic disease testing, and the risk
differentials are also real, not imagined, according to peer reviewed
publications.

So, is there a plausible situation where a sane, benevolent parent should
choose option B that results in higher likelihood of cancer, diabetes and
stroke in their child?

Rafal
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20220624/9b90f3d9/attachment.htm>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list