Ethicality: Eradicating Homosexuality through Genetic Engineering

[AsleepOnTheCeiling 6,489]

10 minutes ago, PartySick said:

You can justify just about anything with a series of "what about" but realistically, sun screen and just letting gays be gays will never become more complicated than genetically manipulating a fetus

I really do believe at some point it will just become a few lines of code on a computer. Almost like printing a picture. Be careful what you say, you know I'm willing to accept a few cold waffles in order to bump a thread and call somebody out in the future 

On a serious note, I do get where you're coming from. It's all a lot of hypotheticals. But it's not impossible. 

[TimisaMonster 31,073]

Eradicating ALL homosexuality would increase population rates at a phenomenal rate and we would not be able to support all those people and the planet would basically be exhausted of resources and the Earth would die

Not that evolution finds there to be anything wrong with homosexuality otherwise all these other species would not engage is such activity...

It literally is not hurting anyone...the only people who would even want to have something like this done is the people who are extremely religious or the self hating closeted gays...

[raragaga 8,119]

This sounds like some Dr. Mengele sht. They'll want to genetically engineer people's race, eye color, hair color, etc, etc.. No, it's not ethical. 

[raragaga 8,119]

Just now, TimisaMonster said:

Eradicating ALL homosexuality would increase population rates at a phenomenal rate and we would not be able to support all those people and the planet would basically be exhausted of resources and the Earth would die

I have always wondered if homosexuality is nature's way of controlling the population tbh

[AsleepOnTheCeiling 6,489]

3 minutes ago, Franz Ferdinand said:

So, first of all, we need to be clear on one thing: there is no gay gene (or genes). While, as the OP mentions, it is thought that genetics do play a role in determining sexual orientation, it is not as simple as most seem to think. Most of the genes that seem to be associated with homosexuality also have other non-sexual roles (we call these genes pleiotropic, meaning they influence two or more unrelated traits). For instance, a number of genes associated with homosexuality are also integral to determining Rh blood group (and, actually, queer people are more likely to be Rh negative than heterosexual people). In fact, so many of the genes related to homosexuality seem to influence other functions too, so engineering them would be unethical, simply because it would likely affect other functions that are not meant to be targeted. This is, actually, one of the biggest arguments against genetic engineering: we simply are nowhere near knowing enough about the genome to know exactly what the results would be. 

That notwithstanding, given that homosexuality has no fully ascertained genetic origin, even through gene editing it would be impossible to eradicate homosexuality, since some queer people simply don't have any of the common genetic markers that have been discovered. Regardless, a lot of these genetic regulations happen at the transcriptome level, and CRISPR can't help you there anyway. Also, engineering through CRISPR is an arduous process and it will never be effective enough to warrant widespread use (simply because of the molecular mechanisms involved).

Also, to your point about STIs, uhm... sis. I'm just gonna point out that gay women have a much lower incidence of STIs compared to both straight men and women, so. Maybe we should engineer the population so that everyone is a gay woman. 

 

I really do appreciate the information about the functional genes that affect things other than homosexuality. I was trying to find a few links but they weren't popping up in my searches. I agree we don't know a lot about genes and it's not enough for manipulation, but we have made a large amount of progress in just under 30 years. 

 

I also do address the "eradication" of homosexuality in both the OP and follow up posts. You don't believe CRISPR could become a commercial product at some point?

 

I get what you're saying on the STI front. I really do think this is all about limits. And it goes beyond targeting homosexuality (though as you've mentioned it's not just homosexuality that's then targeted because of the intertwining of functions).

[March34th 1,973]

forgive me for my ignorance but wouldn't this be impossible? aren't a lot of people pretty much asexual until they hit puberty and lack clear full understanding of which gender/s they are into until they begin to hit puberty/reach their teenage years?

I didn't have same sex attraction until I was 13 and before then lacked any attraction towards either sex. I've met a lot of gay guys who have had similar experiences. I know some people know from childhood that they are straight/gay/bi because of puppy love sort of crushes but wouldn't it be extremely difficult and borderline impossible to eradicate homosexuality through genetically engineering if a group of people don't experience any romantic attraction until they're a teenager? some people realize they're gay later in life and there isn't substantial evidence that people are born with a "gay gene". there's been correlations between the amount of older siblings and the possibility of a younger sibling being gay due to the mother's estrogen levels or something like that - but isn't the whole "gay gene" thing not real? i'm just confused as to how one would be able to remove homosexual desires from an embryo through genetic engineering in the ways that we may be able to change their eye colour or likelihood of developing certain life-threatening conditions.

but even if this somehow does become possible - this wouldn't be ethical. it shouldn't be anyone's business which sex someone else is attracted to, stuff like that just happens. I get wanting to ensure your kid won't develop a severe condition that could be genetic (like diabetes) but trying to prevent your child from becoming gay or lesbian or something just screams homophobia and discomfort with gays existing to me. there isn't any worldwide negative side effect to gays existing and homosexuality actually can regulate population levels in a species. if anything gays will assist the population from rising in a small way.

[RRR 3,996]

Why would someone want to? We have the better society, better sex life, better everything. They will have to pry my gayness out of my cold, dead hands

[AsleepOnTheCeiling 6,489]

3 minutes ago, TimisaMonster said:

Eradicating ALL homosexuality would increase population rates at a phenomenal rate and we would not be able to support all those people and the planet would basically be exhausted of resources and the Earth would die

Not that evolution finds there to be anything wrong with homosexuality otherwise all these other species would not engage is such activity...

It literally is not hurting anyone...the only people who would even want to have something like this done is the people who are extremely religious or the self hating closeted gays...

Wouldn't ridding of hereditary disease also affect population rates? And any other health issue we encounter? If it's a matter of population control, how much medicine should we administer at all?

2 minutes ago, raragaga said:

I have always wondered if homosexuality is nature's way of controlling the population tbh

There's a hypothesis (that's been questioned) that homosexuality has something to do with stress levels of the mother during pregnancy. The finding that younger siblings are more likely to be gay than older siblings is supposed to help this theory.  But that functionally homosexuals are supposed to help rear the family. This hypothesis is hurt by the fact that families reject homosexuals altogether because of their sexuality, but that is more of a social response than a biological one. Don't take my word on this though because I haven't done the best follow up on this theory and it could be completely disproven. 

1 minute ago, March34th said:

forgive me for my ignorance but wouldn't this be impossible? aren't a lot of people pretty much asexual until they hit puberty and lack clear full understanding of which gender/s they are into until they begin to hit puberty/reach their teenage years?

I didn't have same sex attraction until I was 13 and before then lacked any attraction towards either sex. I've met a lot of gay guys who have had similar experiences. I know some people know from childhood that they are straight/gay/bi because of puppy love sort of crushes but wouldn't it be extremely difficult and borderline impossible to eradicate homosexuality through genetically engineering if a group of people don't experience any romantic attraction until they're a teenager? some people realize they're gay later in life and there isn't substantial evidence that people are born with a "gay gene". there's been correlations between the amount of older siblings and the possibility of a younger sibling being gay due to the mother's estrogen levels or something like that - but isn't the whole "gay gene" thing not real? i'm just confused as to how one would be able to remove homosexual desires from an embryo through genetic engineering in the ways that we may be able to change their eye colour or likelihood of developing certain life-threatening conditions.

but even if this somehow does become possible - this wouldn't be ethical. it shouldn't be anyone's business which sex someone else is attracted to, stuff like that just happens. I get wanting to ensure your kid won't develop a severe condition that could be genetic (like diabetes) but trying to prevent your child from becoming gay or lesbian or something just screams homophobia and discomfort with gays existing to me. there isn't any worldwide negative side effect to gays existing and homosexuality actually can regulate population levels in a species. if anything gays will assist the population from rising in a small way.

My (uneducated) theory and best guess is that puberty probably has something to do with that. Puberty is a biological process as well, so why wouldn't sexuality present itself at that point as well? 

 

If there's no negative to gays existing, could there still be a positive to straights existing? Though the world doesn't really need a high reproductive rate, a straight person can still directly reproduce. Who are we to take that possibility away from someone?

[PartySick 161,668]

20 minutes ago, justhislife said:

I really do believe at some point it will just become a few lines of code on a computer. Almost like printing a picture. Be careful what you say, you know I'm willing to accept a few cold waffles in order to bump a thread and call somebody out in the future 

On a serious note, I do get where you're coming from. It's all a lot of hypotheticals. But it's not impossible. 

You have my permission to bump this thread in several hundred or thousand years to say "told you so"

[Franz Ferdinand 2,359]

21 minutes ago, justhislife said:

I also do address the "eradication" of homosexuality in both the OP and follow up posts. You don't believe CRISPR could become a commercial product at some point?

What I meant was that the whole process is simply too much. Homosexuality is not inherited in the traditional way, so every single embryo in the world would have to be screened prior to implantation, that is to say that every single pregnancy has to be started in vitro, in order for anything like that to happen. And the gene editing portion itself is not easy, CRISPR is not effective 100% of the time (in fact, it's effective about 15% of the time for knock-ins and 30% for knockouts, I think?), and that's just based of the molecular mechanism that it uses to insert or remove a gene, so it's not really fixable. I don't really see CRISPR as a commercial product, it is mainly a research tool. It has some potential clinical applications, but it's very niche. 

Then there's the fact that germline editing is fully illegal in most countries, and that's a really big hoop to jump through. I don't know where you could find the support to lift those legal restrictions. 

EDIT: This is all based on my understanding of these tools, but also I use CRISPR in my research quite a bit so this is an area I know a bit about.

[Franz Ferdinand 2,359]

1 minute ago, PartySick said:

You have my permission to bump this thread in several hundred or thousand years to say "told you so"

TBH, I hear a lot of these comments all the time and I'm like... but the laws of physics.
 

Real talk, I know it seems that technology is developing at an alarmingly rapid rate, but in reality we're hitting a lot of walls. It's all pretty much plateauing right now. 

[AsleepOnTheCeiling 6,489]

5 minutes ago, Franz Ferdinand said:

What I meant was that the whole process is simply too much. Homosexuality is no inherited in the traditional way, so every single embryo in the world would have to be screened prior to implantation, that is to say that every single pregnancy has to be started in vitro, in order for anything like that to happen. And the gene editing portion itself is not easy, CRISPR is not effective 100% of the time (in fact, it's effective about 15% of the time for knock-ins and 30% for knockouts, I think?), and that's just based of the molecular mechanism that it uses to insert or remove a gene, so it's not really fixable. I don't really see CRISPR as a commercial product, it is mainly a research tool. It has some potential clinical applications, but it's very niche. 

Then there's the fact that germline editing is fully illegal in most countries, and that's a really big hoop to jump through. I don't know where you could find the support to lift those legal restrictions. 

 

1 minute ago, Franz Ferdinand said:

TBH, I hear a lot of these comments all the time and I'm like... but the laws of physics.
 

Real talk, I know it seems that technology is developing at an alarmingly rapid rate, but in reality we're hitting a lot of walls. It's all pretty much plateauing right now. 

Well I'm no scientist or CRISPR expert so I'll take your word for it. May I know how you know about all this? (Not an attack as in "receipts?" But I'm genuinely curious about your background).

And yes it does seem like technology is developing at an alarming rate, I don't want to sound like an idiot that says "what if?" Over and over again until we hit something outlandish and I don't want to fight anybody because how am I gonna know with absolute certainty that I'm correct over someone educated in x field, but we seem to always think we hit the end until some sort of large discovery pushes forward. Based on history, I don't ever want to think we're close to maturity in anything. Though I guess at some point things will really have to end due to limited properties. And I know you probably didn't mean me specifically in your response to Party, in case you think I'm being super defensive

[anonanon 932]

1 hour ago, justhislife said:

I think we really should be careful about what we say can and cannot be done in the future. Isolation is getting more and more precise, and while I'm not sure we could find every single sequence that affects homosexuality, what if we could isolate some of the ones that are mostly responsible? They have been able to find some causation within the 23rd pair, or the sex chromosome.

 

Honestly I have not read all of the comments in this thread super in depth, but I would be cautious about using the word causal. As people have mentioned, it is mostly accepted there is no "gay gene." A few genome-wide studies have identified markers associated with sexual identity but you can't determine causality from those studies. 

Please correct me if I'm wrong because I am not really up on experimental research.

[Franz Ferdinand 2,359]

Just now, justhislife said:

Well I'm no scientist or CRISPR expert so I'll take your word for it. May I know how you know about all this? (Not an attack as in "receipts?" But I'm genuinely curious about your background).

I work in biomedical research (my area is cancer biology and we use CRISPR in some experiments).

1 minute ago, justhislife said:

And yes it does seem like technology is developing at an alarming rate, I don't want to sound like an idiot that says "what if?" Over and over again until we hit something outlandish and I don't want to fight anybody because how am I gonna know with absolute certainty that I'm correct over someone educated in x field, but we seem to always think we hit the end until some sort of large discovery pushes forward. Based on history, I don't ever want to think we're close to maturity in anything. Though I guess at some point things will really have to end due to limited properties. And I know you probably didn't mean me specifically in your response to Party, in case you think I'm being super defensive

What I mean is that we are getting a little too close to a point where further development is going to get slower, at least in some areas. For instance, think about computers. It really took centuries to go from an abacus to a calculator, and only a couple of decades to go from a rudimentary calculator to personal computers and laptops, but we're slowly reaching a point where computing can't get any faster or smaller. As soon as quantum computing is widespread, that's it. There's no further development that can be reached there because, physically, it's the smallest possible architecture. Basically, once the architecture for any technological tool gets down to the atomic level, that's it. We can't go any smaller, which means further development will come not through innovation or discovery but through retooling.

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It would be ethical to eradicate racists and homophobes instead