Hot Button Topics (religion, politics, sports)

[Chocofreak13]

see, that line will be drawn for us when the time comes. either by the ones modified or the scientists doing it. :\

[Bella]

Gah - I wrote up a HUGE post about why pregnancy is exactly pretty or easy, complete with gory anatomical detail and cited sources, but the damned server herpderped as I was posting it and ate the whole thing. -____-;;; So I'll give Leaf the abbreviated version  (while, very likely saving y'all from vomiting and myself from a perma-b& of some sort, since I'm not going to have to use the words "ripped from scrotum to anus" not once, but TWICE, as a way of conveying the concept of episiotomy and obstetric tearing to people who have penises. Consider yourselves lucky...)

Pregnancy is a beautiful thing, and I think people should be able to keep or abort the baby naturally.

I'm willing to bet a majority of people who have actually been pregnant would disagree, if not be outright offended by this statement. It's true that some people have easy pregnancies, but no pregnancy is without discomfort (morning sickness is incredibly common, as is severe constipation, urinary incontinence, and a whole myriad of hormonal bullshitery), and other pregnancy complications can be debilitating, life-threatening, or outright fatal without quick treatment. I actually wrote up a Tumblr post on this subject awhile back; you can see the whole thing here, but here's an excerpt of my portion:

Also, OP, I'm sure any person who's gone through pre-eclampsia or eclampsia, gestational diabetes, hyperemesis gravidarum, diastasis recti, ectopic pregnancy or obstetric fistula would take offense at the idea that pregnancy is "The most beautiful biological process a human being can possibly have".

Heck, even people who've gone through "typical" pregnancies - with "typical" pregnancy problems like morning sickness, incontinence, gingivitis, whole-body skin rashes (google "chloasma" or "pruritic urticarial papules" if you're curious and don't have a particularly weak stomach), permanent major physical, hormonal and/or emotional changes- would probably be a little upset at your characterization of pregnancy as a "beautiful" biological process.*

(*This is to say nothing of all the invasive and expensive medical tests needed to maintain a healthy pregnancy, and nothing of the birth, which, in addition to the "typical" horrors of spinal anesthesia, hours or possibly days of labor and having to push another human being out of their uterus and through their cervix and vagina, might include the special horror of episiotomy or bad reactions to pain medication or anesthesia.)

So yeah, pregnancy isn't a disease, but it opens the door to a whole host of them, some life-threatening, some merely terribly uncomfortable and potentially-debilitating. By denying this fact you deny the reality of every person who's ever gone through a pregnancy - wanted or unwanted, carried to term or not.

Also, it bothers me when people who are physically incapable of being pregnant make statements about how beautiful (or easy, or natural, etc.) pregnancy is, even if you've had close friends or loved ones who've been through seemingly easy or happy pregnancies. To use a somewhat inaccurate (but still the best I could come up with) analogy, I'd never suggest that African Americans lead easy, racism-free lives just because my black friends seem about as happy as my white friends, and I've never actually seen any of them be accosted by racists, been faced with threats of violence or had slurs thrown at them, etc. I'd never assume anything about their lives - I've never led life as any of them, much less as an African American person.

DNA-based modification is progress on a simple and natural level. We aren't breaking the bonds of our species - we're just speeding up its evolution and pointing it in the direction we want.

Physical modification on the other hand...

I'm with Nej here, living organisms have been selecting traits that they wish to see in their offspring since the beginning of life on earth - that's the whole point of evolution.

Though I'm a bit reticent as to whether or not genetically modifying offspring is a good idea. On one hand, it could serve a very real and useful purpose, saving children from inheriting genetic diseases, deformities, and so forth. On the other hand, I just KNOW some dinguses will get a hold of the technology to enforce strict beauty ideals upon their kids. "Ah, yes, I want my son to be 6'2'', have lovely, light skin that tans well, a strong nose, crystal blue eyes, blonde hair, no freckles, no moles, a body that develops muscles well, and make him super-heterosexual as well" and "Let me have the female child, green eyes, thick blonde hair, little body hair, D-cup breasts, a feminine face, wide hips, 5'4'', clear skin, and, hm, how about a low sex drive too so we don't have to deal with the boy-crazy bullshit when she hits her teens. Oh! But give her strong mothering instincts, I've always wanted grandkids!"

In short, I do believe a line should be drawn between genetic modifications to treat disease, and genetic modification to pick certain physical and personality features. Though I think the latter could be used responsibly by some, it seems like it would be rife with abuse from parents who want their own little living Barbie and Ken dolls. -___-

[Nichi]

@Bella: Indeed on the pregnancy bit. I read that on your Tumblr a while back

As for the DNA modding, yeah; going overboard to make sure you have a flawless Barbie doll of a child is way too much. With what I'd do, it's just save them the headache of having acne so bad that no over-the-counter treatments would work :\

[Simonorged]

What about sci-fi stuff, like wings or the ability to breath under water.
The kind of genes, and weather or not they're spliced from other organisms.
Weather or not that's wrong. We could effectively make super heroes/villains a reality.
And what about playing god, do you think it would blur the line between right and wrong?

[NejinOniwa]

"Playing god" is a redundant term. Please don't use it, it only makes you look silly and ignorant.

Like I said, there's a difference between genetic modification and physical modification - which is exactly what we'd need to enact changes in our body structures more akin to what one might see in a tacky sci-fi episode. No, it's not simply "splice gene A from organism B to produce body part/function C" we're talking, and the amount of testing needed to viably and stably produce that sort of result would be way too expensive, tedious and bad PR-wise. It's not going to be done with gene tech any time soon.

Reg. the whole "flawless barbie doll" syndrome thing, I advise you to watch a movie called GATTACA, which very efficiently portrays the outcome of such a society. The Coordinator/Natural conflict of Gundam SEED is another depiction. Basically, it's a bloody minefield once we start going in that direction in any great amount. Genetic modification must be used responsibly to avoid a societal rift developing between modified and non-modified humans - just like creation of new lifeforms like AI's must be done very carefully and responsibly to avoid conflicts and societal rifts developing between them and the human race.

[Chocofreak13]

i see it this way: i've never got along with the "normal" people anyway, so a gap developing between the "beautiful" people and the "ugly" people is just more fuel for my fire. plus, we'd all get the bonus of looking pretty WITHOUT gene modding. -w-

@pregnancy: god i'm not looking forward to it. but the damn maternal instinct in my brain won't shut up,  meaning whether i like it or not eventually i'm going to end up this way. it'll be turbulent, horrible, and once i'm done having kids i will never speak of it again. but it'll (sadly) happen.

[alfonso_rd_30]

can't comment on pregnancy... I'm a Man Jim, not a Woman...! DNA modding... would be nice to help my progeny to avoid the chubby syndrome my family have... and Increasing Speed, strength, stamina, etc would be nice too..

[Chocofreak13]

i can see overcoming predisposition to certain undesirable physical characteristics (easily burned skin, weak lungs, etc), but if we start turning everyone into athletes with big brains we're gonna have a race of superheros on our hands, and idk how to feel about that. :\

[alfonso_rd_30]

just re,ember: with a great power comes the great responsability of doing the right thing while you enjoy yourself

[Chocofreak13]

indeed.


we need a new topic. what was that one a page or two ago.....SOPA! that was it.


yeah, that fucking sucked, i think everyone here at OSC when it came out agreed upon that. frankly, i admire the japanese model of things here, with grassroots efforts being part of what makes people famous. "i like your song, so i'm gonna use it for my video!" government intrusion shouldn't be a part of that.

[Nichi]

I think it was universally agreed across all sites I go to that SOPA was a bad idea; not just OSC, but GameFAQs and ThatGuyWithTheGlasses as well (In fact, Doug Walker, aka The Nostalgia Critic, was one of the most vocal people against it)

Granted, VCRs were nearly made illegal back in the '70s, due to "piracy". Obviously, that didn't last long; partially due to Mr. Rodgers for being one of the most vocal supporters of the VCR -w-

[Simonorged]

SOPA, bad.

[Chocofreak13]

Obviously, that didn't last long; partially due to Mr. Rodgers for being one of the most vocal supporters of the VCR -w-

mr. rogers was fucking awesome. he was like everyone's extra grandpa. ^^

[alfonso_rd_30]

I don't like the SOPA Seeing that I eat mostly with tortilla so the watery SOPA is hard to grasp...

And the attempt of the US Govt of make Internet theirs either

[Chocofreak13]

i barely get it. but agreed, sopa is bad.

hm, new topic.......


international politics. for example, if it were the early 90's and the civil war in bosnia was still raging, would you be supportive of outside influence from other countries coming in to break up the conflict, or should we just let it run its course, they'll work it out themselves?