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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   30280 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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If such a gene drive were introduced to humans, genocide would be necessary to save the species.

How would you even introduce it in sufficient numbers? Also given that it only spreads during reproduction, it's really not that dangerous.

With humans, more of a big deal.

He's not talking about CRISPR in human context, but in general, no? And there it's a widely used tool.

How would you even introduce it in sufficient numbers?

Well, I mean, it does double every generation relative to population growth (because it's passed on to all children, always), so you only need one to kick it off (or a few, to avoid teething problems with the first affected person happening to die childless). Not an imminent threat of extinction, but of course the longer it goes the bigger headache you're going to have uprooting the entire family tree, and you always have the twin problems of "lots of people will object to genocide"/"the necessary social changes to do it anyway over their objection are not especially pleasant and won't necessarily go away".

More imminently, I suppose there are faster-breeding species that we need that could be targetted, although I can't think of a gotcha off-hand (and likely wouldn't share it if I could; while my innate tendency is to be the Oracle, I make some attempt to be the Sage and not dump all my infohazards into public circulation).

He's not talking about CRISPR in human context, but in general, no?

I don't know.

and you always have the twin problems of "lots of people will object to genocide

Even today you could probably take the cells of the affected individuals, excise the gene drive and do IVF.

It doesn't have to be a hard genocide, but you're still talking about quite a serious invasion of liberty.

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