We already have some kids, but we decided to have some more. For the new ones we were going to do IVF and polygenic screening to try and reduce the risk of disease (specifically, Type 1 diabetes that both my father and I have). In addition, since my wife is 39, it seemed the best way to get some viable eggs on ice now while we still could.
I will note two things from what happened.
1) My wife was uncomfortable with the idea of "choosing" our kids characteristics, for much the same basic reasons any normie would be. In addition to just talking though it, the resources on Genomic Predictions were very helpful in bringing her around. Including:
Interview with the first IVF baby. This was very effective seeing a normal middle aged women born of an illegal and societally shunned technology of her time.
And many others. Steve's oft recited statistic about IVF in Denmark was helpful as well.
Most people are going to have a basic objection to the idea, but if you married a reasonable person there is a decent chance you can change their mind.
2) The sad part is that when we followed through and went to the clinic we found out she had very diminished ovarian reserves. 39 should be young enough to do IVF (it would still be hard), but ovarian reserve wise she seems to be "older" if you will. It was going to take many rounds of IVF to get a viable embryo, and to get enough to see gains from polygenic selection was just not going to happen. Let alone the fact that we wanted to have two more kids and having all daughters I wanted to have a boy next.
And let's be clear, IVF isn't pleasant to go through. Do it when you get the most eggs for the least cycles.
Simply put, start young. Start now. Start even if you haven't met anyone yet. Start even if you think you have more time. Because it only gets harder and in the end impossible.
When my daughters turn 18 I'm buying them a car on condition that they freeze their eggs, so they never deal with this.
We are lucky that unlike most people that are doing IVF we already have kids, so we aren't crushed by the fact that this news will make us childless. But it was disappointing.
Excellent discussion. I think this is one of the most important topics today, but few people are willing to talk about it. I appreciate your willingness to ask about controversial topics. I think it's important that we devise rhetorical defenses for genetic enhancement now to prevent regulation. I think the major threat won't be that genomic data points toward ancestoral population differences, but that embryo selection will be associated with eugenics. I try to address this accusation in my most recent article [1].
> The funny thing is that I have a much easier time when I read your papers. In the pros part. And the explanation in the organization is…I don't know if it's your physics background, or whatever. But, I noticed it's Scott Aaronson’s papers as well. They're written like essays, as long as you understand the underlying ideas, they're so easy to absorb. Whereas, if I just read a random thing on Bio Archive, it’s like “I don't even know where to get started with this.”
We already have some kids, but we decided to have some more. For the new ones we were going to do IVF and polygenic screening to try and reduce the risk of disease (specifically, Type 1 diabetes that both my father and I have). In addition, since my wife is 39, it seemed the best way to get some viable eggs on ice now while we still could.
I will note two things from what happened.
1) My wife was uncomfortable with the idea of "choosing" our kids characteristics, for much the same basic reasons any normie would be. In addition to just talking though it, the resources on Genomic Predictions were very helpful in bringing her around. Including:
Interview with the first IVF baby. This was very effective seeing a normal middle aged women born of an illegal and societally shunned technology of her time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDGRFMVI3QY
Steve Hsu's talk, and especially the photo of Aurea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_qCv24M0AI
And many others. Steve's oft recited statistic about IVF in Denmark was helpful as well.
Most people are going to have a basic objection to the idea, but if you married a reasonable person there is a decent chance you can change their mind.
2) The sad part is that when we followed through and went to the clinic we found out she had very diminished ovarian reserves. 39 should be young enough to do IVF (it would still be hard), but ovarian reserve wise she seems to be "older" if you will. It was going to take many rounds of IVF to get a viable embryo, and to get enough to see gains from polygenic selection was just not going to happen. Let alone the fact that we wanted to have two more kids and having all daughters I wanted to have a boy next.
And let's be clear, IVF isn't pleasant to go through. Do it when you get the most eggs for the least cycles.
Simply put, start young. Start now. Start even if you haven't met anyone yet. Start even if you think you have more time. Because it only gets harder and in the end impossible.
When my daughters turn 18 I'm buying them a car on condition that they freeze their eggs, so they never deal with this.
We are lucky that unlike most people that are doing IVF we already have kids, so we aren't crushed by the fact that this news will make us childless. But it was disappointing.
@~40:45 Hsu gives a very short timeline for complex CRISR gene editing. That's very interesting
Excellent discussion. I think this is one of the most important topics today, but few people are willing to talk about it. I appreciate your willingness to ask about controversial topics. I think it's important that we devise rhetorical defenses for genetic enhancement now to prevent regulation. I think the major threat won't be that genomic data points toward ancestoral population differences, but that embryo selection will be associated with eugenics. I try to address this accusation in my most recent article [1].
[1] For those interested: https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/harmless-eugenics
https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/comparisons-are-necessary
> The funny thing is that I have a much easier time when I read your papers. In the pros part. And the explanation in the organization is…I don't know if it's your physics background, or whatever. But, I noticed it's Scott Aaronson’s papers as well. They're written like essays, as long as you understand the underlying ideas, they're so easy to absorb. Whereas, if I just read a random thing on Bio Archive, it’s like “I don't even know where to get started with this.”
Could you link some of these papers?