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Should human life be optimized?



Excerpt: Orchid screens embryos’ DNA for hundreds of conditions, such as retinitis pigmentosa, which can be traced to a single genetic variant. But the company also goes further, offering what is known as polygenic screening, which gives parents what is essentially a risk profile on each embryo’s propensity for conditions such as heart disease, for which the genetic component is far more complex.


Today it is an expensive procedure offered to patients undergoing I.V.F., who are often but not always infertile couples seeking treatment. But Ms. Siddiqui — and others in Silicon Valley, where investors in and users of this technology abound — envision such comprehensive screening eventually replacing the old-fashioned way of having children altogether.


“Sex is for fun, and embryo screening is for babies,” she said in a video she shared on X. “It’s going to become insane not to screen for these things.”

“These things” presumably refers to conditions like obesity and autism, both of which Orchid says it can screen for. What she and others who run screening companies tend to talk about even less is that such things could also include traits like intellectual ability and height.

 
 

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One  objective:
facilitating  those,
who are so motivated,
to enjoy the benefits of becoming  humble polymaths.   

“The universe
is full of magical things
patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”


—Eden Phillpotts

Four wooden chairs arranged in a circle outdoors in a natural setting, surrounded by tall

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for more information:

“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”

―Vincent Van Gogh

" The unexamined life is not worth living."  

Attributed to Socrates​

All Rights Reserved Danny McCall 2024

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