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Re:Neurodiversity by rntz on Sunday January 01, 2017 @11:18AM (#13296159)
This isn't as inconsistent as it seems. People would probably also be equally uncomfortable with both the idea of "editing" an embryo's genome to make it light-skinned, and the inverse idea of editing it to make it dark-skinned.
Re:Neurodiversity by yummyfajitas on Sunday January 01, 2017 @12:07PM (#13296300)
Why are people uncomfortable with this?

While it's not important enough for genetic engineering on it's own, I'd probably edit my children to be darker. Having spent a few days on the beach in Thailand, the genetic inferiority of my own fair skin is quite visible and painful.

Re:Neurodiversity by up_so_floating on Sunday January 01, 2017 @12:13PM (#13296320)
Your body evolved skin to suit an environment other than a Thai beach. I would not consider that genetic inferiority.
Re:Neurodiversity by jessriedel on Sunday January 01, 2017 @12:29PM (#13296388)
Pale skin is thought to have evolved as a rapid (last ~5k years) and crude adaptation to avoid vitamin D deficiency shortly after farming was developed and allowed non-animal-based diets at the very high latitudes of northern Europe.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved...

It is reasonable to think that there the significant drawbacks associated with that hacked-together solution are no longer necessary because modern diets easily give adequate vitamin D.

Re:Neurodiversity by Tycho on Sunday January 01, 2017 @02:17PM (#13296832)
So you're saying pale skin is a "hacked together" solution but modern vitamin supplements are not?
Re:Neurodiversity by jessriedel on Sunday January 01, 2017 @02:27PM (#13296883)
No, that's not what I'm saying.
Re:Neurodiversity by duckingtest on Sunday January 01, 2017 @03:10PM (#13297076)
What does it have with skin color? Just limit the sun for two or three days until you tan, no sunburns after that. It's not like Thais are black. Compare:

https://pixabay.com/p-199674/?no_redirect

https://tonycavanagh.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/5005.jpg

Hardly a big difference. For genetic modification, the best solution is to increase range of tanning rather than changing the constant. It's already possible to get black skin [0] with eg. melanotan-2, so it's not that big of a change.

[0] http://imgur.com/a/I428E

Re:Neurodiversity by yummyfajitas on Sunday January 01, 2017 @06:59PM (#13298134)
Perhaps I can chemically supplement myself to have the same powers that my African and Indian friends are born with. Why wouldn't I want my children to be born with that power?

Similarly, I'd like them to be born intelligent and naturally athletic.

Re:Neurodiversity by duckingtest on Sunday January 01, 2017 @08:20PM (#13298454)
Power to be D3 deficient? [0] Do you have some inferiority complex? It's objectively better to have white skin that can tan instead of a darker one. It's always possible to cover from the sun. Only disadvantage: in sunny climates, ~4x higher risk of skin cancer, but the absolute risk is still a minuscule ~25/100k.

"It is evident that as much as 69%-82% of the South Asian populations in India had 25(OH)D levels in plasma less than the minimum acceptable levels of 20 ng/ml"

Skin colors evolved when most people were outside for the entire day. Now the opposite is true.

[0] http://www.pjms.com.pk/issues/octdec208/article/reviewarticl...

Re:Neurodiversity by euyyn on Monday January 02, 2017 @05:00AM (#13300221)
> until you tan

Not all of us have your superpower :) I've managed to tan 1/32 of my summers.

Re:Neurodiversity by krapp on Sunday January 01, 2017 @12:22PM (#13296362)
> Why are people uncomfortable with this?

Some aspects of cultural, ethnic and religious identity are associated with and expressed by genetic factors like skin color.

For African Americans, just to give an example, the premise of "editing" children to be "whiter" might appear to enable racial genocide.

It doesn't apply only to skin color - some deaf people would consider genetically engineering away deafness an attack on "deaf culture."

Re:Neurodiversity by yummyfajitas on Sunday January 01, 2017 @12:33PM (#13296410)
Normally "genocide" is considered bad because it results in living people being killed. I think we can all agree that killing a living person against their will is bad.

But with what you describe as "genocide," not a single person is harmed. To me, an African American person has the same intrinsic value as a white person or anyone else. Therefore, I can't see any particular reason why I should care if we have more or fewer African Americans in the world.

I'm familiar with the argument made by deaf people. But those advocates never seem to address the reversal argument; why shouldn't we also produce new deaf people (e.g. by sedating some children and painlessly puncturing their eardrums) in pursuit of this goal?

Re:Neurodiversity by krapp on Sunday January 01, 2017 @01:57PM (#13296760)
Bear in mind that many people consider abortion to be murder even when the people it "kills" only exist in the theoretical future.

It's not a rational way of thinking, but it is common.

Re:Neurodiversity by drdeca on Sunday January 01, 2017 @02:45PM (#13296960)
I believe the usual argument is that the person already is a person, not that they could become one.
Re:Neurodiversity by yummyfajitas on Sunday January 01, 2017 @06:40PM (#13298082)
The people who consider abortion to be murder consider it to be an actual, non-potential baby. Thus, killing that baby is murder.

Your argument is merely a straw man that left wing types smugly create and then dismiss to portray those they disagree with as stupid.

Re:Neurodiversity by cb18 on Sunday January 01, 2017 @03:16PM (#13297102)
Skin color is a relatively minor component of race, race describes the clustering of a whole host of traits and characteristics in a group of individuals.

Yellow-skinned Africans would still be Africans, purple-skinned Asians would still be Asians, and green-skinned Europeans would still be Europeans.

Re:Neurodiversity by krapp on Sunday January 01, 2017 @03:47PM (#13297249)
Skin color is a minor component of the actual makeup of race - but most of what "race" is, is political, economic and cultural. And skin color is a major factor in that regard, because it's an obvious way to discriminate between in and out groups.

When Obama was first running, there were discussions about whether or not he was "black enough" to really represent African American culture as President. Part of that was because of his upbringing (because, unfortunately, there is the perception that being educated, well spoken and wealthy is somehow antithetical to "true blackness") but part of it was the lightness of his skin color. It would have likely been easier for some people to accept his "white" background if he'd been physically darker.

You yourself correlated European with "white" in an earlier (probably still flagged) comment, so you know that references to skin color can seem intrinsic to many things to which it doesn't really apply.

Re:Neurodiversity by philwelch on Sunday January 01, 2017 @02:48PM (#13296969)
Having spent a week in Cabo I agree with you, but having spent the entire rest of the year in Seattle I need all the Vitamin D I can get.
Re:Neurodiversity by cb18 on Sunday January 01, 2017 @03:08PM (#13297069)
I'd probably edit my children to be darker. Having spent a few days on the beach in Thailand, the genetic inferiority of my own fair skin is quite visible and painful.

Is this like reductio ad absurdum of PC signalling? Where do you spend the other 362 days of the year? In an environment that fair skin provides advantages for things like vitamin D production perhaps?

Re:Neurodiversity by yummyfajitas on Sunday January 01, 2017 @06:47PM (#13298101)
I spend the rest of the year in places that are not Norway or Sweden - places where even the darkest African or Tamil does not suffer vitamin D deficiency.

I find it very entertaining to be accused of PC signalling a few days after being accused of white supremacy.

Re:Neurodiversity by harryh on Sunday January 01, 2017 @12:32PM (#13296404)
There is an Arthur C. Clarke short story called Reunion in which Aliens send a message indicating that humans are actually descendants of alien colonists and that the aliens have finally found a cure for white skin.
Re:Neurodiversity by drdeca on Sunday January 01, 2017 @02:48PM (#13296970)
, but we can already do that I think?

Like, I think taking some hormones can make one's skin produce more melanin .

Idk if one has to keep taking it or not to keep it up, but from the pictures it looked fairly thorough.

Re:Neurodiversity by harryh on Sunday January 01, 2017 @07:51PM (#13298336)
TBH I have no idea. Just mentioned the Arthur C. Clarke as an amusing related anecdote.
Re:Neurodiversity by drdeca on Monday January 02, 2017 @03:27AM (#13299807)
The technology might have been developed after he wrote it, idk.

Tbh I was also just mentioning what I mentioned because I thought it was amusing/interesting/novel or uh, thought it would look good to mention or something

What you mentioned was amusing