From the Aging 2008 conference at UCLA

Designer babies: Baby 1

Given my two recent posts on reproductive technologies I feel compelled to shine a spotlight on and say a big congratulations to the 27 year old British woman who "has made history by conceiving the country's first "designer baby" guaranteed to be free from hereditary breast cancer" (also on DN).

Knowing that her offspring were likely to carry the viciously cancerogenic BSCR-1 gene, this woman chose to fertilize several eggs, screen the embryos for BSCR-1 and impregnate herself with two that lacked the gene. She is now 14 weeks pregnant and also took the opportunity to freeze two additional, BSCR-1 free embryos for the future.

Bring it on.

Bill Maher interviews Chris Rock :)

One Laptop Per Child, two years on (16min, TEDtalk)

Designer babies: Sexuality

The legalization of same-sex marriage in California and the discovery of prenataly established brain configurations determining sexual orientation were brought up on the Slate Political Gabfest yesterday (15mb mp3). While these developments could be seen as a set-back for the religious right, who traditionally view homosexuality as a choice that should be discouraged, Slate informs us that some such right-wingers have already adopted the position that if sexual orientation is indeed established very early in life then we should embrace this knowledge and use science and technology to prevent future homosexual births.

Scientifically, this is not all that far-fetched. I blogged recently about current advances in reproductive technologies and the growing reproductive rights debate. Sperm and egg donors are already ranked by every conceivable measure and since genetic screening for disease is standard it is naive to think that screens for other genetic traits could not be obtained from private clinics.

So what about sexual orientation? I raised this question in a debate in college once: if you had the option to determine the sexual orientation of your unborn child, (what) would you choose? And doesn't the choice ultimately come down to every parent's wish to have genetic grandchildren? If so, and if such technologies will soon be within our reach, does this mean that the number of gays and lesbians will decline rapidly in the future?

Still alive

Just another notice about the Aging 2008 Conference that starts next friday at UCLA, California. Please help spread the word. I hope the talks will be on Youtube.

Fantastic Salman Rushdie at Google :)

RIP Esbjörn Svensson

The maker of the best jazz I've ever heard died this Saturday in a diving accident.
He was 44 years old.

Barack Obama's Speech on Father's Day

Sweden goes China

Right, I don't actually know any more than what I've read in Dagens Nyheter lately, but it appears that the Swedish government is about to ratify (on wednesday) a law allowing the department of defence to intercept and read suspicious internet traffic crossing Sweden's borders. Untill now I've been willing, very willing even, to give the new, right-wing government the benefit of a doubt, but this shit right here stinks.

Right? Are there there a lot of threats to Swedish national security that we don't know about? Is this law likely to save a hundred Lilja-4-evers every year? Or has Fredrik Reinfeldt lost his mind and decided he has no interest in getting re-elected? If I was as anti-right-wing as most Swedes are, that last option might seem like the most likely one, but somehow it doesn't sound right. Speak Fredrik! What are you doing?? We had almost started considering maybe trusting you.

Google translation of the main website opposing the new law

3000+ blog entries raging against the new law
Another 500+ entries

Designer babies

This is a fantastic discussion about the morals of the new controversial reproductive technologies that are popping up (the debate starts with the story of a deaf couple that actively sought, and got, a deaf child). Fantastic because the moderator - Elliot Gerson - doesn't let the discussion stop, as is customary in these discussions, with the repeated luddite observation that "we experience moral concern with regards to [insert new technology here]". Gerson pushes the two debatants on whether we can really stop the use of reproductive technologies, whether it's anti-progress to try to stop them, whether it's the result of an underlying 'religious sensibility', whether it's comparable to eugenics, and makes repeated comparisons to other forms of 'hyper-parenting' and enhancement. AND he manages to do so not from the stupid, blue-sky standpoint of transhumanism, but as an intelligent, concerned humanist.

The discussion stresses the observation that many of the controversial technologies discussed are dual-use, i.e. something we, because of their enormous medical value, cannot effectively legislate against. It also repeatedly highlights the horror some people experience at the prospect of children being made indstruments of their parents desires, exemplified by fears that this would undermine unconditional parental love. Both these points are fully mirrored in the debate around the iPlant.

I'm increasingly curious about what factors predispose a person to consider biotechnology and enhancement ethically undesirable. What (other than general unfamiliarity with science and technology) makes someone prefer the flaws and limitations of a 'natural' body to an enhanced one? Since my own opinion on this question is so utterly polarized, a second question is also becoming increasingly important to me: what is the value of pain? What is the value of experiencing things the 'natural' way, of enduring and accepting the suffering that is often associated with being alive? In his brilliant 20 min talk entitled 'Ambivalence of the Posthuman Condition', Erik Davis suggests that the value is that it helps us to maintain a critical mind; it motivates us keep on seeking change as opposed to accepting status quo and seeking only what he calls "psychologically obvious goods".

I agree with Davis, but in my experience the pain of life is often more crippling than it is enabling, and the attitude that we must remain humble and not attempt to fundamentally change the human condition and the human brain deeply deeply aggravates me. Part of that anger comes from hearing academics - the intellectual elite whose memory, self-dicipline and intelligence is in the upper 1% - talk about the need to accept the cards nature deals you. But more generally it just seems like humanistic fundamentalism to me - technophobia/neophobia and really fucking backwards.

In the news this morning

Do we really need Bush to tell us to move into Zimbabwe!?! What's with this insane pacifism?? Do something!!

Yahoo strikes an ad-deal with Google. Frankly I think Microhoo sounded more interesting.

Firefox 3 to be released on tuesday.

In the news this morning

Has human-animal hybrid research gone too far? BBC reports on man-pig hybrid.

Google boss Eric Schmidt talks about corporate ethics. Seems to avoid the big concerns yet again, though the argument that monopoly doesn't benefit a modern company is interesting.

That's it. Nothing's going on at the moment.

Peak oil

When I was back in Sweden last week my mum and I walked into the local grocery store and realized beef was £25/kg. I knew about rising food and fuel prices and the riots and starvation in the developing world, but I hadn't personally experienced it - I'd even laughed at the Americans finally having to cut down on their mad consumption and sense of entitlement, and had basically felt that a bit of dieting, however painful (and deadly for the people at the bottom), might ultimately do the world some good. Now I'm trying to learn more.

Amos Nur gave a brilliant talk at Stanford lately on the topic of peak oil and it's relation to living standards and war. It's a shame there's no video but it's fairly easy to imagine the graphs he sometimes refer to and he's a good speaker.

Amos Nur - The Emerging Global Oil Panic (1hr, iTunes)

The conclusion, basically, is that the slowdown in the US economy and the rising cost of fuel and food worldwide, is not a temporary or cyclical problem, and certainly nothing that Obama can solve by good-will and pacifism alone. We are simply running out of our primary source of energy. The years between now and the technological solution(s) that allow a shift to alternative sources of energy will be tricky, especially if scarce resources are as closely related to war as Mr. Nur argues.

Gnothi seauton

Just for the record: my dad used a detailed plastic model of the human brain in a sermon the other day. How cool is that? :) :)

Live and learn

It should be clear by now that I've got a learning problem, but unfortunately I've got a learning problem and this salient fact still hasn't registered properly. Take the pizza I had today for example. It wasn't even very good and I still gorged it, with three servings of oily pizza salad and a sugary soda. I wasn't exactly surprised when sickening lethargy was squeezing the life-blood out of my mood and stomach fifteen minutes later, but if I had anticipated it - if I had properly imagined it at the time I sat down at the restaurant - maybe I would have had something with more fiber and less saturated fat for dinner. Something less tasty.

Forgive me this humorless rant but if I can't learn from past mistakes like a normal mammal the least I can do is write them down. Failure to re-evaluate established reward-contingencies is a hallmark of attention deficit disorders and an underactive dopamine system. The natural extinction of behaviors that are no longer reinforcing, or that have become associated with additional, negative outcomes, is impaired. Perhaps the free will gland is disrupted. Appetite, in one form or another, overrides reason.

Anyway, note to self: huge portions of pizza and pizza salad are a waste of time.

Regroup team

Clear blue sky, high-speed broadband, even Blogger somehow knows I'm in Stockholm and gives me login menus in Swedish.

Anyway, just wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS to Barack Obama who finally managed to shake off Hillary Clinton. All you need to do now brother is to keep yourself and your family SAFE, and expose that old fool for what he is.

Jon Stewart on Crossfire :)

Seating Michigan and Florida

Donna Brazille: My Mama Taught Me to Play by the Rules (6min)