And now, as promised, a special comment.

[Darth Wong]

I have to agree with Ossus on this one. While it may rub people the wrong way to say that undesirables may be eliminated in the womb, and it may even (unfairly) evoke images of Nazi Germany, the fact is that no person is objectively harmed by procedures like identifying and terminating Down Syndrome pregnancies. We're not killing babies; we're terminating pregnancies before the brain even develops.

People have, I think, lost sight of what was so wrong with Nazi Germany. The idea of improving the gene pool is not an inherently evil one. The idea of doing it by murdering people or forcing them to undergo unwanted sterilizations at gunpoint is what made it evil.

[Channel72]

I'm uncomfortable with the word "cure" in the sense that it can imply there is something dire amiss that must be fixed at all costs - which is not to say that's what YOU believe. At a certain point imposing the cure becomes coercive. I'm a little sensitized to this, because I'm married to someone who was subjected to surgery over and over, long past the point it was benefiting him, because of the urge to "cure" his problem rather than at some point realizing enough was enough and work on accommodation.

I use the word "cure" simply because, apart from all the civil rights issues and societal problems, transsexuality is ultimately a medical problem. It's obviously not life-threatening, and so it's not a severe medical problem that must be fixed at all costs.

As a comparison - would it really be worthwhile to subject, say, Marina to uterus transplants and anti-rejection drugs for decades in an attempt to make her a "real" woman, or, given the state of medical technology, would it make more sense for her to deal with being a sterile woman and getting on with her life with her health intact? I think she's answered that (Of course, if uterine transplants were easy and without side effects that's different - but it's also not our current reality).

Who is Marina? Is she Duchess of Zeon? Anyway, I agree that given the current state of medical technology, it's probably easier for her to simply deal with sterility. My original point was merely that although transgenderism is viewed as a civil rights issue due to the affiliation with the gay rights movement, it should also be seen for what it ultimately is: a medical problem that should be eliminated given sufficient advances in medical technology.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Actually Simon there's an easier way to handle this. The "sufficiently large" change is one that requires modification to the physical structure of the brain to accommodate. The change Ossus provided an example of is a kind of change which the brain is evolutionarily developed to regularly undergo as part of its learning and adaptive process. The kind of change being discussed here is not and would require active and vastly extensive physical intervention to create, and is no longer within the evolved purpose of the brain in question, which developed under the genetic instructions appropriate for it to control the body of a female organism of its species.

But this amounts to the same thing. Both fundamentally alter the way in which the individual views the world. I don't care that one of them isn't an "evolved response" (which is difficult to evaluate--is Down's Syndrome an "evolved" trait simply because it exists?). If you're relying on evolution, explain why transsexuality evolved? Why are its genetic instructions "appropriate?" Further, stating that this requires extensive physical intervention does not indicate that it constitutes a form of suicide. That is simply not an appropriate analogy.

You're misunderstanding what I'm saying evolved -- learning is definitely an evolved response. We can agree on that, yes? Now there's two brain map templates, we'll call them, for the human body. One is male and one is female. The genetic disorder which causes a female brain to develop in a male body is unquestionably an anomalous condition which should be eliminated neonatally when this is possible. We are not in dispute that it would be very nice to end transsexualism. I would deeply wish to be the last one on the planet, let me assure you.

However, the development of the brain that follows from that, follows along the normal and evolved pattern for females. So whereas the initial cause of that development is an anomalous, negative mutation which should be eliminated from the human genome, the development after that point is normative for a female.

As for why it was constituted a form of suicide, quite simply, the changes in the brain being proposed are--to put it mildly--incomprehensibly greater than in your example. What you are talking about in modifying the brain of a transwoman is proposing that the way that every single memory even acquired by the individual in question is remembered and interpreted shall be radically altered. I already explained this with Havok last night and I see that I'm doing it again, but the point should be very, very clear. You simply cannot find a day to day example for the magnitude of change this entails, because it involves altering the neurochemical perception of all prior memories ever recorded into the sapience in question as well as its neurochemical perception of all future reality. If you don't see why this is the terminal end of a human being when you define a human being in terms of their sapience and not their body (which we do agree to do), then there really isn't much point in even discussing the subject.

But allow me the analogy of observing that you rip the motherboard and processor out of a PC and replace it with a Apple's from before they switched over to Intel. You then run this computer for 10 years, and then take the entire system configuration, hard drive, etc, save all of it, and then replace the motherboard and processor with those appropriate for a modern PC. Then try to boot it up. That is what you're proposing to do to the brains of transwomen. It obviously won't work. So what would you actually do in the real world? Everything would be deleted except for the files from the old computer you still wanted. And those would be accessed through macdrive or some other programme or shell on the rebuilt computer. Which would be filtering all of those memories through a completely new operating system with different functional standards which lead to its requiring that interpretive software or shell settings in the first place. And that is how the comparison to suicide may be made.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I have to agree with Ossus on this one. While it may rub people the wrong way to say that undesirables may be eliminated in the womb, and it may even (unfairly) evoke images of Nazi Germany, the fact is that no person is objectively harmed by procedures like identifying and terminating Down Syndrome pregnancies. We're not killing babies; we're terminating pregnancies before the brain even develops.

People have, I think, lost sight of what was so wrong with Nazi Germany. The idea of improving the gene pool is not an inherently evil one. The idea of doing it by murdering people or forcing them to undergo unwanted sterilizations at gunpoint is what made it evil.

I don't object to cures in the womb, Mike, and I'm honestly not sure why anyone does. Abortion on detection is slightly iffier, since unlike Down's Syndrome transsexualism does not permit someone from being a reasonably functional and contributive individual in society, but definitely does prevent them, when quickly and promptly treated, from passing on their genes in any way shape or form, which already deals with the eugenics argument. But I'm open to it. My main fear is around the uneven application due to ethical/religious beliefs.

[Bakustra]

Yes, it doesn't make sense, but consider that many of these people are pro-life and consider that even those who aren't fanatically pro-life look at their children and think"and other people say I should have simply aborted this precious child." Also, in this case, the question is not fixing the genetic problem but rather aborting every baby who has the problem, and Marina said she would not be comfortable with this situation happening to transpeople.

One problem is that aborting fetuses with Down's Syndrome does not happen uniformly, so while it decreases its prevalence, it doesn't eliminate it. Further, individuals who have the disorder are likely worried that if this trend continues, efforts to alleviate or cure their condition will end entirely, and they will lose what sympathy they have with people.

[Liberty]

I have to agree with Ossus on this one. While it may rub people the wrong way to say that undesirables may be eliminated in the womb, and it may even (unfairly) evoke images of Nazi Germany, the fact is that no person is objectively harmed by procedures like identifying and terminating Down Syndrome pregnancies. We're not killing babies; we're terminating pregnancies before the brain even develops.

People have, I think, lost sight of what was so wrong with Nazi Germany. The idea of improving the gene pool is not an inherently evil one. The idea of doing it by murdering people or forcing them to undergo unwanted sterilizations at gunpoint is what made it evil.

Oh, I agree that it would ultimately be a good thing to eliminate genetic disorders, and Down syndrome is one of them. I was just trying to say that the concern that many parents of children with Down syndrome have is understandable.

And while you're right, it's just terminating pregnancies, not killing babies, you do have to realize that I was talking about parents of children with Down syndrome in America, where a huge percentage of the people believes abortion is wrong and a sizable minority calls legalized abortion a "holocaust." (Check out this link: http://www.survivors.la/)

[Darth Wong]

Yes, it doesn't make sense, but consider that many of these people are pro-life and consider that even those who aren't fanatically pro-life look at their children and think"and other people say I should have simply aborted this precious child." Also, in this case, the question is not fixing the genetic problem but rather aborting every baby who has the problem, and Marina said she would not be comfortable with this situation happening to transpeople.

One problem is that aborting fetuses with Down's Syndrome does not happen uniformly, so while it decreases its prevalence, it doesn't eliminate it. Further, individuals who have the disorder are likely worried that if this trend continues, efforts to alleviate or cure their condition will end entirely, and they will lose what sympathy they have with people.

By this bizarre logic, we should not find ways to reduce the incidence of any disease, lest it reduce the funding that goes to research treatments for that disease.

[Bakustra]

Yes, it doesn't make sense, but consider that many of these people are pro-life and consider that even those who aren't fanatically pro-life look at their children and think"and other people say I should have simply aborted this precious child." Also, in this case, the question is not fixing the genetic problem but rather aborting every baby who has the problem, and Marina said she would not be comfortable with this situation happening to transpeople.

One problem is that aborting fetuses with Down's Syndrome does not happen uniformly, so while it decreases its prevalence, it doesn't eliminate it. Further, individuals who have the disorder are likely worried that if this trend continues, efforts to alleviate or cure their condition will end entirely, and they will lose what sympathy they have with people.

By this bizarre logic, we should not find ways to reduce the incidence of any disease, lest it reduce the funding that goes to research treatments for that disease.

I'm not agreeing with their worries. I am personally quite in favor of eliminating genetic disorders entirely. However, I can see why they're worried, even though it's unreasonable when compared to the whole picture.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

By this bizarre logic, we should not find ways to reduce the incidence of any disease, lest it reduce the funding that goes to research treatments for that disease.

Quite so, and my particular objections would largely go away if society was fully accepting of those who were still born with my condition in the families of those stupid/fanatical enough to subject their children to it. but since unlike Down's Syndrome transsexualism has no affect on intelligence, capability, social utility, etc, and sterilizes itself quite effectively, I would say that the social concerns do make somewhat of an issue. If transsexualism was detected early on and aggressive hormone therapy begun from a very young age (as it now is), culminating in a complete lack of a dissonant puberty and surgery at the age of 16 - 17, the end result is a life not particularly different from or worse than a sterile normal genetic female. This is certainly going to become normative in the next couple of decades before we have any kind of neonatal test for transsexualism; wait until personality begins to form around 3 - 5 in a construction way which allows for clear detection, as we are already beginning to do now, and then react accordingly. This lowers the priority of terminating fetuses tagged for genes which can cause transsexualism in the womb by a substantial margin, nothing more, and nothing less.

[Broomstick]

Interestingly, this is being a big problem in the world of Down syndrome. Screenings that will reveal whether a fetus has Down syndrome are becoming more common, and studies have found that 90% of women who learn that their fetus has Down syndrome choose abortion. The Down syndrome community is worried because this will mean fewer people with Down syndrome, leading to less public acceptance and less research money.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/us/09down.html

So... basically... in order to make the Down's Syndrome "community" less lonely, we're expected to afflict perpetual generations of people with their genetic disorder, continue pouring money into researching their condition and providing them with institutional support (rather than simply eliminating Down's) and continue to tolerate the fact that most of these people can't meaningfully support themselves later in life and have health problems that go beyond their mental deficiencies (thus further burdening society)? Truly this can only make sense if you're retarded.

I've gotta come up with a name for the problem of "People think we can eliminate it but we can't 'cause the universe is a motherfucker."

We can't forever eliminate Down's Syndrome. Nearly every case of Down's Syndrome is a spontaneous error, NOT an inherited one! It is a risk at every pregnancy. Even if we aborted every Down's fetus discovered some would still slip through the cracks.

So, given that there will always be a certain number of children born with Down's Syndrome yes it DOES make sense to continue provide them with the education and support they need to maximize their potential. Funny thing is, we're finding that more and more often these people are more capable than prior generations believed. Individuals such as Chris Burke and Sarah Sherman are not people who are going to be burdens on society even if they are at higher risk than normal for certain health problems. Since we're going to have some people with Down's in the future yes, we should try to help those people as much as possible. Especially since there is some indication that part of the problem is the body producing an excess of certain substances that then cause damage - if therapies could be developed that reduce that production and/or mitigate the damage that results then even when Down's does occur it might be possible to greatly lessen the resulting impact on intellect and health.

[Liberty]

Since we're going to have some people with Down's in the future yes, we should try to help those people as much as possible. Especially since there is some indication that part of the problem is the body producing an excess of certain substances that then cause damage - if therapies could be developed that reduce that production and/or mitigate the damage that results then even when Down's does occur it might be possible to greatly lessen the resulting impact on intellect and health.

Actually, there already are some such therapies. For instance, one substance that builds up in the bodies of people with Down syndrome is hydrogen peroxide. My little sister takes a great many nutritional supplements, including some that neutralize hydrogen peroxide. And she's doing so well that she just tested a whole year above her age in word comprehension: as in, she's eight and she knew as much as the average nine year old, not the average nine year old with Down syndrome. Her speech therapist actually told my mom that my sister's doing so well she doesn't need to see her for a year or so at least. So anyway, yes, such therapy does exist, though it is not perfect and needs further development and research.

[Broomstick]

I'm not agreeing with their worries. I am personally quite in favor of eliminating genetic disorders entirely. However, I can see why they're worried, even though it's unreasonable when compared to the whole picture.

But we can't eliminate "genetic disorders" once an for all because spontaneous mutations continue to occur. Even if we "scrubbed" the entire genome of the entire human race next generation we'd still have spontaneous mutations and birth defects. It's simply because DNA replication is imperfect, and always will be (barring extremely radical re-engineering).

So it's a fallacy that we can "eliminate" such disorders forever. I don't have an objection to aborting a defective fetus (although I do object to coercive abortion) but we're not going to catch every problem before birth - and unless you condone infanticide we're going to have to continue to deal with people who are less than perfect.

Add to that, some birth defects are commonly believed to be genetic but they aren't! My husband's spina bifida is almost always assumed by lay people to be somehow genetic but it isn't. It's a developmental defect and medicine doesn't know exactly why it occurs. It's not in the genes, though, and people with that defect can't pass it on to their children as their genes are normal. Well, OK, they have the same odds to have a child with spina bifida as two parents who don't have the disorder. So, in addition to spontaneous genetic mutation you'll still have that collection of developmental disorders to contend with.

That's not even getting to the overlap between genes and environment.

[Alyrium Denryle]

When I was younger I was diagnosed with Aspergers. Over the years I was able to develop the parts of my mind that were shall we say disabled to the point that my Aspergers can no longer be detected through the usual tests and a psych workup shows me as a reasonably well adjusted human being. AS coloured my perceptions and interpretations of the world around me, and shaped my identity. Does this mean I have murdered the "Old Me" by changing my personality into the New Me?

Aspergers, as I understand it, makes you want to set into routines, and makes social interactions more difficult because you have problems with theory of mind. You find it more difficult to empathize with and thus interact with others. That is a skill you can work on. It is harder for you to learn social cues than it is for others, but you can work on it, develop it, and be a functioning person. By changing that, you do not become a different person. You develop and grow as the same person.

To change someone's gender requires the rewriting of large swaths of their personality. Effectively editing half of their mental "program", the base architecture upon which they grow, and develop. It is fundamentally different.

There seems to me to maybe be a vague period: for instance, if it would be possible to give a six-month-old extensive therapy to literally change his/her brain to the orientation of his/her body...that just seems iffy to me. Fixing it by making sure the child's brain develops correctly in utero seems different.

Massive therapy after birth does not work. They do it with intersex kids when they are born and the doctor unilaterally makes them into a girl. They have a 50% chance of success, basically if the brain is female it works, if the brain is male the kid will have massive psychological problems for the rest of their life.

But this amounts to the same thing. Both fundamentally alter the way in which the individual views the world. I don't care that one of them isn't an "evolved response" (which is difficult to evaluate--is Down's Syndrome an "evolved" trait simply because it exists?). If you're relying on evolution, explain why transsexuality evolved? Why are its genetic instructions "appropriate?" Further, stating that this requires extensive physical intervention does not indicate that it constitutes a form of suicide. That is simply not an appropriate analogy.

Transsexuality probably did not evolve on its own. More likely it is a byproduct of other systems. Combinations of genes and in-utero hormone levels produce a phenotypically normal individual. However, because of the way that system is regulated, if there is a mutation, non-disjunction (in the case of XXY individuals), immune reactions to the fetus on mom's part etc you can get homosexuality, transsexuality, or intersex conditions.

Homosexuality is more common because a larger number of perturbations in the normal regulatory pathways can create it, and it is very possible that at least male homosexuality is a byproduct of genes that increase the fitness of carrier females.

Transsexuality is just so rare that selection cannot act on it with any real efficacy.

To use an example of how changing a person's brain creates a different person... There was a guy named Phinias Guage, a railroad spike entered his brain in a construction accident and severed his frontal lobe from the rest of his brain. In effect, he was lobotomized, and his personality radically changed. He became more aggressive, the way he processed information changed radically.

When you grow up, live, learn, your personality develops. But it does so with essentially the same fundamental architecture that it had when you were born. In effect, you plug different numbers into the same equation to reach a decision when you are 20, than you did when you were 10. When you say... change someone's brain-gender by radically restructuring the brain, you change the equation.

Now, in the case of terminating pregnancies, I have no issue with that. Hell, I have no problem with correcting things like this before the individual is born. But post-birth modifications are not... ethical by any stretch of the imagination.

My original point was merely that although transgenderism is viewed as a civil rights issue due to the affiliation with the gay rights movement, it should also be seen for what it ultimately is: a medical problem that should be eliminated given sufficient advances in medical technology.

And there are two ways of doing it. Altering the soma, or altering the brain. I would say that altering the soma may indeed be preferable (and probably a hell of a lot easier given the complexity of brain development). The reason for this is that we lose parts of society that may be valuable if we do it the other way around. Differences in perspective and modes of thought are typically very valuable things that we ought not throw away lightly. Transsexuality it only a medical problem because it causes harm. If we can avoid the harm it causes, there is no reason to get rid of it.

So while there may not be a problem with eliminating a medical problem, if we have two means of doing so, we must make a choice as to which one we use.

[Anguirus]

We can't forever eliminate Down's Syndrome. Nearly every case of Down's Syndrome is a spontaneous error, NOT an inherited one! It is a risk at every pregnancy. Even if we aborted every Down's fetus discovered some would still slip through the cracks.

Beat me to it.

There are two potential "cures" for Down, both of which have already been discussed in the thread. One is pre-screening and abortion. Another is ongoing therapy.

In all likelihood, the number of Down pregnancies in the developed world is going to go up, not down. Why? Because the biggest risk factor is the age of the mother, and mothers are waiting longer to have babies. You CANNOT eliminate trisomy 21 from the population by attempting to apply artificial selection.

Aborting the pregnancy and trying again might be cheaper than the nutritional supplements, professional caretakers, and health care costs of caring for a Down syndrome baby, but as at least three examples in this thread have made abundantly clear, trisomy 21 is not the same thing as "fucked for life."

If in 40 years only 10% of the current proportion of the population of Down syndrome existed, it would be a good thing...UNLESS a good chunk of the expertise and knowledge required to treat them had also been lost, leaving those people as a burden on society and less able to lead fulfilling lives, not to mention less able to network with each other. Basically, if I were a member of the Down community, I'd be a little wary of the flip side of this coin too.

[Alyrium Denryle]

In all likelihood, the number of Down pregnancies in the developed world is going to go up, not down. Why? Because the biggest risk factor is the age of the mother, and mothers are waiting longer to have babies. You CANNOT eliminate trisomy 21 from the population by attempting to apply artificial selection.

Exactly.

Females have a set number of gametes upon birth. Every time she ovulates 1000 of those get selected for ovulation, the 1 or 2 that are farthest along get ovulated, the rest die. Her body preferentially pics the ones that are in the best condition with each ovulatory cycle. By the time she reaches middle age and nearing menopause (when she has no gametes left) her body is scraping the bottom of the barrel and is more likely to select gametes with mutations or which possess non-disjuncted chromosomes.

[Darth Wong]

Why the hell would knowledge about Down Syndrome be lost if the population of sufferers goes down? We'll start erasing medical texts?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Why the hell would knowledge about Down Syndrome be lost if the population of sufferers goes down? We'll start erasing medical texts?

No. But there are specialists who know how to deal with it. If the incidence goes down, those specialists will also decrease in number. They will be harder to find, be more expensive, and finding others with the condition will become harder, so social support will decrease.

Things will become harder for those with the condition. That is the flip side for decreasing the frequency of Trisonomy 21

[Master of Ossus]

You're misunderstanding what I'm saying evolved -- learning is definitely an evolved response. We can agree on that, yes? Now there's two brain map templates, we'll call them, for the human body. One is male and one is female. The genetic disorder which causes a female brain to develop in a male body is unquestionably an anomalous condition which should be eliminated neonatally when this is possible. We are not in dispute that it would be very nice to end transsexualism. I would deeply wish to be the last one on the planet, let me assure you.

However, the development of the brain that follows from that, follows along the normal and evolved pattern for females. So whereas the initial cause of that development is an anomalous, negative mutation which should be eliminated from the human genome, the development after that point is normative for a female.

As for why it was constituted a form of suicide, quite simply, the changes in the brain being proposed are--to put it mildly--incomprehensibly greater than in your example. What you are talking about in modifying the brain of a transwoman is proposing that the way that every single memory even acquired by the individual in question is remembered and interpreted shall be radically altered. I already explained this with Havok last night and I see that I'm doing it again, but the point should be very, very clear. You simply cannot find a day to day example for the magnitude of change this entails, because it involves altering the neurochemical perception of all prior memories ever recorded into the sapience in question as well as its neurochemical perception of all future reality. If you don't see why this is the terminal end of a human being when you define a human being in terms of their sapience and not their body (which we do agree to do), then there really isn't much point in even discussing the subject.

I'm not disputing that the scale of the changes is different, I'm arguing that because the type of the change is similar it should be practicable and in no way constitutes "suicide." If the memories are intact, then they have not been lost to either the individual or to society. It is in no way the terminal end of someone to change their outlook on life or to question their deeply held views of themselves or the world.

But allow me the analogy of observing that you rip the motherboard and processor out of a PC and replace it with a Apple's from before they switched over to Intel. You then run this computer for 10 years, and then take the entire system configuration, hard drive, etc, save all of it, and then replace the motherboard and processor with those appropriate for a modern PC. Then try to boot it up. That is what you're proposing to do to the brains of transwomen. It obviously won't work. So what would you actually do in the real world? Everything would be deleted except for the files from the old computer you still wanted. And those would be accessed through macdrive or some other programme or shell on the rebuilt computer. Which would be filtering all of those memories through a completely new operating system with different functional standards which lead to its requiring that interpretive software or shell settings in the first place. And that is how the comparison to suicide may be made.

So? It's still not a descriptive or in any way a fair analogy to actual suicide. I have repeatedly pointed out that people can change their way of thinking while retaining their identity. Psychiatric drugs do not kill psych patients, even if they do alter the way that they perceive the world around them.

[Broomstick]

In all likelihood, the number of Down pregnancies in the developed world is going to go up, not down. Why? Because the biggest risk factor is the age of the mother, and mothers are waiting longer to have babies. You CANNOT eliminate trisomy 21 from the population by attempting to apply artificial selection.

Exactly.

Females have a set number of gametes upon birth. Every time she ovulates 1000 of those get selected for ovulation, the 1 or 2 that are farthest along get ovulated, the rest die. Her body preferentially pics the ones that are in the best condition with each ovulatory cycle. By the time she reaches middle age and nearing menopause (when she has no gametes left) her body is scraping the bottom of the barrel and is more likely to select gametes with mutations or which possess non-disjuncted chromosomes.

Just remember that there is a possibility of Down's happening with a first pregnancy at 20, it's just less than at 40.

In fact, the rate of Down's babies in women past 35 has DROPPED significantly both as a percentage and in total numbers because of routine screening. It's women under35 were the rate of Down's babies is the same or rising because screening for it at a young age isn't routine. There really is merit in testing for Down's in all women, so long as that testing doesn't increase other risks significantly.

[Master of Ossus]

I've gotta come up with a name for the problem of "People think we can eliminate it but we can't 'cause the universe is a motherfucker."

We can't forever eliminate Down's Syndrome. Nearly every case of Down's Syndrome is a spontaneous error, NOT an inherited one! It is a risk at every pregnancy. Even if we aborted every Down's fetus discovered some would still slip through the cracks.

Who cares? The universe that you have described is much better than the current one, in which Down's syndrome is tolerated and in some circles encouraged.

So, given that there will always be a certain number of children born with Down's Syndrome yes it DOES make sense to continue provide them with the education and support they need to maximize their potential.

Nor have I said otherwise. It's a joke, though, if your method of doing this is by inflicting Down's Syndrome on a much larger population than would otherwise be afflicted with it.

Funny thing is, we're finding that more and more often these people are more capable than prior generations believed. Individuals such as Chris Burke and Sarah Sherman are not people who are going to be burdens on society even if they are at higher risk than normal for certain health problems. Since we're going to have some people with Down's in the future yes, we should try to help those people as much as possible. Especially since there is some indication that part of the problem is the body producing an excess of certain substances that then cause damage - if therapies could be developed that reduce that production and/or mitigate the damage that results then even when Down's does occur it might be possible to greatly lessen the resulting impact on intellect and health.

So basically you're saying that because a scattered few individuals with Down's Syndrome live "full" and marginally productive lives, we therefore should make sure that the incidence of Down's Syndrome remains high in society? This is a total non-sequitor. These peoples' excuses also ring hollow, given that much less common and more exotic genetic disorders are still treated, still researched, and given that people with such conditions often form effective support networks when those are desired. The way to deal with your kid's genetic disorder is not to go around telling everyone else how much you love your kid, anyway, and that they'd be lucky to have one just like him.

[Liberty]

In all likelihood, the number of Down pregnancies in the developed world is going to go up, not down. Why? Because the biggest risk factor is the age of the mother, and mothers are waiting longer to have babies. You CANNOT eliminate trisomy 21 from the population by attempting to apply artificial selection.

Exactly.

Females have a set number of gametes upon birth. Every time she ovulates 1000 of those get selected for ovulation, the 1 or 2 that are farthest along get ovulated, the rest die. Her body preferentially pics the ones that are in the best condition with each ovulatory cycle. By the time she reaches middle age and nearing menopause (when she has no gametes left) her body is scraping the bottom of the barrel and is more likely to select gametes with mutations or which possess non-disjuncted chromosomes.

Just remember that there is a possibility of Down's happening with a first pregnancy at 20, it's just less than at 40.

In fact, the rate of Down's babies in women past 35 has DROPPED significantly both as a percentage and in total numbers because of routine screening. It's women under35 were the rate of Down's babies is the same or rising because screening for it at a young age isn't routine. There really is merit in testing for Down's in all women, so long as that testing doesn't increase other risks significantly.

See, they're now talking about making that screening routine for all women, and that's what has the Down syndrome community concerned at the moment.

[Master of Ossus]

Just remember that there is a possibility of Down's happening with a first pregnancy at 20, it's just less than at 40.

In fact, the rate of Down's babies in women past 35 has DROPPED significantly both as a percentage and in total numbers because of routine screening. It's women under35 were the rate of Down's babies is the same or rising because screening for it at a young age isn't routine. There really is merit in testing for Down's in all women, so long as that testing doesn't increase other risks significantly.

But that's precisely what's going on: the article to which I was responding detailed how the "Down's Syndrome Community" is mortified that doctors have begun screening all pregnancies for Down's Syndrome now that even safer tests have been developed. Their response is total bullshit, and is what I was reacting against.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'm not disputing that the scale of the changes is different, I'm arguing that because the type of the change is similar it should be practicable and in no way constitutes "suicide." If the memories are intact, then they have not been lost to either the individual or to society. It is in no way the terminal end of someone to change their outlook on life or to question their deeply held views of themselves or the world.

"Views". "Outlook on life". That's how you typify the structural nature of the brain? So Solzhenitsyn is still alive because we have his writings? And Shakespeare? Let us not be absurd; you are an intelligent man. The type of change is not remotely similar whatsoever, and I don't know how you could come to such an assumption.

So? It's still not a descriptive or in any way a fair analogy to actual suicide. I have repeatedly pointed out that people can change their way of thinking while retaining their identity. Psychiatric drugs do not kill psych patients, even if they do alter the way that they perceive the world around them.

This isn't about changing someone's way of thinking. It is explicitly changing their identity. Your entire argument is based on a false analogy, and yes, it is a fair analogy to suicide or murder, because the magnitude of the change in interpretation of thoughts when an individual's entire self-identity is changed (which is not the case with psychiatric drugs) functionally means that the memories are nothing more than someone else's diary.

This is not about correcting a defect in the brain, Ossus. This is about taking a normal female brain and altering it into a male brain simply because of some useless bits of flesh on the associated meatbag, and arguing that this is a somehow trivial change is patently absurd in the face of the extensive male/female differences in sex differentiated species. You have more in common mentally with a schizophrenic bushman than you do with me.

The only viable contreargument would be that male/female identity is not relevant to one's identity as an instantiated, sapient being.... But we have so, so very much scientific analysis that speaks to the contrary that that is not a viable assertion whatsoever.

[Simon_Jester]

On Bioethics:

Well, the thing is that one can find a lot of evidence for homosexuality in cultures which didn't ban it outright, whereas transsexuality is a lot rarer, even in societies that accept it (the hijra in India, kathoey in Thailand, and two-spirit people of Native American tribes) and seems to be a relatively recent phenomena of the past century, which happens to coincide with increased usage of pesticides (which were/are often used for hormone studies because they are such good mimics and so much easier to produce then natural ones).

All very plausible. Though it occurs to me that the transsexuals may have gotten folded into homosexual communities in the distant past: with nothing even remotely comparable to sex reassignment surgery, that might be the closest a pre-modern transsexual could come to a comfortable gender role, at least in their private life.

Let's keep in mind that a good portion of a handicapped person's problems stem not from the handicap but from the surrounding society. A lot of the trauma and damage suffered from transsexuals comes not from the mind/body mismatch (though I have no doubt some of it does, truly, stem from that) but from the reactions of others towards their condition. The beatings and murders of transsexuals has nothing to do with their brain chemistry and everything to do with societal bias. Transsexuals aren't really handicapped at all... except because of the way society treats them.

Nonetheless, transsexuality is essentially a genetic disorder. Granted, unlike most genetic disorders, transsexuality strongly invokes the disgust and scorn of the general population for a wide variety of social reasons, but it's still essentially a medical problem that needs to be fixed.

It's a medical... phenomenon, to choose a neutral word. The devil's in the details; what qualifies as a "fix?" Do we alter the body to match the brain (and the mind running on it), or the brain (and the mind) in an attempt to match the body?

For most of us, if we suddenly underwent a radical and unwelcome change in our body, we'd want the former, not the latter, and rightly so. As adults, I think we'd have a right to insist; I would want my arm back, not just a "cure" for the belief that I am supposed to have two arms.

When you're talking about infants, or even proto-infants (embryos, that sort of thing), the question becomes a lot shakier. I'm not comfortable with saying "yes, edit the genes and the brain," but I'm also not comfortable with my own opinion, because I don't feel I can prove it adequately.

Yes, it doesn't make sense, but consider that many of these people are pro-life and consider that even those who aren't fanatically pro-life look at their children and think"and other people say I should have simply aborted this precious child." Also, in this case, the question is not fixing the genetic problem but rather aborting every baby who has the problem, and Marina said she would not be comfortable with this situation happening to transpeople.

Me neither. The prospect of this happening may be a big source of my discomfort with the whole concept of using high-reliability genetic screening to detect prospective transsexuals.

On a side note: would we be able to tell this from the genes? If, as Akhlut speculates, gender identity problems are developmental, they may not be genetic at all. In which case you're looking for the levels of pesticides and such in the mother's body... which is an extremely unreliable guide for whether the child grows up intersex or transgender.

I've gotta come up with a name for the problem of "People think we can eliminate it but we can't 'cause the universe is a motherfucker."
We can't forever eliminate Down's Syndrome. Nearly every case of Down's Syndrome is a spontaneous error, NOT an inherited one! It is a risk at every pregnancy. Even if we aborted every Down's fetus discovered some would still slip through the cracks.

Who cares? The universe that you have described is much better than the current one, in which Down's syndrome is tolerated and in some circles encouraged.

Wait, encouraged? How the hell? It's not like there are people going around deliberately inducing it, is it?
___________

On Identity and Mind Transfers:

Actually Simon there's an easier way to handle this. The "sufficiently large" change is one that requires modification to the physical structure of the brain to accommodate. The change Ossus provided an example of is a kind of change which the brain is evolutionarily developed to regularly undergo as part of its learning and adaptive process. The kind of change being discussed here is not and would require active and vastly extensive physical intervention to create, and is no longer within the evolved purpose of the brain in question, which developed under the genetic instructions appropriate for it to control the body of a female organism of its species.

I understand the logic, but I'm not sure I agree. For example, you could knock out certain parts of my brain without (in my opinion) changing the essential core algorithm that makes me me. I'm pretty sure I'd still be me if I went deaf due to brain damage that destroyed my ability to process audio, for example. It would be a terrible experience, but if that was as far as the damage went, I'm not sure it would radically alter my personality.

True, it's an alteration to the person. That is not the same thing as killing the person and resurrecting them, which was your original claim, nor does it have anywhere near the same sociological or ethical implications. Their knowledge has not been lost to society, their relatives, etc.

I think... either I messed up my communication again or you missed something I was saying. Not sure which.

To clarify:
Any given person corresponds to a specific mind, a specific complex decision-making process. If we had the tools to analyze those processes, we could write a description of an algorithm and say "this algorithm is Bob," or "this algorithm is Stephen Hawking."

If you can take the algorithm that is Stephen Hawking and transfer it to another platform, other than Stephen Hawking's current body, you have not killed Stephen Hawking, any more than you have if you give him a pill that knocks him unconscious, or if you performed surgery to convert his existing body into the new platform.

If you take the algorithm that is Stephen Hawking, erase it, and replace it with a new algorithm running in the same body... that's a bit different. If the new algorithm is much like the old one, you can say "this is still basically Stephen Hawking, but without his old taste for strawberry ice cream and without his old memories of being bullied in high school," or something like that. Up to a point, that works.

But at some point, the new algorithm is so unlike the old one that if you compared them side by side, you'd think they were different people: one is a brilliant physicist and the other is a brilliant interior decorator. Or one has a rich sense of humor that pervades their life, while the other has none at all. Or one is male and the other is female, with a certain amount of variation in personality traits associated with that.

If the new algorithm is that different from the old one, then the old person isn't there anymore. They're gone- you may have them in storage somewhere waiting for a new body to run on, but the person who wakes up from you mind-transfer procedure isn't the same one that went to sleep on the table.

Which is what I'm getting at. Imagine you zap me with some technobabble device that changes my mind from a typically male one to a typically female one (which, as Her Grace says, requires changes in brain structure as far as we know). Afterwards, based on what we know about sex-related differences in the brain (and therefore the mind), I'm not the same person. The old Simon is not the new Simone, even if they're similar enough to be fraternal twins.

So we now have this new Simone, but where did Simon go? I can only conclude that Simon is dead, or effectively dead. And so I would view this as being closely equivalent to suicide, with the notable difference that someone keeps getting to use my body. Though I have to say, I don't envy this hypothetical Simone, since she's now a woman's mind trapped in a man's body... she might very well want to go back through the zapper in reverse.

[Master of Ossus]

"Views". "Outlook on life". That's how you typify the structural nature of the brain? So Solzhenitsyn is still alive because we have his writings? And Shakespeare?

No. Society has lost their experiences; their ability to interact and enrich others. That is not similar to the situation that you're presenting.

Let us not be absurd; you are an intelligent man. The type of change is not remotely similar whatsoever, and I don't know how you could come to such an assumption.

I simply have no idea what you're talking about. Giving kids Adderall is not murder.

This isn't about changing someone's way of thinking. It is explicitly changing their identity. Your entire argument is based on a false analogy, and yes, it is a fair analogy to suicide or murder, because the magnitude of the change in interpretation of thoughts when an individual's entire self-identity is changed (which is not the case with psychiatric drugs) functionally means that the memories are nothing more than someone else's diary.

That is not a fair analogy, and you know it. Are you arguing that treating people with multiple personality disorder constitutes murder, as well? That has a far greater claim of being "murder" than this.

This is not about correcting a defect in the brain, Ossus. This is about taking a normal female brain and altering it into a male brain simply because of some useless bits of flesh on the associated meatbag, and arguing that this is a somehow trivial change is patently absurd in the face of the extensive male/female differences in sex differentiated species.

1. That is a defective brain--it's not properly reflective of the individual's physical body. In other circumstances where someone's self-identity does not match their physical body, everyone agrees that the mind is defective (e.g., body dysmorphic disorder, phantom limb syndrome, various eating disorders, etc.).
2. I've never said it's a trivial change--the magnitude of the change is obviously large. I contend only that it is not murder.

You have more in common mentally with a schizophrenic bushman than you do with me.

Well that makes me sympathize with you.

Although it is true, a schizophrenic bushman likely understands the concept of murder.

The only viable contreargument would be that male/female identity is not relevant to one's identity as an instantiated, sapient being.... But we have so, so very much scientific analysis that speaks to the contrary that that is not a viable assertion whatsoever.

The counterargument is that changing someone's self-identity does not constitute murder. Taking someone who's crippled by anxiety about how big their nose is and then treating them so that they no longer identify themselves solely by means of their nose does not kill the person.