You might not be tracking that there’s a “unilateralist cloud” of behaviors. There’s the norm of behavior, and then around that norm, there’s a cloud of variation. The most extreme people (the unilateralist frontier) will do riskier things than the norm, and bad stuff will result. If a unilateralist doing unilateral stuff results in a deformed baby, or even of a legit prospective risk of a deformed baby (as you acknowledge existed in He Jiankui’s experiments), that’s bad. If society sees this happen, it means that their current norm is not conservative enough to keep the unilateralist frontier in the safe zone. So they adjust the norm to be more conservative.
When you write
This method has actually been used in human embryos before! In 2018 Chinese scientist He Jiankui created the first ever gene edited embryos by using this technique. All three of the children born from these embryos are healthy 6 years later (despite widespread outrage and condemnation at the time).
it sounds like you’re implying that the outrage and condemnation were a claim that the experiment would actually have bad results. Which, surely to some extent they were. But also they were (legit, as you agree!) a claim that prospectively the experiment was bad to do, and therefore that the norm of the unilateralist cloud is in the wrong place.
You might respond: “The response shouldn’t be to just ban everything. That’s a super blunt force result.” To which I will give a reply so succint and forceful that you will not be able to argue further: “I agree.”
But arguing with the unilateralist-cloud-norm-movers by saying “but the experiment turned out fine” is missing their point. They are correct that IF the only lever available is to move the cloud-norm, THEN the only way to avoid the legit risk of HJK-like experiments is to move the cloud-norm. The solution, I’m sure you’ll agree, is to make there be more precise levers for them. If their need for levers is driven by a need to control the unilateralist-cloud, then one key thing to do is make the unilateralist cloud less stupid.
You might not be tracking that there’s a “unilateralist cloud” of behaviors. There’s the norm of behavior, and then around that norm, there’s a cloud of variation. The most extreme people (the unilateralist frontier) will do riskier things than the norm, and bad stuff will result. If a unilateralist doing unilateral stuff results in a deformed baby, or even of a legit prospective risk of a deformed baby (as you acknowledge existed in He Jiankui’s experiments), that’s bad. If society sees this happen, it means that their current norm is not conservative enough to keep the unilateralist frontier in the safe zone. So they adjust the norm to be more conservative.
When you write
it sounds like you’re implying that the outrage and condemnation were a claim that the experiment would actually have bad results. Which, surely to some extent they were. But also they were (legit, as you agree!) a claim that prospectively the experiment was bad to do, and therefore that the norm of the unilateralist cloud is in the wrong place.
You might respond: “The response shouldn’t be to just ban everything. That’s a super blunt force result.” To which I will give a reply so succint and forceful that you will not be able to argue further: “I agree.”
But arguing with the unilateralist-cloud-norm-movers by saying “but the experiment turned out fine” is missing their point. They are correct that IF the only lever available is to move the cloud-norm, THEN the only way to avoid the legit risk of HJK-like experiments is to move the cloud-norm. The solution, I’m sure you’ll agree, is to make there be more precise levers for them. If their need for levers is driven by a need to control the unilateralist-cloud, then one key thing to do is make the unilateralist cloud less stupid.
Yes, I pretty much agree with this