If enough people are in the market, have egg or sperm donor companies call people who medal.
considers
Looking down the road, because my expectation is that sooner or later, we’re going to be doing human genetic engineering, a company getting Olympian genetic material like that might be — as long as they can operate in a legal jurisdiction that doesn’t prohibit human genetic engineering — better off just calling up medalists and licensing their DNA. I don’t think that you can copyright DNA under current US case law, though it might be patentable.
As of 2016, genetic sequences were not recognized as copyrightable subject matter by any jurisdiction.[3] The United States Copyright Office’s position is that “DNA sequences and other genetic, biological, or chemical substances or compounds, regardless of whether they are man-made or produced by nature,” are ideas, systems, or discoveries rather than copyrightable works of authorship.[15]: 23
You might not need to copyright or patent it, though, if you can just keep the changes you make secret. I mean, you get sperm/egg from Random Person, you do your proprietary modifications, you generate an embryo, you implant. I’m not sure how hard it would be for some other company to reverse-engineer the changes by looking at people’s DNA relative to background noise in the DNA.
A large majority of countries (96 out of 106) surveyed have policy documents-legislation, regulations, guidelines, codes, and international treaties-relevant to the use of genome editing to modify early-stage human embryos, gametes, or their precursor cells. Most of these 96 countries do not have policies that specifically address the use of genetically modified in vitro embryos in laboratory research (germline genome editing); of those that do, 23 prohibit this research and 11 explicitly permit it. Seventy-five of the 96 countries prohibit the use of genetically modified in vitro embryos to initiate a pregnancy (heritable genome editing). Five of these 75 countries provide exceptions to their prohibitions. No country explicitly permits heritable human genome editing.
The thing is that in practice, if you want in vitro implantation, you can probably just travel abroad to a jurisdiction that doesn’t prohibit it, unless countries assert extraterritorial jurisdiction that attaches to their citizens. If someone wants an Olympianized kid, I imagine that traveling abroad isn’t that much additional barrier. Extraterrorial jurisdiction exists, but it is very rare; prohibitions on child sex tourism are one notable example that a number of countries do.
Eugenics have a bad rep since they were popularized by nazis. But hey - animal rights and identification documents were also initially nazi ideas and they gained traction.
I just hope, that when eugenics come back to public light again, they will come out of EU (regulated to hell and back) instead of USA or China. It’s one thing to eliminate genetic diseases or such, but completely another thing with steering people into some dystopian genetic hellhole.
I would like to overcome my limitations in this fashion. Aside from my tongue and naughty bits, the human body doesn’t offer me any experience that I enjoy.
Wishing to become just a brain in a robot body sadly misunderstands the totality of the human body. It’s been shown that gut biome affects mental health, for example.
One would assume that a robotic body would have devices and supplement cartridges for that, automatically monitored and regulated. The human body is a machine - but a robotic version would be actually optimally designed, rather than an endless variety of useful accidents. Even better, you can move the brain into different vessel shapes, each built for a particular purpose.
In any case, converting a fleshy brain’s memories into an computerized format would be preferable. Unfortunately, I suspect that is hard to pull off without being lossy or fatal.
It would be like Robot Wars, but with a lot more strategies. Rock wall climb? Hover boots, piledriver spikes, gecko skin, and so on. Someone should make an anime or show focused on robosports.
You want more olympians, this is how you get more olympians.
Um, that’s not how condoms works.
If enough people are in the market, have egg or sperm donor companies call people who medal.
considers
Looking down the road, because my expectation is that sooner or later, we’re going to be doing human genetic engineering, a company getting Olympian genetic material like that might be — as long as they can operate in a legal jurisdiction that doesn’t prohibit human genetic engineering — better off just calling up medalists and licensing their DNA. I don’t think that you can copyright DNA under current US case law, though it might be patentable.
investigates
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_genetic_sequences
You might not need to copyright or patent it, though, if you can just keep the changes you make secret. I mean, you get sperm/egg from Random Person, you do your proprietary modifications, you generate an embryo, you implant. I’m not sure how hard it would be for some other company to reverse-engineer the changes by looking at people’s DNA relative to background noise in the DNA.
searches
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33095042/
The thing is that in practice, if you want in vitro implantation, you can probably just travel abroad to a jurisdiction that doesn’t prohibit it, unless countries assert extraterritorial jurisdiction that attaches to their citizens. If someone wants an Olympianized kid, I imagine that traveling abroad isn’t that much additional barrier. Extraterrorial jurisdiction exists, but it is very rare; prohibitions on child sex tourism are one notable example that a number of countries do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterritorial_jurisdiction
EDIT: Replaced the text and citation for the legal overview, as it looks like the earlier link was to a spam site that copied it.
Take it from me, you don’t want to go down the “eugenics” road…
Eugenics have a bad rep since they were popularized by nazis. But hey - animal rights and identification documents were also initially nazi ideas and they gained traction.
I just hope, that when eugenics come back to public light again, they will come out of EU (regulated to hell and back) instead of USA or China. It’s one thing to eliminate genetic diseases or such, but completely another thing with steering people into some dystopian genetic hellhole.
I have a feeling it’s gonna be a long road, getting from here to there with eugenics. I’d much rather use technology to overcome our limitations.
I would like to overcome my limitations in this fashion. Aside from my tongue and naughty bits, the human body doesn’t offer me any experience that I enjoy.
Wishing to become just a brain in a robot body sadly misunderstands the totality of the human body. It’s been shown that gut biome affects mental health, for example.
One would assume that a robotic body would have devices and supplement cartridges for that, automatically monitored and regulated. The human body is a machine - but a robotic version would be actually optimally designed, rather than an endless variety of useful accidents. Even better, you can move the brain into different vessel shapes, each built for a particular purpose.
In any case, converting a fleshy brain’s memories into an computerized format would be preferable. Unfortunately, I suspect that is hard to pull off without being lossy or fatal.
I would watch the cybernetic olympics.
It would be like Robot Wars, but with a lot more strategies. Rock wall climb? Hover boots, piledriver spikes, gecko skin, and so on. Someone should make an anime or show focused on robosports.
Sir, we did it, we got Olympian sperm!
Excellent, what sport?
Shot put
Fuck.
Seems fine to me.
lol I didn’t mean anything by it, if those two had a kid it would be a real life Gaston
Forget in vitro, just CRISPR that shit into my DNA!