Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

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If you're being pedantic, babies usually never die - they transform into an adult which is the form that dies.

Typically yes? But surviving infancy is the first step on the road to immortality (but that will require more than CRISPR... probably?)

Immortality? (rolleyes)

Hopefully after living a long and fulfilling life? Geez

Edgy! No one has ever considered the mortality of their children ever, or contemplated the difference between death before and after the realization of potential. Wow!

Genuinely don't know why this is edgy. I was trying to understand his logic

Having a child predecease you is one of the worst things that can happen to a person in general. This is a common sentiment in humans. The strange thing is that you mentioned you're trying to follow "logic." This is not logic. These are emotions.

Not only a hurtful question, but a stupid one as well. Well done.

[flagged]

I understand this. My question arose from the fact that it seems like he only cares about the child dying before him, not the child's death overall. It was

> the idea of being told my 1 week old baby is going to die

not

> the idea of my child dying

Care to explain why it is stupid? And what's hurtful about it, too? Deciding on a child, you KNOW it's going to day at some point

"I am simply a machine. I do not experience death as humans do. It is just a cessation of function." - Data in Star Trek The Next Generation,

A parent's obligation is to try and do everything they can to make their child's life good. I think most people would agree that living more than a week is a good thing.

Only 1% of the population has autism. Presenting autism as a considerable possibility for trollish behavior isn't much different than what the parent commenter did.

I don't really know what you're going on about? We're all going to die, we all know that that's going to happen, but none of us want to suffer and most of us would like to live relatively long lives.

I am not a parent but I think if I did have a kid I would try everything I could to keep my child alive and minimize pain in my child's life.

Yes. Yes it is.

> that the child will die at some point

So what? So a father shouldn't celebrate medical advances that mean their kid doesn't have to die after a week? And if it does, they should just be like "Ah, that's life!"

The medical profession allocates scarce resources based on the amount of quality-adjusted life years it will bring.

Humans see value in living life, so cutting a life short is worse than a life that would be ending soon anyway.

I never said any of this

I didn't say you did. I was trying to understand your point, and so was inferring what you could possibly have meant with your original comment.

Oh, sorry. I definitely think a father can (should?) celebrate medical advancements like this, and definitely shouldn't undermine death like "Ah, that's life". My point is that people often worry about their children's death when they themselves are still alive. Death seems okay if it's when they don't get to see it

[flagged]

now, confirmed.

Death of someone whose potential was largely realized is a very different thing than the death of someone who never got a chance at the same.

I would be deeply unhappy to learn that my children won't live to old age.

Also witnessing the death of a loved one is obviously traumatic. People grieve their parents dying of old age.

What was the question? The rampant flagging here is quite annoying.

My original comment said:

> But your child will die and that's a fact. Is it only ok for it to die after you?

It’s less of

> my baby is going to die, woe is me

and more of

> have I failed my baby so much as a parent that he won’t even grow to adulthood (much less have a wonderful, happy life)

It’s not exactly a rational feeling; it’s not like this baby was going to die through lack of parental effort or care or anything else that the parents have any real control over, so it’s not like they could have done anything differently.

Nonetheless, it can make you feel like an utter failure of a parent. To some people (I admit, not everybody), that is absolutely crushing.

Is there more context to this question? I couldn't read the article because of the pay wall. But in isolation, this is a dumb question. All decent parents want their child to live as long as possible and be as healthy as possible. Is there something deeper you were trying to get at?

You are trying to frame this as pure “logic” but if you had read a single book on ethics or even philosophy you would see that’s not the case. You are basically asking “but why is good better than bad?” Acting as if you are logical but failing basic premises of logic or ethics. Any ethical framework is going to have axioms, typicslly these axioms are things that are inarguable for any person, namely its better to live than die, or to reduce suffering, etc. using basically any ethics system and pure logic you will quickly reach a conclusion that a baby living is better than one dying.

This really has nothing to do with the inevitability of death. Death is inevitable, however there is a difference between a child dying and an elderly person dying. A child has potential, they have not lived their lives. A child has not actually lived the full basic human experience, they havent had a crush, or fallen in love or married or had children or had any great successes or failures or close friends or anything, these things everyone does. An older person has, they are not a pure soul who hasnt experienced life. After 70 years you can be sad for the individual passing but happy that they have experienced life. This is why when a parent has a child they arent sad that their child will die in 80 years, but are devasted if they die at a week. The child never even had a chance. When you actually have a child, its an emotional and fulfilling experience, and to have that torn out so early is damaging.

From an empathy and emotional pov these things are so extemely basic and foundational aspects of being a human, a 10 year old from any culture on earth can undersrand this with no difficulty. And any person with even a passing familiarty with logic, ethics or philosophy will dismiss you as being earnest. Which is why people are assuming you are a troll.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43998721 and marked it off topic.

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Please don't comment like this, no matter how bad the comment you're replying to. The guidelines apply to everyone equally:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

My bad. I had been reading about how there's a frustration in the community that allistic people refuse to explain why such statements are wrong, and instead just repeat "you know what you did!" to people who genuinely don't.

I tried to be the one who didn't do that, but missed the mark. I'd delete it if I could.

>It’s not exactly a rational feeling

It only looks irrational if you don't understand what people and feelings are.

can you tell me which rule the comment broke?

I suggested a few that covered your multiple comments in the subthread, and also people who are sincere about using HN in accordance with the guidelines and the site's intended purpose have a way of demonstrating it through their actions. If you want to contribute here, please make an effort to be a positive contributor.

> I suggested a few that covered your multiple comments in the subthread

I genuinely can't link any of these to any of my comments, that's why I'm asking. I reread those a couple of times. I really think I've been polite, and I really tried to be, even when called "beteft of humanity", "earnest" and accused of trolling. I did not insult anybody, didn't want to and I certainly didn't want to bring anyone down. I just asked a question that seemed (and still seems) logical to me, only to get shutdown by mass flagging, now by removal of the comment with no real explanation what rules I broke and why I was negative

OK, maybe there's a cultural or language disconnect here, so, if you're genuinely confused as to why this came across as offensive, I believe you.

Please just understand that it can be upsetting to many people in the HN audience, as evidenced by the votes and comments, when the topic of death is addressed in this way: i.e., in a way that seems hyper-rationalist and diminishing of the way premature death – especially of infants and children – is particularly devastating to parents and loved ones.

[delayed]

> OK, maybe there's a cultural or language disconnect here

I might be just shit at expressing my thoughts in English

> when the topic of death is addressed in this way: i.e., in a way that seems hyper-rationalist

This is why I kept pushing and asking - I thought that HN is all about logical thinking and not letting your emotions go through and think for you.

I don't know if you are still insisting that I broke the rules - you don't have to explain in which way I broke them, I understand that I don't understand. A simple yes or no would suffice, if I could ask you.

And thank you for taking the time for discussing this with me. Regardless of the answer for the above question I will refrain from talki