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1162 points jbredeche | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.43s | source
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tuna-piano ◴[] No.44000717[source]
If someone in the year 2050 was to pick out the most important news article from 2025, I won't be surprised if they choose this one.

For those who don't understand this stuff - we are now capable of editing some of a body's DNA in ways that predictably change their attributes. The baby's liver now has different (and better) DNA than the rest of its body.

We still are struggling in most cases with how to deliver the DNA update instructions into the body. But given the pace of change in this space, I expect massive improvements with this update process over time.

Combined with AI to better understand the genome, this is going to be a crazy century.

Further reading on related topics:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JEhW3HDMKzekDShva/significan...

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DfrSZaf3JC8vJdbZL/how-to-mak...

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yT22RcWrxZcXyGjsA/how-to-hav...

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bglazer ◴[] No.44000781[source]
The “How to make superbabies” article demonstrates a couple of fundamental misunderstandings about genetics that make me think the authors don’t know what they’re talking about at a basic level. Zero mention of linkage disequilibrium. Zero mention of epistasis. Unquestioned assumptions of linear genotype-phenotype relationships for IQ. Seriously, the projections in their graphs into “danger zone” made me laugh out loud. This is elementary stuff that theyre missing but the entire essay is so shot through with hubris that I don’t think they’re capable of recognizing that.
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cayley_graph ◴[] No.44000801[source]
The EA community is generally incapable of self-awareness. The academic-but-totally-misinformed tone is comparable to reading LLM output. I've stopped trying to correct them, it's too much work on my part and not enough on theirs.
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1. static_void ◴[] No.44006312[source]
I once went into a LessWrong IRC server.

I posted a question where I referred to something by the wrong name.

Someone said I was confused / wrong, so I corrected myself and restated my question.

For some 10 minutes they just kept dogpiling on the use of the wrong term.

Never a bunch a stupider people have I met than LessWrong people.

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2. Workaccount2 ◴[] No.44006475[source]
Reminds me why I learned long ago to never post your code online when looking for help.

50 replies arguing about how you can simplify your for() loop syntax and not one reply with an actual answer.