It strikes me, especially in light of Pope Francis' passing, that we have not really proven we can appreciate the "inviolable moral worth" of full-grown humans, let alone embryos... so this is REALLY theoretical ground we're breaking here.
I think it's clear we're playing with fire when it comes to this. I also find it hilarious how many Christians approve of IVF, with little to no thought (it seems to me) of the ramifications of playing God.
One thing clear in Sussman's writings, (I think I read 2 of the 3). Is how selfish the motivation for children has become. How accessorized and objectified human life is when we think about customizing embryos or optimizing our outcomes by choosing winners and losers. Medicine is a marvel to behold but how horrific this is becoming when we can decide that life is about comfort and the avoidance of anything that might require sacrifice from us as parents.
We've moved from seeing life as a gift, to treating it as something we're entitled to. And to steal from my much smarter wife, we live in a world now where life is about the pursuit of comfort, and anything that stands in the way of that pursuit is deemed evil. (Pro-tip: Life is not about comfort, not even close. Life is much more about gratitude.)
What a terrifying can of worms. I love that you guys went there. Thank you!
Warning: I am at the boiling point. My comment contains a lot of vulgarity. Forgive me. I was born in Jamaica, Queens, NY, near the Trump family. If the F word upsets you, read no further.
To comment on Mike’s wealth of input (May 5, 2025, Wisdom of the Crowds), I think I would need to spend at least two weeks of intense and in-depth reading with time off to eat, sleep, and take care of other human needs. I am beginning to understand what "retirement" really means (i.e., being tired, again and again, or re-tired).
So let me say this about this discussion concerning embryos.
We fucking humans, as adults, can’t even care for human life on this planet nor can we work together to care for the earth itself. Our “humankind” oxymoronic history is deeply blemished with genocide after genocide.
We, now plain to the mind of anyone with a few functional neurons, are standing down while thousands of Homo sapiens are being murdered. One example is the total deaths of civilians attributed to our president’s buddy (comrade), Vladimir Putin.
What Putin the Hun has done in Ukraine mirrors prior atrocities in
1. 1st Chechen War 1994-1996: (35,000 civilian deaths, including 5,000 children),
2. 2nd Chechen War 1999- 2009: (3,170 civilian deaths)
3. Kosovo War 1998-1999 (13,500 civilian deaths)
4. Russo-Georgian War 2008 (380 civilian deaths)
5. Crimean Annexation 2014 (8 civilian deaths)
6. Russian-Ukrainian War (Donbas) 2014-2022: (3,400 civilian deaths)
7. Russian-Ukrainian War 2022-June 2023: (9,177 civilian deaths)
Total CIVILIAN Murders: 64,400 and counting
* historical note: the Crimean War (1853-1856) between Russia and Britain, France & Ottoman Empire resulted in 500,000 deaths.
The conundrum about how to regard IVF or anything to do with embryonic research (let’s hope Trump does not get this confused with studies he called “transgender mice.") reminds me of patients who ask me how many treatments it will take to get their cancer under control and in remission. The leaders of the so-called Democracies in the World can’t even agree to act together to stop all the murdering going on, and it's not just Putin. Asad gassing his people, Netanyahu murdering many innocent Palestinians who were not abetting Hamas, etc.
Regarding our Earth: you don’t shit where you eat. That’s what we are doing by raping the planet rather than honoring the Earth. We, holier than thou White men, could not see the wisdom of the First Peoples, so we slaughtered them along with the herds of buffalo.
Regarding People Everywhere: rape, pillage and destroy has been humankind’s calling card from Cain vs Abel to 2025. Every religious text talks about goodness, kindness, love, and wonder at the creation. But mankind has bastardized religion and separated people from each other. How can the Catholics and Christians, if they love Jesus, manifest so much hatred towards the Jews throughout history? When will the former realize that behind that loin cloth of Jesus is a circumcized penis; that the entire Holy Family, the Apostles and even John the so-called Baptist were born Jews and died Jews. What outrageous hypocrisy.
When you cannot fix a fuckin flat tire, don’t talk about doing a motor job. When the human species learns to climb to the middle of the ladder insofar as all that is beautiful, true, and good, they might have some higher cerebral sense of how to deal with these clumps of cells. I do not see the MAGA nation screaming bloody murder when USAID was cut, and kids will die of starvation. I do not see these hypocrites sobbing when even one child is dead from measles because we have a brain-rotten and worm-infested Secretary of Health and Human Services destroying the NIH, CDC, FDA, and god knows what next.
When will Americans fucking wake up to all this shit that Trump, his asshole cabinet, and the feckless GOP in Congress are doing to DOGE (Destroy Our Great Experiment)?
Now you have it, right in your faces, an explanation to why did the German citizens allowed Hitler to gain power.
Answer:
AIL: Apathy, Indifference to cause, and lack of Unity
great stuff as always :)
It strikes me, especially in light of Pope Francis' passing, that we have not really proven we can appreciate the "inviolable moral worth" of full-grown humans, let alone embryos... so this is REALLY theoretical ground we're breaking here.
I think it's clear we're playing with fire when it comes to this. I also find it hilarious how many Christians approve of IVF, with little to no thought (it seems to me) of the ramifications of playing God.
One thing clear in Sussman's writings, (I think I read 2 of the 3). Is how selfish the motivation for children has become. How accessorized and objectified human life is when we think about customizing embryos or optimizing our outcomes by choosing winners and losers. Medicine is a marvel to behold but how horrific this is becoming when we can decide that life is about comfort and the avoidance of anything that might require sacrifice from us as parents.
We've moved from seeing life as a gift, to treating it as something we're entitled to. And to steal from my much smarter wife, we live in a world now where life is about the pursuit of comfort, and anything that stands in the way of that pursuit is deemed evil. (Pro-tip: Life is not about comfort, not even close. Life is much more about gratitude.)
What a terrifying can of worms. I love that you guys went there. Thank you!
Re: Clumps of Cells.
Warning: I am at the boiling point. My comment contains a lot of vulgarity. Forgive me. I was born in Jamaica, Queens, NY, near the Trump family. If the F word upsets you, read no further.
To comment on Mike’s wealth of input (May 5, 2025, Wisdom of the Crowds), I think I would need to spend at least two weeks of intense and in-depth reading with time off to eat, sleep, and take care of other human needs. I am beginning to understand what "retirement" really means (i.e., being tired, again and again, or re-tired).
So let me say this about this discussion concerning embryos.
We fucking humans, as adults, can’t even care for human life on this planet nor can we work together to care for the earth itself. Our “humankind” oxymoronic history is deeply blemished with genocide after genocide.
We, now plain to the mind of anyone with a few functional neurons, are standing down while thousands of Homo sapiens are being murdered. One example is the total deaths of civilians attributed to our president’s buddy (comrade), Vladimir Putin.
What Putin the Hun has done in Ukraine mirrors prior atrocities in
1. 1st Chechen War 1994-1996: (35,000 civilian deaths, including 5,000 children),
2. 2nd Chechen War 1999- 2009: (3,170 civilian deaths)
3. Kosovo War 1998-1999 (13,500 civilian deaths)
4. Russo-Georgian War 2008 (380 civilian deaths)
5. Crimean Annexation 2014 (8 civilian deaths)
6. Russian-Ukrainian War (Donbas) 2014-2022: (3,400 civilian deaths)
7. Russian-Ukrainian War 2022-June 2023: (9,177 civilian deaths)
Total CIVILIAN Murders: 64,400 and counting
* historical note: the Crimean War (1853-1856) between Russia and Britain, France & Ottoman Empire resulted in 500,000 deaths.
The conundrum about how to regard IVF or anything to do with embryonic research (let’s hope Trump does not get this confused with studies he called “transgender mice.") reminds me of patients who ask me how many treatments it will take to get their cancer under control and in remission. The leaders of the so-called Democracies in the World can’t even agree to act together to stop all the murdering going on, and it's not just Putin. Asad gassing his people, Netanyahu murdering many innocent Palestinians who were not abetting Hamas, etc.
Regarding our Earth: you don’t shit where you eat. That’s what we are doing by raping the planet rather than honoring the Earth. We, holier than thou White men, could not see the wisdom of the First Peoples, so we slaughtered them along with the herds of buffalo.
Regarding People Everywhere: rape, pillage and destroy has been humankind’s calling card from Cain vs Abel to 2025. Every religious text talks about goodness, kindness, love, and wonder at the creation. But mankind has bastardized religion and separated people from each other. How can the Catholics and Christians, if they love Jesus, manifest so much hatred towards the Jews throughout history? When will the former realize that behind that loin cloth of Jesus is a circumcized penis; that the entire Holy Family, the Apostles and even John the so-called Baptist were born Jews and died Jews. What outrageous hypocrisy.
When you cannot fix a fuckin flat tire, don’t talk about doing a motor job. When the human species learns to climb to the middle of the ladder insofar as all that is beautiful, true, and good, they might have some higher cerebral sense of how to deal with these clumps of cells. I do not see the MAGA nation screaming bloody murder when USAID was cut, and kids will die of starvation. I do not see these hypocrites sobbing when even one child is dead from measles because we have a brain-rotten and worm-infested Secretary of Health and Human Services destroying the NIH, CDC, FDA, and god knows what next.
When will Americans fucking wake up to all this shit that Trump, his asshole cabinet, and the feckless GOP in Congress are doing to DOGE (Destroy Our Great Experiment)?
Now you have it, right in your faces, an explanation to why did the German citizens allowed Hitler to gain power.
Answer:
AIL: Apathy, Indifference to cause, and lack of Unity
⚠️🦉 IVF 💉🧫 and CrisprCas9 ✂️ ⚗️🧬🔬 👩🏻🔬🐉are just now beginning to become manifest 🤦🏼♀️🙇🏻♂️☣️🧑🏻💻🌐 in the Polis. ⚖️♨️💫🏛️💪🏼💲🤞🏼😳⏰
Just because we can.... 🤔😬🙈🙉🙊🕸️🕷️🦖🦤 is not going to be a sufficient set of parameters or fence posts. 🦟 📯🩸🚪🛣️ 🚨🌬️ 🛟 🔥🦠⚰️☠️