Blockland Ethics Questions: Autism Vaccine

[PhantOS]

What do you mean by this, regarding the topic?

disabilities require hard work and creativity to overcome. the average person wouldn't be put in such a position where they are required to compensate heavily for their limitations. a disability allows you to put more focus in honing other skills that you can be good at.

i'm against 'curing' disabilities unless the disability severely impacts someone's quality of life or causes immense pain. everyone deserves to love themselves and their strengths and weaknesses

[Ad Bot]

[Dr.Block]

disabilities require hard work and creativity to overcome. the average person wouldn't be put in such a position where they are required to compensate heavily for their limitations. a disability allows you to put more focus in honing other skills that you can be good at.

i'm against 'curing' disabilities unless the disability severely impacts someone's quality of life or causes immense pain. everyone deserves to love themselves and their strengths and weaknesses

I appreciate where you're coming from with this, but it sucks being forced to work harder to compensate for your limitations when you didn't ask for that and other people don't have to because they were born luckier. Maybe people don't want to have to be extra creative to survive?

[The Resonte!]

good thing this question isnt particularly relevant until this vaccine exists... which it probably wont. probably something like sperm-egg gene editing or something designer-baby style... which is its own ethical question but whatever

[Master Matthew²]

good thing this question isnt particularly relevant until this vaccine exists...

Wrong.

There is a strong group of people out there who are believers in eugenics. The difference between treating neurodivergency as a disability or a different ability is the difference between curing it vs accepting it.

The reason I brought up the X-Men storyline of curing mutants at all is because of this question of ethics. The purpose of questions like these is not to prepare for a hypothetical to become reality, but to face the mirror.

Is autism something to be ashamed of, or to accept? Something to destroy to coexist with?

[Rigel]

disabilities require hard work and creativity to overcome. the average person wouldn't be put in such a position where they are required to compensate heavily for their limitations. a disability allows you to put more focus in honing other skills that you can be good at.

i'm against 'curing' disabilities unless the disability severely impacts someone's quality of life or causes immense pain. everyone deserves to love themselves and their strengths and weaknesses

It might sound defeatist, but they likely wouldn't be called disabilities if they didn't severely affect someone's quality of life. People will overcome their disadvantages and say that they are stronger for the experience, but emotional strength and maturity doesn't mean that they don't regret not being able to do what others could do. Some will never be able to play sports, or view art, or listen to music. If it's something they truly have never been able to do, then it remains a vague piece of the human experience that is lost to them forever, that they can never relate to. If they used to be able to do it, but can't because of a new disability they weren't born with, then they mourn the loss of something that will never return.

The hard work and creativity to overcome a disability is put towards being able to live a semblance of a normal life despite that disability. Would it not be better to put hard work and creativity towards solving such disabilities for good? To allow those without the willpower to overcome their physical flaws to live up to the same standard as everyone else? People with disabilities can and should learn to love themselves, but part of that love to me means hoping for a better tomorrow where our children won't suffer the same way.

The purpose of questions like these is not to prepare for a hypothetical to become reality, but to face the mirror.

Yes, you understand it exactly! That being said, while there's still plenty to discuss about the current topic regarding disabilities and having decisions made for you, I'm completely out of ethical dilemmas to present. Any suggestions?

[Ladios]

That being said, while there's still plenty to discuss about the current topic regarding disabilities and having decisions made for you, I'm completely out of ethical dilemmas to present. Any suggestions?

Lab-grown meat implications in both vegan and non-vegan culinary practices.

[Dr.Block]

I would eat the lab grown meat 100% without any hesitations. I don't care if it's "creepy" or "not real." As long as it's food safe. I see no downside to it whatsoever.

[Ladios]

I guess the debate comes down the ethical harvesting of cells to clone for the meat and whether the meat can be truly considered vegan at that point.

Really I think just veganism in general is a very debatable thing since so many people take it to different things like claiming honey isnt vegan even though bees have long adapted to producing too much honey in exchange for human's protection of their hives in a mutually benefiical arrangement.

Are truffles vegan considering we use trained hogs to locate them?

[Conan]

are vegetables vegan when we rely on human labor and (depending on origin, possibly) fossil fuels in the machines used to harvest them/electricity used to power said machines

[Goth77]

I would eat the lab grown meat 100% without any hesitations. I don't care if it's "creepy" or "not real." As long as it's food safe. I see no downside to it whatsoever.

ew, thats nasty. no thnx. 'food safe' vs healthy are not the same thing lol. legos and crayons are nontoxic and 'food safe' technically, but that doesn't mean you should eat them....

lab-grown meat is going to require some very careful oversight to maintain food safety. At least some of that heavy lifting will be in the form of antibiotics. However, infections aren't the only invisible enemy that can lurk in a cell. Eating mutant misfolded proteins (prions) can cause diseases such as mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

There is also the issue of what you feed these cells, because they aren't munching on grass. It will take a lot of medical grade glucose (sugar), metabolic precursors and growth hormones to keep these cells happy.

https://country-wide.co.nz/the-pros-and-cons-of-fake-meat/

I would not eat that stuff even if someone offered to pay me to

[Ladios]

are vegetables vegan when we rely on human labor and (depending on origin, possibly) fossil fuels in the machines used to harvest them/electricity used to power said machines

Some brands of coconuts arent considered vegan because they use trained monkeys to harvest them.

[ultimamax]

nevermind lab grown meat, scientists are literally growing mini brains that are arguably conscious/feel pain to integrate them into computers

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44222-024-00211-3

https://policylabs.frontiersin.org/content/policy-outlook-julian-kinderlerer-organoid-intelligence-society-must-engage-in-the-ethics