We canadians also say Aluminum and I would like to be represented in this comic as a target of mockery alongside the US thank you.

Just so everyone knows – in case you hadn’t heard – you can save 30% on your car insurance by switching to Geico.

Or testosterone instead of estrogen. Though I’m doubtful that exchanging X and Y chromosomes will change the physiological function of your existing organs that much.

I honestly just meant to do this for no other reasons than to flip the bird to conservatives who arbitrarily define sex chromosomally.

I know nothing about architecture, but I imagine that the operating costs of a castle are very low given that they’re basically just a big rock.

I can’t empathise with these book banners. If I had a kid, I’d probably be happier with them reading a book by a conservative ideologue than them not reading anything at all.

I just want to point out that castles are not quite as unattainable a residence as they sound like they are. It turns out they’re very cheap because nobody really wants European castles anymore, they want bland corporate buildings instead.

The Effective Altruism movement got a lot of flak for using donations to purchase a castle for holding conferences, but when they did the math they found it was just more cost effective than any other option.

It’s hard to deny that Orinoco Flow sounds really dated when you get to the bridge. I love her other work though.

you seem like the kind of person who would let the trolley run over five people.

Yes, that aligns with my understanding of the word problematic.

That is a compelling argument. I can’t deny society sucks. But in this case, should we not be promoting down syndrome? Wouldn’t it be better for everyone to have down syndrome? Do we have reason to believe that a society run exclusively by people with down syndrome would be better than other societies, or are the people you know with down syndrome better than the typical person because they receive a lot of care? These are earnest questions by the way, and not meant to be rhetorical.

You have scope insensitivity. What’s worse, one person being raped or one million transgender people being denied civil rights? A typical bigot is less harmful than a typical rapist, but JK Rowling is not a typical transphobe; she’s many orders of magnitude worse.

The article was not clear about what stage in someone’s life the CRISPR treatment can be applied. I would have assumed early in gestation. But this raises questions such as how down syndrome would be detected at that stage. If in vitro is the method, then why not simply filter out down syndrome at that stage?

The latter technology exists, but nobody seems to be interested in expanding it past this pilot.

This is such a bad take. Eugenics and gene therapy are completely different things. It’s like the difference between developing a cure for HIV vs adopting a policy that people with HIV be killed. Eugenics is an evil pseudoscience from the 19th century, do not conflate it with actual genetics research that can improve the human condition.

There are many people with what some would consider a “defect” to be fixed that live incredibly fulfilling lives and bring an irreplaceable uniqueness to the world.

Sure but the same thing can be said of any illness. There are wonderful anxiety-riddled or depressed people in the world. Should we prevent them from getting anti-depressants because it would make them less unique?

Then what the heck is your point? If they would not become worse for being cured of down syndrome, then what’s the dilemma?

I did not realize CRISPR was so powerful as to remove chromosomes entirely. Can CRISPR be used to change someone’s genetic sex? Republicans would freak out.

I’d be at a loss if I saw that, too.

Then I will rephrase – asking tumblr “is it problematic for a white person to go by an obviously Asian name as a pseudonym,” I feel that even phrased that way they would still say “yes.”

I don’t really use the word ‘problematic’ in the social justice sense myself because it’s incredibly vague, but if you’re going to specifically use the word problematic and claim that Jason Pargin isn’t, then I feel that it’s a pretty cut-and-dry “yes that was ‘problematic’” scenario.

I mean I would have agreed with you except, as you mentioned, OP said “potentially,” so that kind of invalidates your entire point, even if other people engage in this kind of behaviour.

Famous physicist and misogynist “Surely you’re Joking” Mr. Feynman comes to mind. Didn’t even know you can’t have both lemon and milk in you tea.