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PaperclipPerfector  30d ago (text post)   32157 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 10, 2025

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The boost of confidence is visible outside the AI sphere too. I find it remarkable that He Jankui is shitposting on Twitter all the time and threatening to liberate the humanity from the straitjacket of «Darwin's evolution». A decade earlier, one would expect his type to flee to the West and give lectures about the menace of authoritarianism. But after three years in Chinese prison, he's been made inaugural director of the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Wuchang University and conspicuously sports a hammer-and-sickle flag on his desk.

I remember writing about how I was incredibly disappointed when China jailed He. He (pronoun) deserves to be celebrated, and it was a heavy blow against my view of China as a based, technocratic, forward thinking nation without the usual Western hangups and hand wringing about bioethics preventing millions or billions of lives being improved.

I take immense pleasure in liking all his posts on Twitter, he's a living meme, but I've always had an inordinate fondness for mad scientists. Now he's talking about gene editing (non-crispr) to eliminate Alzheimer's risk. You can see the begrudging concession to his adversaries and critics as he/He says he won't proceed with the work without IRB approval. They should shut Wuhan down and write him several blank cheques with the funds.

I agree with you that the biggest hurdle China faces is itself. That Xi is able to admit fault and make concessions towards people the regime stomped on, like Ma, is a good sign. If only they'd fucking give up on Taiwan, by the time they're likely to take it, TSMC would be smoldering thermite. The US would do that, even if the Taiwanese were ready to capitulate.

I too want there to be editing of humans for the betterment of mankind. Maybe I'll do an effort post to this end on what's been tried, what's possible, costs and the near future of gene therapy and editing. The latest I've seen from him involved working on DMD, but I don't see any recent papers by him in PubMed or Google Scholar.

Regardless, I'm not certain I want to throw behind a shit-posting scientist. Is it too much to ask our best and brightest minds and leaders not to shit-post and troll (Hsu, Trump, He)? Is it too much to ask leaders to have gravitas and not give in to spite just to own their enemies? I guess I'll just resign myself to wait for someone to develop a cure for ALS and announce it on twitter with something like, "Despite the FAGGOTRY of ESTABLISMENT midwits, my 10X team has developed a SAFE and EFFECTIVE treatment for twitchy fuckers w/ALS. You're welcome gaybros! See below for preprint 1/n"

It is unclear to me that He/He shitposts at all. It comes across as charmingly misguided sincerity. Too much social awkwardness or the inability to conform gets labeled autistic for me to pin that label on him, but I don't think he's consciously shitposting or cultivating a persona.

That's probably just how He is.

And when he says "I will not give a lecture in Harvard university for free.", all I can is that he knows his worth, king.

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