PAPER REVIEW
- Partridge, Emily et al. – 2017 – An extra-uterine system to physiologically support the extreme premature lamb
Abstract:
Here we report the development of a system that incorporates a pumpless oxygenator circuit connected to the fetus of a lamb via an umbilical cord interface that is maintained within a closed ‘amniotic fluid’ circuit that closely reproduces the environment of the womb. We show that fetal lambs that are developmentally equivalent to the extreme premature human infant can be physiologically supported in this extra-uterine device for up to 4 weeks. Lambs on support maintain stable haemodynamics, have normal blood gas and oxygenation parameters and maintain patency of the fetal circulation. With appropriate nutritional support, lambs on the system demonstrate normal somatic growth, lung maturation and brain growth and myelination.
This is really cool.
I have been advocating this technology since I started blogging in 2008.
The immediate benefits, which the authors cite, are a reduction in infant mortality caused by extreme prematurity. This is good, though not that big of a deal, since it is very low in First World countries anyway, while poorer countries will probably not be able to afford the technology anyway.
The real promise is in its eugenic potential.
It is common knowledge that the well-educated reproduce less than the poorly educated, and that has resulted in decades of dysgenic decline throughout the developed world. This dysgenic effect has overtaken the Flynn effect. One of the reasons the well-educated, and especially well-educated women, have few or zero children is because it is bad for their career prospects. There are also some women who are just uncomfortable with the idea of pregnancy and childbirth.
There are essentially just a few solutions to this problem:
(1) Do nothing, deny heritability of IQ. Import Afro-Muslims to breed the next generation of doctors and engineers.
(2) Do nothing, hope for a literal deus ex machina solution, such as Musk’s neural lace or superintelligence.
(3) The Alt Right solution: Send the women back to the kitchen.
Ethical considerations aside, there’s also the matter of practicality – you’d have to be really hardcore at enforcing your “White Sharia” to make any substantive difference. Even most conservative Muslim societies, where female labor participation is very low, have seen plummeting fertility rates. And, needless to say, it does nothing about the dysgenic aspect of modern fertility patterns, which are a significantly bigger problem than falling fertility rates anyway.
(4) Develop artificial wombs.
This is a good idea from all sorts of ideological perspectives.
Everyone: Immediate higher fertility rates in the countries that develop them, especially amongst well-educated women. This might cancel out dysgenic decline at a single stroke.
Liberals: Alternate option for women who don’t want to undergo pregnancy/childbirth for whatever reason. No more market for surrogate mothers – an end to a particularly icky form of Third World exploitation.
Libertarians: People with the means to pay – that is, millionaires and especially billionaires – will no longer be bounded in their reproductive capacity by the biology of their female partner or by the culture of their society (generally, no polygamy). Since wealth is moderately correlated with IQ, this will be eugenic. That said, this might strike some as dystopian. Maybe one could start taxing additional artificial womb-grown offspring past the first five or ten? Then you’d get “offshore hatcheries.” Okay, I suppose that’s even more dystopian.
Zensunnis: I suppose cultures that really dislike women can just gradually start making do without them by replacing them with the equivalent of Axlotl tanks. Conversely, (almost) all female “Amazonian” societies will also become possible. Let’s make sci-fi tropes real.
Futurists: Combining artificial wombs with CRISPR gene-editing for IQ on a mass scale pretty much directly leads to a biosingularity.
As I pointed out, a biosingularity may be preferable to one born of machine superintelligence because it bypasses the AI alignment problem and doesn’t risk the end of conscious experience.
I agree, really intriguing possibilities, I hope this does get developed. It will undoubtedly cause a lot of objections by more conservative and religious types though (on that note, I was somewhat angered by an interview with Germany’s chief Protestant Heinrich Bedford-Strohm a few weeks ago…not only does he want to flood Germany with refugees, no, he also more or less stated in that interview that he wants research on radical life extension banned; I guess one has to be glad that his type at least doesn’t have any influence in China).
It strikes me as utopian.
We need this tech for our salvation.
Not until spice is discovered;)
@Anatoly Karlin: I’m not so sure that artificial wombs would result in that much higher of a total fertility rate. After all, isn’t a part of the issue with career women not having children the fact that they don’t want to care for them? If so, what exactly are you going to do about that? After all, not everyone wants to spend money on things such as a nanny or daycare!
Also, though, I wonder what effect this would have on the abortion debate in the long(er)-run. Indeed, would it be possible to transfer a fetus from a woman’s womb to an artificial womb in a way that is as safe or safer for the woman than an early abortion is?
@German_reader: What exactly is his issue with radical life extension?
Basically that it’s against God’s design.
I do wonder though what consequences that technology would potentially have for the bond between a mother and her child.
I’m not sure if this post is serious or not, however, I can see a lot of downsides with the idea.
And do we really want to delegate even more powers to the state and corporations?
It really seems the elites are using Brave New World as a sort of master plan.
@German_reader: So he’s a religious nut?
@Anatoly Karlin: Also, well-educated women can already adopt children right now. Indeed, if well-educated women are refusing to adopt children right now, what exactly makes you think that they would be willing to have their own children with the help of artificial wombs? After all, if they don’t want to adopt children and raise them, why exactly would they be willing to have and to then raise biological children of their own?
Don’t trouble a technophile with logic or facts when the fit is on him.
Besides which, artificial wombs like many other things have been just around the corner for fifty years. They will still be just around the corner in another fifty if we survive that long.
They should be able to create their own citizens, employees and consumers rather than relying on less reliable natural-born people. That is a good thing.
Because for most people there is a difference between raising one’s own children vs. adopted children?
The births to adoption ratio in the US is 30 to 1.
Of course not, but it does greatly easen one big part of the child-rearing process.
Pretty sad.
Religious people in my experience actually have surprisingly mixed views on this. The Mormons are a fascinating counter-example:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2017/04/mormon-transhumanists.html
As I see it, the only way to stop the bugmen from driving high civilization into the ground is (1) adopting many elements of the NRx/Alt Right platform or (2) transhumanism.
So, Richard Spencer and/or Zoltan Istvan.
The former is proving to be a damp squib, with Trump’s continuing failures (Gorka has just been let go) and Le Pen underperforming expectations. So it makes sense to start attaching more weight to the latter.
Yeah, I wonder how this might affect the abortion debate.
If it is possible to transfer a fetus, then pro-lifers could use this to save a lot of would-be dead aborted fetuses, which would likely be quite dysgenic.
I’ll be the negative nelly here, in part because I’m a traditionalist per se – but also because I have a feeling that the technology will simply not be used that much, much as frozen eggs and frozen sperm aren’t.
Issues involving cost of care and desire to reproduce at all remain. Oddly enough, my experience is that a lot of intelligent women avoid children because they feel that bringing another life into “this horrible world” is a crime.
That’s much more fundamental than avoiding the experience of pregnancy.
Artificial wombs offer much more than freezing eggs and sperm.
In that case, the government should get involved and ensure that their valuable genes won't be wasted.
Any particular reason why we can’t do both?
I’ve said all along that the alt-right will necessarily embrace transhumanism sooner or later. Transhumanism is the wave of the future.
Of all the transhumanisms, the Mormon one is the only appealing one to me because Mormon transhumanism is all about lifting natural reproduction up to a godly, divine plane. I like the idea of becoming a God with actual children who are made of me and my wife’s lineage. I like the idea of creating my own universe, to be filled with me and my wife’s recombination. I like the idea of my children eventually becoming Gods themselves. Imagine being able to survey and study your own creations and the creations of your children and those of their children, forever.
I’ve also heard that the Chinese want to be able to upload minds so that once the body has died, one’s mind kept still alive and able to communicate with one’s descendents, until those descendants can re-embody that mind.
I guess that those aspects of transhumanism which aim to make Tradition great again are those that appeal to me. I don’t really like the idea of my child being some kind of super optimized human with not that much genetic relation to his mother and father. Why would I care for such a person more than for some random human ?
@Anatoly Karlin: What exactly is the births to adoption ratio for well-educated/upper-class people, though? After all, looking at the cumulative rate for births to adoptions could be misleading considering that poor and uneducated people don’t have much incentive to adopt children.
Also, how exactly are backward alt-right ideas going to save humanity and whatnot? After all, any attempt to push women back into the kitchen–morality and ethics aside–is very likely going to result in something akin to a civil war!
Indeed, how exactly does having a civil war strengthen a country?
@Abelard Lindsey: To be honest, I don’t see why exactly we should listen to the alt-right. After all, their ideas are simply a recycling of the same regressive crap that society has continuously rejected for decades–if not even longer than that!
If you do not want to listen, why are you here?
: Perhaps I should have clarified this part. Basically, I certainly don’t want to listen to suggestions such as putting women back into the kitchen and whatnot. However, I nevertheless find Mr. Karlin to be an interesting read at times; indeed, I especially enjoy reading his thoughts on geopolitics, elections, et cetera (even if I don’t always agree with them).
Also, for the record, I actually do think that the alt-right might have some legitimate concerns in regards to things such as Islamic fundamentalism and radicalism. Indeed, it’s proposals such as putting women back into the kitchen that obviously extremely repulse me!
I vote for 3. It’s a mans world baby now stay in the kitchen! Shieeet it’s called HIStory…. not HERstory.
Are you sure that you’re not being repulsed for no reason? Obviously “putting women back into the kitchen” is extreme, but I know a lot of women who would be very supportive of more traditional mores.
You do realize that the current trend penalizes women who don’t want to participate in the labor force, right? Among others, there’s this French female friend of mine who is pretty pissed and feels that she needs to write pro-feminist essays and attend college, when she would prefer to be able to just be married. This isn’t really an isolated viewpoint either, I associate with quite a few in Gen Z.
Considering that we have a new world of increasing NEET-age, there are no lack of women who would prefer if they were not looked down on for not wanting to work.
Its a world of hikkimori for everyone, everywhere.
@Daniel Chieh: To be honest, I think that I might have misunderstood what Mr. Karlin wrote here. Indeed, if anyone–whether male, female, or another gender (I’m trying to be trans-inclusive here)–wants to stay at home and not work, they should certainly be able to do this. Similarly, if the government wants to *encourage people not to work, I see no problem with that (though it would be sexist if only one gender–such as women–was encouraged to do this).
Indeed, my impression was that the alt-right wants to force women back into the kitchen. However, if the alt-right merely wants to encourage women to do this, then this would certainly be much less bad–albeit still sexist, of course.
If I misunderstood the alt-right’s position in regards to this, then I apologize. However, it certainly wasn’t much of a stretch for me to imagine that people who advocate things such as White supremacy and who do the Nazi salute at their rallies would advocate forcing women to go back into the kitchen.
Hey Daniel,
What’s stopping her? Lack of males who are husband material? Pressure from friends? Is she not that good looking? I’m trying to figure out what the heck stops a woman from getting married if she is interested. It’s the most basic and natural thing in the world – have we seriously made it this hard?
Peace.
She’s very pretty, but its considered really low status just to be a housewife and its hard to find a man who makes good money – a good example of how female work participation makes it harder for women to be housewives.
She goes to college because its apparently what you’re supposed to do. Its all pretty frustrating for her, since she doesn’t see any clearly gendered simple jobs either anymore, such as being a stewardess like her mom was.
I don’t think women should be forced back into the house as a general principle. But it should certainly be an option for those who want to live a more traditional life.
@Abelard Lindsey: OK; understood. Indeed, that certainly makes your position sound much better. 🙂
BTW, I’m sorry for previously misunderstanding you. Indeed, I myself have absolutely no problem with anyone–of any gender–voluntarily deciding to live a traditional life which is focused on the home.
The alt-right is loose enough that its dubious to say that it has a singular position, though the notion of being “gender inclusive” is pretty hilarious. I associate with the movement enough to say that a lot of those people are definitely headed for fun helicopter rides if it succeeds.
But I think you miss the fact that people don’t exist alone, so the notion of anything being voluntary is always a bit dubious. Like my friend currently would “voluntarily” rather just marry, but in practice, she “voluntarily” is choosing to go through college because that’s the autopilot option.
What people choose individually is often a product of the larger society. I think its evident that most in the alt-right would prefer to promote family formulation and
@Daniel Chieh: What were you going to say? After all, your comment here appears to be cut off/incomplete.
Also, I get that societal pressure influences one’s decisions. However, I would say that there is a difference between voluntarily going to college so that you can get a good job and someone (hypothetically) forcing you at gunpoint to go to college. In the former scenario, you at least have a crappy alternative option; in the latter, though, you really don’t even have that.
Also, for the record, my comment #32 here is meant towards @Abelard Lindsey.
She doesn’t want a good job. She doesn’t really want a job, and what she wanted to do seems unlikely these days.
Basically the money spent on her college is wasted, because she neither wants it nor really cares for what she’s in – which was originally going to be art, but seems to have become “feminism studies” for some reason since her art classes appear to unusually focus on feminism. So she basically writes crappy essays while complaining about it; and yes, she has complained about it officially. It resulted in her lecturer instead taking pride in being “feminist” when my friend complained that it was “indoctrination.”
Its all pretty stupid.
The point remains. Social pressure is pretty significant and I doubt the alt-right particularly cares to put the gun to anyone nondegenerate, but definitely they wish to alter the social pressure into another direction. And yes, you have a choice at gunpoint too. It just is that the refusal option carries more unpleasant potential consequences.
You’re forgetting an important step: who’s gonna raise ’em? I’m pretty sure reluctance to reproduce has more to do with preferring driving a BMW than a station wagon rather than any mere distaste with the physiological process.
concern trolling, cluelessness and general autism are strong in some commenters. sometimes you read and you just know. G-d it’s triggering.
I think it was Hanson who once brought up figures showing that only about 20% of the cost of the average university education directly benefits you by raising your human capital, while the other 80% is a signalling cost from which no-one benefits in net terms. So there sure needs to be a lot of trimming.
In your friend’s case it appears to be negative value added.
I do think the university system needs to be will be reformed root and branch.
Sure, I support adopting both.
My argument is that (1) seems to be turning into a damp squib, so it makes sense for me to start expending more energy advocating (2).
I’m not sure about the ‘damp squib’.
Sure if the idea was to capture power democratically it looks doomed, seeing Trump’s reprogramming and a plastic-like candidate as Macron pushed out of nowhere by the system to kill Le Pen (or even conservative, pro-Russian Fillon) presidential bids.
However, these are pseudo-victories for the Establishment, none of the underlying tensions will disappear or be resolved, and they will likely be exacerbated. The opposition will go underground and turn to violent, undemocratic means. Low-intensity civil wars, right-wing terrorism. Against a background of continued decline of western countries relative to emerging powers, compounding everything.
It’s in periods of crises that ideologies, even the most fringe ones, find whole new opportunities.
The womb can work pretty well well into a woman’s 50s (and possibly beyond). The most important factor is the egg (the quality of the egg, as well as, pertaining to the topic of this article – the genetic quality of the carrier of the egg). The first two trimesters of pregnancy are not that bad (personal experience), and in fact have some real health benefits (can also affect the woman’s longevity), only the very last few weeks are tough (or rather somewhat uncomfortable) and, of course, the labor itself. But the toughest part is nursing and raising. Especially, raising in a quality way, without losing your sanity and social status.
A better solution would be making all those older women, instead of taking their international cruises, to actually help out. And a wealth transfer from rich boomers to the younger generation. Sorry to be so blunt. After all, even those good looking high IQ educated women / couples won’t necessarily be able to afford their own place, the way it is going these days, before they are 35 which is kind of late.
Also, what are you going to do about those over educated white husbands who don’t want more than one or two kids, and in some cases, none.