← The Tucker Carlson Show
The Tucker Carlson Show
Tucker Debates Biotech CEO on Baby Customization, Eugenics, and God’s Existence
01:40:30
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- [00:02]
A
If you've got spring fever, Lowes has the cure. During Springfest, make your landscape stand out with three free bags of Miracle Gro 3/4 cubic foot garden soil. When you buy three, plus, get up to 40% off, select major appliances to keep clothes, food, and dishes fresh all season long. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's, valid through 422, while supplies last. Selection varies by location. See Lowes.com for details. Soil offer excludes Alaska and Hawaii. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. I'll just say at the outset, which I told you off camera, I disagree with this. Conceptually, I think, but I'm also completely ignorant of the details.
- [00:46]
B
Yeah.
- [00:47]
A
So I kind of want to know what this is before even asking you questions about whether it's a good idea. Can you just. I'll stand back and let you explain what you're doing.
- [00:56]
B
Yeah. So first, thanks for having me on.
- [00:57]
A
Of course.
- [01:00]
B
So, patients, there's one way of reproducing via ivf, right? So you can conceive naturally via sex, or maybe if you're infertile or if you have some sort of hearty disease or for some other reason. You do IVF when you do.
- [01:11]
A
Yeah, I'm sorry. I specialize in dumb questions. Can you just explain for people who don't know, what is ivf? Yeah. What is ivf?
- [01:17]
B
IVF stands for in vitro fertilization. So basically, imagine the egg and the sperm, right? The foundation of life to make an embryo. It's basically putting those things together in a clinic, right? And then basically, you take that embryo and you would transfer it into a woman, and then it would implant, and the woman's pregnant.
- [01:33]
A
So conception takes place outside the womb.
- [01:35]
B
Correct?
- [01:35]
A
Okay, yeah.
- [01:37]
B
And so during this process of ivf, what you do is today, even if nucleus didn't exist, even if genetic optimization didn't exist, you make several embryos, okay? So when you're in the IVF clinic, you make several embryos. The amount of embryos you end up making, it varies, but you might have four or five. You. You actually do genetic testing on these embryos to identify things like chromosomal abnormalities, like down syndrome, for example. So that's very commonplace. That's done in basically every IVF clinic in the United States. They will actually screen embryos, the genetics of the embryos, to see if they have some sort of severe chromosomal abnormality. What we do is we basically provide more information on the embryos. So we also read the DNA, but now we give information on things like other hereditary Disease risk, also chronic diseases, things like cancers, Alzheimer's, diabetes. Also traits like IQ or height or et cetera. So to be clear, we're not changing any DNA. There's this process in IVF where you make embryos already genetic testing is done in embryos. What we do now is we provide you a little bit more information on your embryos. So basically that information can be used then implant which embryo the couple deems to be best. So basically give more information to couples to then choose which embryo they want to implant.
- [02:46]
A
I don't want to derail this conversation two minutes in. Okay, but you've just said we can tell the IQ of a person by the genetics.
- [02:56]
B
So iq.
- [02:56]
A
I was reliably informed. IQ is not real. Okay. And it's not determined by genetics.
- [03:02]
B
So I think it's helpful to think about all these different characteristics from diseases to traits.
- [03:07]
A
Right.
- [03:07]
B
People know intuitively something like height, for example. Right. Height. They say, oh, that's genetic. Or something like breast cancer, eye color. Right. These things people intuitively know are genetic. And so you can actually basically take these different phenotypes and measure how genetic any phenotype is. So what does it actually mean? The most simple way of explaining is, imagine you took two identical twins. So they have the same DNA, right? And then basically you separated the twins. They grew up in different environments. Sometimes in pop culture, people hear about these different things where you actually take twins and they have, again, the same DNA. They're identical DNA, and they grow up in different places for whatever reason, so they're subject to different environments. And you can actually measure basically how much more similar they. How. How similar they are across all these different phenotypes to see basically how genetic something is.
- [03:49]
A
Twin studies.
- [03:50]
B
Yes, twin studies, yes. And so using twin studies, you can actually get measurements of things from diseases like cancers and diabetes and Alzheimer's, as mentioned to things like height or IQ or BMI, et cetera. So twin studies show that IQ specifically is about 50% genetic. But to be clear, IQ is just one of over 2,000 factors that we actually look at, principally parents and patients. They come for disease. They always come for disease. And remember that when the embryos you're picking from, the most important determinant of the genetics of your embryos is, well, your partner. So you're actually not changing DNA. This is not gene editing. You're not changing DNA. You're not making an embryo's DNA better. You're basically reading the embryo's DNA that you have. So when you pick your partner you're basically picking the kind of genetic pool, and then you can basically pick which embryo you deem to be best based off of your preferences and values.
- [04:41]
A
I mean, that this. Like, again, I just want to say thank you for doing this. I'm not here to attack you at all. I think this is one of the most important conversations we can have. And I. I agree. I'm. You're much younger than I am. So you weren't here for the debates that took place in the early 1990s about what traits are the product of genetics and which are the product of environment. But up until pretty recently, the public conversation has settled on a consensus that everything is environment and that genetics aren't real. And this was at the very center of our national debate about race and crime and educational achievement, income. And it all grew out of or was crystallized by a book called the Bell Curve. Have you heard of this?
- [05:27]
B
Yeah, I have, yeah.
- [05:28]
A
Yeah. So it seems like that debate is over. And we're. And I'm not. This is not an attack at all. It's just, like, crazy to me that people are just saying this out loud. Yeah, genetics plays a big role.
- [05:40]
B
Yeah, genetics plays a role. So I think in society today, when people think about, like, height or cancers, and to be clear, I'm not talking about. There's hereditary disease risks like pku, Tay, Sachs, cystic fibrosis, beta thalassemia. These are conditions we also screen for.
- [05:55]
A
Right.
- [05:55]
B
To make sure that parents can reduce suffering each generation. So that's also part of what we do. And those conditions are basically deterministic in nature. Right. So if you have two bad copies of, like, cystic fibrosis, you're gonna get cystic fibrosis. And it's debilitating. And so there's, like, policies that basically encourage Americans and people around the world to do screening, to not pass down basically, an invisible genetic burden to their child.
- [06:18]
A
Right, right.
- [06:19]
B
That's like classical kind of genetics. So I think it's interesting because you.
- [06:22]
A
Well, it's not. It's eugenics, right?
- [06:24]
B
No, no, no, not eugenics. Eugenics.
- [06:25]
A
Well, how is it not. It's improving the human species through breeding.
- [06:28]
B
Eugenics refers to basically a corrosive use, corrosively controlling human reproduction. Right. Forced sterilizations, even euthanasia. Controlling who can get married to who.
- [06:39]
A
No, no, no, no, no. Those are methods by which you implement eugenics. But they're not the only ones. Eugenics simply means there's something inherently. Well, you can disagree with the concept, but the concept is corrosive or not the improvement of a species, in this case the human species, through selective breeding.
- [06:57]
B
Well, but there is no selective breeding. Remember, patients choose who they marry and then in the embryos they have. You're not changing the embryos. In the embryos they have, patients can make their own choice in which embryo they want to implant. So juxtapose, like eugenics.
- [07:10]
A
How is that not selective breeding? This is literally. Well, breeding is by definition the process of bringing new life into the world. And you're deciding which of these embryos becomes a person. And so that is breeding, but it's not. It's not choosing people's marriages, it's not giving them forced vasectomies, but it is breeding. That's what breeding is.
- [07:32]
B
Well, I would say that in IVF clinics for the last couple decades, there's been this process of basically taking these embryos, getting more information on the embryos, and then picking which embryo you want to implant. Right. Again, you're not changing DNA. You're not controlling who can get married to who. Just to be clear, if you go back, eugenics is a term it came up with in the late 19th century by a scientist named Francis Galton. He was a British scientist.
- [07:57]
A
Yeah, a bunch of them. Havelock Ellis. Yeah.
- [07:59]
B
He came up with term eugenics. Interestingly, the term eugenics was actually about 20 years before the term genetics. This is really interesting. A lot of people don't know that. Yeah, this is very important. Eugenics naturally did not require genetics, genetics. When the term was coined. It was the science of heredity, of passing down information. Remember the units of heredity identified as DNA? That was only until the 1940s. And then identifying the structure of DNA was actually after World War II, in the 1950s. So we didn't even know for basically in 1927. And I think it was Buck versus Bell. The U.S. supreme Court deemed forced sterilizations constitutional. Okay. At that point, we had no idea that DNA was actually the genetic basis. This is really, really important. People always get this wrong because they don't follow the timeline. Eugenics as a corrosive ideology to control populations had nothing to do with molecular genetics, period. It had nothing to do with the genetics.
- [08:53]
A
Why was it corrosive?
- [08:56]
B
Well, I think if you basically force sterilize somebody against their will, I mean, I think that's against the fundamental liberty of a person.
- [09:03]
A
There's no question. I couldn't agree more. But again, that was just one manifestation of it. So force played no role in a lot of it. It was steering people, giving them options, telling them that if you married this kind of person, here's the outcome you're likely to get when you have children.
- [09:20]
B
Well, forced to play. I mean, again, in 1927, the United States, the Supreme Court, deemed constitutionally forced to play or constitutional.
- [09:27]
A
I'm just saying that. And I couldn't be more opposed to that, in fact, to the whole program. But I just want to note as a factual matter that forced sterilizations were an incredibly ugly, evil manifestation of an idea that was not limited to forced sterilizations. Yeah, the idea is the same idea you're articulating, which is people should try to improve the human species by selective creation of children.
- [09:53]
B
So, yeah, I disagree with that. I just don't know how is it different? So Nucleus, ultimately, and what we give patients, ultimately, what patients actually want. Right. Again, patients are choosing their partner. They're choosing to do ivf. They have basically options. They have similar embryos. They get information. There's actually no best embryo. Right. So Nucleus is a company, and no patient can ever say, oh, this is the best embryo, because there's no fundamental virtue rooted in biological characteristics. So the idea that you could even have a best, for example, is misguided, principally, in my view, because something like virtue, and I think of two kinds of virtue. There's natural virtue and then divine virtue. It's fundamentally not biological. It's not physical. Genetics can only program for physical things. And then people can basically make their choices within the partners that they choose and in doing ivf, to then pick the embryo that sets the best set of biological characteristics to them. But there is no virtue, there's no morality in that decision.
- [10:46]
A
Oh, I've noticed, but. So do you think that it's equally virtuous to have a child, intentionally have a child, which we can now do with the genetic testing you're describing, who has down syndrome, Tay Sachs and cf. Is that as virtuous as having a child who has none of those things? Because I thought you just said that it's good to get rid of those things.
- [11:08]
B
To be clear, virtue is independent of biological characteristics. Parents can choose based off their preference, what they want, what is best. So let me give an example. Let me give an example. So there was a case in reproductive medicine where a deaf couple, they want to have a deaf child.
- [11:22]
A
Yep.
- [11:24]
B
That, to them, was what was best, basically. Right. That term, best is relative, context specific to the parent. We have patients, for example, that might have, you know, Huntington's, which is a severe neurogen disease. Very, very, yeah, very severe. It's autosomal dominant, means it's passed down. Right. And by the way, this is actually interesting, something like Huntington's or schizophrenia. These are exactly the kind of conditions that in the 20th century they would say, hey, these people are unfit, they should not be produced because they have some sort of neuropsychiatric or some sort of debilitating condition that runs in the family. Like in my case, one of the reasons why I started the business is because one of my family members, she unfortunately went to sleep and she passed away in her sleep. So these things are deeply personal to people.
- [12:08]
A
Is that the result of a genetic anomaly?
- [12:10]
B
Yeah, a condition that can cause irregular heartbeat and cause sudden death.
- [12:13]
A
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- [13:09]
B
Yeah.
- [13:10]
A
Is there. I don't know the answer. Is there evidence that that is genetically predisposed to it?
- [13:15]
B
Schizophrenia is very strongly. There's a very strong genetic basis to schizophrenia. Right.
- [13:19]
A
Really?
- [13:19]
B
Correct. Yeah, yeah.
- [13:20]
A
And we know that.
- [13:21]
B
Yes, that is very well established science.
- [13:24]
A
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I'm learning. Okay.
- [13:27]
B
It's interesting.
- [13:28]
A
So, okay, but you said at the a minute ago that there is a nationwide, indeed a global effort to get rid of conditions like.
- [13:39]
B
But again, deafness is a great example. It's not for me to tell a deaf couple whether they should or shouldn't have a deaf child. No, no, I understand, but that can apply across everything now, right? If somebody wants to have a child based off their. What they deem to be best, based off their lived experience. That's their right, and that's their choice. So I'm not saying that it's better to have a child that is not deaf, for example. I can't do that. I can't possibly say that. It depends. I think that's entirely the choice of the family. That's the choice.
- [14:07]
A
But that's a consistent position. I wonder, though, but you describe something that's absolutely real, which is a system globally that is designed to minimize, to reduce the incidence of certain conditions. Right. So you said that that's the policy. Like you genetic test all the embryos at every IVF clinic because you want to make sure we have less down syndrome, for example.
- [14:30]
B
But no, but again, what's important here is there's not some sort of broad centralized body being like, oh, we need to all do this sort of testing embryos. That decision rests in the parent's choice. A parent could choose not to screen embryos for down syndrome. Okay? They could make that decision. And if they make that decision, they can then transplant embryo and have that baby. That's entirely their choice.
- [14:50]
A
It's not like there's no. And I don't. I mean, let's not be disingenuous. There is a global effort to reduce the incidence of certain conditions. Of course, everyone just assumes, like, you can't. I mean, that's why the instance of down syndrome has fallen off a cliff. There's been an elimination of down syndrome. Not entirely.
- [15:09]
B
Those are parents making choices, though. Those are parents and couples making choices.
- [15:12]
A
You don't think your healthcare systems steer people in certain directions that have a preference?
- [15:16]
B
I think the healthcare system, unfortunately right now is a sick care system. I mean, the healthcare system actually is very much not in the business of prevention. I mean, it's interesting, I was looking at these stats, which is the US healthcare system spends about $5 trillion. It's a lot about, I think 4 trillion goes to chronic disease treatment. So things like cancers and diabetes and Alzheimer's. In 2021, four times as many people died of a chronic disease than Covid. Four times as many people died of a chronic disease than Covid at the peak of the pandemic. So you have to ask, what is the real pandemic here? And on that point, if you think about it, and also, by the way, of the 5 trillion. So 4 trillion, about 80% is chronic disease. About 500 billion is about rare diseases. So these rare genetic conditions that I outlined, so genetics has A strong impact on both hereditary disease like cancer, as I outlined, like chronic diseases as well as rare disease. So genetics can help impact 4, $4.5 trillion of healthcare expenditure.
- [16:12]
A
But.
- [16:13]
B
And there is a but. Remember those $4.5 trillion, somebody's making money for someone being sick.
- [16:18]
A
Well, yeah, and that's poor.
- [16:20]
B
That's horrible. But it's. Of course. You say of course, but I thought that we can't just take that as a given. Genetics as a science, if deployed, can be used for parents to make their own decisions to dramatically reduce breast cancer risk, diabetes risk, if there's something in their family, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, help reduce that next generation. So these things can be used to basically help build what we call generational health. Effectively.
- [16:39]
A
You save a lot of money through. Through improving the species through eugenics. Everyone, people made this argument for over a hundred years. I get it. I'm just wondering why. I'm wondering a lot of things, but.
- [16:51]
B
Well, one thing to say. Remember too, that IVF is about 2% of the way babies are born in the United States. Most babies are still born naturally conceived. So we actually have a service for those couples as well where you can basically take a cheek swab, you can do something called procreation simulation and simulate basically the risk for your child. Okay. And that is a service that can basically help any couple too. So I just wanna be clear that it's not just IVF patients as well. These are couples that then can employ these screening and then to have a healthy baby.
- [17:21]
A
What about sex?
- [17:23]
B
What about sex?
- [17:25]
A
Well, I mean, the number one thing that people have used prenatal testing for is choosing the sex of their child.
- [17:32]
B
Yeah, right.
- [17:32]
A
So that's what explains the demographic imbalance in China, as you know. So that's like the number one thing globally.
- [17:40]
B
India, same in India, actually outlawed it, to be clear too. So in IVF clinic, you can't even pick sex in India because there's a disbalance. But.
- [17:47]
A
Well, legally. But of course it happens all the time because there's a global preference for sons. And that's why you see so many more boys than girls, when in fact it's the opposite in the United States.
- [17:57]
B
Actually, if you look at the IVF, it's about. It's about 50.
- [17:59]
A
50. I'm saying. I'm not talking about the US but how do you feel about that? Would it be okay with you if someone came in and said, get rid of the girl embryos?
- [18:08]
B
So to be clear that. That's. So to be clear, in the United States. This has played out over the last, like 20 years. Like people have known to pick the sex of their. Of their child in IVF clinics, both the United States, and then again at some point internationally too, but eventually became outlawed for the reason you outlined, which is people generally pick slightly more boys. I mean, it's illegal and it's much harder in these countries. Yeah. In the United States, though, if you actually played out people making their own choices, it ends up being about, again, 50. 50. So this is actually interesting because what
- [18:35]
A
do you think of it? Is it valid for someone to come in and say, I mean, you said this is an ethically neutral question about whether or not to have a child with this or that genetic condition. But what about sex? Is that ethically neutral? Is it okay in your view, for a couple to say, I don't want any girls?
- [18:54]
B
In my view, that is the prerogative of the parents to pick which sex they want. And if you play that out across many, many, many couples making their own independent choices, which is an embodiment of this kind of liberty and choice, you see, it ends up being about 50, 50, which I think actually undercuts this idea that everyone's going to pick a boy. For example, there's this notion.
- [19:12]
A
Well, it's culturally specific and it's time.
- [19:14]
B
Exactly.
- [19:15]
A
Of course.
- [19:16]
B
But that applies across any traits then, Tucker, which is people. There's not a universal best. It's very much case specific to the specific family history, specific values and culture.
- [19:26]
A
Of course, of course. But I think we're. We're talking about two different things. You're talking about outcomes, and I'm talking about the process and whether the process itself is valid. Right. And I totally. I've actually seen the numbers, so I know that you are absolutely right on the question of sex selection. But you think it's okay. There's no moral problem at all because these are questions of life and death. So I do think moral questions are relevant questions. You don't think there's any moral question around choosing by sexual.
- [19:55]
B
To be clear, I think that there is no universal biological best, period, across any phenotype, because biology is inherently neutral. Now, there is universal morality. Okay. Specifically, again, two kinds. There's natural virtue and also divine virtue. Natural virtue can come from the cultivation of the soul, which is independent of biology. It's not in the physical plane. And so I think it's different from divine virtue. Divine virtue, to me is more about union with God.
- [20:27]
A
So natural virtues, where does the soul come from?
- [20:30]
B
There's God There's God. What do you mean? Why is there no God?
- [20:32]
A
Of course I agree, but I don't know why there's a distinction between the virtues. Again, we're in the wisdom, natural virtue.
- [20:38]
B
I'll tell you why. Natural virtue can be intellectually derived. Wisdom, courage, justice, temperance. It's kind of classic Aristotle. And then there's things like grace and revelation, which come from God. You can't necessarily. A human being's mind is limited. It's finite. You can't necessarily grasp that. So there's a. So one you can derive from thinking what leads to basically eudaimonia, human flourishing, that kind of virtue. Natural virtue coming from Aristotle. And the other kind is thinking about divine virtue, which is what goes beyond the intellect, which Thomas Aquinas basically brought together and thought about. Okay, there's this idea of natural virtue that the Greeks came up with. And then of course, there's this idea of divine virtue coming from the Old and New Testament about union with God. And all religions actually talk ultimately about surrendering. Personally, I do believe in God. Just so you know. If that's not clear.
- [21:26]
A
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- [22:41]
B
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- [23:10]
A
Com. What kind of God do you believe in?
- [23:13]
B
So I've meditated for about seven years and what I keep coming across is the best way to articulate. I see God as an experience versus an ideology, which is that there's a quote, it's actually from Rumi, I think he articulates well, Rumi is a Persian poet. He says, imagine you go to the ocean and you come back with a pitcher of water. So the pitcher in my mind is the ego, is the logical mind, and then the ocean is God, the source, the one, the divine, whatever you want to call it. That's how I think about God. So I think from my experience meditating and from what I've seen, the, again, human mind, the intellectual mind, is limited and finite and there's basically this vastness. It's hard to describe. Which is why often the Sufis would use poetry to actually describe God. Because it's.
- [24:03]
A
You can allude to it, you can't describe it directly. Because it's too big.
- [24:06]
B
Precisely. It's infinite, it's vast. That's why I like the ocean as an example. Another way to think about it is if you're a raindrop. And it's easy for us, especially in modern society, to think the raindrop is the world. But eventually you return to the ocean and you realize it's much bigger.
- [24:22]
A
So that's your conception of God?
- [24:24]
B
Yes. Again, I think God is more an experience. God cannot be conceptualized, it cannot be articulated. It's not a logical thing. You cannot use logic to articulate. I mean, to me that's incompatible, but. So I think you can try to use metaphors, you can try to explain it. I always like the Sufi poets because I feel like they do a really, really nice, beautiful job of that.
- [24:44]
A
Certainly of describing the vastness and fundamental incomprehensibility of God.
- [24:48]
B
For sake.
- [24:49]
A
Oh, I couldn't agree with you more. Only poetry can capture that. But it leaves unanswered the core question for the three Abrahamic religions, which is, what does God want for us to do and believe? And what's your view on that?
- [25:03]
B
Well, Islam, specifically Islam literally means surrendering to one. Yes, I think that's the answer. In other words, Islam. And you can. I'm not Christian. You're Christian, so you can tell me more about Christians view. But there's a concept of surrender in Christianity. So in Islam, I mean, it's literally Islam means surrender. Yeah, it's an experience.
- [25:22]
A
The whole thing.
- [25:22]
B
The whole thing.
- [25:23]
A
Jesus literally surrendered to being tortured to death.
- [25:25]
B
Exactly.
- [25:25]
A
Yeah, of course.
- [25:26]
B
Right. And then in Buddhism as well, they call it different things. In Buddhism it's a little bit more like surrendering to the illusion of the ego, for example. But the concept of surrendering, I think is basically universal.
- [25:39]
A
There's no question.
- [25:40]
B
And so, yeah, that's my answer.
- [25:45]
A
That's the very beginning. That's the conceptual understanding of it. But then you move immediately into what does God want you to do? What powers does he have? What powers do you have? What are the things you're allowed to do? What are the things you're not allowed to do? I mean, that's just a product of logic, but it's also pretty spelled out in every one of the three religions that derive from Abraham. So what's your view of that? Are there things that God won't allow us to do?
- [26:11]
B
The way I think about this is there's sort of three different moral philosophies somebody could adopt. There's one idea of consequentialism which is basically the end justifies the means, which you see a lot of in today's culture.
- [26:23]
A
I have noticed that.
- [26:24]
B
Yeah, unfortunately, even in Silicon Valley, which we can talk about. Even in Silicon Valley.
- [26:28]
A
Did you just say that?
- [26:29]
B
Especially, especially in Silicon Valley.
- [26:33]
A
Then there's a Sam Altman may even be doing it.
- [26:37]
B
I mean. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we can talk about that. And people. And the thing is, when people realize or not their moral philosophies, they end up succumbing to one anyways. Where they recognize everybody's religious. Yes, and then. Yeah, exactly. And then there's this concept of deontology which is sort of like maybe, you know, the end just does not justify the means. And there's rules. Right. Murder is bad, lying is bad. And you know, it's kind of. No. What the specific circumstances are. These things are wrong. There's that moral philosophy. You can adopt, deontology, which can be secular or non secular is my understanding of it. Then there's virtue ethics.
- [27:07]
A
Not really. Okay, if there are rules, why are they rules rather than preferences? If you came up with them, they're preferences. If the power that created the universe came up with them, then they're Rules, then they're laws. So one has no meaning at all. Nothing can be better than anything else and the other is absolute. So no, there can't be a secular, sorry, Aristotle, a secular understanding, understanding of absolute value.
- [27:36]
B
I think there cannot be a second understanding of divine virtue. We can get more into this, what I mean there. But let me just outline this quickly and then I think I'll bring it around. So there's the consequentialism which is most people, I think in contemporary society adopt. There's deontology, which is as you rooted, rooted in some sort of, maybe there's some universal, this is good, this is bad. Then there's virtue ethics, which basically instead of saying oh, the consequence, instead of saying oh, this action is good because the consequence was good, or this action is good because the action is inherently good or wrong because of some secular or non secular set of rules, you're saying, hey, the actual thing that you need to measure and you need to think about is the moral character of the person doing the action. And then if the moral character, if they possess these kind of cardinal virtues, things like temperance and justice and wisdom, for example, then it so follows that the action they do would be virtuous. So you try to cultivate the soul, basically. And then in cultivating the soul and cultivating virtue, confers basically virtue into action. So basically the first two, in my view, deontology and consequentialism is very much about the action. It's saying, hey, is this outcome good based off some thing you're trying to maximize? And then deontology, which is this concept of forget about if the outcome is good or not, is this the right or wrong thing? Then the concept of virtue ethics, which is instead of saying, looking at the action, because ultimately human beings produce action, actions aren't just there, human beings produce action. The quality of the action should be measured or it's deemed virtuous if the person can strive and embody virtue. And so personally, and I'm still by the way talking about natural virtue right now, I'm not even talking about divine virtue, I'm talking about in the intellectual plane, things that people can think about and reason argue over things of the mind, not things that go beyond the mind. And so in the constant of virtue ethics, I think this is the tried to moral philosophy we try to embody in saying, hey. And this comes back all the way to embryonic selection, which is, hey, there is no biological best, there is none. Again, the soul, which is non physical, ultimately does not rest. It cannot be programmed in biology. So people can have different preferences. Somebody could say, I want my son or daughter to be a lawyer. Someone else could say athlete. Someone else could say an entrepreneur. Someone else could say an artist. These are different outcomes that are based off people's local preferences, physical preferences, contextual preferences. But they're smaller, right? They're smaller preferences. They're not a divine preference. There's no such thing as that.
- [29:58]
A
Yeah, well, of course I disagree that there's no divine preference, but I.
- [30:02]
B
There's no divine preference in biology because the divine isn't rooted in the. It's not.
- [30:07]
A
Well, it depends where you think biology came from. I guess.
- [30:10]
B
I guess that's true. I mean, I also.
- [30:12]
A
Don't people create life? No.
- [30:15]
B
No. So this is actually a paradox that I struggle with too, because another thing that I think a lot about is something called panpsychism, which is this idea that basically each object has its consciousness, even like a rock. Right. And this might sound strange to people,
- [30:30]
A
but it doesn't sound strange.
- [30:31]
B
It doesn't sound strange.
- [30:32]
A
I don't think you're fully off base. I don't know the answer.
- [30:34]
B
I don't know. I don't know.
- [30:35]
A
It's a crazy thing to worry about
- [30:36]
B
this idea that a rock has a consciousness. It's a being, albeit not as sophisticated as human consciousness, but it's there and then provides this idea that consciousness is this kind of spectrum all the way up to, let's say, humans. And then each thing has this consciousness, and accordingly, it's kind of made. It's endowed with something that goes beyond just kind of its weight or matter. Basically, it's basically very non impure, non materialist. And it basically believes this idea that again, God has given this consciousness to everything. And I tend to. I actually like that a lot. I actually like that a lot for a lot of reasons.
- [31:15]
A
Okay, so can I just ask you a couple fundamental questions?
- [31:17]
B
Sure, please.
- [31:17]
A
So you just said. I think you said that people cannot create life.
- [31:23]
B
I think nature has a greater intelligence and human beings. Sometimes people would say we are part of nature, but we are nature.
- [31:32]
A
But life, you're in the life business. Right? I mean, obviously what IVF does, for
- [31:38]
B
example, is they use natural laws. We didn't make these natural laws. Right. We use natural laws that exist. And then basically, and to be clear, we're not an IVF clinic. We work in IVF clinics. And IVF clinics are the ones that doing the ivf. We provide more information. But in the context of ivf, you are Using natural law. You are not making natural law. You can't make a baby.
- [32:01]
A
Well, I think there's a good chance you may be violating natural law. But I don't know. I'm not in charge. But I just. I want to get to the fundamental question, though, which is, who creates life?
- [32:14]
B
I think I would say God, but to be clear. So this is. This is complicated.
- [32:21]
A
But you're not the only one who doesn't. Who isn't certain.
- [32:24]
B
I mean, I. I don't know. I think. I don't know.
- [32:27]
A
But I don't mean to put you on the spot. Who creates life?
- [32:30]
B
Yeah, I mean, come on.
- [32:32]
A
I shouldn't be even asking questions like this and expecting you to have some cogent answer, because I don't think anyone does other than to say God or to say, more precisely, not us.
- [32:41]
B
Not us.
- [32:42]
A
Is that fair to say? Not us.
- [32:43]
B
Yeah, that is fair to say. Not us. And we operate within that plan. And to be clear, the stories of sci fi, like Frankenstein, for example, or even Jurassic park to some example. But Frankenstein, this idea that we can make life, we cannot make life. That's the lesson of these stories.
- [32:56]
A
Let me just say I think you've thought a lot more about this than your average businessman. So
- [33:02]
B
I didn't know how I was
- [33:03]
A
going to handle this, but you're a lot more thoughtful than I expected for a young entrepreneur. So thank you.
- [33:08]
B
Thank you, Tucker.
- [33:09]
A
No, I mean that totally, sincerely. You've actually thought a lot about this. And I don't know the answers to any of these questions, really, but giving my best shot. But we both agree that some higher being created life. We know that we didn't. So we could assign it to nature, we could assign it to God, but we don't create life.
- [33:27]
B
We don't create life. We operate within nature.
- [33:29]
A
Right?
- [33:29]
B
We operate within nature.
- [33:30]
A
Amen. For decades, Russell Brand was one of the most famous actors and comedians and agnostics in the world today. He is one of the most sincere Christians we know. A follower of Christ, his personal transformation is remarkable. We saw it up close. He has now recounted it in an amazing book called how to Become a Christian in Seven Days. And it recounts what happened to him. And it makes the case to all of us for stepping away from our secular assumptions and returning to the old thing that matters, which is God. I've read it. It's amazing. And right now, there's only one place to get it. Tucker carlsonbooks.com this is the first release from our new publishing company. We created Tucker Carlson Books. To bypass the censors and bring you things that are actually worth reading and sharing. And we're starting this venture with what matters most. And that's Russell Brand's message of the promise of forgiveness and joy through Jesus. We're proud to live launch our new bookstore with Russell Brand's how to Become a Christian in Seven Days. It is the message this country needs most. Find us today on tucker carlsonbooks.com. do we have the right to take life?
- [34:41]
B
So, so this is so, so, so. No, we don't. Now, if we talk about embryo, because I assume this was your.
- [34:53]
A
I'm not sure. I mean, it has all kinds of implications, including for the Iran war. But I'm just. It's all around us the thoughtlessness with which we take life. It's not aimed at you. It's aimed at everybody on the globe. But it begins with a question. Do we have the right to take life?
- [35:08]
B
So again, let's think about the different moral values that someone could have here. If someone has consequentialism, they could say, hey, look, we want to commit murder for this good, and maybe they have some good that they didn't do.
- [35:17]
A
I'm highly familiar with justifications for murder. I just want to know what you think.
- [35:21]
B
I'll tell you what I think, but I just tell you that there's kind of. It's very pluralistic. And then somebody could say, murder's always bad, which is fine. I respect that opinion. Absolutely. And then there's sort of this last bucket, which, again, I'm going to keep coming back to this idea of virtue ethics, which is, can you have a cultivation of the spirit of the soul to think, hey, what is right in this situation? Because society does not have a definitive answer to this question. Right. People will sometimes say knee jerks. They'll say, oh, murder's always bad. But then they'll be pro the death penalty or they'll be pro war.
- [35:48]
A
People are inconsistent, there's no doubt about it. And they ignore their own failings and highlight those of others. They've got planks in their eyes and they're picking this oddest out of yours for famously. So I get it. People are flawed. But I do think that we can, through a little bit of rigor, arrive at, like, what's right or wrong.
- [36:05]
B
Yes.
- [36:06]
A
I mean, what can we say about the right of a person to take another person's life?
- [36:11]
B
Well, I personally, I don't think there is a right. I personally don't think there is a right in any circumstance. I don't see that. I mean, and of course, there's a question like, what is. You know, I don't think there's a right period. I just don't think so.
- [36:25]
A
Well, I'm with you. I'm with you.
- [36:27]
B
Now there is. Right.
- [36:28]
A
I think we both understand. And it's hard not to want to exercise that right when you can, or someone annoys you, or there's a country you don't like, or there's a. Okay, so then what can we say about an embryo in a lab? Is that life.
- [36:44]
B
So going back to the panpsychic philosophy, right, which is this, like, I'm going back to Tucker. No, no, Tucker. I'll give you a proper answer, but these things are not. These things are not simple. I can't be like, oh, yes, it's. Let's just bear with me for a second. There is a spectrum of consciousness. There's a spectrum from rock to a sentient being, all the way to a more conscious being, like a human, a more complicated, evolved, fully conscious being. And the question is, where does an embryo sit in that? That is the fundamental question. Does an embryo have a soul, for example? That is the key question. That is the key question, in my view.
- [37:15]
A
I totally agree.
- [37:15]
B
That is the key. Let's just make no mistake. Anytime somebody argues about an embryo and ivf, and to be clear, I just want to be very clear on the purpose of our business, we do not do ivf. We work within IVF clients.
- [37:25]
A
I understand.
- [37:26]
B
I just want to be very clear to everyone.
- [37:27]
A
You're just at the intersection of every big trend.
- [37:30]
B
No, we have a huge responsibility. And so I think it's important to. Before we can even argue, oh, is Emir life. It's like, where does the life come from? Is it the physical thing? Right. For me, I think about. When I think about death, I think death is a doorway. That's my own personal belief. This is a vessel. Right? You're not the physical. We're not the physical. We're something else. We're metaphysical. We're soul. Okay. And so then the fundamental question is that, okay, well, does an embryo have a soul? And then I think about it. I always like to think about things inductively. So I just don't want to think about an embryo. But I think about. There's a huge diversity and a range of life. And in my head, at least. And again, this is the feelings of the intellect. Intellects only do so much. But when I think about it, I think, okay, I think about a rock, which I Think has some kind of maybe proto consciousness, some very, very limited consciousness that we don't understand. Maybe through some psychic or meditative work, you could try to become a rock and try to understand its more subjective experience if it exists all the way to embryo, to a dog, to a human. And so because of this spectrum, it comes down to this question of at what point basically do we have this? Is there a soul in an embryo? And I tend to think. And I don't know, obviously, but I tend to think. I tend to think that an embryo doesn't have a soul.
- [38:47]
A
Now, why do you think that?
- [38:50]
B
Well, I don't know. I don't know.
- [38:53]
A
But why would you think that?
- [38:54]
B
I would think that there's a couple reasons, which is an embryo. So I can take a more reductionist approach. And I could say an embryo is principally a cell. And when you reproduce already embryos actually
- [39:06]
A
just as one cell.
- [39:06]
B
Yeah, it divides. Exactly. It divides and becomes many cells. But principally, at first, it begins just as one cell.
- [39:12]
A
I thought it was the sperm and the egg made the embryo. Yeah, by definition.
- [39:16]
B
Yeah, it's a cell. Yeah. Sperm meets egg, it's a cell. And then it starts dividing and becomes more and more of a. Eventually into a human. Sorry, I just lost my train of thought.
- [39:29]
A
So the question was, you said you tend to think that an embryo does not have a soul. And I asked, why would you assume that?
- [39:37]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was articulating why. So when you look at the way that. When you look at the way that actually people conceive naturally, what ends up happening is that you have these formations of kind of small formations of an embryo, which is an egg meets the cell and then it travels down and tries to implant. And then many times, actually naturally, it doesn't implant successfully. So nature already has it such that you think about ivf in natural conception, it is the case that basically you have these embryo formation and then ends up not forming. And now the way I see it is I see that nature wouldn't make it such that. Or God wouldn't make it such that an embryo would have a soul. If in natural procreation, it is the case that the embryos come and go. Because I don't think God, in my personal belief, I don't think God would basically be getting rid of souls. I just don't think so. Now, do I think that there is a fundamental beauty, not just. I mean, absolutely, to an embryo in that. And this is really important for me to say because I don't know how else to Say it. I do think it is similar to a wave that forms and then again returns to the ocean, because everything returns to the ocean. So I don't see it as something that's like, oh, the embryo is being discarded. I see it as returning back to the source, even if I don't believe that it has an explicit soul. Does that make sense? So it's a little more of a nuanced argument.
- [40:59]
A
Does make it kind of sense, right? Yeah, it does make a kind of sense. I don't think it's insane. And again, I think you've thought about this in a way that I'm very impressed by, even if I don't agree. And I just wish more people in your business would think about this because that, you know, it's important. Yeah, right. It is important. It's very important. It may be the most important thing.
- [41:20]
B
It is.
- [41:21]
A
So I guess the difference between a wave and IVF is the human choice involved in the latter. And so I guess the core problem that I have with this is that I'm not, not convinced that we have a right to make certain choices. Do people have the right to make any choice available to them?
- [41:45]
B
I think people don't have the right. In our culture, people will conflate greater performance with being morally better, which is, I think, a big problem. So there's two kinds of value. There's instrumental value and there's moral value. Instrumental value is contingent, and this is actually really important. All of biology, all of its nature, is contingent value. For example, you would maybe want an entrepreneur potentially to be more risk seeking, but you wouldn't want your surgeon to be more risk seeking. Right. In other words, the value of phenotypes actually changes depending on the environment. And this is obvious to say, but it's actually, I think people miss this sometimes because they think there is a universal best. They'll say, hey, if you optimize for X phenotype that I deem to be best, it will lead to a better person. Doesn't lead to a better person. It might lead to a more optimized outcome, but it doesn't lead to a better person.
- [42:35]
A
So I hear, destroying your own case.
- [42:36]
B
No, I'm not, though you are.
- [42:38]
A
What you're saying is right. No, no, no. You're telling the truth about the way people are, which is lacking foresight and understanding of the holistic picture. So if people have the choice to choose their own children, we're going to have a nation of private equity people. No, I'm serious. They're going to optimize for what's good right now.
- [42:57]
B
Yes, that is okay. So this is actually interesting. A couple things. Oh, wow.
- [43:01]
A
You know I'm wrong.
- [43:02]
B
Oh, wow. No, no, no.
- [43:03]
A
Tucker explained it better than I could.
- [43:04]
B
Tucker, this is so interesting because you're making an assumption. So there's.
- [43:07]
A
About the way people are. Yes, I am.
- [43:09]
B
There's many parts of this. The first part is, will people basically all choose in the same direction? And interestingly, again, people actually want very different things. And we see that every day with patients, which is like, there's this idea that rich people will come in and be like, oh, every rich person is gonna pick the same way. As you mentioned, sex is actually a great proxy for this. Right. Sex selection in the United states is about 50, 50. And so if you think about any possible phenotype, even when somebody comes and says, I wanna optimize for type 2 diabetes risk, someone else might wanna do schizophrenia or Alzheimer's, depending on their family history. Somebody else might want to do height, for example. If they're both shorter parents, they might want to have a taller kid. To be clear, the traits always come after diseases. But nevertheless. So what I'm saying is that there's this notion, there's this idea of a universal best biologic characteristic. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist.
- [43:52]
A
No, no. We're arguing two different things. I'm not saying I agree with you completely. And I believe that the diversity baked into humanity comes from God. He created different tribes. Okay. He did that on purpose. Yeah, that's my belief. And they're different from each other by definition. They're different tribes and they have different characteristics. And a lot of those, as you have been brave enough to admit, are genetic. And that's a fruit of the creation. God did that, we didn't. People are very different. They demand uniformity. And by the way, if you think we're gonna get diverse outcomes. Have you been around rich people? They're not only very similar, they dress the same, they have exactly the same attitudes. They want their kids to get into the same six school. I've lived in this world my whole life. It's the opposite of what you're describing. They will all change.
- [44:39]
B
Rich people choose the same thing. Rich people make up a very, very small set of society. There's a big world out there. There's a big ocean out there.
- [44:44]
A
What set of IVF patients do they make up? What percentage rich people? About all of them?
- [44:49]
B
I wouldn't say it's about all of them. There are A lot of people that
- [44:51]
A
people who are dialed in to.
- [44:52]
B
But to be clear, Tucker, people do IVF if they can't, generally almost always because they can't conceive naturally to be clear. And natural conception is. It can cost quite a bit.
- [45:03]
A
I know. Attacking anyone.
- [45:05]
B
I know, Tucker, but this is important to say, which is people conceive naturally first and natural conception is free to be clear.
- [45:12]
A
Yeah, that's what it cost me.
- [45:14]
B
Let's assume. Let's actually play this out because actually it's really, really interesting. And I actually think you do touch on a fundamental point on the way that people tend to move together, especially wealthy people. They tend to do the same thing. They tend to prevent every group.
- [45:28]
A
I don't mean to pick on rich people at all. I'm one of them, but I just am very familiar with them. And. But societies are governed by herd instincts. That's why it's a society and not just a collection of hermits.
- [45:42]
B
So I think there's a couple ways that I think about this. There's the kind of on the ground, what I'm seeing, which I can tell you about what I'm seeing. And then I can tell you about the more of. We can talk about more broadly how this play out toward the fact that people are pretty mimetic in what they pick. Okay. On the ground, what I'm seeing is I see couples, again, a diverse range of couples. To be clear, this technology is going to get cheaper and cheaper. Whole genome sequencing, specifically, this is actually interesting, the cost of reading all of somebody's DNA, it used to be about a billion dollars, 1 billion. So the Human Genome Project, in the early 2000s, it cost a billion dollars. When I started the business about six years ago, in 2020, it was about $1,000. So a billion dollars to $1,000. That's the kind of wonder of making things cheaper and making things more accessible. So I do think there's a point where this technology anyone can actually access. That's really important to say, and that's one of my missions, is to say, hey, this shouldn't only belong for people who have means. It should belong to everybody. Because ultimately every parent should have the right to reduce the suffering in their future child. I mean, I just think every parent has that right.
- [46:43]
A
I would never argue against the desire to reduce suffering, I guess. But then you have to ask yourself if the reduction of suffering is the most virtuous thing you could do, why are the societies on this planet with the least suffering falling apart the quickest? Have you ever noticed that?
- [47:04]
B
Well, I think in more contemporary society we've lost the concept of virtue generally, in my view.
- [47:11]
A
But is there a connection between suffering and virtue? And of course there is. It's a one to one. And there is no virtue without suffering, actually. And suffering is. So in other words, if you had a drug that could eliminate anxiety, just take a pill, no more anxiety. You could call it, I don't know, pick a name, benzodiazepines. And all of a sudden you could just eliminate this suffering. And would there be downsides to that? Oh, there would be mass overdose deaths, there would be the zombification of the entire population. There would be addiction, physical addiction that you could die because of. So I guess what I'm saying is I'm not making a case for anxiety, which is horrible. Anyone who's ever had it knows how horrible and terrifying it is. I'm only saying that maybe there's a purpose to suffering. We don't want to deal with it. None of us does. I certainly don't.
- [48:01]
B
We can't transcend suffering in the same way we can't. Maybe we shouldn't, but we can't. It's like saying, let's transcend gravity. We're in this world, in this natural
- [48:10]
A
plane, trying to transcend suffering. And all I'm saying is society's, I'm not for suffering, I'm against suffering, I hate war, I don't like suffering at all. And I think we should try to alleviate it. All I'm saying is maybe these aren't decisions that are up to us, and maybe there's a larger picture that we can't see. And maybe we should pay close attention to our successful attempts to eliminate suffering and assess the fruits. Like what happened? Did it work? Or did it cause even more exquisite suffering, more grotesque suffering?
- [48:44]
B
I think that's a very fair. In the context of, there's a great example of obviously opioids, people get addicted, they think they're getting rid of pain.
- [48:53]
A
What are opioids exactly?
- [48:54]
B
In getting rid of pain, you're actually creating more suffering. And that's a fair point. I think in the context of genetics. And what we're doing is it's actually interesting because it's non invasive. The optimization technology costs a couple thousand dollars, which is a lot, which is a lot. But it's going to keep coming down. And so suddenly now, at the very beginning, you have these embryos. Eventually you're already doing ivf. You're already picking an embryo. You get more information you can pick an embryo with a 50% reduction in risk in breast cancer. You can have an embryo without brca, which is a breast cancer marker. Schizophrenia debilitating condition really impacts families. Horrible, horrible, horrible. And in fact, these are the very people who wouldn't want to have a child. Who wouldn't want to. But now because of the advent of more advanced screening, they are more comfortable having a child. And that actually I think gets lost too.
- [49:46]
A
I'm with you.
- [49:47]
B
Pro genetic technology is fundamentally anti eugenic. It's actually pro genetic technology. You're pronatalist in that way because the very people who would have been deemed unfit by some definition because they have more suffering. And to be clear, if you suffer more, you have no less moral worth. To be very clear, we've said that already, we've established that you and I agree on that. But those are the very people that genetics is helping. That's the very people they're helping. The very people who would have been deemed unfit by the 20th century. Now, through this technology, they're actually able to have a child. Through ivf, they're able to have a child and feel comfortable doing that.
- [50:19]
A
Also, there's been, you know, wait, no, I can't. I'm not criticizing anything you're saying. It's just that I'm a stickler for definitions because they're important. This is eugenics. And it's. I mean, if you read the early eugenicists, some of whom were really smart, really smart.
- [50:36]
B
Eugenics was an international movement, actually it spanned many, many things.
- [50:39]
A
To your point, aware. And it was thoroughly discredited by the Nazis, who were the most enthusiastic eugenicists of all. I mean, they cleared out the mental hospitals and they cleared out.
- [50:49]
B
But this is important though, in that way. It's actually anti eugenic because the very people that like the Nazis, for example, would target, right, people who are sick and kill and kill and murder, it's
- [50:58]
A
kind of been forgotten to history.
- [50:59]
B
Horrible. But those very people are. Now they can actually access this technology. It's actually interesting.
- [51:04]
A
Hold on, hold on. So the point, I don't want to bring the Nazis in because it's so emotionally fraught and they had all kinds of other sins. But the goal of the eugenicists was the same. It was let's reduce human suffering, let's optimize human ability, let's make this better by being thoughtful about how we reproduce and let's bring whatever science we have. They had much less than we have to bear on this question. And they did make the argument that Lothrop Stoddard, who was a Harvard professor and a brilliant, legit, brilliant guy, historian, a lot about him was absolutely virtuous, I would say. But he was also a wild eyed eugenicist because he was smart and he saw this human suffering. He's like, let's get rid of it. It's something against people with down syndrome, but we don't want more of them. That was his argument because it will reduce human suffering. Fewer kids with down syndrome. Fewer. Less suffering.
- [52:01]
B
Well, it's a moral failure because the eugenicists in my view, misconstrued the idea of, again, this idea of virtue with biology. There is no virtue in biological characteristics. It is a moral family.
- [52:13]
A
He was making that case. No, he was making the case. And the smart ones were.
- [52:16]
B
Tucker, please.
- [52:17]
A
Less suffering. That's what they were saying. Less suffering.
- [52:19]
B
But less suffering isn't more virtuous. And it's hard for people to like. What does he mean by that? You know?
- [52:26]
A
Well, I agree just because, I mean, I believe in a religion with suffering.
- [52:31]
B
At the sound of it, we've all had loved ones that have passed away, God forbid, from some disease. I mentioned my cousin, my grandmother's, both died of cancer as well. My uncle died of a heart attack when he was playing soccer with my dad. He was 45. He collapsed and he died from a heart attack, which by the way, is the number one killer in this country. Just because somebody had cancer, just because somebody has heart disease, just because somebody has a condition, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, these conditions, again, they impact 200 million Americans. So this is the problem of our time, does not make them any less of a person. And so the fundamental moral failure, it was a moral failure of eugenics, which was misconstruing these things, which idea that it's better to reduce suffering. Better. That plain term of better doesn't come from the physical plane, it comes from something beyond.
- [53:22]
A
But I'm not even sure that we're disagreeing. I think we're agreeing that there's no. That your physical condition is not a reflection of your moral value.
- [53:30]
B
No, but by the way, the eugenicists got that fundamentally wrong.
- [53:33]
A
Why?
- [53:33]
B
Maybe.
- [53:34]
A
I'm sure some did, but they were
- [53:35]
B
consequentialists, though that's actually important. Going back to the kind of different moral philosophies. If you look through the world that way, it actually helps articulate things. They viewed it as the end justifies the means. We should actually do this. Forced sterilizations. We should make it constitutional.
- [53:48]
A
I Think the ends justify the means was a much less common argument among the eugenicists as it is now among the technologists. That's for sure. That's very true. But these attitudes not only have not been suppressed or eliminated, they've flowered into the dominant attitude in the country. So they won. I'm just saying. I'm not trying to. I'm just saying this idea that you can make people better and in fact, that you should.
- [54:14]
B
No, no, but that's not what we're saying though, remember? No, Tucker, Tucker, this is nuanced, but it's really important for people to understand.
- [54:19]
A
You're saying people have the opportunity to
- [54:21]
B
do it, but people have the opportunity. Nucleus. We never say, hey, these are your five embryos. This is the best embryo. We cannot. We are not divine. We can never do that.
- [54:28]
A
I understand, but the ch choices that people make are governed by a lot of things, of course, but one of the, you know, their intuition, their religious
- [54:36]
B
views, to be clear, first and foremost, it's the direct experience of suffering. The patients that come to us without fail. And to be clear, they might want to optimize for a trait as well. I'm not saying. Of course they would. Right. People think about these things holistically, but the first thing they care about is. My mother had breast cancer, you know, my dad had prostate cancer, my grandfather had Alzheimer's.
- [54:55]
A
So I just think towards schizophrenia. I get it.
- [54:56]
B
Right.
- [54:57]
A
And.
- [54:57]
B
Yeah, right. So you want to start with the lived experience of the patient and then go from there.
- [55:01]
A
But it's all baked in the cake. Every person has experienced suffering and every person has seen a loved one die. If you live long enough. And I just want to be totally clear, so I don't seem self righteous, which I never want to be, if I had had the opportunity when my children were in utero or before, to say no to schizophrenia, no to the things that I really fear. Schizophrenia is at the top of the list. I think it's the cruelest thing. But also cf, which is in my family, all these things, by the way,
- [55:28]
B
I'm a carrier for cystic fibrosis. A lot of people are, Yeah. A lot of people are, yeah. And I don't want my baby, God forbid, to have that. Of course not, no.
- [55:34]
A
Though actually, the therapies for CF have, you know, that's a whole separate conversation. I don't want to be boring, but anyway, I would just say, like all expectant parents, if I'd had a chance to reduce or eliminate the risk that my children would have these horrible diseases or conditions. I would have taken it absolutely. How could you not?
- [55:52]
B
Absolutely.
- [55:52]
A
So I'm not judging anybody. I get it completely. I would have done it. My question is, honestly, what's the effect of giving people this choice, which is to improve in their minds? You say you're morally neutral on it. You're not attaching a value to deafness or hearing. But we're not. Okay, but people do. Everybody does. Everyone other than you.
- [56:17]
B
That's true.
- [56:18]
A
Everyone other than you does.
- [56:19]
B
No, no, no. But to be clear, we can have more philosophy and then say. But most people will reject the idea that there's this idea of conflating reduced suffering. They would say that that's better, of course. And then we can play that out. So let's play that out. Let's play out how it actually works.
- [56:30]
A
So you tell me what you imagine, because this is one of the biggest changes in human history.
- [56:37]
B
I will say, Tucker, I will say again that people will make different choices. I really want to say that there's actually two parts of this argument on people. No, no, no. I'm not. I'll answer some questions.
- [56:45]
A
Some people make different choices, but not.
- [56:47]
B
So a lot of, like, it's a
- [56:50]
A
random distribution of choices. Is that what you're saying?
- [56:52]
B
I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. Okay. What I am saying, though, is people will bring their. So one way to think about this, to make it more intuitive for people is if you think about our. There's this concept in cell molecular biology, okay? It's basically this concept called. It's eluding me, basically, that the more specialized something is, the more effective it is. So in biology, you see things specialized all the time. So, for example, things begin stem cells, they become neurons, they become immune cells, they become different parts of the body, right? Because. Because these bodies have different functions. And so you need different specializations. Okay? And when you. Actually, I'm a big believer that everything mirrors everything, from the molecular to the celestial everything, okay? And so let me keep going with this. And so I remember what it is. Specialization breeds sophistication, okay? That's true in cell and molecular biology, which is specialization breeds sophistication. The more specialized something is, the more sophisticated it is. And so in a society, if you look at people who are really high in their craft, like Alyssa Liu figure skating versus, like an Einstein versus an Elon versus, I don't know, like an artist like da Vinci, these people have very different sets of characteristics. And the way nature works is human beings Cannot defy nature. It's a seesaw. So let me give an example. Every single time. People always say this to me. They say, oh, people pick for iq, iq. Let me put aside my moral argument. Let me put aside my people won't actually, oh, wage pick for iq. But let's actually assume that's the case. Let's assume that's the case. Let's assume that's the case. Everyone will pick for iq. One interesting thing about picking for IQ genetically is that when you pick for iq, and this is interesting because when you tell patients this, you can see how they refactor their decisions. When you pick for iq, you're actually picking against conscientiousness and extroversion. Genetically, it's a seesaw. It's almost like if you're playing a FIFA, my player or something and you make somebody stronger, they have less agility, right? So what happens is, and also you're making them, genetically speaking, more likely to be autistic. So these things are genetic. You can't defy these things. So these things go in opposite directions. So you start selecting for one, it actually takes these things away. So it starts becoming more of a value judgment.
- [59:07]
A
I understand.
- [59:07]
B
So wait, let me play this out. So let's assume that to your point, there's a fashion of the day, people are, we've seen this with fashion, we see this in tech, we see this. VC investors, they'll allocate toward AI people where they end up staying wearing the same thing in SoHo and New York. How is this possible? People go to the same private school. As you were saying this, all these things end up kind of the taste follow through. So let's assume all the rich people basically start optimizing for iq. Or everyone actually started optimizing for iq. Not just rich people, everyone started optimizing for iq. There's actually an evolutionary mechanism. It's called a frequency dependent selection. What is frequency dependent selection? What it basically means is that the rarer a phenotype becomes relative to the other phenotypes. So in this case, for example, if everyone picked for iq, extraversion and conscientiousness starts decreasing in terms of the prevalence of the population, the more valuable that phenotype becomes. In other words, the rarer that extraversion and conscientiousness becomes, the more valuable it actually becomes to actually flourish in a population.
- [60:04]
A
So you're arguing it's a self correcting problem.
- [60:07]
B
And that's the key point, which is we think as humans we can defy nature. We cannot Defy nature. We have to operate within nature's bounds, within evolution's bounds. We have to operate within this framework.
- [60:23]
A
If that were true, then why did India ban sex? Selective abortions?
- [60:28]
B
It's interesting because India specifically was about. So let's actually walk through this. India was about 55, 45 males to females. 55, 45. People actually think often it was higher. And by the way, the natural rate of having a boy is actually slightly biologically higher than a girl. So people think it's actually 50, 50. It's actually not. It's actually like 52, 48. So actually through that perspective it is statistically significant, but it's actually not insanely high. And on that point also, which is
- [60:54]
A
actually interesting, well over a billion and a half people.
- [60:56]
B
Yeah, it can absolutely. Over generations. But actually it's not. I think what's interesting here is this is just kind of a factoid. But males, babies, they tend to actually have higher risk of basically dying at infancy. So it ends up happening. If you look at the general population, it's about 50, 50. But actually biology has it that it slightly errs toward males. But let's take the sex example. Let's say it plays out that, that over many generations people, let's say it wasn't outlawed or people still practice it anyways and people start picking across sex, it's actually the same phenomena. Whereas the number of males, for example, come down, the number of females come down because of frequency based selection. Let's say you're in a population just very simply there's 70 males, 30 females. The value of female in that population is much higher. And basically you can model this and show that each successive generation there are certain sets of genetics that confer a slightly higher probability than of having a female. And so that will actually propagate such that the genes that confer higher females would keep proliferating through until the population comes back to actually equanimity.
- [61:56]
A
So why did they ban it?
- [61:57]
B
Well obviously that's like a longer term evolutionary thing to saying that things will self correct, but obviously it was self
- [62:03]
A
correcting and it was making the society unstable. I mean, if human choice on questions of life and death and procreation at this granular level is self correcting and it's just inherently good and there are no downsides, then why did the biggest country in the world ban it?
- [62:17]
B
To be clear here, I'm not saying that there is not short term material consequence for like something like sex selection. Of course there's especially sex selection. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying
- [62:27]
A
is that more significant than any other kind of selection?
- [62:29]
B
Sorry, what?
- [62:30]
A
I don't. Why is that unique, like sex talking?
- [62:33]
B
It's not actually.
- [62:34]
A
Well, it's unique in that over iq. I mean, these are deep. These are deep characteristics. Defining characteristics.
- [62:41]
B
It's actually interesting point you make on sax because if you look at sex, it's a way of kind of playing out what happens when people pick across traits. Because sex is not a disease, it's a choice. Depending on what you want, people make different choices. So it's actually a good kind of heuristic of how people will choose. And on that point, actually, interestingly, sometimes we receive criticism from, for example, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine for saying that traits are not reproductive medicine. However, sex is ultimately a trait that people have been picking for the last 20 years. So there's a bit of this hypocrisy in medicine.
- [63:13]
A
I guess what I'm trying to get to is really the core question, which is, is there a downside to playing God?
- [63:18]
B
Okay, first off, we're not playing God. But of course there is.
- [63:20]
A
Of course we are. We're making choices that were not available to us until very recently that have never in human history been made by people ever. Not one time.
- [63:27]
B
We cannot play. God created. God created us. God created everything here. We cannot. We cannot.
- [63:35]
A
Let me be more precise and use a less charged way to describe it. We are doing things that have never been done in human history.
- [63:42]
B
That's actually not true, I would argue, in this case.
- [63:44]
A
Well, it's very true because how long have test tube babies IVF?
- [63:49]
B
IVF's been around since 1970s, so it's about 40 years, actually. And by the way, it's not like you look around, you're like, oh, that's an IVF baby.
- [63:56]
A
I'm not attacking ivf and I'm certainly not attacking IVF babies or people at all. I'm merely saying that in the scope of human history, this is brand new.
- [64:07]
B
When you say this though, what do you mean?
- [64:09]
A
The ability to choose the traits of your children with this level of precision, to get a certain number of embryos and say, I want the ones that don't have these conditions that do have these traits that has never been tried in human history, period.
- [64:24]
B
I would.
- [64:25]
A
Well, there's no debating that.
- [64:27]
B
No, I would caveat a little bit. When you remember you're picking, do the Sumerians do this? Wait, let me just be clear. You're picking from the pool. So when you pick Your partner, for example, you're setting the possible genetic pool.
- [64:37]
A
So for example, obviously two short parents, obviously this is what mating is.
- [64:40]
B
Yeah. Two short parents are not going to have a tall baby. The same is actually true for genetic optimization. You can't have two short parents have a tall child. With this technology you can have a taller child.
- [64:49]
A
I understand, but we're okay, but the core point is this is something, this is an acceleration. Look, people want this. I wouldn't debate you there. And people do calculate these things as they choose a material mate. Of course, he's too dumb, I can't marry him. He's too short, I can't marry him. He's from, you know, whatever. There are lots of genetic qualities that people don't want to pass on.
- [65:10]
B
In doing that, they're actually picking, by the way, the most important set of outcomes for their child because it's your partner. It's the other side of this.
- [65:16]
A
Absolutely.
- [65:17]
B
Yeah.
- [65:17]
A
But never with this level of precision, never has there been a menu where you can say, where you can identify qualities that you can't identify by smell or sight. You can't know so much of what you've just described except through brand new science. So I'm not even attacking that. I'm merely asking a question that has to be asked, which is what are the downsides?
- [65:43]
B
So I mean, we talked about the, I mean you pointed out one of the downsides which is like, okay, if everyone starts picking for a specific sex, for example, right. It can create population problems. And even if I would argue, and I did argue, hey, over time this actually be self corrected, which I think is true. So this will be self corrected. Right. But obviously in the short term there's still an acute problem. Right? But I would say actually IVF has been operating for again, 40 years. And other policies, like for example China's one child policy has led to much greater problems. IVF is still the way 2% of the way babies are born. I think your principal concern on where this can go awry, I mean, there's a long history in science fiction of people thinking, oh I can. Frankenstein. I mentioned Frankenstein. It's literally that it's somebody saying, hey, I could make life, right? And then life, Jurassic park actually too is this idea that hey, I can do this and then there's negative, unforeseen consequences. I would argue both of those were consequences.
- [66:49]
A
I don't think that's science fiction. I mean, hey, let's create Lyme disease, hey, let's create, I don't know, let's strengthen this virus. Oh, gosh, it's out of the lab. Intentionally or not, it doesn't matter. You infect the world with COVID That just happened five years ago. So it's like we don't need to look far to see the unintended consequences of emerging science. I'm not blaming anyone for it. I think people have a terrible track record of foreseeing the consequences of their actions. We know that in our own sex lives, don't we? So I think we can just say there's where it's important with something this powerful and potentially transformative to A, admit that there will be unintended consequences because that's 100% true always, and think through B, what those consequences might be. That's all I'm saying.
- [67:35]
B
I agree. I think we should be tangible with them, though, and make sure people actually understand. So again, IVF is the way 2% of the way babies are born. IVF has been operating in the United States for about 40 years. This is not like 40 years. It's 1970s.
- [67:50]
A
Oh, I was there. I remember.
- [67:51]
B
Yeah.
- [67:51]
A
Yeah. The test tube baby was on the COVID of Time magazine.
- [67:53]
B
It was, Yeah. I mean, people don't call it.
- [67:55]
A
Are there any consequences to that, to ivf? Yeah. Have we studied the consequences?
- [67:59]
B
Yeah, they've actually tracked children. The study size are a little bit smaller from when I looked into it than one might expect. But basically they see no material difference. No.
- [68:08]
A
Is it true that what the studies are. There's more than I would expect. There's no measurable difference at all between children born from an IVF procedure and children conceive naturally.
- [68:17]
B
Obviously, there's some environmental things. You're taking averages, but. Yeah. When I looked into this, and I've obviously talked to a lot of scientists about this as well, they said, yeah, there's no difference. Yeah. Which is pretty amazing. But actually, I think it's into nature. Well, we can track it over the course of the decades since.
- [68:32]
A
Well, this isn't nature. Of course. It's something that we are. Well, it's by definition, not nature. It's something that people are doing in order to improve nature. Like, nature would be infertility. I'm against infertility, by the way. I'm not arguing for infertility, but I'm just saying whatever it is is not nature. It's the opposite of nature.
- [68:47]
B
I think we are operating within nature. So let's go into the framework of God created these natural laws. We're using natural laws. We're not Making life. We didn't go to a lab and make life. We're using the principles of nature, using the principles of heredity, and we're applying them. It's still beautiful. It's still very beautiful.
- [69:04]
A
I'm not saying.
- [69:06]
B
And so I think we are using nature as well.
- [69:07]
A
I'm not saying it's bad or not beautiful. I'm just saying it's not nature any more than nuclear weapons are nature. You can say, well, they're made from atoms, the essential building block of matter. Okay. But we're exerting force and our will on nature to create an outcome that wouldn't occur if we didn't do that. So it's by definition, not nature.
- [69:26]
B
The outcome could have actually occurred even if you didn't necessarily do it. Just the baby could have happened that way. But also, I would say that, remember that there's gene editing, which is much further out into the idea that you can actually take an embryo and. And make it whatever you want. Basically, theoretically, we can talk about that, which is very, very different. So I think the concept of IVF clinics using this technology to give patients more information when they're already getting information on their embryos. Now we expand the information. We can help deal with the chronic disease crisis in the United States, the rare disease crisis as well. Right. Genetics is unique.
- [69:57]
A
I appreciate the upside. No, I agree with you on the upside. I just want to know the downside. Yeah, I don't hear any. There's no downside.
- [70:05]
B
Of course there's downsides.
- [70:06]
A
What do you imagine it might be?
- [70:07]
B
Well, I think. Let's play this out. Okay. The first thing I'd say is that with IVF at its prevalence today at 2%, I think it's actually more or less fine. And 2% is about 1 in 50 babies. I think I'm going to outline the scenario where I think there's a lot more risk and where human reproduction is going to materially change. We might argue that. You might argue this is a material change. I would actually argue. I would argue ivf. IVF was the principal material change.
- [70:31]
A
You're arguing that it's material change because you're saying that we're going to have to have less chronic disease, lower healthcare costs, less suffering, and that's all.
- [70:39]
B
Patients can choose that. Patients can choose that.
- [70:41]
A
Well, you've argued that will be the result. And you're right, it will be the result. And I'm for it. I just want to say I'm for it. I'm just saying that whenever I Hear the upside as you would in any scenario, including your personal family investments. Tell me the downside. If someone says, well, there's no downside, I'm like, I don't know if I trust you anymore. So what's the downside?
- [71:02]
B
Again, I will articulate downside. It's just. I have to explain.
- [71:05]
A
No, you're going to blame some other technology.
- [71:06]
B
No, I'm not going to blame some other technology.
- [71:08]
A
Gene editing is bad. No, but what about the technology that you're offering has an upside. I totally agree with you. And that will be real. And I'll support it. I would support, I don't know, a lot of things. But what's the downside? You must have thought about that.
- [71:26]
B
Of course, of course. I mean. I mean, fundamentally, this technology can be exploited by centralized bodies to try to control reproduction. Yes, that is the downside. That is the story of the 20th century. Sorry for getting emphatic, but it's just like. Yes, that is the downside. We've seen the downside. We've experienced the downside. But to be clear. But to be clear, that is a moral failure. That is not a failure of the technology. I've established that eugenics, for example, was decades before genetics.
- [71:57]
A
Yeah, it's a distinction without a difference, in my view. But what you're saying is, without saying it explicitly, that people misuse the creation and they use it for good, but they also use it for bad. And that's just how people are. And they've always been that way, and they will always be that way. So with that in mind, I don't think.
- [72:18]
B
It's just.
- [72:19]
A
I totally agree that, of course, centralized powers, whoever they are.
- [72:23]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [72:24]
A
I'm not even sure who they are, but they clearly exist.
- [72:26]
B
Governments, principally. I mean, that's the 20th century.
- [72:28]
A
Or the Epstein class that runs the governments or whoever these entities are. Yeah, that's bad. I totally agree. But the experience of India shows us that given choice, people will also make the wrong decisions as individuals. So. So I'm just wondering what those consequences might be. Let me just say I'm interested in this because I have hunting dogs and I've had them my whole life. And hunting dogs are bred for certain qualities. And I watch it carefully. And dogs have such short life cycles relative to people that you can kind of in your lifetime, watch this happen. But they're bred for certain. I have flushing dogs, spaniels, and they're bred to work close to you. Find the bird, jump the bird, retrieve the bird. If you are not very Careful about breeding them, or if you breed them only for certain specific qualities, you can wind up destroying the dog. And this is well known in animal husbandry. It's well known in bird hunting. It's well known among anybody who deals with animals. And I don't see people as any different. And I know that there are massive consequences to the dog. You get dogs that die of cancer at 5. You get dogs with hip dysplasia. You get dogs with unexplained rage that bite your children. We can't foresee with any precision the effects of our tinkering with reproduction. Absolutely.
- [73:49]
B
Let me actually give a real example of this. So in China, the scientist who was known for using gene editing to engineer the first babies, actually, Doctor, he. What he did was he engineered the CCR5 gene. I believe that's what the gene was called. And he used crispr. Crispr? CRISPR is a bacterial immune response system. It stands for clustered, regularly, interspaced, short palindromic repeats. Basically refers to the set of palindromic DNA sequences in a bacteria. And you use that to make a genetic device called crispr. And you basically use crispr.
- [74:23]
A
Oh, I remember very well.
- [74:25]
B
And CRISPR is composed of two things. It's composed of a guide, basically. Imagine it takes the device to the right part of the DNA, which is like a scissors. And then, excuse me, it has a guide which takes the CRISPR to the right part of DNA. Then there's endonuclease, which basically cuts the DNA. A little bit of technical explanation. Basically, you can use bacterial immune response system, harness it as a genetic device. Okay. And this is what the scientist did. And obviously you know about the story. And he went and he actually engineered human embryos. Okay. It's going on now in China. Yeah.
- [74:59]
A
Other parts of the world, too.
- [75:01]
B
So basically what he did was he knocked out the CCR5 gene. And his justification for knocking out this specific gene was that it would make the children basically resistant to HIV aids. That was what he said. This is really interesting for a lot of reasons. One is because you didn't need gene editing to do that. You could have actually just done that with existing genetic technology that was much cheaper, much less expensive. But even putting that aside, getting to the fundamental thing that you're articulating, which is unintended consequences when you actually optimize for knocking out that specific gene, you're also opening up the susceptibility of that baby to other infectious disease. Because what CCR5 does is it encodes for a Specific immune receptor that basically, when destroyed, it makes it easier for other pathogens to basically infect you. In other words, there's this. The dangerous side of this, to your point, is that balance, which is in trying to do something good, what he deemed to be virtuous, if you will, it actually potentially could have had very severe consequences on the children's health. And so I think that's a very real, tangible example that we've seen of some of the dangers and the balancing act that is nature. And that's really important to say.
- [76:15]
A
What about in your life? Have you ever wound up with something that you didn't expect and maybe didn't want and found it to be a great blessing over time?
- [76:22]
B
Time, yeah, absolutely. I mean, meditation.
- [76:27]
A
No, but that's something you presumably you chose to try.
- [76:31]
B
I think sometimes a broader force guides you to these things. Yeah.
- [76:36]
A
The experience of having children is the most profound example of that. I think if you ask any parent or many parents will tell you, I didn't expect this at all. I didn't grow up with girls. Didn't have a mom, didn't have sisters, didn't want girls. I don't understand girls like my wife, but don't want girl. Ended up having a ton of girls. Never would have chose that. And really one of the great experiences of my life, truly, I mean that. And I'm not embarrassed to say this because my girls don't feel this way, but anyway, I never would have if I'd had the choice. Just like I don't get girls. I can't be the father of girls. Like what? And yet that, that again turned out to be this great blessing. And I. I'm really glad I didn't have the choice. Have you ever had an experience like that?
- [77:24]
B
I mean, yeah, I think some of the best things that happen in life are not things that you can control. It's part of the divine. Yes, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. 100.
- [77:33]
A
And sometimes there are things that man, you don't want at all and.
- [77:37]
B
But it's actually good for you.
- [77:38]
A
Yeah, it's the best for you.
- [77:39]
B
Best thing for you. Yeah. The thing that you want is. Is another thing that you need.
- [77:43]
A
So maybe if you get to be the author of your own story and of your own children, the more control you have, the more you get what you want, the more totally you're destroyed. It's not good for you to get everything you want. That's been my experience.
- [78:02]
B
Talk, remember, though, genetics obviously is not deterministic.
- [78:08]
A
Right.
- [78:08]
B
So. So there's two other Parts of life.
- [78:11]
A
Wait, what you were just telling me. It was.
- [78:13]
B
It's not determined.
- [78:13]
A
We can get rid of all these diseases, which I'm for.
- [78:16]
B
But, Tucker, a good example is like, lung cancer. You smoke, increase your risk of lung cancer. There's some genetics component, but it can be both.
- [78:22]
A
Or heart disease, your enjoyment of life.
- [78:24]
B
I just want to put in a
- [78:25]
A
good word for smoking, if I could.
- [78:26]
B
Yeah, Heart disease as well. Right. Obviously, there's a family history component to it, but there's also, like, what you eat, how much you exercise, these things. And so. So under the framework, you think, okay, what I think is really important in life. In life, which again, goes well beyond genetics. We're not genetic determinists here, obviously. That's just not reality. Again, I would go back to the spiritual and cultivation of the soul. That cultivation of the soul to eventually, hopefully, divine virtue, union with God. Right. That is available to everyone independent of their biological characteristics. And so I think it's important not to, again, conflate optimizing.
- [79:05]
A
You've made that point, and I so appreciate that.
- [79:06]
B
But that point is such. That is the point. That is the point. The point is that the union with God ultimately is. That is what life is about. So you're not actually removing this idea that you can. Like if there was a world where somehow parents could perfectly predict the baby's gonna be like this and this and this. You can't physically. You can't encode the soul, is what I'm saying. It doesn't come from biology.
- [79:28]
A
We know a lot.
- [79:29]
B
So there's stochasticity. Always is what I'm arguing.
- [79:31]
A
Yeah, I mean, but you're arguing the mart. I mean, what you're saying is right. It's true. There's no debating what you're saying. It's fact. And I appreciate that you're saying it.
- [79:38]
B
Yes.
- [79:39]
A
But it's equally true that we are exercising powers that we didn't have until very recently and that we know more than we ever have. And I just think. And I don't think we can stop it. I don't think there's any way we can stop it. If you weren't doing this and the gene editors weren't doing it. I mean, I don't like that.
- [79:55]
B
More philosophy generally.
- [79:56]
A
Maybe you're right.
- [79:57]
B
I actually think people. I think people way overshoot that. People way overshoot the idea that, oh, technology is inevitable. Technology is not inevitable. This drives me crazy. People make choices that drive technology forward. Technology does not just happen. It's been 20 years of really 15 years, probably since some of these more advanced screenings had existed, but they've never actually been adopted. So the idea that technology naturally progresses is. It's a narrative created by Silicon Valley to try to justify raising more money and, by the way, taking away more responsibility. No, people make choices that drive technology.
- [80:33]
A
I think you're to an extent right. I mean, this is a whole separate conversation I want to bore our ruining viewers with, but I do think we make choices. That's absolutely right. And it's incumbent on us to try to make the right choices for ourselves and those around us. Okay, all true. Those choices matter. Also true.
- [80:49]
B
Absolutely.
- [80:49]
A
We are also products of the time in which we live and the systems in which we operate. So those things are equally true. Again, I don't want to be boring, but I agree with you. Our choices are important, but there's also, again, a lack of respect for what we don't know, which makes me very uncomfortable in science. And one of the reasons that I think that we should put a lot of doctors and scientists in prison as soon as we can is because they've really hurt us over the last, say, six years by not acknowledging what they don't know, overstating their own foresight about things that no human being can know. There's no respect for the limits of the human mind. Okay. And suddenly we have these enormous powers that are not actually matched to our wisdom at all. And I just want to say out loud, I'm really worried about it. And I think certain individuals should be punished for doing this. Like the guys who made Covid in the labor. They're not in jail. Like, what? Does that bother you? Do you think that's a lesson? Does that tell us anything?
- [81:54]
B
Yeah, it is definitely a lesson. We have to be responsible stewards of the technology.
- [82:00]
A
Should that be punishment for people who kill millions through their foolishness?
- [82:05]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think the key is that again, genetics can program for somebody to be smarter, but it cannot make somebody wise. And the idea that you can genetically encode somebody's life, again, that's not true. Nature in the DNA, in the nucleus, that's not true. So I want to be clear that you're not controlling the life outcome of your child. You're not going to be like, okay, now the child's going to become LeBron James and they're going to be on the star. That will come from virtue of hard work, etc. So genetics is important. Genetics is important. It plays a factor, it plays a role. But I'm not Going to sit here and say, oh, genetics is everything. It's not.
- [82:42]
A
It's not.
- [82:43]
B
Obviously nobody would notice.
- [82:44]
A
It's not making the case that it is.
- [82:44]
B
No, but the argument that you can control parents, can control their child's life trajectory would suggest that genetics is pretty deterministic.
- [82:50]
A
But I'm saying that I'm actually making the opposite argument, which is, you have no freaking idea what's going to happen when you tamper with this stuff. We actually know way less than we think we do. We have less control than we imagine, and that we should proceed with that in mind. That's my only argument. But my question is much more specific. You said that technology is not inevitable. I, I kind of agree with you. We certainly have an obligation to do our best for the people who didn't do their best and who hurt others, like the whole world. Like the guys who designed Covid in the Wuhan lab, which they did. We've established that. Shouldn't there be some punishment for them? And wouldn't that help future generations make wiser decisions if they saw that there were consequences to being thoughtless with technology?
- [83:33]
B
I think, I think generally speaking,
- [83:37]
A
the
- [83:38]
B
kind of history, at least the modern history of Silicon Alley has gone from, I think it had some idea of kind of virtue ethics, right? Like Google back in the day was, don't be evil. If you say that today, you'll kind of be laughed at. That was like their corporate motto. You had Paul Graham had his hackers and painters, this idea that, that was kind of this, this beautiful early Silicon Valley spirit. There was another case of Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford commencement address. He ended it by saying, stay hungry, stay foolish. Basically, humility. Have humility. Open yourself up to the world. Not just the natural world, but the divine world. I think a lot of the Silicon Valley ideology has been moved from hackers and painters to maybe capitalists and politicians or the like. In other words, it's moved into kind of a techno capitalism. This idea that technology is inevitable, this idea that capitalism is inherently good. It's inherently good if something grows. And you can see that with AI companies all the time, they'll celebrate, oh, we hit 100 million AR in two days or something. And it fundamentally mistakes speed and the rate at which something grows with value. Cancer grows very quickly. It's horrible. And so I think there's this fundamental idea that this kind of grow, grow, grow, grow, that inherently, the consequences be damned, just grow, growth is inherently good. I think that fundamental philosophy is so bad.
- [85:12]
A
Well, it's a self Justification. But I wonder where it grows from. I think you described crisply and well the evolution of the attitudes in Silicon Valley, generally speaking.
- [85:21]
B
Yeah.
- [85:22]
A
From, hey, this is going to liberate, everybody is good to, hey, this hikes GDP and I've got a massive place in Atherton, therefore it's good. And those are definitely different justifications. And I wonder to what you attribute the change. Like, how did that happen? How did you go from one place to another? And here's my thesis in one sentence. Power. When you get a lot of power.
- [85:46]
B
Correct.
- [85:46]
A
You get, get corrupted. Exactly.
- [85:49]
B
Power corrupts. Yeah.
- [85:50]
A
So there's no greater power than determining what kind of kids people are going to have. So, like, are you worried at all?
- [85:58]
B
Again, we don't determine what kind of kids. We don't.
- [86:01]
A
Overpopulation.
- [86:01]
B
We don't. No, we don't. Because people are making their own choices. We don't make the choice for them. People are making their own choices.
- [86:05]
A
Easily make the choice.
- [86:06]
B
No, I, I, we, we don't, we don't.
- [86:08]
A
You could you just say, we're only testing for these three things or whatever. You could, you design the screen also remember that therefore you design the outcome of population. Virtue.
- [86:17]
B
No, virtue's not in biology. Okay, so, no, we do not encode populations because human beings can't encode. It makes a mistake. Assuming we are God. We are not God. We are not God.
- [86:29]
A
It's going to affect the nature of people. So that's an inescapable fact. And I think it's important to just wear the mantle. This is what we're doing. We're changing the nature of people. We're going to try to make them better.
- [86:41]
B
Nature is a very tricky word. The nature of people comes from God. It doesn't come from genetics.
- [86:45]
A
The substance of people, their intelligence, their heart, substance, their lifespan.
- [86:49]
B
That's a key distinction, though, because ultimately any human being should want, again, greater spiritual cultivation.
- [86:55]
A
Okay, but I'm just saying you are part of. Not you alone or even substantially, but you're part of a trend in science that will change the nature of people. So I do think it's worth just admitting that, because then once you realize the burden on your shoulders, you can, can bear up under it. Do you think, or.
- [87:15]
B
I think we. Yeah, definitely. This technology, I just want to be very careful with the word nature versus biological characteristics. I agree that we're changing biological characteristics,
- [87:23]
A
how long people live, you're changing that. So that alone is how tall people are, how well they do in the sat.
- [87:29]
B
But again, it's not deterministic in that way. It's not like you can look at somebody's DNA and be like, oh, they're going to get a 1570 in their SAT. But I agree with you, though.
- [87:35]
A
Overpopulations. And we're talking about populations and you're saying it's IVF is 2% or whatever. But I'm just saying the technology, we can see where this is going. You offer people a chance to have children who are healthier and smarter, and they're going to take it. And I've already admitted that I would have taken it because I love my children. It's that simple. So we know this is going to happen if the technology exists and it's widely available. And so that puts you. And not just you, of course, this is hardly an attack, but it puts you in a position of having power over the course of humanity, over the evolution of humanity. We're watching humanity change at the individual level. And that's a big burden, man. That's a burden that only God bore before, like 20 years ago.
- [88:18]
B
We are not God and we can never be God.
- [88:20]
A
Good. Well, that's a good start.
- [88:21]
B
We are not God. We are not God.
- [88:23]
A
But do you see it as profound?
- [88:24]
B
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I mean, to. To see patients who have had some, again, I use the Huntington's example. To see a loved one die at age 25 because their brain decays, and then to never want to have a
- [88:45]
A
child, Huntington's is really hard.
- [88:46]
B
And then to be able to use the technology, the emotion, the miracle that they can have a baby, basically, that's amazing.
- [88:57]
A
It is amazing. But with respect, I think having watched, I was out in Silicon Valley in the 90s covering this, and I knew that people, I still know some of them, they were totally fixated on the upside in a good way. They were like, this gives the Encyclopedia Britannica. You probably didn't know what that is, but it's a physical encyclopedia that sat on your shelf and costs like thousands of dollars. That's replaced by this CD rom, this collection of ones and zeros. And it's incredible the amount of information. People will be so much better informed. And now you look 30 years later and it's like, like, definitely upsides to technology, but also downsides.
- [89:32]
B
Well, we're susceptible to the same force because we're human.
- [89:37]
A
Well, that's exactly the argument I'm making.
- [89:38]
B
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, we are susceptible to the same force. It's. How can we continue to do that spiritual work? Because it is spiritual. Work to cultivate the soul, to make sure we maintain in these values that, that I've been articulating.
- [89:56]
A
I totally agree. So here's my final question. I'll stop torturing you.
- [89:59]
B
Okay.
- [90:01]
A
I think you've done such a great job, actually.
- [90:03]
B
Thanks.
- [90:05]
A
It has nothing to do with you. I'm just worried about these things and you're smart and you've again for the third time thought about them to a surprising degree for a guy who's also trying to build a company. I'm impressed.
- [90:13]
B
Thank you.
- [90:14]
A
But if we're going to proceed, one hopes with this kind of science in a way that, that creates rather than destroys, then we need to keep in mind, as you said, 20 times the spiritual dimension. Yes, but the spiritual dimension is a dividing point. Some things are good for the spirit and some things are bad for the spirit. Some things are consistent with virtue, some things are not. And if we believe in God, we believe God prefers some outcomes over others. God has rules. It's the nature of God. So will there be an attempt to say, no, these are the rules? You can't test for this certain thing. You can't make this choice. You have to constrain people's choices at a certain point if you're going to remain consistent with any kind of ethic.
- [91:02]
B
Yeah, no, I've thought a lot about that. It's very tricky because you need, just
- [91:07]
A
as India did, India said to us, a billion people, you can't make that choice.
- [91:09]
B
Sorry, no, that's a very tricky. It's very tricky and very complicated. I think the key thing that we have to do as a business and the more aligned that people can hold us to is nucleus has not, is not, and will never say that one embryo is better than another embryo. We just won't. Because again, we cannot mistake instrumental value with moral value. They're different things. And I think in deeply recognizing that and deeply realizing, by the way, the indeterministic basic nature of genetics as well as I said heart disease, you can have a bad diet, you can exercise, lung cancer, even for things like schizophrenia, as I mentioned, strong genetic components, but you can take weed actually has made people more schizophrenic, for example. So there's environmental components as well. And so I think you have to have the deep humility in saying there's no better maintain that moral philosophy, because that is the foundation for me, that's the.
- [92:07]
A
I can't say it's better to be non schizophrenic than schizophrenic.
- [92:12]
B
I don't think it's for me to say, though. Again, I also don't think, though to be clear, when we use the term better, we start to apply moral value. And again, I don't think moral value lies in the realm of biological characteristics. I don't think so.
- [92:25]
A
So there's no moral guide at all?
- [92:27]
B
No, that's not true. There is universal morality, which is natural law and divine virtue.
- [92:31]
A
It is better not to have schizophrenia than to have schizophrenia.
- [92:34]
B
Well, again, when we say better, I think we're just defining it differently. I think it's better in the sense that it reduces suffering. Brain. Absolutely.
- [92:40]
A
That's your measure. Then it's better.
- [92:42]
B
Exactly. But what's your measure? Exactly, but it's honestly better in terms of the world.
- [92:45]
A
So this is totally amoral. This is literally immoral. It has no reference.
- [92:48]
B
No, it's not immoral. No, not at all. Because everything has a spirit, as I said, just because there's the physical world and then each thing has a divine spirit to it. So each thing has some virtue or opposite of virtue, Vice, for example. That's true. That's a true thing. But again, these things are not actually incompatible with each other. They're actually compatible.
- [93:05]
A
But as a company, can you say
- [93:07]
B
there's anything you won't do do on behalf of Nucleus? I think, well, when you say anything we won't do, meaning, like providing.
- [93:13]
A
I don't know, you just said biology has no moral reference because everything has a spirit. I'm just wondering, is there like a
- [93:19]
B
line where like, characteristics don't.
- [93:21]
A
We're not doing that, period, because it's wrong.
- [93:25]
B
We're not providing an analysis, for example, like, we're not providing some analysis.
- [93:29]
A
That's what you mean by we're not going to make certain behavior easier.
- [93:32]
B
When you say certain behavior, you mean picking for specific, like, characteristics.
- [93:36]
A
I don't know. I could manufacture fentanyl for a living and say, I'm not forcing people to take it, it's their choice. But I would say I'm not manufacturing fentanyl because it's bad. It's just inherently bad. It degrades people and in some cases kills them. So I'm not doing that. So I don't know that. Is it enough to say let the people decide?
- [93:54]
B
No, it's not. You have to be careful. Given IQ analysis, for example, we've gone through many, many iterations, the best way of doing it, and we sort of slow rolled it out, out principally because we didn't want people to misunderstand it. We don't want people to think because, again, genetically, it's just not possible. In the same way that there's always environmental components that you can just look at somebody's DNA and guess the SAT score. That's people's very simplistic model, which is like. So I'm saying that the way we have a responsibility to very carefully communicate that result. So the IVF clinic, the patient, the physician, everyone understands it. And then when. I think when people understand it, it takes it from sort of the sensationalist things and just grounds it.
- [94:32]
A
Well, you shift the moral responsibility from yourself to.
- [94:35]
B
We're still morally responsible. We ship a product.
- [94:37]
A
In what way?
- [94:39]
B
I could make a product and say, oh, this embryo is better than this embryo. I mean, that would be principally the most immoral line that we could cross. I could say, for example, this embryo is going to be super, super, super smart, Right? No, we're careful in the way we say things.
- [94:50]
A
Well, that's just a false claim, right?
- [94:51]
B
Yeah, I mean, it would be false, but also.
- [94:53]
A
But what you're saying is that the moral decisions rest with the customers, not with you. They decide what's better. Is it better to have a kid with down syndrome or not? They decide you're not gonna have any role in the moral decision.
- [95:02]
B
Patients can't. So again, there's no moral value because that comes from God. But patients can decide instrumental value. Going back to the deaf couple, the deaf couple deemed it to be best for what they want for the outcome they're optimizing for. In this case, best means optimizing for the set of biological characteristics for some outcome. For example, somebody might want their daughter to be shorter, to be a gymnast. For example, somebody might want their son to be tall, to be an NBA player. Someone else might say, I don't care how athletic they are. I don't care how pretty they are. I want them to be an academic and study really hard their entire life depending on those things. As I mentioned in cell biology, specialization breeds sophistication. You realize very quickly, very intuitively, that the value of a phenotype is contingent to its environment.
- [95:46]
A
I get it.
- [95:46]
B
So this is what it comes back to. It's up to them, the parents, to decide what is their instrumental value that they map to these phenotypes and to pick.
- [95:54]
A
It's up to you to take fentanyl. No, I get it, I get it. I just hope it works. I think the worst things that I've ever done are the things with the greatest promise, like the iPhone, Like I got. I was so psyched for the iPhone. I was like, I don't need a computer. Yeah, I can work in my living room.
- [96:13]
B
Next thing you know, you can't have
- [96:14]
A
a conversation with your wife.
- [96:15]
B
Yeah, social media is.
- [96:16]
A
It's really bad, but it's bad because it's good. Benzodiazepines are great. That's why they're terrible. Does that make sense? Benzodiazepines are like the greatest drug. Have you ever taken a benzodiazepine? I took it one time in high school. One of my. A kid on my hall in boarding school, his dad was a pharmacist and he had Valium. And I was like, I'll take anything, you know, whatever. I was a child, I was an idiot. I take this thing, I was like, that's the greatest thing I've ever taken. And it was so good. I never took it in because it freaked me out. Because there was no downside. Literally all of your voices in your head, any woman listening will know what I'm talking about. The things are like, ah, whatever going on in the background, silenced, everything's fine. You're not like stoned, you're not out of it, you're just like, great, you're improved, you're your best self. And my animal sense, even in 10th grade I was like, that's bad. Yeah, super bad. Whereas you do other drug, you do cocaine, stay up all night doing cocaine, you suffer the next day. And so it's really clear this is not good. Right, right. Benzos are the best and that's why they're the most addictive, most dangerous, most society destroying product that we make.
- [97:26]
B
Yeah.
- [97:27]
A
Does that make sense?
- [97:28]
B
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.
- [97:29]
A
The badness is in direct proportion to the promise, the goodness.
- [97:34]
B
Yes, yes. And then there is a moral character of the person giving out to that drug. And in social media case too, talking about moral philosophy, optimizing for clicks and dopamine, you end up following a consequentialist framework because there's no virtue. You end up following a consequentialist framework and justifies the mean to the point that everybody's scrolling and liking and clicking all day, 100%. So the question that you're asking is how do you. There is this problem of power because power corrupts. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. There's a problem in Silicon Valley which is there's a promise. But then you underestimate the thing. It's like, how do you maintain virtue? Basically the question is, how do you maintain virtue? How do you maintain your soul and your spirit despite these pressures? What's the answer? Well, one, it's really hard, I imagine, and I'm hoping to practice for Nucleus and for, hopefully this industry. It's praying, it's meditation, it's deep, deep humility with realizing. Going back to what I said, there's a raindrop. If you think that the raindrop is the entire world, you're thinking about the entire ocean. That's where I come back to.
- [98:39]
A
Yeah. Well, you have a lot of authority. You have a lot of power for a young man, much more than I ever will. And so use it wisely. And thank you for your thoughtfulness and you're willing to have this conversation, and I'm sure it's been hellish for you, but you've done a great job.
- [98:51]
B
Thank you, Tucker.
- [98:51]
A
Thank you.
- [98:52]
B
I appreciate it. Thanks.