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This is huge!

Imagine affordable STD test kits adjacent to the pregnancy testers on the shelves of your local store.

The prostitution story looks a lot different if every encounter can realistically incorporate a predicated broad-spectrum STD test of both parties.

Edit: Usual dating would be a lot less risky as well. Has it become standard practice for couples to both get tested before becoming intimate yet?




Now imagine the MPEG-LA making money off these tests and driving up the costs of anything using CRISPR.

No, i'm not bullshitting you.

http://www.mpegla.com/main/pid/CRISPR/default.aspx


MPEG LA has very limited market patent positioning in the US.

The Broad Institute is sitting on radically superior IP, including the US patent on CRISPR Cas9 and global control of CRISPR Cpf1, which MPEG LA does not have any access to or control over. MPEG LA also doesn't have any rights to Sherlock.

Nearly all global rights to all forms of CRISPR are controlled by Berkeley, Vienna and the Broad Institute (with some smaller IP held by a few universities, and some corporations like Editas, Intellia, CRISPR Therapeutics, etc). MPEG LA has essentailly zero power over CRISPR, they own zero patents on CRISPR, they're trying to skim money by being a deal connector of the Berkeley & Vienna patents.


I think the biologists need to take a long, hard look at how MPEG-LA has acted and conducted itself in the past. Even if you blame its participants for their collective behavior, it's still pretty damning of this operation and currency of thinking.

Keep CRISPR-Cas9 out of MPEG-LA. Y'all have been warned. Form a pool using defensive patent licenses, do whatever it takes if you really want to reduce "transaction costs", but do it without that community.


No question, both the commercial potential of CRISPR and the humanitarian potential will be served by keeping MPEG LA on the outside. So far that appears to be the case, their dream of acting as the centralized CRISPR patent authority hasn't gotten traction.


MPEG-LA has also been getting into the human genome project-write initiative.

Source: I'm on the intellectual propety working group. The only other active member is MPEG-LA. Send help immediately.


That's wild. What do you suspect they're attempting to accomplish with HGPW? Are they using it to scout patent opportunities?


I think they probably haven't even sorted out their intentions at this point. But you know, these things just have a way of developing on their own just by tiny nudges at the beginning.

For an overview of the GP-write project, see the following:

1) Science article: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bio/The%20human%20genome%20p...

2) timeline: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bio/Synthetic%20human%20geno...

3) fact sheet: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bio/HGP-write-Fact-Sheet.pdf

Really I'd like to somehow get EFF to ride to my rescue but I've sort of got myself into this mess on my own so it's not really on them. EFF doesn't focus on biological freedom issues like these, anyway. At least not yet.


They don't need to have any control of patents to do this, though, they can simply operate through FUD alone. Even though it's illegal, US IP law is very weak against such fraudulent behaviour and the slap on the wrist they _might_ get if they're caught will be outweighed by the profit they make from those who fall for their racket.


Interesting. From the beginning something has seemed something really, really wrong about CRISPR. The amount of sloppy research, hype, etc has just been well beyond the norm.[1] There is definitely some kind of shady and amoral organization behind it.

[1] For example, in a few years you won't hear anything about the gene editing any longer since that was never going to work (it is too toxic by its very nature of causing DSBs). These other uses may or may not be OK, I haven't looked into it.


Ugh, wherever there's money to be made...


So the problem is that there are hundreds or thousands of different types of viral and bacterial infections you can get, many of which probably haven't even been discovered yet, but STD testing only covers the four or five most common things. Even if you can theoretically detect a lot more stuff with CRISPR, it's going to be decades until the technology is anywhere approaching comprehensive.


Sure, but even just being able to quickly answer "HIV or HPV?" has tremendous value.

Everything else is perfectly treatable, no?


More interesting to me if this could detect HIV within the first 30 days of infection.

I'm no expert but IIRC that's not possible with any test right now.


Not quite true - we're down to around 14 days with the latest generation of tests.

The ideal would be a rapid 'fever' panel that tests for all the viruses we currently pay a ton of money for. This sort of test could pick up early-stage HIV which, if symptomatic, don't feel much different from a cold/flu.

[1] - https://www.aafp.org/afp/2014/0215/afp20140215p265-f1.gif


Unfortunately due to antibiotic resistance, no :(.


It seems to me that treatment for STDs, and knowing whether someone "might have an STD", are very different problems, that happen to be currently solved by the same solutions.

If you could build a whitelist of known benign strains of bacteria and viruses, and then create a device that tests your urine and dings whenever it detects things that are (positive match) bacterial antibodies or viral capsids, but that aren't (negative match) in its whitelist, that seems like it'd do a lot to help people.


Not really, it's pretty unorthodox to look for genetic sequences as evidence of infection. Typically you look for antibodies, as the virus may not be circulating, or is simply not where you are sampling.


>The prostitution story looks a lot different if every encounter can realistically incorporate a predicated broad-spectrum STD test of both parties.

Disease spread is such a drop-in-the-bucket among the (moral, ethical, personal, societal) issues surrounding prostitution that I have a hard time understanding how this news changes the story.

It's great news; but prostitution is an issue that deserves a lot of time and discussion -- and likely the solutions will be social, not technological.


I think you're underestimating how many men avoid prostitution purely due to fear of contracting disease. Prostitution is legal in Nevada (outside of Reno/Vegas) and the prostitutes operate without pimps. There are far fewer ethical concerns in some places than you imply.


I appreciate your point, but just think of the social changes that came about from birth control and the ability to control when you start a family. This breakthrough might not fix everything but it would be a boon for sexual freedom.


Disease spread is such a drop-in-the-bucket among the (moral, ethical, personal, societal) issues surrounding prostitution

That is simply a matter of perspective and implementation. There are many countries and areas where prostitution is legalised (an sometimes even unionised), and evidence shows that on the whole, the majority of problems associated with prostitution are caused by prohibition.


Given that heterosexual dates are typically paid for by men and husbands typically make a lot more than their wives, it could be argued that the overwhelming majority of heterosexual sex is some form of prostitution. Yet when I criticize dating on that basis, I get called a nutter.

When men and women have some kind of parity where women are not routinely considering their bottom line when deciding how much crap to take in an unhappy relationship, then you can talk to me about the immorality of prostitution. Until then, wow, what a way to put on blinders as to how the vast majority of relationships work.


That's an absurd comparison. Most women have sex with their husbands willingly because they like sex and they like their husband. Prostitution is a quid pro quo business arrangement. Of course, sugar-daddy type relationships do exist, but they are not the norm. Consider the example of your own parents. Is your mother akin to a prostitute because she had sex with your dad at the same time that he may have been providing for her material needs?


Is your mother akin to a prostitute because she had sex with your dad at the same time that he may have been providing for her material needs?

This is a dirty tactic. It is not good faith engagement.

I'm a woman who has a strict no dating policy, by which I mean that I don't establish romantic relationships based on some man spending money on me. I am entirely satisfied with the positive impact that policy has had on my life.

From what I have read and heard over the years, no, most women don't have sex with their husband because they like him. There are relationships like that, certainly. But the financial factor pretty clearly poisons quite a lot of relationships.

I often think this should be the foundational argument as to why men should be more invested in helping make gender parity happen. If you are a well paid man and tired of feeling like women only date you for your money, fostering a world in which women have money of their own on pat with men is the single best antidote to your dating problem.

As just one supporting citation, this article talks about the fact that pro athletes frequently marry their high school sweetheart because you can't trust that women who met you after you struck it rich really like you. They may just be there for the money. (The article does not use those exact words, but that is the gist of it.)

https://www.si.com/vault/2009/03/23/105789480/how-and-why-at...

There are also rap song lyrics about how poor men from the hood can't get a date, but once they strike it rich "it's a puss buffet."

I have read articles where, for example, a guy lost his job and his wife quit having sex with him. He stated that he learned his paycheck was the most attractive thing about him. A friend of a friend lost his well paid job and his wife left him because "it wasn't any fun anymore."

The term gold digging whore is a gendered term. It exists because men typically make a lot more than women and a lot of women are primarily interested in finding someone to pay their bills. This is compounded by the difficulties women face in pursuing serious careers of their own.

While I was homeless, no one wanted to open doors for me career wise. But lots of men wanted to offer me money or a place to stay if I would sleep with them.

In my experience, this problem runs shockingly deep. If your romantic relationships are unaffected by it, count yourself lucky.


> This is a dirty tactic. It is not good faith engagement.

It's not a dirty tactic, it's an analogy meant to snap the reader out of reductive thinking. It's easy to throw out these kind of generalizations when you reduce people to animals, but when you're forced to consider individuals from a human perspective (like in the case of your own mother) suddenly there is a wave of humanizing rationalizations to explain why characterizing marriage as glorified prostitution doesn't really apply in grandma's case.

> most women don't have sex with their husband because they like him

Neither one of us can prove what is in the head of most women when they get into bed with their husbands, but it seems absurd to generally ascribe a financial motivation for married sex-life. Women like sex too, some more than others, it doesn't make a woman a whore if she also enjoys financial support (and you know, all the other qualities that people care about in lasting relationships.

> If you are a well paid man and tired of feeling like women only date you for your money, fostering a world in which women have money of their own on pat with men is the single best antidote to your dating problem

This simply isn't a problem for the vast majority of people. Most eligible bachelors do not make enough money to such an effect where they have to be worried about goldiggers beyond the normal common-sense signs.

> As just one supporting citation, this article talks about the fact that pro athletes frequently marry their high school sweetheart because you can't trust that women who met you after you struck it rich really like you

Individuals with multimillion dollar salaries are clear outliers that have to contend with the impact of their wealth in every personal relationship, trying to generalize that example to the general population doesn't make sense.

> There are also rap song lyrics about how poor men from the hood can't get a date, but once they strike it rich "it's a puss buffet."

Once again, if you become rich and famous you are an outlier that is pointless to apply as a general rule. Also, as someone from the hood, where almost every individual is poor, I promise you that there are LOTS of dates and LOTS of sex, even for broke guys, the most common distinction between guys getting dates and those who are not is confidence, looks, and a sense of humor.

> a guy lost his job and his wife quit having sex with him

Yeah... nobody is saying that doesn't happen, but that is obviously not a common occurrence as any married man who has been unemployed can attest to.

> While I was homeless, no one wanted to open doors for me career wise. But lots of men wanted to offer me money or a place to stay if I would sleep with them.

The fact that men have solicited you has means nothing with regard to the nature of sex within marriage.


Please don't "snap the reader out of reductive thinking" by using personally abrasive rhetoric on HN.

Thoughtful conversation works better on a peer basis anyhow, not when one party presumes higher consciousness than the other.


Dang, I have the greatest respect for your efforts to improve discourse on the site, but I have to disagree that this is "personally abrasive rhetoric"; the personal aspect is a critical component of the logic within my argument, it is precisely the fact that when we consider our own loved ones in the context of the GP's stated position, it becomes clear that the reasoning is not consistent (because we offer our loved ones a more humanizing outlook when considering the nature of their circumstances rather than describing our mothers and sisters as prostitutes). On a personal note, I am a little surprised that my comment has been flagged as "personally abrasive" but the GP's rhetoric suggesting that married women in general can be likened to prostitutes is not similarly flagged as inflammatory. I am not asking for permission to continue debating this thread, I am only asking that you consider the nuance and context of my reply before judging it as abrasive. Thanks for your hard work.


[flagged]


At least here in NSW Australia, it's a legal and licensed industry. I'm friends with several women who work in the industry, some of which have worked overseas in other brothels. One of the interesting things I've found is how well the regulations, according to them, have worked here in Australia. Due to the protections in place, all of them feel safe in the industry and that it's entirely optional and their own decision. I'm sure this isn't universal, but at least after gleaning this information from them I feel like prostitution can be done right if it's regulated correctly. To ease any thoughts of bias, I've never solicited any of their services - this was told to me strictly as a friend, so there was no need to sugar coat things.


I imagine just the fact that they no longer face the possibility jail time alone makes them feel a lot safer.


There is no way the majority of the people exchanging sex for money are being accounted for in any reliable fashion. Prostitution is going on all over the place at all times. It's ubiquitous and unless you're participating it's largely kept out of view, being illegal.

Your >75% figure seems obviously bogus to me.


> There's a reason it's illegal

It's not illegal where I live, and hasn't been for a very long time.

Sex workers pay income tax, and can call the police if they have any trouble with clients.

It is just another service industry.


If they sold used cars to support their "abhorrent lifestyle," would that then make used cars sales as horrible as prostitution?


This is equivalent to saying we must never legalize alcohol because it will increase the number of people blind from wood alcohol poisoning and increase the amount of money flowing to people like Capone and Nitti.

Also, this:

> with legalization then it only increases the size of the fringe due to the debilitating physical and psychological effects of drug use and promiscuity.

... is not so much unproven as disproven.


As long as it has the same enforcement of mandatory reporting STD checks have currently.


STD tests are already free all over the place.


The issue is not just economic, it's spatial and temporal as well. This can provide STD test kits that fit in a pocket, deliver results on-site within minutes, and cost something comparable to an at-home pregnancy test or less.

This topic reminds of an excellent and relevant Mitch Hedberg skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8pvD0TaO3Y


Just because they have no cost to the end user doesn't mean no one is paying for them. There is a cost associated with producing and distributing those tests.




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