Basically it’s a gene mutation some people have that lets them be just as effective as anyone else, totally normal, but they only need 4 hours of sleep a day as opposed to the roughly 8 hour average. How it works doesn’t matter, it’s a thing and it’s clearly identified genetically.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/22/health/short-sleep-gene-wellness-scn/index.html
So my question is, would our society today be against this? I’m not an expert but I’m pretty sure gene editing humans is illegal globally? But this seems like such an amazing thing to give to future generations. Like why wouldn’t we want to give 16% more life to enjoy to everyone?
Yes there will be the discussion of have and have nots, unfair advantage, GATTACA, etc etc. I get it. Would like to try to stay away from that for now.
Like is there any logical reason to NOT do this for everyone? (Again religion, personal choice, etc aside)
Would society be ok with gene editing kids to give them the “short sleep” gene?
byu/crispy88 inFuturology
28 Comments
Well, I’d mainly be concerned that 16% more life just turns into 16% more time at work for no real gain to them.
I hope so, gene editing is the future and it’s only a matter of time before we all get to alter ourselves.
Raising kids that only need 4 hours sleep when I need 8 hours sleep sounds absolutely awful.
It’s like asking if people would object to you doing surgery with a rusty saw. Yes people are going to object.
Current gene editing is cheaper and more readily available than ever before, but it’s not capable of the kind of finesse and accuracy you’d want when operating on humans.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50944461
This wasn’t that long ago.
How do you pick which families get to have these kids?
I don’t know what else this gene does, and how it interacts with other systems in your body. Afaik genes rarely do one thing. I’d wait til we know more, personally.
Ai overview: the “short sleep gene” can potentially affect growth, as chronic sleep deprivation due to this genetic predisposition can lead to reduced production of growth hormone, which is crucial for proper development during childhood and adolescence; meaning individuals with this gene may experience slightly stunted growth if they consistently don’t get enough sleep
Read Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress for a fictional take on this idea.
If we can do that, we might as well find the gene sequences that effect intelligence levels (cognitive, emotional, social) and give them a tweak as well. Otherwise, it’ll just be extra hours to be toxic to strangers on the internet.
Mostly not. There’s a gene editing technique that reduces chances of getting a certain disease. All around the world people oppose it.
Society would accept it, but here in the US it would only be used as an excuse to standardize the 12-hour workday
Kids won’t use those extra 4 hours to learn piano or cure cancer. They’ll use them to scroll TikTok at 3AM while pretending to sleep so you don’t bother them.
Just like how we all said “imagine if school started at 10AM, we’d be so much more productive” and then stayed up even later watching Netflix.
Human nature always finds a way to disappoint our genetic advantages.
But my questions is that when depressed, do these folks sleep like 8 hours every day and lay in bed for 2-3 hours, or are they like me and sleep 12 hours and lay in bed for like 6??
Yeah also the owner class of society would 100% just fill the time with more work, much of which won’t really make the world any better a place, and quite a bit of which will actively make it a worse place that they’ll need to tolerate for even more hours per day.
So maybe not all upsides. In an ideal world sure.
If you think that needing only 4h of sleep doesn’t come with any problems, then you don’t understand evolution.
If life stays as shitty as it is I will kill you if you rob people of the ability to sleep.
Reducing generic diversity is probably bad. Even if some genes seem bad or maladaptive today, they might become adaptive and an advantage in the future if some disease or other adverse condition makes them an advantage. For example, the gene that causes sickle cell anemia makes those individuals resistant to malaria. Today it wouldn’t be economically viable to eliminate genes from a population, so you might say who cares if some people gene-edit their kids, but it could become viable in the future, and that might become a problem if everyone starts editing their kids. If we’re all missing certain genese, like for normal sleep, it might leave us exposed as a population to novel diseases.
There is absolutely no way there would be any negative consequences to this at all.
Can I edit my genes to add this trait? Is the science there or close?
I’ve got that gene (to a point, I’m good to go on 5 hours, 4 hours is really pushing it), but so does everyone else in my family and at least one of my friends. I’m 30 years old and only a few years ago realized that most other people need way more sleep than I do, and also take naps through the day.
It floored me. I couldn’t imagine sleeping that much.
So I generally only sleep 4-5 hours a night (*unless sick or drunk*).
I haven’t owned an alarm clock in 20 years, so it isn’t a forced thing – I just generally wake up on my own after 4-5 hours.
That said, it didn’t start until adulthood – pretty much between 18-21 I just naturally started sleeping less & less.
If I’ve been burning the candle at both ends or skipped a night of sleep due to insomnia, I will often push that to 6-7 hours but it is a conscious choice (*& usually works but not always*).
If I have a particularly taxing day, I’ll often augment it with a 30-60 minute nap in the afternoon.
The most noticeable impact that it has had on my life is that it negatively impacts my relationships because I usually go to sleep after & wake up before my partners & most of the women I’ve dated really do not like that.
With my erstwhile wife, I’d take half an hour around 11pm to tuck her into bed & give her a massage then come back to bed for sleep around 2am.
That seemed to mostly mollify her complaints.
This strays to the fuzzy edge of eugenics, so it’s going to be controversial.
And on the other side of it, what are the drawbacks of the “short sleep” gene? Almost every gene has a trade-off of some form or another. (sickle cell/malaria resistance, red hair/pain tolerance, etc.) Do we know what the other side of “giving” people that gene will be?
I’d a lot happier if we edited out the material for sociopathy and psychopathy. There are many things that could/should be dealt with but the most dangerous to the world are the personality cults/psychos like Trump, Poutine, Kim Jong Un and other aspiring autocrats.
This would be applied unevenly based on class (access to gene editing is expensive), and the kids with the gene would get more privilege and corporations would exploit this to expect people to sleep less and therefore work more. No offense but this is a horrible idea.
I think where we should be looking is work/life balance and creating a society where people can be healthy (getting as much sleep as their body needs) and happy and able to afford life through wage equality.
In a world where AI exceeds our individual capacities to create, we will likely face a greater impetus to modify ourselves to test the limits of our biological capabilities and better direct the course of our research-driven AI agents. However, before we reach this point, we must address a fundamental issue: the negative human attributes that perpetuate greed, callousness, and a willingness to dominate and subjugate others.
Society is fracturing under the weight of these self-destructive tendencies, particularly as individuals with such traits often rise to positions of power. Worse still, power itself has a corrupting influence, making even well-intentioned individuals susceptible to the allure of control and domination.
A compelling exploration of these ideas can be found in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time series. Tchaikovsky examines how the intrinsic psychological perspectives of different species shape their evolutionary paths. For instance, he portrays a species of Portia jumping spiders, infected with a nano-virus designed to guide their evolution, rising to higher forms of thought. The spiders develop an enlightened perspective that prioritizes mutual understanding and integration of other species into their worldview.
In stark contrast, the human characters in the series represent the darker side of evolution. The original inhabitants of Earth destroy their civilization through civil war, fueled by an unwillingness to evolve past their own self-destructive tendencies. Tchaikovsky’s narrative underscores how humanity’s inability to overcome tribalism, greed, and fear of the “other” leads to its downfall, despite its technological advancements.
This raises a critical question: Are we truly on a different course today? The wealthiest individuals and institutions in our world seem content to enrich themselves further, often at the expense of the planet and the species. Their actions reflect embedded desires for control, domination, and subjugation, traits that are deeply rooted in our evolutionary history. These destructive impulses are not limited to elites; they exist in all of us, though they manifest most visibly and destructively in those with power.
If humanity is to survive and thrive as a planetary species, we must confront these darker aspects of our nature. No technological breakthrough—no matter how advanced—can compensate for our failure to address these fundamental flaws. We must find a way to rewrite the genetic and cultural programming that drives us to conflict and exploitation, fostering instead a global ethos of cooperation, empathy, and sustainability. Without this shift, our self-induced eradication is not a question of if but when.
uhhhhh this absolutely would not give 16% more life, it would subject people to more work
My grandmother had this gene. She never really likes it. She would go to go to bed at 10 and wake up at 3 board out of her mind. In the later part of her life she just took Xanax and went back to sleep (yes I know this is not what Xanax is supposed to be used for.).
Myself, I don’t think I’d be board. Probably spend more time working out, doing work, or redditing. My concern if the general population had this is that employers would abuse it to lengthen work days or amounts of work if it were part of the general population.
Edit: not to mention the whole raising kids who need way less sleep lol
You want your kids to sleep less? I want them to sleep more (like 10 hours would be great).