Roquentin

This is a cool idea and I suggest you make a graphic to illustrate it better. Still, my initial thoughts: How would the strength of this ice compare with ice frozen at the freezing end? Ice formed the regular way is necessarily continuous as there is no layered freezing, however in your method there might be (I can't be sure without running an experiment) some consequence of the layers that are formed. Either that the formed layers won't be clear (which I think is less of an issue) or the formed ice would have less inter-layer continuity and might somehow be weaker. Once again, this is speculation so experiments are needed, which you could probably run in your freezer. One solution I can think of if this were the case would be to apply pressure on the ice, or form it at a high end temperature that the crystal layers don't form very quickly and hence might have more time to 'merge' with one another. Thoughts on my thoughts?

I think there is some difficult terminology in this thread. From what I know: a) We actually use nearly all of our brain. The idea that we don't is very outdated. b) Theories of 'subconscious' or 'unconscious' are discouraged in Neuroscience because they aren't testable and it's much more helpful to talk about specific mechanisms, e.g. the phenomenon of blindsight, when talking about behavioral influences we aren't aware of. To address OP

I think the argument from 'side-effects' is not as relevant to the ethical debate as you said, but partly because we aren't designing (and could not design) babies from scratch. At best designer babies will contain minor modifications at best. In that case, of course we have to accept risks but I think they won't be overwhelming in all but exceptional cases where the unexpected happens. Even so, removing the Huntington's gene for instance, has benefits that far outweigh most conceivable risks and most people would support it. There are a lot of ideas here and I will address a few. Firstly, I don't think we have any unconscious inclination to defend the 'evolutionary process', more like a diffuse desire to spread our genes and even that has been successfully curbed by monogamy and by codoms/birth control. The reward mechanism for these desires is what really drives behavior (e.g. the sensation of orgasms) and I don't think there is any deep-seated mystical 'desire to spread my genes'. Maybe some people do feel this way but by and large this may be a non-issue. On a different point you hit though, it really would be interesting to see how this transforms social relations, and how people would respond to it. Where you might normally marry a blue-eyed girl if you want blue-eyed kids, now you might want to marry a girl who can afford blue-eyed kids, still we've yet to see how humans will respond to this possibility and if it really would register (a lot of science, e.g. quantum mechanics, tends not to register or affect human behavior). I think you are right to predict humans would continue to feel the need to have their kids resemble themselves, most of the times, even if it meant less fit kids. At least for a while. Consider the case, far out in the future where humanity has grown objective enough to no longer fret about that sort of thing either. This isn't impossible because I actually personally feel this way (and it's safe to assume I am a human).