SPECIAL EDITION: The genetic optimization of life — and the lives it may leave behind.

For the last few years, one of my favorite parts of Tangle has been hiring young writers and giving them an opportunity to work with us. Over the years we’ve had a number of “interns” (nobody really does intern work here) who have made major contributions to our newsletter, gone on to work for awesome publications, or left and returned years later to work for us. Last year, our managing editor Ari Weitzman decided to formalize this experience with a six-month fellowship program. We got dozens of applications, and ended up hiring Hunter Casperson — a sharp writer and recent journalism master’s graduate from California. Hunter immediately earned a reputation for thoughtful edits, speaking her mind, and stepping up to do whatever was asked of her. This month, her six months at Tangle are coming to a close. In the past, it’s been simply tradition that we’ve let Tangle interns write a capstone piece — this year, with the process formalized, we baked it into the initial schedule of working with Hunter. The prompt is simple: You can pick any topic you want to cover, and we’ll work on a well researched, long-form piece with you that we’ll publish as a Friday edition. Today, we are sharing Hunter’s capstone piece. It is, in my estimation, perfectly Tangle. It covers a controversial topic. It’s personal. It is deeply researched. It is thoughtfully written. And most importantly, it offers fair treatment of a complicated issue. I hope you enjoy it, and I want to thank Hunter for all her contributions to Tangle — I’m excited to see what she does next! Best, Isaac Saul You can read today's podcast ⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ Ad-free podcasts are here! Many listeners have been asking for an ad-free version of this podcast that they could subscribe to — and we finally launched it . You can go to ReadTangle.com to sign up! You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall. This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul & Hunter Casperson and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Hunter Casperson, Kendall White, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.