Discussion Thoughts on eugenics?

[chaoschuckler]

I don't think eugenics is entirely bad. In theory, it sounds beneficial for healthier genes to be passed on. Honestly, I probably wouldn't even exist if eugenics had been practiced, and that is better for me too.
Of course, one generation might suffer because of it, but the idea is that future generations could suffer less. I don't know. What do you think? Am I being naive or ignorant? Feel free to educate me.

 

[itsgone2]

Agree. And I certainly wouldn't have existed and that would have been good.

 

[squiddedoutt]

You need -1 more posts to view this content

 

[bratishka]

Aldous Huxley wrote a neat book about this, it is depressing as hell though so i cannot say i reccomend it here.

 

[Dejected 55]

The problem is it has much more potential to be abused than to be used correctly. Like, most people wouldn't complain if it were used to cure a disease that might be terminal or correct a birth defect... but where do you draw the line?

Some people born with birth-defects have been inspiration for other medical advances and technological advances that have been useful for other things... and without those people being born, many of those developments might never have happened. "Necessity is the mother of invention" or so the saying goes.

We also have a lot of art (paintings, music, poetry, etc.) coming from people with various mental health issues that we likely wouldn't have ever gotten otherwise.

It's just a slippery slope when you start trying to parse what things you correct vs what things you don't.

 

[Hvergelmir]

I've given this some thought as well. Like most ideas, there are fundamentally good intents underpinning it.

I think the problem is that we don't know what traits to select for. By favoring one trait, you neglect another.
Tall, seemingly healthy people, can easily become people with back problems.
Lean people with high metabolism, can easily be casualties of a food shortage.
People who have a very strong immune system, can easily become victims of autoimmune diseases.
Brave, confident people, can easily become reckless.

There's a balance to most things, and there's often non-obvious dimensions to it.

If you look into selective animal breeding, you'll often see a decline. Comparing contemporary dog breeds to 100 year old pictures (you can google that), is both interesting and depressing. Most breeds have some decline, and seeing them side by side you'll see that many contemporary breeds are best described as deformed.

The strongest breeds with the least health problems, and longest lifespans are mostly mixed breeds, or very old breeds shaped by their environment.

There's also the question about how to do eugenics, practically.

Congratulations, you've been selected for the national breeding program.
You are hereby directed to appear before the designated authority on the date and time specified for reproduction.
Failure to appear or otherwise comply with this notice may result in:
- Additional administrative fees
- Monetary penalties
- Further enforcement action as permitted under governing regulations.

Some people born with birth-defects have been inspiration for other medical advances and technological advances that have been useful for other things... and without those people being born, many of those developments might never have happened. "Necessity is the mother of invention" or so the saying goes.

This is true, but it's a poor argument. The Dachau hypothermia experiments also yielded very valuable scientific data, which I think we ought to preserve and use. It's however not a defense for exposing people to similar suffering in the future.

We also have a lot of art (paintings, music, poetry, etc.) coming from people with various mental health issues that we likely wouldn't have ever gotten otherwise.

This is the same argument, but worse.
I get what you mean, but in context it becomes a defense for allowing future suffering - some people must suffer and die horrendously, for the rest of us to have art. It's just not a good tradeoff.

 

[Dejected 55]

This is true, but it's a poor argument. The Dachau hypothermia experiments also yielded very valuable scientific data, which I think we ought to preserve and use. It's however not a defense for exposing people to similar suffering in the future.

This is the same argument, but worse.
I get what you mean, but in context it becomes a defense for allowing future suffering - some people must suffer and die horrendously, for the rest of us to have art. It's just not a good tradeoff.

I stand by my arguments, though, and note your information was good as well. The thing is, "allowing" suffering to some extent is not at all the same as causing it.

When we find medicines or alcohol or smoking causes birth defects, it makes perfect sense to discourage those things during pregnancies, as we have done. Those are man-made situations that we learned about and could prevent those kinds of defects by not poisoning ourselves.

What about something like Downs Syndrome? There has been a lot of concern, for example, that this is exactly the kind of thing that would be "corrected" if we could in the womb. There are people in favor of aborting babies now rather than have such a child when they know they will be born with Downs. But then you look at happy people with Downs Syndrome and you look at the happiness they brought to their families... and it becomes a lot harder to argue those people need to be "eliminated" as defective people. We also learn things about humanity through our compassion and things developed to help people live better lives.

The flip side of all this too becomes... okay, we decide birth defects and "flaws" are to be eliminated in the womb. We don't know where that ends... but what about people already here who lose a leg or an arm or go blind or any number of things through accidents or disease? I mean, if we've already decided those during pregnancy need to be corrected or eliminated... then why would we take care of people with those problems once they are here? Might as well euthanize them and be done with it. Certainly cheaper to just kill anyone who becomes less than perfect, and that would include most older people once they can no longer function and work in society too, right?

It becomes really easy to move the line once you establish that there is a line. Having people in the world with particular problems allows us to learn compassion for them (I hope) and ways to cure or treat them and give them good lives. This is what we should be doing. I get human nature is to declare "fuck everyone but me getting mine!" but we need to change that or eventually we are going the way of the dinosaur.

I feel like selective genetic manipulation for "perfection" is just too dangerous for us to have at our service. We are guaranteed to abuse it as we do most things.

 

[WrathfulGloom32]

Only a stupid gene would argue for eugenics over the extinction of human life. I don't believe in it nor in "stupid or smart" genes, it's people with superiority complexes asking for it who are brainwashed by the media that makes them think they are more special than they really are.

Apes on a rock thinking they are the special ones and wanting their genetic material spread on? sounds very animalistic and extremely DUMB to me.

 

[hurts2b]

Eugenics necessarily decreases genetic diversity and so doesn't reliably accomplish it's goal.

 

[Dejected 55]

Yeah, it's kind of weird... all that Nazi "master race" stuff would end up being only possible from a lot of incestuous in-breeding that would, as we know, ruin people in a hurry.

True "genetic superiority" seems to come from increased diversity, which is a mix of the good and the bad.

Randomly... I've often argued that autistic people are less "defective" than "normal" people. Autistic people, to me, feel like an overclocked CPU in a computer. They can do some amazing things faster and better than anyone else, but it comes at the cost of sacrificing other aspects. Overclock your CPU and you get performance boost but risk overheating and burning something up.

I think "normal" people essentially have natural restrictors that prevent us from "overheating" and burning out... but it does limit our cognitive abilities. And whether you believe this is from intelligent design or natural selection, I think the evolution/design of people is such that we can't perform at our theoretical maximums without making huge sacrifices somewhere... so, arguably, the "normal" people are the ones born with a defect that just happens to be a beneficial defect that slows us down and makes us run more reliably... while the autistic person is born without that defect and suffers for it.

I say this to give another perspective on what you might perceive as a "defect" that needs correcting via genetic manipulation.