The Case for Eugenics in a Nutshell

[Abaddon]

But they would be just some little cult. I'm not talking millions of people here.

They could not chose to take over the world and turn all the rest of us into their slaves!

 

[Earthling]

As for your other fanatasy nonsense drivel. As much fun as it was to read.. it has nothing to do with this. As earthling noted. You make the leap that a group of more intellegent people would decide to be evil?

What? I don't think I said anything that vaguely backs up your point in an argument against Mise. I mentioned I'm generally opposed to eugenics, and that "optional" eugenics really isn't so because it would lead to huge societal pressures and conflict anyway. If anything, I'm still wondering what purpose necroing this thread has served.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

I'm totally against it, but I accidentally voted for the second option.

 

[kulade]

I'm a proponent of ougenics. Id est, we should kill everyone.

 

[civ_king]

You should know roughly how smart your closest friends and family are...

You're being disingenuous and evasive. It's a simple question. And if I had to answer, the answer would be that the people who made the most impact on my life had widely varying IQs. Some were highly intelligent, some were not. And, most importantly, what made the biggest impact on my life wasn't their intelligence, it was their capacity for love, their compassion, their friendship and their support.

Nothing to do with intelligence.

More than your parents? I'd rather have my parents around me than 1,000 Louis Pasteurs...


And you're fine with not making the cut?

Your parents make you happier by the virtue of them being... your parents (not necessarily for all but...) this would make sure you have smarter parents

 

[ParkCungHee]

Your parents make you happier by the virtue of them being... your parents (not necessarily for all but...) this would make sure you have smarter parents

Not true. Clearly parents have to do something better then simply provide genetic material to make children happy.

 

[Mise]

But they would be just some little cult. I'm not talking millions of people here.

They could not chose to take over the world and turn all the rest of us into their slaves!

If you're only talking about "some little cult", then it wouldn't make a difference to your stated goal of "technological advancement" anyway...

If there were enough of these eugenicists to actually make a difference to society, there would be enough of them to make excluding the rest of the population a rational, worthwhile endeavour (tribes, political parties, religions, etc etc all start with just a few hundred people afterall) -- meaning the rest of society won't benefit anyway.

And lets not forget, these are eugenicists. In order for them to think that eugenics is worthwhile, they must believe that other, less intelligent people aren't worth as much as they are. Why bother creating things for people you believe to be worthless?

Are you seeing now why people immediately associate eugenics with Nazism and ethnic cleansing now...? Or do I have to spell it out for you even more?

 

[Abaddon]

I never missed the association.

I'm saying you don't have to make that association.

 

[aneeshm]

Absolute crap. Tabula Rasa.

I won't comment on the other points, but insofar as this one is concerned, you are simply wrong.

 

[Flying Pig]

We could have eugenics in that people with heriditary diseases are banned from breeding, but not nazi-style forced marriages and killing the disabled.

 

[Abaddon]

Is short sightedness a hereditory disease?

 

[Flying Pig]

Good point. Maybe only if they would be incapable of acting as a normal citizen because of said disease?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Good point. Maybe only if they would be incapable of acting as a normal citizen because of said disease?

So now intelligence is a hereditary disease?

 

[dirtyparrot]

Is short sightedness a hereditory disease?

Can you tell me how many different genes code for eye sight? Even if you could, what are you going to do with all those people who are carriers of poor eye sight allele yet have normal eyesight (and there will many of those)? The problem with your basic premise is that you have no clue of how complex genetics is, making you believe that you can magically select individuals based on some complex attribute such as intelligence, which is sure to involve a large number of genes.

Borrow a entry level genetics textbook, read it (and understand it), and then come back. Your idea of eugenics would only be feasible with things like Huntington's disease or other similar type of diseases (for which the defect in question is known and which is coded with 1 or few genes). And I can tell you that people are already getting screened and get counseled for those type of things. No offense, but you don't even grasp the basics of the subject (genetics not eugenics), which leads to very faulty premises and arguments that don't make a whole lot of sense.

 

[Gabryel Karolin]

A pyschopath, or just relentlessly utilitarian.

Utilitarian to the point of psychopathy, maybe.

And if value is subjective, there is certainly no use in saying that the intelligent are more valuable.

Well, but among people you have no emotional and sentimental bond with a person with high intelligence is more likely to contribute to the advancement of your well-being than a ******** person.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Well, but among people you have no emotional and sentimental bond with a person with high intelligence is more likely to contribute to the advancement of your well-being than a ******** person.

Undoubtedly; yet if I used the amount they contribute to the advancement of my well-being as a reflection of their objective value, and a basis for determining their opportunities and future, what does that make me?

 

[Gabryel Karolin]

Undoubtedly; yet if I used the amount they contribute to the advancement of my well-being as a reflection of their objective value, and a basis for determining their opportunities and future, what does that make me?

Relentlessly utilitarian?

And there is no objective value, only what you and others give.

I'm absolutely against a eugenics programme btw, perhaps I should have made that clear earlier. I'm not arguing for that. I'm trying to argue that all humans are not of equal value to you as long as 'value' means anything tangible, and there is no-one but us to assign value to other persons. Perhaps if you believe in a god he could value everyone equally.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I do believe in a God who values everyone equally, although that is not my argument here. My point is that it is dangerous for society to make value judgments on these lines for its members, as any such judgment is subjective.

 

[Gabryel Karolin]

I do believe in a God who values everyone equally, although that is not my argument here. My point is that it is dangerous for society to make value judgments on these lines for its members, as any such judgment is subjective.

Yet its already institutionalized, university places and academic grants are not handed out by rolling dice.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Yet its already institutionalized, university places and academic grants are not handed out by rolling dice.

That's not what I meant. There is a difference between giving something to someone who has shown that they will make good use of it, and denying someone something on the grounds that they are not helping society enough.