Eugenics

[StayHungry]

but touche i guess

[foal]

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I'll never tire of emphasizing a small, terse fact: 0.2% of the population, 25% of the Nobel Prizes. Anyone care to explain why this isn't worth at least looking into?

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I'm all for positive eugenics such cloning, etc. I'm just opposed to negative eugenics such as advocated by the OP.

[Subfallen]

StayHungry -

You obviously don't know your Nietzsche---he was rabidly philo-Semitic. When madness broke down his last inhibitions, he wrote in his final note to Overbeck: "Just now am having all anti-Semites shot." Or in Beyond Good and Evil: "[the Jews] are beyond any doubt the strongest, toughest, and purest race that now lives in Europe." etc. etc. etc.

[StayHungry]

Subfallen -

I don't know why you brought up his "philo-semitic" views, I mentioned dionysus and his writings of a dancing god...

[madnak]

But in a conversation about the Ashkenazi.

[tame_deuces]

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2.) It is illogical. It is based on assumptions that are at best misguided.

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Care to explain?

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3.) It is impractical. Because enforcing it means totalitarity, which has a tendency to both fail spectacularly and be very expensive.

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If that is how you define totalitarity, we already live in one. We are definitely not free to do anything we want.


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4.) It has severe implications. Eugenics in the past has led to some fairly bad political practices and some pretty stupid beliefs.

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I think these would be quite easy to avoid if some kind of international eugenics program were started and planned well. The goals are so long term, that spending a lot of time in discussion and planning would be insignificant.

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5.) It is biased. Eugenics is usually not a result of some sound scientific insight but more a confirmation of some naive prejudice.

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I don't claim to know much about genetics, please explain why the prejudices are naive.

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6.) It doesn't solve the problem it pretends to solve. You still end up with someone deciding who gets to reproduce based on partially subjective criteria.

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The criteria could be chosen democratically, and then let a computer program count the people that are good enough based on the criteria. It would not necessarily need to be told to people whether they are considered good enough or not.

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7.) It makes hazy assumptions. Eugenics assumes that the answer to a rather complex problem lies in only one place.

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I really don't know why you think eugenics would assume that.

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8.) It isn't realistic. Eugenics even if we assumed it had no flaws would only work in an completely idealistic setting.

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Why? If you mean that religious fanatics (and their followers) would oppose, I think we should not give up. I mean, seriously, Christianity is such a joke, and a bad one, why would we let it ruin the future of humanity (and other animals) without a good try?

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It is most ways like the 'benevolent dictator' idea.

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In what ways (in addition to the bias thing)?

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I'll refrain from digressing into politics since this is SMP, so I won't touch on the political issues. Besides we would just rail into the same ol' boring A vs S debate again.

Here:

There are no objective working means of figuring out which human traits are undesirable or desirable.

Eugenics isn't science, it is only bias sometimes dressed up as science.

[lucksack]

I think the vast majority would agree about some desirable traits.

It's defined as social philosophy, not science in wikipedia.

[dragonystic]

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that we would try to increase the amount of positive traits (empathy, intelligence, happiness, beauty...)

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i haven't read through the responses, so someone may have already mentioned this...

but the problem is everyone has a different idea on what are 'positive traits' and when it comes down to it, the people in power will be the ones to decide. an awful scenario if there ever was one.

[tarheeljks]

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7.) It makes hazy assumptions. Eugenics assumes that the answer to a rather complex problem lies in only one place.

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I really don't know why you think eugenics would assume that.

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b/c it isolates 1 factor (genetics) as the answer

edit: also, i still don't see why you think the moral issues are not worth discussing.

[lucksack]

dragonystic,

how about any trait having to be very widely accepted to be valued?

tarhee,

how does it isolate it? And I don't think moral issues are worth discussing in the same thread (at least not before it seems that the practical problems would be solvable).