Poll: Do you support Eugenics? (Poll)

[orangeban]

I absolutely support it, without a doubt. Have for many many years, as the IRC folks can attest to. Modern Medicine and science has destroyed natural selection for humanity. We let the sick and damaged people breed, because it's "humane" to do so. As soon as anyone suggests an alternative, they get beaten over the head by the hammer of society and pushed off to the side. I say, if we have the ability to improve the human genome, then we should do it. If something is beneficial, encourage the spread of it through the gene pool. If something is detrimental, weed it out of the gene pool. We do it to our crops, our food, our pets, so why not do it to ourselves? I'm not recommending extermination, mind, but selective breeding, absolutely.

Dude, you can't destroy natural selection. If anything, you win at natural selection. We are perfectly suited to our enviroment, natural selection cannot improve it for us. This is why alligators have barely evolved, they are already perfectly suited.

And can we get a definition of "sick and damaged people"? I'm only curious because as I've said before (either on this thread or the other eugenics thread that was kicking around) my mother had a mental illness and I'm curious if I should of been born.

 

[AmosMoses]

selective gene therapy; THAT is eugenics.

The OP defined eugenics for the purpose of this thread. You can personally choose to define Eugenics how you want, but that's not what this poll is about. I could define Eugenics as a global party where everyone gets cake and party hats and vote "yes I support Eugenics".

Also, you can choose to say that negative association shouldn't rule it out. But the fact is that it DOES have those associations, the same as Hitler's moustache is associated with Hitler and not Chaplain and the swastika is associated with National Socialism and not Hinduism.

If all the things Hitler took from us, I think Eugenics is something he can keep.

 

[oktalist]

Not only is it morally wrong, it wouldn't even achieve what it sets out to do, as diversity is key to the genetic health of a population.

It is worth pointing out that eugenics was a popular school of thought before Hitler authorized forced sterilization and 'euthanasia'.

The same could be said of fascism and anti-semitism. The popularity of an idea tells us nothing about its morality or its utility.

If you think eugenics is something different from what other people think it is, then you're going to have to tell us what you think it is. Gene therapy is gene therapy, not eugenics.

When eugenics was being developed as a "science", it wasn't even known for sure how inherited traits were encoded. It fell out of fashion in the 1930s and it was of course 1953 by the time the structure of DNA started to become understood.

Genes that cause undesirable effects in some circumstances probably have desirable effects in others, otherwise natural selection would have got rid of them already. Evolution is far from perfect, but we need to be pretty fucking sure we haven't overlooked some horrible side-effect of whatever your proposal is before we go fiddling with the genes of a whole population.

Is it not eugenics for a government to simply encourage better genetic specimens to have children, especially with aforementioned free gene therapies? If you think that that is not eugenics, then fair enough, but I consider it to be.

In that case we practise eugenics every day, simply by choosing who to have sex with.

 

[Phlakes]

I support the idea, but once you get into controlling breeding that's too far. Gene therapy on unborn children would probably be the best, something Mass Effect brought up a bit, so there would always be a choice and no one would have to be controlled. Although that might bring up an argument for the children and how their lives would change knowing they were manipulated like that. I can see a lot of bullying in that, from both sides, lots of "you're a lab test" and "I'm genetically better than you".

I don't support it, because it is immoral, illogical, and any human who thinks he can make humanity better through breeding, is an idiot.

Yeah, controlled breeding is immoral, definitely, but it's highly logical because it would make humanity better. That's the entire principle. If it hypothetically did happen (which it shouldn't, I really don't support it), diseases and disabilities would be kept out of the gene pool, making sure the next generation doesn't inherit those flaws, obviously giving them less flaws which makes them better. It should never happen, but it's as logical as vaccinations or really any kind of health care.

 

[Torrasque]

I don't support it, because it is immoral, illogical, and any human who thinks he can make humanity better through breeding, is an idiot.

 

[orangeban]

I support the idea, but once you get into controlling breeding that's too far. Gene therapy on unborn children would probably be the best, something Mass Effect brought up a bit, so there would always be a choice and no one would have to be controlled. Although that might bring up an argument for the children and how their lives would change knowing they were manipulated like that. I can see a lot of bullying in that, from both sides, lots of "you're a lab test" and "I'm genetically better than you".

Look bigger than bullying, imagine the rift in society caused by those with gene therapy and those without. Obviously the non-gene therapied would be the under dogs, seeing as how the ones with gene therapy would be perfect and all, but is it right to divide society that way? To make it that some poeple will just be born inferior? Also, Gattaca, Gattaca, Gattaca.

 

[Yorkshire_matt]

Despite being a biologist, I fail to see how mankind can do something better than nature, who has been doing the job fairly well I would think for the last however many million years.

Nature has done well but its a repeat of the same that has happened with agriculture over the past couple of thousand years, desirable characteristics have been repeatedly selected whilst winnowing out lesser traits.

It could be used to try and forward mankind but not as an entire species, in a way its happening already with the way social class systems still operate

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Im quite certain this is already on the way, the conditioning is already obviously here.. Not tomorrow, not the day after that.. But if people all around the world dont start rebelling against corrupt leaders, it will be introduced again someday, propably modified to our world as it is then, but the idea is still in there..

People tend to forget that history for the most parts repeat itself.. And that makes me a saad panda..

People are rebelling against corrupt leaders. Libya, Egypt, that other one and the other one after that (I forget their names). The sad thing is I think the US and the UK don't have very trustworthy leaders. I don't believe that the governments care for the people, rather the people who are going to vote for them: their respective parties. Labour will target the working class and fuck it up, the Conservatives will look at privatisation and taking as much money away from social polices so that there are more business ventures to be had and the Lib Dems will sit and agree with whoever is willing to have a referendum on the voting system. The US is the same but with different political parties and more right wing ideology, each party caters to the whim of the people who will vote for them. Like you said, history repeats itself and soon this democracy will collapse because it's ineffective and we're heading into crisis[footnote]Yes, I know this crisis isn't as bad as previous crises but, for many people, things aren't getting better and the most important thing is in shortage still: jobs.[/footnote]

But, I've gone way off topic there. I don't think we'll be seeing eugenics any time soon, however if the right person comes across at the right time then I will easily be proven wrong.

 

[acosn]

Load of bollocks if you ask me.
Where does it end?
First they screen out genetic disorders then they will move onto other things. People will be told who can and can't have a child.
It's fucking with the natural order of life.
Hitler also wanted to create the perfect "race". This is the same concept minus the genocide but it's "alright" because this is science?
It can fuck right off.

At the time Hitler WAS backed up by science... *cough*

One of the most common misconceptions ever perpetrated about WW2 was that Hitler was operating based off of what science told him.

He drew his own beliefs which were batshit insane and basically threw what science suggested out the window. He believed in creationism, and compared belief in evolution to treason. Of course, most people pointing fingers wouldn't have bothered to actually read what Hitler wrote, not that I blame them.

Eugenics is a crock, and I'm obligated as someone studying anthropology to say so. It's another product of bigotive scientists looking for hard science to demonstrate the superiority of species and traits and in this case, apply it.

In any case in this age it'd probably be a smaller effort to engineer gene therapy routines that simply remove genetic defects from the human body, rather than trying to enforce breeding restrictions. Historically prohibitions just don't work.

 

[orangeban]

Im quite certain this is already on the way, the conditioning is already obviously here.. Not tomorrow, not the day after that.. But if people all around the world dont start rebelling against corrupt leaders, it will be introduced again someday, propably modified to our world as it is then, but the idea is still in there..

People tend to forget that history for the most parts repeat itself.. And that makes me a saad panda..

People are rebelling against corrupt leaders. Libya, Egypt, that other one and the other one after that (I forget their names). The sad thing is I think the US and the UK don't have very trustworthy leaders. I don't believe that the governments care for the people, rather the people who are going to vote for them: their respective parties. Labour will target the working class and fuck it up, the Conservatives will look at privatisation and taking as much money away from social polices so that there are more business ventures to be had and the Lib Dems will sit and agree with whoever is willing to have a referendum on the voting system. The US is the same but with different political parties and more right wing ideology, each party caters to the whim of the people who will vote for them. Like you said, history repeats itself and soon this democracy will collapse because it's ineffective and we're heading into crisis[footnote]Yes, I know this crisis isn't as bad as previous crises but, for many people, things aren't getting better and the most important thing is in shortage still: jobs.[/footnote]

But, I've gone way off topic there. I don't think we'll be seeing eugenics any time soon, however if the right person comes across at the right time then I will easily be proven wrong.

But here in Scotland we have the SNP (Scottish National Party)! Who's big want I don't like... but luckily neither does anyone else and everything else they want is pretty sensible (and please don't be confused folks, the SNP are no at all like the BNP, they are in fact very liberal and very socialist.)

 

[similar.squirrel]

Insofar that I think that people carrying the genes [expressed or latent] of certain serious hereditary disorders ought to be encouraged not to pass them on, yes. But only in the case of genes that have been irrefutably proven to cause serious physical complications if expressed.

But I wouldn't support any legislation enforcing this, because the whole thing is an extremely slippery slope that we should not go near. The best method [in general, for fixing the world..] is to be more conscientious about having children. You shouldn't bring another person into this world if doing so will mean that they're at considerably risk of leading an unpleasant life and possibly causing their children to do so as well.

 

[Asita]

@orangeban: Oh, you saw Gattaca too? Very interesting movie.


Honestly, I've always thought the base concept of Eugenics was short-sighted. Interesting notion? Maybe. But it's flawed at its core. We might choose what we consider desireable traits, however we have little way of knowing how this selection will work out in the future. A given 'undesireable' trait can become a deciding survival factor in a new environment, or a given 'desireable' trait can become a hinderence in another environment (For instance: working eyes in an environment with no light are useless and only serve as an energy drain and a comparatively easily infected area). Additionally, even an apparently useless genetic trait can become a stepping stone to an environmental advantage (see Lenski's E.Coli experiment, where one mutation played off of an older (apparently ineffective) mutation, an interaction which allowed the bacteria culture to process citrate and gain a tremendous advantage in their environment).

It is because of these unforseeable consequences that I never did like the concept. Almost any criteria we'd choose would be almost arbitrary and as likely as not to blow up in our faces in the long run. Even assuming perfect knowledge (which we lack) of how any given mutation would act in concert with the rest of the genetic code, the concept would only really work if we had similarly perfect control of the environment as well.

 

[Hagi]

I see the knee-jerk reaction from the people who fallow the "if the nazis did it......." line of thought is well and alive in this thread.

Do you know what the nazis also did? They created the first anti-smoking campaign in history. Fanta was also invented in Nazi Germany. "If the nazis did it......" is not a valid argument.

Eugenics are not evil, they can merely be used to to bad things just like literally every other science ever made.

I also don't consider the right to have children a basic right, if the parent suffers from something really bad that would pass on to it's children then said person should not be allowed to have children. Period.

The same thing also goes for people who are very unlikely to be able to actually care for their children were they ever to have any.

Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says hi:

Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

It's not evil because the Nazis did it. It's evil because it violates our human rights.

Breeding has nothing to do with marriage, people fucked before they got married, and they always have.

not to mention the fact that Eugenics is extremely difficult to do when people dont want to participate.

Founding a family has everything to do with breeding....

 

[orangeban]

@orangeban: Oh, you saw Gattaca too? Very interesting movie.


Honestly, I've always thought the base concept of Eugenics was short-sighted. Interesting notion? Maybe. But it's flawed at its core. We might choose what we consider desireable traits, however we have little way of knowing how this selection will work out in the future. A given 'undesireable' trait can become a deciding survival factor in a new environment, or a given 'desireable' trait can become a hinderence in another environment (For instance: working eyes in an environment with no light are useless and only serve as an energy drain and a comparatively easily infected area). Additionally, even an apparently useless genetic trait can become a stepping stone to an environmental advantage (see Lenski's E.Coli experiment, where one mutation played off of an older (apparently ineffective) mutation, an interaction which allowed the bacteria culture to process citrate and gain a tremendous advantage in their environment).

It is because of these unforseeable consequences that I never did like the concept. Almost any criteria we'd choose would be almost arbitrary and as likely as not to blow up in our faces in the long run. Even assuming perfect knowledge (which we lack) of how any given mutation would act in concert with the rest of the genetic code, the concept would only really work if we had similarly perfect control of the environment as well.

Yeah, good answer, much like my thoughts, interesting take. Though tip, you should quote people, it makes it more obvious to the person you are replying to.

 

[UnknownGunslinger]

[HEADING=3]What is Eugenics?[/HEADING]
Eugenics: The science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race.

Selective breeding or Eugenics is a flawed method that at best results in superficial cosmetic traits, and at worst in debilitating genetic diseases.
It wasn't even founded on proper science.
An actual way of improving mankind will soon be viable with the advent of microbiological mutagens, and selective gene enforcers.
This will be the way societies will become smarter, stronger, faster, more resilient to diseases, more creative or more conforming - the possibilities will be virtually endless and will depend solely on the societies using the technologies.
On the other hand Eugenics is, well Racist!!!

 

[uzo]

Human rights are relative, not absolute. What we consider 'rights' have been considered 'privileges' by damned near every society since the birth of civilisation. We live in a time of remarkable peace and prosperity, utterly unknown to the tens-of-thousands of generations that came before us.

That aside, presuming society does not collapse in the next 15 years, genetic manipulation is only a matter of time. Whether you choose to call that eugenics-by-default is your prerogative. Selective breeding would be particularly difficult to enforce upon humanity. The desire to procreate is the driving force of all life, and you can't just say 'sorry, not you' without creating a brutally restrictive society - a society so restrictive that I'd venture to say it would stifle the 'Super Men' born of these eugenics experiments, whatever the superiority of their genes. For hundreds of thousands of years, there have been countless da Vincis, Archimedes', Beethovens, and Einsteins; the simple fact is that these potential geniuses have been crushed into obscurity by a) repressive societies discouraging progress b)Death due to disease or conflict c) lack of education.

The birth of a genius is not that uncommon - if you looked at the average IQ of the Escapists here I'm sure you'd see an upper-end skew - however, I am likewise certain that none of us are going to be da Vinci, Beethoven, or Archimedes, due to the complex play of society and development that gives someone the motivation and the 'divine spark' to USE their full potential.

Consider the population of the world at present - we should be DROWNING in astounding genius if it was purely based on genetics. It ain't. And hence, we ain't. Your genes are important, but your upbringing is what truly makes you. There is no gene for 'enlightened'.

EDIT: A simple example. Ask yourself this question: Are those more successful in society than me genetically superior? Do you think Bill Gates is a bundle of superman genes, passed down by fate to make him better than the rest of us? Or howsabout George Bush (*snort*)? Is he of better stock? Genetically superior? Hell no, I'm sure most of the people here are of just as good breeding as that moron - and if not, better breeding. You can see clearly now that genetics has piss all to do with success in today's society.

Now, if we lived in a post-apocalyptic wasteland a la Fallout 3 --> this is where your genes will count. For example - I'm a nut job survivalist, rugged yet educated. However, if the shit really did hit the fan, I'm an evolutionary dead-end. I'm short sighted. Game over. Some dip shit moron with a club foot, diabetes and a congenital heart defect - who has good eyesight - could out-survive me quite easily once I lose my glasses.

 

[GrinningManiac]

Rule of Thumb

Anything supported, started, encouraged or included in/by the Nazi Government of the Third Reich will not, EVER, be considered fair game for discussion OR respectable opinions for the next HUNDRED YEARS at least.

 

[Pandaman1911]

Absolutely. I think that eugenics should be enforced. I mean, hell, it works for nature, why shouldn't we make it work for us?

So, if you were in a family less fortunate than others.. Dad is a drunk, mom is a junkie and your sister is a slut.. But YOU are the white sheep among the black, so you choose to do something good for yourself and get yourself and education and a nice little family..

With eugenics You CANT have a nice little family because your family is "bad" and therefore YOU are "bad" and shouldnt be allowed to bring any children into the world..

You could be the next Messiah but your genes are fucked so you are fucked..

And dont say it works in nature.. Nothing in nature resembles eugenics..

Wrong on all counts, I'm afraid. If I don't have any negative traits, such as the alcoholism, or the trait that makes me easily addicted, if I'm an unspoiled gene pool of nothing but good things- then I'd be allowed to reproduce, because I have all the good genes, obviously. They don't check my parents, they check ME, because only half of each of my progenitor's genes are mine. And from your description of the situation, I must have gotten the good ones.

Also, yes, there is such a thing as eugenics in nature, it's called "natural selection". Only the fittest of creatures survive to reproduce, passing on superior genetic material. We're just replacing "the unfit to breed get eaten by predators" with "the unfit to breed are forbidden by the government from reproducing". And it will cut down on overpopulation, too. Less people breeding, fewer babies.

Now its even more annoying that i cant find that old Us pro-eugenics movie, because it is EXACTLY as i say.. If you are from a bad family, it doesnt really matter how good a person you are.. you have the "BAD GENES" from your parents, therefore you are bad..

I know it sounds fucking insane, but thats how it was and i really think it would still be like that if brought back..

And i still cant see how you can compare "animals eating other animals" with "people getting forced sterilised by The Man because he says they are inferior"
But i do like that you compare the government with predators, with that you are spot-on..

Plus, "overpopulation" isnt a problem and never has been.. Food distribution is..

No, no, no, man. You're not hearing me. They don't check your parents' genes, that doesn't mean jack, they check YOUR genes, because if half my father's genes are shit, and half my mother's genes are shit, and I get the two halves of them that AREN'T shit, I'm perfectly fine with warped and imperfect parents.

Each gamete cell, sperm for the male, egg for the female, contains exactly a half set of chromosomes, which varies from cell to cell. So from imperfect parents, a perfect spermatozoon could meet with a perfect ovum and produce a perfect child. So if you're cracking down on this sort of thing, you check the potential breeders, not their family history.

And animals that are weaker being picked off is a sort of more natural way of preventing the infirm from breeding. Imagine if we had a creature that flew at a set speed, and ate people. All the fit people would be able to run away, survive, have sex, and reproduce, carrying their "fit" genes, whereas the infit, disabled, and whatnot would get eaten... and NOT be able to reproduce, because they'd be dead.

And come on, the government isn't "evil", kid, that's the biggest and widest-used load by all the Greenpeace tie-dye types.

 

[Hagi]

I see the knee-jerk reaction from the people who fallow the "if the nazis did it......." line of thought is well and alive in this thread.

Do you know what the nazis also did? They created the first anti-smoking campaign in history. Fanta was also invented in Nazi Germany. "If the nazis did it......" is not a valid argument.

Eugenics are not evil, they can merely be used to to bad things just like literally every other science ever made.

I also don't consider the right to have children a basic right, if the parent suffers from something really bad that would pass on to it's children then said person should not be allowed to have children. Period.

The same thing also goes for people who are very unlikely to be able to actually care for their children were they ever to have any.

Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says hi:

Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

It's not evil because the Nazis did it. It's evil because it violates our human rights.

Breeding has nothing to do with marriage, people fucked before they got married, and they always have.

not to mention the fact that Eugenics is extremely difficult to do when people dont want to participate.

Founding a family has everything to do with breeding....

You

Don't

Need

To

Be

Married

To

Have

Children.

Plenty of people are unmarried parents, this is nothing strange.

It doesn't require you to be married....

It says all men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion have the right to marry and found a family.

That means:

All men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion have the right to marry.

AND

All men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion have the right to found a family.

It's basic English.

Just like when I say that you have the right to vote and drink at 18 doesn't mean that you can only vote while drinking and only drink while voting.

 

[Ensiferum]

I absolutely do not support eugenics. Even on a purely scientific level the idea is faulty because there's always a chance that a child can be born with defects regardless of how "pure" their genetic history is. Aside from that it's wrong to begin with because castrating people with defects is inhumane, though I should think that's obvious.