If you’re a fan of the idea, you’re either a nazi or really really ignorant/naive/misinformed.
So I’ll assume the latter and try to briefly explain to you why it’s so bad: people bad, authoritarianism inevitable, results in ‘oops you’re not “human” because you lack/have X, you must die’
Humanity, just like nature, thrives with diversity. Eugenics starts with “getting rid of nasty diseases” but it’s always 1 bad classification of “disease” away from genocide.
Ok then lets say you could prevent your son from have cancer in his teens or heart disease in his twenties or addictition in his forties or alzheimers or dementia or any other type of disease it’s not you conforming to society like changing looks or anything. But if done correctly tell me you would not want your son to get the best start from birth?
Can you elaborate on “done correctly”?
Scientifically probably not. But lets say in the next 5 years we can pinpoint diseases that were terminal. Counting out the government or anyone else besides loved ones or at least just the parents?
Would you trust your government to fairly and equitably decide who gets such treatments?
The scientific, societal, and economic aspects of eugenics are inextricable.
No not the government because it is dumb as hell but if parents had the option to have a gurantee their child will outlive them then it should be up to them and them alone.
WTF kind of question is this?
Is it a thing? OK, yeah? A concept of an idea, maybe.
Is it anything approaching moral, ethical or humane? No.
Nooo.
Nope.
Nuh-uh.Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Yeah it’s one of those things that in theory it could make sense, it could be. However since we are humans, there does not exist any way that would not be morally abhorrent to some group of people. There’s zero way that in doing it this way wouldn’t destroy x group of people. And that’s why it can never be done. Eugenics is just too close to genocide.
It’s an uncomfortable question, but a question that appears to be made in good faith and OP shouldn’t be getting downvoted. I do not see the benefit of “burying” this question and the many well written answers in this thread show that.
No but I’m all-in on phrenology
No. Read dystopian novels like Brave New World and you’ll understand why.
Or maybe just a german history book
Where do you get these questions?
Don’t approve, because we can’t study it without injecting adjectives or racism,
It’s raising it’s ugly head again because AI is finding new “correlations”.
Yea. It exists and is a terrible idea. Like it’s a creepy ideology that rears its head in too many places.
Selective breeding of humans is not and never was a good idea. It comes with forced sterilisation, marriage bans, stigmatisation of characteristics contributing to naturally occuring diversity, supremacist thinking and fascist pseudo-scientific tendencies.
I believe that it exists as a concept. That’s what you’re asking, right?
I believe in the right hands that some types of eugenics can do a world of good. I know hitler and japanese did it and it got an ugly label. But what about if we could tell a parent this child will have no diseases his entire life at the stage of birth? Kind of like Gataca
All other concerns aside, I think if we start controlling genes we’ll end up writing our genes into a corner.
I just think of south Korean beauty standards and how I have a hard time differentiating all the kpop artists due to the homogeneous beauty standard being universally applied.
Eugenics at face value, lol.
Until some folks can’t afford to cleanse their genes and are denied the right to have children for “safety reasons” and suddenly, fertility and genetics are under state control.
Gattaca was taking a lot of license for the sake of the movie. A lot of diseases are multifactorial and while genes might play a role, they’re not the only factor and often not even the main factor. The movie ignored things like epigenetics, early life exposures, lifestyle, age, sex, and just plain variance that are all factors that can play into chronic diseases.
That being said, allowing parents to make decisions based on genetic testing isn’t itself eugenics. Eugenics is a top-level idea revolving around the idea of improving the quality of human genetics as a whole. And that requires an institutional judgement of what are good quality genes and bad quality genes, which necessitates us saying some people are better quality than others and opens up the door to racism/homophobia/transphobia/ableism/etc. Eugenics is always bad, while personal medical decisions based on genetics can be reasonable.
Assuming your honesty and good faith on asking this question, the real treasure on our gene pool is it’s diversity. Eugenics would, by definition, reduce it. You could assume that it’s a low price to pay for health, longevity, strength, intelligence, beauty and so on, but it’s not that simple. Even some diseases (
outor the possibility to develop it) can be beneficial under the right circonstances, e.g. sickle cell anemia can improve resistance to malaria.It would be great to be able to prevent most diseases before it happens and treat it if it happens (for free, in a universal health care system), but eliminate the genes would be a very bad idea, a healthy specie needs it’s diversity to avoid extinction, and we sometimes feel like we are above that risk, but we are not that special.
Used to be a bigger fan, but for the same reason I became more libertarian I’m not so sure it’s a practical philosophy. The biggest issue is that as soon as someone decides what is or isn’t good genetics you get a lot of bias. The majority of the human experience is social anyways.
Mean reversion.
I just wanted to say that you shouldn’t be getting downvoted. You’ve asked a question that isn’t editorialised, appears to made in good faith and asks the opinions of others.
You’ve prompted some very good answers here.
It’s “Lemmings”
Pedant
We have entire communities for unpopular opinions and shitposting, yet you chose to post here on ML?
It depends… Are we speaking about keeping only tall blonde kids? Or aborting a fetus with 95% Down syndrome? Angelman’s? Some other even worse? Stopping a possibility fatal pregnancy? Where do you put the line?
Good point well made. In the UK Down’s syndrome is now commonly screened for with an option for the parents to abort and there’s very few people that see a problem with that, is that eugenics?
Most people would agree “I only want a child with blonde hair” is too far, but as for preventing suffering, as you say, it’s a tough line to draw.
