Is modern eugenics wrong? - Part 1 of 6

[eugenicsdebate]

It's usually best to keep the government out of people's personal reproductive choices.

[AForkSpoon]

If I had a serious medical condition that has a high chance of passing it down I would want to find a way to not pass it down. If i have to not have children so be it. The effect of natural selection is gone with modern medicine. If natural selection is gone we need artificial selection to take its place. Plain and simple as that. We can continue like we are for hundreds of years, eventually modern medicine will not be able to keep up.

[thedisbatcher]

"little people" aka midgets SHOULD have children, a race of dwarves would be awesome

[Adeikov]

EVOLVE THE HUMAN RACE!!!

[CloningAficionado]

I remain unpersuaded by the main argument presented: that eugenics is harmful, because it's morally equivalent to exerting too much pressure on children to succeed. You can love your children unconditionally, yet out of that love want your children to have a good life, and thus apply pressure for them to have ambition to make a good life for themselves. It sounds as though eugenics could help children to, at the least, pass the HS classes to get into college and later to graduate from college.

[FloridaRaider]

If you don't advocate some form of survival of the fittest, how else are you going to control overpopulation?  Keep stewing over a viable solution while the world's population growths exponentially, the world's resources disappear, animals go extinct, humans quality of life goes down the toilet, and the list goes on and on.

[TrinketStarFire]

Eugenics erodes at the base of Unconditional Love.  well said.

[FloridaRaider]

@TrinketStarFire "Eugenics erodes at the base of Unconditional Love. " what the hell ever. You live in a fantasy world. In that world all the lions and tigers would be vegetarians. And that's just not reality.

[TrinketStarFire]

Troubling ? Lol I call that down right scarey. This is probably why God didnt want them having kids. But being all knowing, im sure God knew they would do the sperm donor things. Very selfish of them. Every birth is the roll of the dice, how about a dwarf ? That's a part of the roll of the dice. Takes all the fun out of it. Oo we want a child just ilke us. Till that child murders them. Because he's going to know exactly who to blame ! lol

[HAYDZREEF]

whats wrong with natural selection the is bullshit trying to play god.

[kennerudo]

Only men should worry about the emergence of consumer eugenics, in the future women/couples will 'shop around' to find the perfect father to their child. There will of course be donors more popular than others. Which woman wants to raise Joe Blogg's child when they can raise Mr Perfect's? Logically it's the smartest choice when looking giving their child the best possible start in life. Only the crumbling morals of our society stop it from becoming the norm today.

[deceiver123m]

@kennerudo boooooo eugenicist bastard, ull never reach your emperial dreams

[simplybornhuman]

The Japanese DID practice eugenics, and to some degree, Ireland did too.

Other nations which practiced eugenics:

Israel,Sweeden, USA, China, Canada, Britan...

Jews still practice eugenics today, they won't let hitler get them down. google: Victor Centers for Jewish Genetic Diseases

has been much progress too, ie Tay sachs went from 1/25 jews to almost none.

only 1 illness out of thousands, and already millions of lives, and tens of billions of dollars are saved each year.

[riversonthemoon]

Thanks for the info!

[harricoles]

... as for people who cant have children i would prefer they found a way to cope having a baby that isn't "their blood" like adopting if they can override their pride maybe they could do this .... intelligence isn't every thing what about experience senses feelings etc its a small part of a person .... I notice that sometimes certain people when they see others make a grammar mistake or/and spelling mistake they seem to treat that person like they are less worthy or evil examples like that.

[riversonthemoon]

""intelligent" world with a world that isn't sadistic cruel and selfish"

I think on the whole, intelligence has served us well. We constantly have to contend with the law of unintended consequences when we come up with new technology, but I don't think higher intelligence is in any way correlated to sadistic, cruel and selfish, which seems to be what you are implying.

"prefer they found a way to cope having a baby that isn't "their blood"

I think they would prefer to have their own baby.

[riversonthemoon]

"intelligence isn't every thing"

I agree. But it sure is valuable.

:-)

[harricoles]

I'm reading these comments and you seem to equate a more "intelligent" world with a world that isn't sadistic cruel and selfish etc .... but lets look at the clever mentally of today nanotechnology chemical/biological/nuclear weapons, sophisticated surveillance, genetic engineering, cloning, gm food robot soldiers etc these people seem to want total enslavement even if they get destroyed themselves.

[ooglebydoogleby]

you just keep them comming every one a corcker. i just love your video's i wish we could make some video's together discussing the issues.

[riversonthemoon]

Glad you liked the video. These issues are really great things to bring up at dinner. It's not as emotive as abortion or God's existence, but there is diversity in opinion which makes for great conversation.

If you ever use MSN, let me know and I'll get online. We can discuss it there and talk about how we could make a video.

[ooglebydoogleby]

i think its certainly hugely debatable as to the relative merits of eugenics as the practice exists curently. i will sort out the msn thing but ime very busy right know so give me some time. nice.

[deceiver123m]

@riversonthemoon burn in hell

[loturos]

Why is eugenics still be shown as the idea that some people will be allowed to have children while others wont? We have genetic engineering now, even if "less-fit" parents have children, there is the possibility of enhancing the DNA of an unborn child.

[riversonthemoon]

It had a bad name due to the only techniques that were available at the time. Objections to it were quite easy to formulate. The right of everyone to procreate is as old as humanity. (Not all primates enjoy this right by the way). Taking away that right is something that most people's moral intuition tells them is terribly wrong.

But consumer-driven eugenics is an entirely new ball game. The old objections don't apply, but perhaps some new ones do.

[Itslvle]

I would think that many of those who object the "superchild" idea do so because they don't see anything wrong with being normal. They don't hear 'let's make people better', they hear 'let's get rid of the weak'.

[riversonthemoon]

I think the problem comes in when we universalize that behaviour. If many people design their children with special abilities, then competition in life will cause an 'arms race' in improvements. This will displace or disenfranchise those who don't, or can't afford to design their children.

I guess that's what happens in upbringing through better schooling etc., but do we want to extend that to pre-conception? If we don't, can it be stopped? (cont)

[riversonthemoon]

Dissenters may find themselves forced to so as not to disadvantage their children.

Another problem I have with it is that it could exacerbate our prejudices, and contract our diversity.

I'm in 2 minds about it because I would want to give my child the best start in life possible, but I'm concerned that H.G. Well's vision in 'The Time Machine' may come true.

[Itslvle]

I doubt that it would come to that Well's scenario (I've only read the plot summary mind you). It's an interesting thought though. I would think that if we ever come to a point where have nothing left to discover or overcome, we would be knowledgeable enough to still keep ourselves intelligent, strong etc.

Besides, as long as we are curious and have enough time, were moving ever closer to that point. Curiosity must eventually go out the window no matter what.

[Itslvle]

What I see as a more serious threat is that if we wouldn't have enough variation in our immune system, a sudden epidemic might become disastrous.

[riversonthemoon]

Yeah, the H.G. Wells scenario is a bit of hyperbole, but these kinds of improvements, if not made available to all of humanity would certainly accentuate the different classes.

'a sudden epidemic might become disastrous'

That is another concern that wasn't addressed in the talk. Hopefully, our deeper understanding of genetics will also give us the know how to deal with microbe threats like that. We should certainly proceed cautiously. Catastrophes are rarely seen coming.

[Itslvle]

I considered writing about the rich-vs-poor thing as well. I think that it's bound to happen unless goverments step in.

I'm not sure if I'm against it, since it would eventually lead to lead to an improved humanity, assuming we mostly want features that are actually useful.

People would be more unequal of course, but I think we could also be able to improve everyone's living conditions faster by having more intelligence around.

[riversonthemoon]

'I think we could also be able to improve everyone's living conditions faster by having more intelligence around'

Have you seen the movie 'Idiocracy'?

It's set 500 years into the future, where human intelligence is declining because smart people are being out-bred by morons, and there is no selective pressure for intelligence.

I suppose genetic engineering could change that possible future.

I am all for it if it can be made available to everyone in equal measure. I'm awed by the potential.

[Itslvle]

Yes, I've seen Idiocracy. It's one of my favourite movies. The thing that frightens me is that it seems very possible that it could become our future.

You mentioned schooling. At some points schools were only for the elite, but eventually more and more were given the opportunity to attend. I imagine it'll be the same for designer babies. Right now it's expensive, but the prices will go down as it becomes more common. At some point it could be done on a nationwide scale by governments.

[Itslvle]

I'm just wondering which route is more effective; private designer babies or government mandated ones. I'm not a big fan of capitalism, but it's pretty effective compared to socialism. I'd like things to be fair, but it's not always a good option in the long run.

[riversonthemoon]

Well, I'm for government-subsidized health care and I guess this would be an extension of that.

I am a little uneasy about it being taken to an extreme. Imagine if a child is pre-ordained to be an athlete, or a musician (someone with 16 fingers could play awesome piano) or, heaven forbid, a soldier. Should there be laws setting limits on the degree or nature of the improvement?

[Itslvle]

Oh yes, there should be limits, though I don't think it would become a very slippery slope. We often tend to think that if we allow a little slack then things will soon get completely out of hand.

It's also interesting that even now kids don't have any say if they end up with a burning desire to become a pianist for example, but when you start designing those traits it suddenly becomes an issue.

[Itslvle]

But what if governments would provide these improvements? We would basically have to wait quite a while longer, but at some point we would all be getting "new and improved" babies.

[riversonthemoon]

It would be in the interests of governments to provide such a service. A healthier and more productive populace would save everyone money in the long run.