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| ▲ | ericwood 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Why stop there? Clearly any kind of medical intervention is against nature’s wisdom. | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Why would anyone need to straw-man your position? You've just laid out the classic case for eugenics. | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Because people take what I consider a reasonable statement (“It is immoral to pass on certain genes.”) and conflate it with an evil implementation (“We should enforce this via violence.”) It’s what I call “Germany syndrome”, where past abuses (e.g. nazism) lead to an overreaction (“let’s not elect a remotely right-wing party for decades.”) | | |
| ▲ | akerl_ 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm not sure what I find more fascinating: That it doesn't seem noteworthy to you that your best comparison is invoke Godwin's law on yourself. Or the idea that the reason that the right wing suffered must have been because people were mistaking them for Nazis. | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 4 days ago | parent [-] | | This is such a bad-faith reading man, I don’t know why you’re even bothering to respond. You can’t just say “well that’s eugenics” and act like that’s a sufficient reason to dismiss it. If you think it’s okay to eg have kids knowing they’ll have huntingtons or some other nasty way to die, why? I’m not arguing that the state should forcibly implement this, which is usually the common (and legitimate) argument against this line of thinking. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Right, you're just making the moral case on which other people would build coercion, either formally through public policy interventions or socially. You yourself though are just interested in the ideas. | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 3 days ago | parent [-] | | You can make a case for coercing people to do any good thing or not do any bad. We shouldn't approach this by denying right and wrong but rather by discussing what the state can or cannot do. Socially is another story which I'd be fine with or even encourage. Saying I'm "just interested in ideas" is a hell of a way to dismiss thinking about what's right and wrong for me personally to do, for others to do. Not all thought has to involve the damn government as the actor. | | |
| ▲ | akerl_ 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I think what you’re missing is that advocating for social pressure towards eugenics is also alarming. I’m not limited to only being concerned about advocates of government-mandated eugenics policies. Social efforts to encourage eugenics, like the idea that people with medical conditions or people with “low IQ” should not reproduce, are also concerning, much the same way that societal racism or sexism is concerning even when it occurs without government involvement. | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Why are they concerning? I don’t see any benefit to societal sexism or racism; the same isn’t true of eugenics. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 3 days ago | parent [-] | | If it helps, since the early 1800s one of the primary intellectual drivers of racism has been eugenics. | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I’d say it’s better to class “scientific racism” as a motivator for eugenics, but again, why does the abuse of an idea mean the idea is bad? I agree it’s not something that should or could be safely implemented by the state. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 3 days ago | parent [-] | | You have the causality reversed. Either way: it is the idea itself that is bad. You demonstrate it kind of beautifully on this thread. Is there moral complexity to conceiving children with a significant likelihood of inheriting Huntington's? Absolutely that's a complex question. But even you, doing your best to put the idea in its best light, couldn't keep yourself from sliding into questioning whether the "sickly" and the "low IQ" should exist. This idea chews up people's humanity. You've had an opportunity to play around with it harmlessly on this thread. Now recognize it for what it is and stomp it to death under the heel of your shoes, taking some satisfaction as you do. |
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| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | akerl_ 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Those who are sickly or low iq or carry certain congenital conditions (if they are aware of them) definitely shouldn’t [reproduce]. > People love to straw man this obvious issue, saying, “oh so you support forced sterilization?” No, I didn’t say that. So what are you saying? | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I am saying precisely what I said: it is wrong to do. Not all that which is legal is moral, nor is all that which is illegal immoral. The state is an enforcer of the social contract and a monopolist of violence, not an arbiter of morality. I believe people do plenty of immoral things but do not necessarily believe we ought to use that state violence to prevent or punish them. Adultery, for instance, is one of the more contemptible choices one can make, and yet goes unpunished by the state. Some jurisdictions don’t even consider it strongly in divorce proceedings. | | |
| ▲ | akerl_ 4 days ago | parent [-] | | So you don’t want eugenics to be legally required, but you think participating in collective eugenics is the morally right thing for everybody to do? | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Precisely right, yes. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 3 days ago | parent [-] | | This is indistinguishable from what most eugenicists were saying at the turn of the 20th century. I hear you loud and clear: you don't want to forcibly sterilize anybody. OK, good on you for that. | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 3 days ago | parent [-] | | This isn't an argument against anything I said. You can't say "some people in the past also said this." That tells nobody anything about whether it's right or wrong. | | |
| ▲ | pvg 3 days ago | parent [-] | | That's because it's one of the things that we know, empirically, turned out so wrong, it's one of the wrongest things humanity has ever wronged. Most people don't need to be told that, for this obvious reason. | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 3 days ago | parent [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | akerl_ 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | This isn’t a slippery slope. Your starting point, where it’s a good idea to socially pressure people to not reproduce based on your assessment of what traits are sufficiently undesirable, is already bad. We don’t have to slide anywhere. | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 3 days ago | parent [-] | | “My assessment” is kind of uncharitable. Again I’d take huntingtons as an easy example of something that consigns one’s children to an early and horrible death. Not to mention in a society where we often bear the cost of medical care, social pressures are inevitable and more justified. Why do you think it’s bad? This is a strong opinion weakly held for me; I recognize it’s controversial but fail to see why it’s not an obvious choice. |
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| ▲ | pvg 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is quite literally a slippery slope argument No it isn't. If you want to do Nazi apologia, go right ahead but at least have the integrity to own it. They started with a bit of 'what if the state decides which life is worth living' and quickly ended up with industrial extermination factories which had the only purpose of murdering people they deemed unworthy. There have been, of course, many other atrocities throughout human history with many victims. But none were the moral equivalent - it's not a numberwang olymplics. Arguing otherwise is morally blind and intellectually chickenshit. You want to say Hitler was a little bit right - then just say that. | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I have no particular love for the nazis. As I’ve said multiple times, I am against the state deciding this, which means I am against the top of the slide down. I disagree; I think some were morally worse. The transatlantic slave trade, the holodomor, leopold’s congo, and the khmer rouge all rank worse, as far as I’m concerned. Not in terms of numbers, in terms of horror factor. Refusing to engage because “oh the nazis said something” is intellectually chickenshit. The core difference is some things which are reprehensible when backed by state violence are fine when chosen individually or encouraged by social pressures. | | |
| ▲ | akerl_ 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Just to hit this one more time as directly as I possibly can: > The core difference is some things which are reprehensible when backed by state violence are fine when chosen individually or encouraged by social pressures. No. It is both reprehensible for the state to tell people they're too sicky or unintelligent to procreate and for society to pressure people not to procreate based on society's assessment of how sickly or unintelligent they are. We can set aside all the prior examples of when people have previously believed this, or tried to implement this in various ways, all of which were reprehensible. Even if this was day 0 and we were starting fresh, the idea of society pressuring the sickly or unintelligent not to procreate would be reprehensible. | |
| ▲ | tptacek 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is a thread that began with opprobrium over "sickly" people being allowed into the gene pool and is now ending with a dissection of whether the Nazis really were as bad as they're made out to be. For the record: my assessment of Nazism doesn't much change even if you switch its mode of governance from fascism to classical liberalism. Nazism wasn't bad simply because it didn't adhere to the non-aggression principle. | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I am a general fan of the non-aggression principle and nowhere did I say nazism was good. I was responding to the guy who claimed my position was inextricably linked to the worst thing ever. I also didn’t say sickly people shouldn’t be “allowed” into the gene pool, I said it’s usually wrong for them to have biological children | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I have no idea who you are, no personal connection to this thread, no real reason to commit myself to any side of this argument; this is all happening basically in the abstract to me. It is in that spirit that I tell you, as candidly as I can, that your position is in fact inextricably linked to the worst thing ever. I believe you when you say that you don't believe it is and that you fervently don't want it to be. But that doesn't change the morality of a discussion about whether it is good or bad that certain people (those clearing your moral filter) exist. |
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| ▲ | ninkendo 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It sucks that GP’s comment is flagged dead… it’s an opinion a lot of people seem to disagree with but IMO it’s not against the site’s guidelines or anything. It could be an interesting conversation if folks are willing to debate in a curious way. My personal take is that it’s a moral imperative for humans to eventually edit obviously-bad disorders out of the gene pool going forward, through CRISPR-style editing or just selecting sperm/eggs to exclude the known bad genes. We have to come up with a good definition of “disorder” that people can be happy with, but I don’t think it’s an impossible task to do so. I think it’s a moral imperative precisely because we’re so good at medical intervention that we’re able to keep people with a variety of conditions and disorders alive and even procreating, when “naturally” they wouldn’t have been able to do so without advanced medicine. Because of this, such disorders become more and more common in the gene pool because they’re no longer being effectively selected against. We ought to prevent the human race from being utterly dependent on advanced medicine for survival, is my point. And IMO the way to do that, is to make sure that if we’re using advanced medicine to allow people with a genetic disorder to live a healthy life and procreate, we ought to do the gene editing necessary to make sure the disorder itself is not passed on to the next generation. (Basically address the “root cause” as well as the symptoms.) | | |
| ▲ | encom 4 days ago | parent [-] | | >It sucks that GP’s comment is flagged dead… Why is "flagged" considered a super downvote? I flag spam, and that's pretty much it. | | |
| ▲ | _bin_ 4 days ago | parent [-] | | That’s how it’s sometimes used, or because someone dislikes it so much they don’t want anyone to be able to engage with it. |
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| ▲ | A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Do I seem to argue against it? It is intended to ask a simple question: "At what point does it get silly?" | | |
| ▲ | renewiltord 4 days ago | parent [-] | | The answer is obviously "it doesn't". We're in an eternal losing war against entropy but this is a battle we're winning. | | |
| ▲ | A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Interesting, are you stating there is no scenario under which you would consider those types of body modifications not quite acceptable? I am curious about your individual line. You state there isn't one, but I am relatively certain one exists. | | |
| ▲ | renewiltord 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It’s Sorites. I don’t have a line because the cost to identify it is much greater than the cost to move forward. When we cross it or approach a positive feedback loop, we will take a step back and re-evaluate. | |
| ▲ | owebmaster 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Interesting, are you stating there is no scenario under which you would consider those types of body modifications not quite acceptable? Yes! If some body modifications make someone more efficient at killing, raping, stealing, committing crimes we should all be against it. If it is just because it annoys some people's sense of nature, no. | | |
| ▲ | A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Hmm, would you be in favor of gene editing technology if it allowed enhanced intelligence treatments to killers, rapists and thieves? | | |
| ▲ | ben_w 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Once we can control fully developed adult brains, at the level you're suggesting for this thought experiment, that power will force us to reconsider criminality as a mental health issue — even if the personality disorders leading to criminality happen to be harder to fix in adults than boosting of IQ. But note how I phrased that: Being able to rewrite the DNA of killers etc. to make them smarter, in the absence of influencing developed adult brains, only makes their descendants (in the strictly genetic sense of the word) smarter. At some point in this century, and probably sooner rather than later, we're going to be able to cost-effectively write arbitrary human-length genomes. Simply printing a custom genome will likely happen well before it becomes possible to safely rewrite live adult genomes, which is itself a different task from understanding, controlling, or safely re-activating in adults, the developmental pathways that lead to healthy growth within a brain for things as vague as "lust", "empathy", or "intelligence". But to your previous question, "At what point does it get silly?": at some point, we're all made of atoms, and if we had a level of control over matter as in fictional narratives like The Culture or Star Trek, then (modulo weight changes) all your atoms can be rearranged to turn you into a copy of me, or anyone else on the planet, or any other species including fully customised not-found-in-nature varieties. I'm reminded of a cover of a Monty Python song: > Oh, I'm a lycanthrope and I'm okay, I romp all night and I sleep all day. - http://web.archive.org/web/20080509070613/http://www.swampfo... Silly is fine :) |
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| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | basisword 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >> Nature, in its wisdom chose that that couple should not be able to have offspring. I think it’s arrogant to claim you know what “nature” chose, if indeed it “chose” anything at all. | | |
| ▲ | A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Heh. I do not believe so for one reason and one reason only. It is not exactly secret what it chooses on a rather daily basis. That as a race we have managed to remove ourselves somewhat from the grip of that choice is a testament to our arrogance. In other words, I do not think you are accurate. I know, because I see things in front of me. I am uncertain on how you know what you know. |
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| ▲ | Ken_At_EM 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | +10 Points. Awful take. | | |
| ▲ | Teever 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | [flagged] | |
| ▲ | A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | How is it awful? There is already too many humans on this planet and here we are spending resources on bodies that would obviously not even begin to exist save for technology. If anything, I am likely more reasonable here than the emotional gasps of 'ooh science'. Is it an interesting solved challenge? Sure. Is it something that is going to further remove us from reality.. also yes. | | |
| ▲ | renewiltord 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | We should have twice as many people on this planet. Add we're going to do it, and we're going to feed them, and they're going to come up with ideas and do things. It's going to be even more awesome than it already is | | |
| ▲ | A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I applaud your optimism and I do not think you are anywhere close to being right. | | |
| ▲ | renewiltord 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Naturally. But it won’t matter. The human extinctionists are a self solving problem. I don’t worry that much about them except in making sure we don’t construct individual vetos. |
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| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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