| 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. |
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| ▲ | 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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