Eugenics plays with people who were not given any choice. It treats people as objects. This makes it wrong in itself.
And the consequences, as I've argued elsewhere, are awful. A Brave New World style of dystopia.
Compulsory education plays with people who were not given any choice. This makes it wrong in itself.
Genetic selection is a technology. It is not right or wrong in itself. It is the goals and methods that may make it right or wrong.
The goal is no different than what people have been doing forever. In mate selection, we are attempting to influence the genetic characteristics of our own children. Sometimes unconsciously, as in when you pick a woman because she's hot. Sometimes it's consciously, as in a short man who only looks for women who are taller than he is because he wants his children to be taller. There's nothing immoral about either.
With eugenics, it is only the method that is different until you start trying to insert non-human genes into people, and the children you get from it will just be children, arguably healthier and happier and more productive members of society.
I'm not worried about losing important traits from the gene pool. We will always have the poor and if they have genetic advantages that were selected out of the formerly rich and powerful, so be it.
They are both INSANELY intelligent, awith families they care for, and they both contribute and contributed a LOT to society both on and off the sauce.
What's to say they would ever have cleaned up their act and done good things had they not had prior bad experiences?
You're saying it's better to have been an alcoholic and gotten control of your addiction than to never have been an alcoholic. BOTTOMS UP!
One uncle is both alcoholic and predisposed to violence. He is now one of the most rational, calm, funny guys I've met. Now, they also hire him to be an attack dog at work for quality control (don't get on his bad side) but he uses his skills for something effective, rather than lashing out now.
And that being a pushy bastard is great for quality control? Well maybe. But I think a person who's not genetically hyperaggressive can do the job.
If he'd been born a "docile" baby instead, he'd be just another mook without the hindisight of experience. He probably wouldn't be so competitive and wouldn't have gone into the Navy SEALS, and never would have gotten his career going through that.
This is actually the only thing you've mentioned that being hyperaggressive might help with. But again, who's to say that it's necessary. We know ordinary people can be trained to be effective soldiers. I'm not really sure we need a special class of abnormal people to do our country's dirty work.
I'm telling you, bad traits can have good side effects. Bad experiences are what teach us things, and they can also drive us to accomplish a lot in our lives.
And I'm telling you that you have no valid data. I think it's premature to start screening people now before we fully understand the full effect of these genes. But it's likely that there are some genetic variants that are all bad and that we will be able to identify some of these within the next decade, and our children and society at large will be better off the fewer people are born with them.
As for the putative value of bad experiences, yes, it can help form good character, but it never makes up for the problem of having had bad character to begin with.
There's no need to do experimentation on humans. All we have to do is observe the behavior of people with and without certain gene variants and analyze whether there are any correlated positive trends.
Yeah, and you know what? Correlation does not imply that these traits can have positive effects.
Just one potent counterexample: what if the impulses from gene(s) which predispose to alcoholism or addiction in general ALSO are what get harnessed by our greatest minds in science, technology, engineering, and medicine?
Still waiting for the example. All you seem to have is speculation.
You do understand that they mine the cheapest, easiest to get at gas first, just like any other resource. The cost of production goes up steadily until it crosses the cost of something else. Then production slows or stops, always long before the resource is fully depleted.
Do you know that he was genetically predisposed to alcoholism and violence?
Do you know that his history of alcoholism makes him a better person? Suppose he had had a brother who was just like him in all respects except that he had the normal variant of the gene that predisposes him to alcoholism. Would that brother necessarily be less accomplished, less kind or less loved than your uncle?
Everyone is capable of violence. Is he unusually prone to violence for genetic reasons or could it have something to do with his experiences and upbringing? There's a wide spectrum of potential for violence in people and it's clearly influenced by environment as well as genetics. But some people with abnormal genes may be too broken to function normally in society. It sounds like your uncle is not that broken.
Nobody is saying that every genetic variant must be policed. What's being said is that there may be (probably are) some genes that are just plain bad news, that have only a downside for the people who have them and those whose lives are affected by them. Obviously the genes would have to be extensively studied before they should be targeted for anti-selection.
by choosing a mate which we like. Good looks and a compatible character are the biggest factors in choosing a partner with which to reproduce. Consequently, we try to increase these desired traits in our offspring.
The question is only when we start to be open about it and try to influence the genetic composition of our kids more directly,
You mean more efficiently. Good looks is a proxy for reproductive capacity, good health and favorable personality. But what if the reproductive capacity is damaged? No kids for you! What if the apparent good health masks a predisposition to heart disease or cancer? What if the pretty face hides a predisposition to addiction?
While YES, we know a LOT about the human genome, there's still a lot we don't know. Such as WHY some of these diseases and behaviors are in our genetic code in the first place.
Sure we do. Random mutation and inefficient natural selection of uncommon recessives. And some undesirable characteristics are selected for even though they harm society. Imagine a gene that causes men to rape women. The rapist gene could result in the men who have it making more babies, until somebody hangs them.
I'm sure we have barely begun to scratch the surface. There are of course also genes related to intelligence and (therefore also) stupidity. You want stupid kids? There are genes related to religiousity as well.
And that's just mental traits. What if you could select for children genetically more resistant to heart disease, cancer, obesity, bone loss, Alzheimers, auto-immune disorder and insulin-resistance and virtually every other chronic physical disorder? Most people would make that selection if they could.
It wouldn't be just a gift to your children. It would be a gift to every future generation of humanity if we could reduce the occurrence of genes that help cause these disorders.
Nobody is forced at gunpoint to invest in any given business. The same is not true for Government programs. If you don't pay your taxes, sooner or later men with guns will come arrest you. Nice try at a strawman though.
That's the price you pay for living on a country with a government. Not coincidentally, everyplace with a decent standard of living has a very expensive government.
Slashdot Mirror
As population increases it increases our vulnerability to the many causes of crop failures. But improved transportation works the other way.
It's SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE for them to rule that way.
Keep telling yourself that, buddy. Everybody who disagrees must be younger and more ignorant than you are.
1. What President created the US interstate system?
2. What President nationalized the National Guard and sent troops to enforce the desegregation of schools in Little Rock Arkansas?
3. What was the top income tax rate between 1953 and 1960?
4. What was the poverty rate in 1960?
5. Is conservative policy on social spending correlated with an increase or a decrease in poverty rates?
6. Are there LARGER or SMALLER percentage of the population above the retirement age now as opposed to 1963?
7. Get the fuck off my lawn! Answers: 1. Eisenhower; 2. Eisenhower; 3. 91-92%; 4. 22%; 5. increase; 6. Much larger; 7. Get the fuck off my lawn!
Eugenics plays with people who were not given any choice. It treats people as objects. This makes it wrong in itself.
And the consequences, as I've argued elsewhere, are awful. A Brave New World style of dystopia.
Compulsory education plays with people who were not given any choice. This makes it wrong in itself.
Genetic selection is a technology. It is not right or wrong in itself. It is the goals and methods that may make it right or wrong.
The goal is no different than what people have been doing forever. In mate selection, we are attempting to influence the genetic characteristics of our own children. Sometimes unconsciously, as in when you pick a woman because she's hot. Sometimes it's consciously, as in a short man who only looks for women who are taller than he is because he wants his children to be taller. There's nothing immoral about either.
With eugenics, it is only the method that is different until you start trying to insert non-human genes into people, and the children you get from it will just be children, arguably healthier and happier and more productive members of society.
I'm not worried about losing important traits from the gene pool. We will always have the poor and if they have genetic advantages that were selected out of the formerly rich and powerful, so be it.
I don't accept your premise that eugenics is unavoidably evil and equivalent to Nazism.
Historically and prehistorically, it has worked just as I said.
The name for the current Chinese political system is Fascism.
So two of my uncles are alcoholics.
They are both INSANELY intelligent, awith families they care for, and they both contribute and contributed a LOT to society both on and off the sauce.
What's to say they would ever have cleaned up their act and done good things had they not had prior bad experiences?
You're saying it's better to have been an alcoholic and gotten control of your addiction than to never have been an alcoholic. BOTTOMS UP!
One uncle is both alcoholic and predisposed to violence. He is now one of the most rational, calm, funny guys I've met. Now, they also hire him to be an attack dog at work for quality control (don't get on his bad side) but he uses his skills for something effective, rather than lashing out now.
And that being a pushy bastard is great for quality control? Well maybe. But I think a person who's not genetically hyperaggressive can do the job.
If he'd been born a "docile" baby instead, he'd be just another mook without the hindisight of experience. He probably wouldn't be so competitive and wouldn't have gone into the Navy SEALS, and never would have gotten his career going through that.
This is actually the only thing you've mentioned that being hyperaggressive might help with. But again, who's to say that it's necessary. We know ordinary people can be trained to be effective soldiers. I'm not really sure we need a special class of abnormal people to do our country's dirty work.
I'm telling you, bad traits can have good side effects. Bad experiences are what teach us things, and they can also drive us to accomplish a lot in our lives.
And I'm telling you that you have no valid data. I think it's premature to start screening people now before we fully understand the full effect of these genes. But it's likely that there are some genetic variants that are all bad and that we will be able to identify some of these within the next decade, and our children and society at large will be better off the fewer people are born with them.
As for the putative value of bad experiences, yes, it can help form good character, but it never makes up for the problem of having had bad character to begin with.
There's no need to do experimentation on humans. All we have to do is observe the behavior of people with and without certain gene variants and analyze whether there are any correlated positive trends.
Yeah, and you know what? Correlation does not imply that these traits can have positive effects.
Just one potent counterexample: what if the impulses from gene(s) which predispose to alcoholism or addiction in general ALSO are what get harnessed by our greatest minds in science, technology, engineering, and medicine?
Still waiting for the example. All you seem to have is speculation.
You do understand that they mine the cheapest, easiest to get at gas first, just like any other resource. The cost of production goes up steadily until it crosses the cost of something else. Then production slows or stops, always long before the resource is fully depleted.
Liberty University?
following fruit fly genes is not going to to damn you to hell everlasting, for God made that mechanism. pinheads.
Shame, that.
Where's the horse?
Story has nothing to do with Democrats vs. Republicans except to dumbasses like you determined to find a dark cloud in every silver lining.
Right. Because after a while the cheapest gas will be gone and we'll probably be shifting back to coal.
Do you know that he was genetically predisposed to alcoholism and violence?
Do you know that his history of alcoholism makes him a better person? Suppose he had had a brother who was just like him in all respects except that he had the normal variant of the gene that predisposes him to alcoholism. Would that brother necessarily be less accomplished, less kind or less loved than your uncle?
Everyone is capable of violence. Is he unusually prone to violence for genetic reasons or could it have something to do with his experiences and upbringing? There's a wide spectrum of potential for violence in people and it's clearly influenced by environment as well as genetics. But some people with abnormal genes may be too broken to function normally in society. It sounds like your uncle is not that broken.
Nobody is saying that every genetic variant must be policed. What's being said is that there may be (probably are) some genes that are just plain bad news, that have only a downside for the people who have them and those whose lives are affected by them. Obviously the genes would have to be extensively studied before they should be targeted for anti-selection.
The goal is to force Apple into playing nice with cross-licensing. Apple has been trying to do the same to them.
Patents last for 20 years. They can have kids after they're 20.
by choosing a mate which we like. Good looks and a compatible character are the biggest factors in choosing a partner with which to reproduce. Consequently, we try to increase these desired traits in our offspring.
The question is only when we start to be open about it and try to influence the genetic composition of our kids more directly,
You mean more efficiently. Good looks is a proxy for reproductive capacity, good health and favorable personality. But what if the reproductive capacity is damaged? No kids for you! What if the apparent good health masks a predisposition to heart disease or cancer? What if the pretty face hides a predisposition to addiction?
While YES, we know a LOT about the human genome, there's still a lot we don't know. Such as WHY some of these diseases and behaviors are in our genetic code in the first place.
Sure we do. Random mutation and inefficient natural selection of uncommon recessives. And some undesirable characteristics are selected for even though they harm society. Imagine a gene that causes men to rape women. The rapist gene could result in the men who have it making more babies, until somebody hangs them.
We're not talking about making everybody look German. We're talking about making your own kids mentally and physically as healthy as they can be.
I'm sure we have barely begun to scratch the surface. There are of course also genes related to intelligence and (therefore also) stupidity. You want stupid kids? There are genes related to religiousity as well.
And that's just mental traits. What if you could select for children genetically more resistant to heart disease, cancer, obesity, bone loss, Alzheimers, auto-immune disorder and insulin-resistance and virtually every other chronic physical disorder? Most people would make that selection if they could.
It wouldn't be just a gift to your children. It would be a gift to every future generation of humanity if we could reduce the occurrence of genes that help cause these disorders.
No it's not clear and we DON'T have high taxes. They're the lowest percent of GDP they have been for decades.
Nobody is forced at gunpoint to invest in any given business. The same is not true for Government programs. If you don't pay your taxes, sooner or later men with guns will come arrest you. Nice try at a strawman though.
That's the price you pay for living on a country with a government. Not coincidentally, everyplace with a decent standard of living has a very expensive government.
What makes you think these assholes care whom they are hurting?