its another thing to live in a country where an ideological extreme rose to power, and consumed the country (as well as kill many millions in surrounding countries)
in other words, i can completely understand germany's desire to censor naziism. it isn't some hypothetical nasty kind of speech that is forever on the periphery, like westboro baptist church. it is an ideological school of thought that rose to power and consumed the country. in other words, something genuinely threatening
not that modern germany is going to succumb to naziism again. but i can understand why a german finds some types of speech especially noxious and ripe for censorship. to them, its not just some sort of hypothetical concept, its a genuine monster that actually did horrible damage
in other words, we can all agree why westboro baptist church is evil. but we can also agree why westboro church should be allowed free speech. because its all very hypothetical and distantly removed and not threatening
but what if fred phelps rose to power and took over the country and consumed millions of lives in some retarded hate campaign? then its not so hypothetical anymore. then you might want to suppress the form of speech that allowed such a horrible tragedy to befall your country
its very easy to talk abotu this hypothetically. its not so easy when you are talking about an ideology which has drawn blood from your country
1% of those denied the ability to pick their child's sex at the embryo stage will leave a baby in a dumpster
and because of the existence of that 1%, you say we should allow all the rest do a practice which results in skewed sex ratios and thousands of men with miserable loveless lonely lives
this is not a moral argument you are making, this is giving into bullying by a TINY MINORITY of immoral assholes: "i will get what i want the easy way or the hard way, so let me get it the easy way"
no
how about you don't get what you fucking want if what you want is evil?
1% of those denied the right to pick the sex the easy way will pick it the hard way. and the existence of those assholes does not mean you should allow all the rest to be allowed the easy choice
if offered to 100 traditionally-minded couples: "i will sort your embryos and pick the boy for you", 90 of them may choose to do that
if offered to 100 traditionally-minded couples: "you can have a boy if you murder this girl baby bheiond the shed": 2 of them may choose to do that
the existence of that extreme fringe who will do the truly heinous does not excuse a more mild form of an essentially evil practice
and besides, we are talking about traditional practices which are usually limited to the rural and the poor. the rural and the poor are not going to be able to afford expensive sex selection services. there is an economics quesiton in play here. you are presenting the flawed argument that girl babies won't be dumped in the garbage if sex selection were legal
reality: if sex selection were 100% legal, you'd still get babies in the dumpster. because the people who do this are MOSTLY POOR and can't afford this expensive service
but its acceptable for example when someone breaks into your house at night and you don't know their intentions
cannibalism is absolutely evil
but its acceptable if your airplane crashes in the mountains with no food for months except for a bunch of dead bodies lying around in the snow
there are exceptions to everything. picking the sex of a fetus is, yes, absolutely evil. and there are exceptions to that too
so i turn your pronouncement on its head: just because there are extenuating circumstances which make exceptions to everything in this world, does not mean you shouldn't take a forceful stand against something truly vile in the general case
so, i say: picking the sex of a fetus is absolutely evil. that you point out extenuating circumstances and modifications in context of rare situations doesn't change the fact it is still absolutely evil in the general case
and if you don't let me rob you, i will kill you and take your money
based on that fact, you should let me rob you"
that's your argument in a nutshell: because i MIGHT do a worse transgression, you should allow me to do a minor transgression
reality: 1% of those denied the ability to pick their child's sex at the embryo stage will leave a baby in a dumpster
and because of the existence of that 1%, you say we should allow all the rest do a practice which results in skewed sex ratios and thousands of men with miserable loveless lonely lives
this is not a moral argument you are making, this is giving into bullying by a tiny minority of immoral assholes: "i will get what i want the easy way or the hard way, so let me get it the easy way"
no
how about you don't get what you fucking want if what you want is evil?
#2: and... yes, sex selection is evil, period, always
you point to some HYPOTHETICAL future where sex selection is innocent and won't affect sex ratios. two horrible assumptions on your part:
1. that people would select girls and boys equally, as if the biases that could exist that would prefer one sex over the other are magically contradictory. if you consider all of the hypothetical reasons that could be given, they would inevitably skew to girls or boys. how can i be sure of this? because there is no intelligent reason anyone could ever give for doing this, only shallow and selfish reasons. and these whimsical reasons always skew to fashion and trendy thinking. which means the reasons will always occurs in herd like behavior, meaning people will always trend to prefer boys, or girls, in groups, thereby always affecting sex ratios
2. you examine your hypothetical future where the reasons for choosing a boy or a girl are not the traditional reasons going on china. what are their reasons? "girls are cuter". "i always liked boy babies". "girls are a hassle". etc.
in other words, all of the reasons they would list are horribly shallow or otherwise dysfunctional or outright selfish. there is no REASON, emphasis on the concept of "reason", real today, or in a hypothetical future, where preferring a boy over a girl is morally neutral and harmless. all of the reasons are essentially flawed when examined. allow people to pick the sex they want, and all of the idiotic reasons that would naturally exert themselves for doing that would result in skewed ratios. there is no reason that could possibly be given for picking the sex of a fetus that is morally neutral
3. finally, lets make believe there really is a hypothetical good reason to allow someone to pick a girl or a boy. ok, now how do you separate out the good reasons from the bad reasons? you can't. you need to allow people to pick the sex of their child, or not allow them too. if you allow them, all of the bad reasons naturally swamp out the good reasons, and you wind up with skewed sex ratios, since people always act in shallow trends and herdlike behavior. are you going to tell me that people act on their good reasons for doing something like this in a majority?
i'm sorry, you just can't let the whimsical thinking that drive fashion trends drive sex selection. it will always occur in TRENDS (thus there will always be a skew in the sex ratio) and you could never isolate the bad reasons from the good reasons. therefore, you can never let people pick the sex of their babies, because when you do that, sex ratios will drift
you are creating widespread social misery for reasons which are never more than essential whimsy
and if you don't let me rob you, i will kill you and take your money
based on that fact, you should let me rob you"
that's your argument in a nutshell: because i MIGHT do a worse transgression, you should allow me to do a minor transgression
reality: 1% of those denied the ability to pick their child's sex at the embryo stage will leave a baby in a dumpster
and because of the existence of that 1%, you say we should allow all the rest do a practice which results in skewed sex ratios and thousands of men with miserable loveless lonely lives
this is not a moral argument you are making, this is giving into bullying by a tiny minority of immoral assholes: "i will get what i want the easy way or the hard way, so let me get it the easy way"
no
how about you don't get what you fucking want if what you want is evil?
because they have been given lives of happiness, relative to societies with less freedoms and personal protections
in other words, if you want population decline, you give people happy lives, and they naturally choose to have less children
of course there are other ways to population decline: let people have brutal beliefs and practices as you say they should. and so they have lots of children, and these children go on to leave brutal short miserable lives
for some retarded reason, you think this is superior
of course not being allowed to select the embryo means some assholes will go further and kill a baby or abort a later term fetus for retarded reasons
but none of these facts means that sex selection of fetuses should be allowed
i'm just afraid that because you think people will go to further extremes to get rid of female children, that you think sex selection should be allowed
no, the existence of assholes that will go to further extremes to not have female children is no reason to allow sex selection in embryos
some people are desperate when they are broke. some will rob in order to get money. but if you don't let them rob, then some will kill in order to get money. so since some people will go to further extremes, we should allow them lesser transgressions? no: you don't kill or rob, and the fact that some will kill, is no reason to allow someone to rob
if it's wrong, it's wrong. that someone will do something more wrong if you don't let them do something mildly wrong, is no reason to allow them to do something mildly wrong
the effects of skewed sex ratios is real and obvious: thousands of lifetimes of loveless miserable men with no female to love. so no, you do not get to pick the sex of a fetus, regardless of how extreme some people will go in order to do that
male fetuses are preferred over female ones in these traditional cultures. but arguing for the continuation of that practice ON THE BASIS OF EQUALLY IMMORAL CULTURAL PRACTICES is a self-supporting logical fallacy. you are basically saying "we should continue allowing preference for males because the society in question continues to have immoral beliefs concerning females"
the question then becomes: how do you change the whole set of cultural beliefs that recreates each other? you are saying i'm ignoring the cultural context in which the immoral practice is being made. i am saying: who fucking cares about the cultural context. yes i understand WHY it happens. but understanding WHY it happens does not explain why it should be tolerated, it merely embeds the practice deeper in society and makes it more difficult to change. but it does not remove the argument for changing it. see?
the whole point is to destroy and remove the wrong practice, no? then: simply outlaw sex selection of the fetus. of course it will still go on. when footbinding was outlawed, it did not disappear overnight. it takes time to change a culturally ingrained practice, but it does not remove the moral imperative to change it!
the society at large will be forced to reexamine its poor atittude towards women and girls when it is not allowed the immoral outlet of sex selection of fetuses. that it has poor attitudes towards women and girls is no argument to allow the continuation of sex selection of fetuses
if you can make a coherent humanistic argument as to why something should be wrong, then outlaw the traditional cultural practice. that it is diffiult and deeply ingrained does not in any way argue for the acceptance of that practice. if it is wrong, it is wrong. if it is wrong and deeply ingrained, it is still wrong
the topic is selecting a fetus on the basis of sex. i will ignore all the other points you are making about fetal selection because they don't matter either way as to the topic at hand. the topic is: selecting a fetus on the basis of sex. every other point you are talking about on the mechanics of fetal selection is just a completely different issue that doesn't argue for or against sex selection
but on the topic at hand, you are saying
"If the couple says "try a boy first", is this immoral? I would argue that it is morally neutral"
no, it is not morally neutral. it is morally neutral if it has no effects on anyone else. but if you have a society with more boys than girls, you are dooming a bunch of innocent boys ot a miserable liveless life
it is NOT morally neutral to allow people to pick the sex of their fetus. allowing them to do that has obvious and easy to appreciate immoral effects on society: a bunch of miserable loveless men
in a population of a few females and lots of males, the males will tend to murder and kill each other out of simple miserableness and a desire for the females, thus reestablishing the natural balance
but that observation doesn't explain why we shouldn't just tell people they can't pick the sex of their fetus!
that way, you have a natural balance of the sexes WITHOUT ALL THE MURDERING;-P
in other words, there's a better way to restore the balance without lots of evil and miserable lives: good laws and a sound public policy and enforcement
you make the choice for a happy society, and you enforce the laws that create that happy society. or: simply letting the chips fall where they may creates a lot of human suffering
the point is to avoid the suffering right? or do you not care that you are letting a lot of people suffer... for the sake of a retarded archaic cultural custom?
how about we just murder the retarded custom? why is that not a superior approach to allowing a bunch of guys murder each other and in general have miserable lives?
when footbinding was first outlawed, it still went on. it only gradually faded away
of course just outlawing something doesn't make it automatically disappear. it takes time
and some things that are outlawed, simply out of moral zealotry, never go away. like prohibition and alcohol. if you outlawed abortion for example, abortion would still go on. why? because there is a need, and there will always be a need, by women and girls who get pregnant and don't want the child, to try to get rid of that child. so you let abortion be legal, because it will not just fade away. abortion will go on forever, whether legal or illegal
meanwhile, some practices are best described as barbaric cultural artifacts: clitorectomies, foot binding, preferring male children, etc. these do not go on forever. there is no underlying need for them, only cultural tradition. so if you outlaw these practices, they do not continually reassert themselves, like drinking alcohol or having abortions. the desire to drink alcohol will never ever go away. its very easy to make alcohol, and very easy to discover its pleasurable effects. therefore, no matter how much you outlaw it, it will still go on
but the desire to wrap your girl child's feet to keep them tiny? that DOES go away: there is no underlying need that is fulfilled by the activity, only a stupid traditional belief that has no continuing ongoing basic human need or desire that is fulfilled
so you are completely wrong. you exert change in society by making something illegal. that's completely effective, and completely valid way to change a cultural tradition: outlaw it if it is evil and barbaric, and it will genuinely fade away, as it should. AS LONG AS there is no underlying compelling reason to continue the practice, only simple cultural tradition, then the tradition dies, forever
has anyone studied the dynamics of explosions in cheese? you shouldn't just be willy nilly setting off massive explosions in large chunks of cheese until you study all the possible ramifications
i mean it could trigger a horrible cheesequake
even just a little preliminary search by myself on google reveals that a cheesequake has become a large area devoid of human habitation!:
that people abort a fetus at a later stage simply because it is female is a reason to allow it an earlier stage
of course, you are right, some will still do that. but simply because some people will do abort a late stage fetus for a vile reason is no reason to allow it at an ealier stage
in reailty, if a parent can't destroy a fetus at the earlier embryo stage, then that vast majority of them will simple accept the fact they can't pick the sex of their child after all
look at it this way: if you outlaw murder, people will still murder. so because people will still murder, you should make murder legal? poppycock
you make a moral and legal stand about what is right. that some people will still break those rules is no reason to change your sense of what is legal or not
thereby guaranteeing everyone has a chance to find a wife/ husband?
allowing people to skew the ratio, for the sake of retarded beliefs, dooms thousands of men to a miserable sad life
the cost, of forbidding people from having the right to pick the sex of the fetus, is far outweighed by the benefit of a happier society
in your view, allowing people to pick the sex, this creates a miserable society. there is no benefit to your viewpoint that outweighs the horrible costs
as for your worship of the idea of a free market, i think recent economic history repudiates this viewpoint. the problem with the notion of a "free" market, ie, one with no rules, is that some people will inevitably wind up abusing structural defects to game the system and reap rewards that come at the expense of dramatically impoverishing others
in other words, to actually have a free market, you actually need enforcement, you actually need rules, to keep a market truly free. preventing people from pickign the sex of their fetus is just another example of a rule, that you need to enforce, that lets people be truly free. in this case, free from a miserable loveless existence
you have to ask yourself about the cost/ benefit of every freedom you allow. i think i should be free to kill whomever i want. this is a freedom i should never have, because the cost is that someone else must give up their own freedom, their own life
in this world you actually need to limit people, create laws, and enforce them, to maximize freedom. because some things people think they are free to do, are actually activities that impinge upon the freedoms of others
true freedom doesn't exist in a vacuum. every action you do has the potential to limit someone else's freedom. so you in fact need to limit people's freedom, in order to maximize everyone freedoms, when it comes to activities which decrease other people's freedoms
don't confuse sex selection of a fetus with something like abortion or drug use, which are activities which are not outright and straightforwardly wrong
in the case of abortion or drug use, you can make moral arguments for the acceptance of these practices (if not condonement)
but there is no moral argument that can be made for sex selection. go ahead, try to make one where the activity can be viewed as necesary or acceptable according to any sense of humane interest
yes, as you imply, the practice will still go on even if outlawed. this is not a reason to make anything legal, ever
the reason for this is if there is a compelling need for the activity that will always continue to reappear, like abortion, then some sort of legal space must be made for the activity
but sex selection is just a barbaric practice that should end. tkae for example: foot binding. if you outlawed foot binding in the 1800s, it would still go on. but there is no ongoing compelling need to bind women's feet. and the practice dies, as it rightly deserves to. same with sex selection
outlaw, let it die. of crouse some fools will still do it. but unlike abortion or drug use, it is not an activity that will continue in its own right, for its own reasons. its merely a stupid custom that should and will die, and deserves to die
just because someone will go to an extreme to do something wrong is no basis for allowing that activity. law and morality must be made on a valid coherent argument as to why the activity should be tolerated. for abortion and drug use, those arguments can be made. for abhorrent traditional practices like cliteroectomies or sex selection, no coherent moral or legal argument can be made for acceptance of these practices. they should simply be forced to die out
you need to protect it yourself. of course, this makes living your life something of a hassle. yes, privacy has a cost
but i never understood the concept that you would trust the protection of your privacy to a government entity or a corporation. no matter how well-intentioned these entities might even be, doesn't it seem like a logical conflict to you?
if you put it out there, its out there. period, end of story. so if you want privacy DON'T PUT IT OUT THERE. no matter what safeguards, real or imagined, physical or legal, that help you sleep at night, real privacy begins and ends with your own personal behavior
that, unlike all other fields of technological innovation, when one speaks of vaporware, one might actually be talking about some sort of useful hardware that literally is a vapor
Slashdot Mirror
if you outlaw murder, people will still murder
but you still outlaw murder, because its wrong
if you outlaw sex selection, people will still sex select embryos/ fetuses/ babies
but you still outlaw sex selection, because it is wrong
with me so far?
by analogy to YOUR argument, since people still murder even though it is illegal, we should make make murder legal
why do you think you speak for fact and logical deduction? your entire line of reasoning is flawed
in the hypothetical
its another thing to live in a country where an ideological extreme rose to power, and consumed the country (as well as kill many millions in surrounding countries)
in other words, i can completely understand germany's desire to censor naziism. it isn't some hypothetical nasty kind of speech that is forever on the periphery, like westboro baptist church. it is an ideological school of thought that rose to power and consumed the country. in other words, something genuinely threatening
not that modern germany is going to succumb to naziism again. but i can understand why a german finds some types of speech especially noxious and ripe for censorship. to them, its not just some sort of hypothetical concept, its a genuine monster that actually did horrible damage
in other words, we can all agree why westboro baptist church is evil. but we can also agree why westboro church should be allowed free speech. because its all very hypothetical and distantly removed and not threatening
but what if fred phelps rose to power and took over the country and consumed millions of lives in some retarded hate campaign? then its not so hypothetical anymore. then you might want to suppress the form of speech that allowed such a horrible tragedy to befall your country
its very easy to talk abotu this hypothetically. its not so easy when you are talking about an ideology which has drawn blood from your country
how retarded is this asshole? a society where an innocent segment of the population must be murdered in order to get a woman?
and then i noticed that your username is "cro magnon"
so now i see you are just talking common sense for your prehistoric species
carry on ;-)
1% of those denied the ability to pick their child's sex at the embryo stage will leave a baby in a dumpster
and because of the existence of that 1%, you say we should allow all the rest do a practice which results in skewed sex ratios and thousands of men with miserable loveless lonely lives
this is not a moral argument you are making, this is giving into bullying by a TINY MINORITY of immoral assholes: "i will get what i want the easy way or the hard way, so let me get it the easy way"
no
how about you don't get what you fucking want if what you want is evil?
1% of those denied the right to pick the sex the easy way will pick it the hard way. and the existence of those assholes does not mean you should allow all the rest to be allowed the easy choice
if offered to 100 traditionally-minded couples: "i will sort your embryos and pick the boy for you", 90 of them may choose to do that
if offered to 100 traditionally-minded couples: "you can have a boy if you murder this girl baby bheiond the shed": 2 of them may choose to do that
the existence of that extreme fringe who will do the truly heinous does not excuse a more mild form of an essentially evil practice
and besides, we are talking about traditional practices which are usually limited to the rural and the poor. the rural and the poor are not going to be able to afford expensive sex selection services. there is an economics quesiton in play here. you are presenting the flawed argument that girl babies won't be dumped in the garbage if sex selection were legal
reality: if sex selection were 100% legal, you'd still get babies in the dumpster. because the people who do this are MOSTLY POOR and can't afford this expensive service
but its acceptable for example when someone breaks into your house at night and you don't know their intentions
cannibalism is absolutely evil
but its acceptable if your airplane crashes in the mountains with no food for months except for a bunch of dead bodies lying around in the snow
there are exceptions to everything. picking the sex of a fetus is, yes, absolutely evil. and there are exceptions to that too
so i turn your pronouncement on its head: just because there are extenuating circumstances which make exceptions to everything in this world, does not mean you shouldn't take a forceful stand against something truly vile in the general case
so, i say: picking the sex of a fetus is absolutely evil. that you point out extenuating circumstances and modifications in context of rare situations doesn't change the fact it is still absolutely evil in the general case
#1: "i am going to rob you
and if you don't let me rob you, i will kill you and take your money
based on that fact, you should let me rob you"
that's your argument in a nutshell: because i MIGHT do a worse transgression, you should allow me to do a minor transgression
reality: 1% of those denied the ability to pick their child's sex at the embryo stage will leave a baby in a dumpster
and because of the existence of that 1%, you say we should allow all the rest do a practice which results in skewed sex ratios and thousands of men with miserable loveless lonely lives
this is not a moral argument you are making, this is giving into bullying by a tiny minority of immoral assholes: "i will get what i want the easy way or the hard way, so let me get it the easy way"
no
how about you don't get what you fucking want if what you want is evil?
#2: and... yes, sex selection is evil, period, always
you point to some HYPOTHETICAL future where sex selection is innocent and won't affect sex ratios. two horrible assumptions on your part:
1. that people would select girls and boys equally, as if the biases that could exist that would prefer one sex over the other are magically contradictory. if you consider all of the hypothetical reasons that could be given, they would inevitably skew to girls or boys. how can i be sure of this? because there is no intelligent reason anyone could ever give for doing this, only shallow and selfish reasons. and these whimsical reasons always skew to fashion and trendy thinking. which means the reasons will always occurs in herd like behavior, meaning people will always trend to prefer boys, or girls, in groups, thereby always affecting sex ratios
2. you examine your hypothetical future where the reasons for choosing a boy or a girl are not the traditional reasons going on china. what are their reasons? "girls are cuter". "i always liked boy babies". "girls are a hassle". etc.
in other words, all of the reasons they would list are horribly shallow or otherwise dysfunctional or outright selfish. there is no REASON, emphasis on the concept of "reason", real today, or in a hypothetical future, where preferring a boy over a girl is morally neutral and harmless. all of the reasons are essentially flawed when examined. allow people to pick the sex they want, and all of the idiotic reasons that would naturally exert themselves for doing that would result in skewed ratios. there is no reason that could possibly be given for picking the sex of a fetus that is morally neutral
3. finally, lets make believe there really is a hypothetical good reason to allow someone to pick a girl or a boy. ok, now how do you separate out the good reasons from the bad reasons? you can't. you need to allow people to pick the sex of their child, or not allow them too. if you allow them, all of the bad reasons naturally swamp out the good reasons, and you wind up with skewed sex ratios, since people always act in shallow trends and herdlike behavior. are you going to tell me that people act on their good reasons for doing something like this in a majority?
i'm sorry, you just can't let the whimsical thinking that drive fashion trends drive sex selection. it will always occur in TRENDS (thus there will always be a skew in the sex ratio) and you could never isolate the bad reasons from the good reasons. therefore, you can never let people pick the sex of their babies, because when you do that, sex ratios will drift
you are creating widespread social misery for reasons which are never more than essential whimsy
"i am going to rob you
and if you don't let me rob you, i will kill you and take your money
based on that fact, you should let me rob you"
that's your argument in a nutshell: because i MIGHT do a worse transgression, you should allow me to do a minor transgression
reality: 1% of those denied the ability to pick their child's sex at the embryo stage will leave a baby in a dumpster
and because of the existence of that 1%, you say we should allow all the rest do a practice which results in skewed sex ratios and thousands of men with miserable loveless lonely lives
this is not a moral argument you are making, this is giving into bullying by a tiny minority of immoral assholes: "i will get what i want the easy way or the hard way, so let me get it the easy way"
no
how about you don't get what you fucking want if what you want is evil?
because they have been given lives of happiness, relative to societies with less freedoms and personal protections
in other words, if you want population decline, you give people happy lives, and they naturally choose to have less children
of course there are other ways to population decline: let people have brutal beliefs and practices as you say they should. and so they have lots of children, and these children go on to leave brutal short miserable lives
for some retarded reason, you think this is superior
to stop the practice
of course not being allowed to select the embryo means some assholes will go further and kill a baby or abort a later term fetus for retarded reasons
but none of these facts means that sex selection of fetuses should be allowed
i'm just afraid that because you think people will go to further extremes to get rid of female children, that you think sex selection should be allowed
no, the existence of assholes that will go to further extremes to not have female children is no reason to allow sex selection in embryos
some people are desperate when they are broke. some will rob in order to get money. but if you don't let them rob, then some will kill in order to get money. so since some people will go to further extremes, we should allow them lesser transgressions? no: you don't kill or rob, and the fact that some will kill, is no reason to allow someone to rob
if it's wrong, it's wrong. that someone will do something more wrong if you don't let them do something mildly wrong, is no reason to allow them to do something mildly wrong
the effects of skewed sex ratios is real and obvious: thousands of lifetimes of loveless miserable men with no female to love. so no, you do not get to pick the sex of a fetus, regardless of how extreme some people will go in order to do that
male fetuses are preferred over female ones in these traditional cultures. but arguing for the continuation of that practice ON THE BASIS OF EQUALLY IMMORAL CULTURAL PRACTICES is a self-supporting logical fallacy. you are basically saying "we should continue allowing preference for males because the society in question continues to have immoral beliefs concerning females"
the question then becomes: how do you change the whole set of cultural beliefs that recreates each other? you are saying i'm ignoring the cultural context in which the immoral practice is being made. i am saying: who fucking cares about the cultural context. yes i understand WHY it happens. but understanding WHY it happens does not explain why it should be tolerated, it merely embeds the practice deeper in society and makes it more difficult to change. but it does not remove the argument for changing it. see?
the whole point is to destroy and remove the wrong practice, no? then: simply outlaw sex selection of the fetus. of course it will still go on. when footbinding was outlawed, it did not disappear overnight. it takes time to change a culturally ingrained practice, but it does not remove the moral imperative to change it!
the society at large will be forced to reexamine its poor atittude towards women and girls when it is not allowed the immoral outlet of sex selection of fetuses. that it has poor attitudes towards women and girls is no argument to allow the continuation of sex selection of fetuses
if you can make a coherent humanistic argument as to why something should be wrong, then outlaw the traditional cultural practice. that it is diffiult and deeply ingrained does not in any way argue for the acceptance of that practice. if it is wrong, it is wrong. if it is wrong and deeply ingrained, it is still wrong
the topic is selecting a fetus on the basis of sex. i will ignore all the other points you are making about fetal selection because they don't matter either way as to the topic at hand. the topic is: selecting a fetus on the basis of sex. every other point you are talking about on the mechanics of fetal selection is just a completely different issue that doesn't argue for or against sex selection
but on the topic at hand, you are saying
"If the couple says "try a boy first", is this immoral? I would argue that it is morally neutral"
no, it is not morally neutral. it is morally neutral if it has no effects on anyone else. but if you have a society with more boys than girls, you are dooming a bunch of innocent boys ot a miserable liveless life
it is NOT morally neutral to allow people to pick the sex of their fetus. allowing them to do that has obvious and easy to appreciate immoral effects on society: a bunch of miserable loveless men
in a population of a few females and lots of males, the males will tend to murder and kill each other out of simple miserableness and a desire for the females, thus reestablishing the natural balance
but that observation doesn't explain why we shouldn't just tell people they can't pick the sex of their fetus!
that way, you have a natural balance of the sexes WITHOUT ALL THE MURDERING ;-P
in other words, there's a better way to restore the balance without lots of evil and miserable lives: good laws and a sound public policy and enforcement
you make the choice for a happy society, and you enforce the laws that create that happy society. or: simply letting the chips fall where they may creates a lot of human suffering
the point is to avoid the suffering right? or do you not care that you are letting a lot of people suffer... for the sake of a retarded archaic cultural custom?
how about we just murder the retarded custom? why is that not a superior approach to allowing a bunch of guys murder each other and in general have miserable lives?
take footbinding
when footbinding was first outlawed, it still went on. it only gradually faded away
of course just outlawing something doesn't make it automatically disappear. it takes time
and some things that are outlawed, simply out of moral zealotry, never go away. like prohibition and alcohol. if you outlawed abortion for example, abortion would still go on. why? because there is a need, and there will always be a need, by women and girls who get pregnant and don't want the child, to try to get rid of that child. so you let abortion be legal, because it will not just fade away. abortion will go on forever, whether legal or illegal
meanwhile, some practices are best described as barbaric cultural artifacts: clitorectomies, foot binding, preferring male children, etc. these do not go on forever. there is no underlying need for them, only cultural tradition. so if you outlaw these practices, they do not continually reassert themselves, like drinking alcohol or having abortions. the desire to drink alcohol will never ever go away. its very easy to make alcohol, and very easy to discover its pleasurable effects. therefore, no matter how much you outlaw it, it will still go on
but the desire to wrap your girl child's feet to keep them tiny? that DOES go away: there is no underlying need that is fulfilled by the activity, only a stupid traditional belief that has no continuing ongoing basic human need or desire that is fulfilled
so you are completely wrong. you exert change in society by making something illegal. that's completely effective, and completely valid way to change a cultural tradition: outlaw it if it is evil and barbaric, and it will genuinely fade away, as it should. AS LONG AS there is no underlying compelling reason to continue the practice, only simple cultural tradition, then the tradition dies, forever
has anyone studied the dynamics of explosions in cheese? you shouldn't just be willy nilly setting off massive explosions in large chunks of cheese until you study all the possible ramifications
i mean it could trigger a horrible cheesequake
even just a little preliminary search by myself on google reveals that a cheesequake has become a large area devoid of human habitation!:
http://www.stateparks.com/cheesequake.html
you even said why it is a big deal yourself in the last sentence
why do a bunch of innocent men deserve a sad lonely miserable existence without a wife, simply for the sake of a barbaric and pointless belief?
that people abort a fetus at a later stage simply because it is female is a reason to allow it an earlier stage
of course, you are right, some will still do that. but simply because some people will do abort a late stage fetus for a vile reason is no reason to allow it at an ealier stage
in reailty, if a parent can't destroy a fetus at the earlier embryo stage, then that vast majority of them will simple accept the fact they can't pick the sex of their child after all
look at it this way: if you outlaw murder, people will still murder. so because people will still murder, you should make murder legal? poppycock
you make a moral and legal stand about what is right. that some people will still break those rules is no reason to change your sense of what is legal or not
thereby guaranteeing everyone has a chance to find a wife/ husband?
allowing people to skew the ratio, for the sake of retarded beliefs, dooms thousands of men to a miserable sad life
the cost, of forbidding people from having the right to pick the sex of the fetus, is far outweighed by the benefit of a happier society
in your view, allowing people to pick the sex, this creates a miserable society. there is no benefit to your viewpoint that outweighs the horrible costs
as for your worship of the idea of a free market, i think recent economic history repudiates this viewpoint. the problem with the notion of a "free" market, ie, one with no rules, is that some people will inevitably wind up abusing structural defects to game the system and reap rewards that come at the expense of dramatically impoverishing others
in other words, to actually have a free market, you actually need enforcement, you actually need rules, to keep a market truly free. preventing people from pickign the sex of their fetus is just another example of a rule, that you need to enforce, that lets people be truly free. in this case, free from a miserable loveless existence
you have to ask yourself about the cost/ benefit of every freedom you allow. i think i should be free to kill whomever i want. this is a freedom i should never have, because the cost is that someone else must give up their own freedom, their own life
in this world you actually need to limit people, create laws, and enforce them, to maximize freedom. because some things people think they are free to do, are actually activities that impinge upon the freedoms of others
true freedom doesn't exist in a vacuum. every action you do has the potential to limit someone else's freedom. so you in fact need to limit people's freedom, in order to maximize everyone freedoms, when it comes to activities which decrease other people's freedoms
in a society, you've just doomed an entire population of males to a lonely sad existence, for the sake of what benefit exactly?
the decision to have a male rather than a female is not a decision that exists in a vacuum and effects no one else
it in fact debilitates the whole of society by making a whole population of innocent males have a miserable lonely existence. its downright evil
in every society
simply for the happiness of the members in that society
if you choose to have less females, you automatically doom a whole population of males to a lonely life, who do not deserve that treatment
the choice not to have a female baby is not made in a vacuum that has no effects on anyone else
if it is wrong, it must be outlawed
don't confuse sex selection of a fetus with something like abortion or drug use, which are activities which are not outright and straightforwardly wrong
in the case of abortion or drug use, you can make moral arguments for the acceptance of these practices (if not condonement)
but there is no moral argument that can be made for sex selection. go ahead, try to make one where the activity can be viewed as necesary or acceptable according to any sense of humane interest
yes, as you imply, the practice will still go on even if outlawed. this is not a reason to make anything legal, ever
the reason for this is if there is a compelling need for the activity that will always continue to reappear, like abortion, then some sort of legal space must be made for the activity
but sex selection is just a barbaric practice that should end. tkae for example: foot binding. if you outlawed foot binding in the 1800s, it would still go on. but there is no ongoing compelling need to bind women's feet. and the practice dies, as it rightly deserves to. same with sex selection
outlaw, let it die. of crouse some fools will still do it. but unlike abortion or drug use, it is not an activity that will continue in its own right, for its own reasons. its merely a stupid custom that should and will die, and deserves to die
just because someone will go to an extreme to do something wrong is no basis for allowing that activity. law and morality must be made on a valid coherent argument as to why the activity should be tolerated. for abortion and drug use, those arguments can be made. for abhorrent traditional practices like cliteroectomies or sex selection, no coherent moral or legal argument can be made for acceptance of these practices. they should simply be forced to die out
and is unfortunately still prevalent in india, china, and korea, and immigrant communities from india, china, and korea
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/nyregion/15babies.html
they should outlaw sex selection. an absolutely disgusting practice
you need to protect it yourself. of course, this makes living your life something of a hassle. yes, privacy has a cost
but i never understood the concept that you would trust the protection of your privacy to a government entity or a corporation. no matter how well-intentioned these entities might even be, doesn't it seem like a logical conflict to you?
if you put it out there, its out there. period, end of story. so if you want privacy DON'T PUT IT OUT THERE. no matter what safeguards, real or imagined, physical or legal, that help you sleep at night, real privacy begins and ends with your own personal behavior
that, unlike all other fields of technological innovation, when one speaks of vaporware, one might actually be talking about some sort of useful hardware that literally is a vapor
so nanotechnology has at least that going for it
other (funnier) examples of global clashing with local:
http://boingboing.net/2008/07/15/chinese-restaurant-c.html
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/bert.asp
so i will send you the $50 we discussed previously via paypal now