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Maybe it's not "threatening a coping mechanism" but remembering how eugenics played out last century?

api 11y ago
Eugenics means curing the disease by killing the patient-- sometimes literally. That's the opposite of improving the human condition. It's also terribly totalitarian, and posits that some committee has the ability (let alone the right) to dictate what constitutes fitness or improvement. Committees of bureaucrats are demonstrably unable to centrally plan economies, so why should they be able to centrally plan a species? Even if eugenics were moral and desirable, doing it well would involve answering questions a lot harder than "how many light bulbs should be manufactured in July?" and states like the USSR failed consistently at that. I don't advocate eugenics at all. We shouldn't get rid of "inferior" people. We should empower them to improve themselves in the manner of their choosing. Actually we already do this. If I have no legs I can get a wheelchair. So all I advocate really is going further... a whole hell of a lot further. Radical transhumanism is really nothing more than the radical advocacy of medicine, so much so that I doubt the need for a new term. Guaranteed minimum income might actually be a stepping stone here, since it would empower those whose abilities are no longer economically valuable with both money and time. Some will waste it playing Halo and watching TV and drinking beer, sure, but some won't. What will they do with their free time? When interesting things are discovered by a few pioneers they spread virally through populations. It will also prevent the collapse of the modern economy due to collapsing monetary velocity. The Hunger Games is an almost accurate portrayal of a post-labor world that still clings to the Puritan work ethic, but for one detail: I doubt such a society could maintain high technology for long. I do wonder sometimes if our periodic freak-outs about "decline" (e.g. Naziism) aren't at some level psychotic reactions to un-shielded glimpses of the true reality of our condition. Coping mechanisms exist for a reason. When they break down at an individual level, things like suicide and psychotic breaks sometimes result. Historically humanity was utterly powerless to alter its condition, and when you're powerless coping is all you can do. The eugenics fervor of the early 20th century happened as religion started to break down and as we started to comprehend the nature of our "alien god": http://lesswrong.com/lw/kr/an_alien_god/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/kr/an_alien_god/ (Not a total fan of Less Wrong but that article is brilliant.) Another great film in the genre of Dark City is Life is Beautiful, which is an excellent allegory for the role of religion in human existence. We all live in a death camp called nature, and we have people like priests and philosophers who tell us it's all just a game and if we do real well we'll win a tank... or a trip to heaven. I believe humanity has historically used "gnostic" themed fiction like this as a safe way to examine its condition without truly "seeing" it.

api 11y ago

Eugenics means curing the disease by killing the patient-- sometimes literally. That's the opposite of improving the human condition. It's also terribly totalitarian, and posits that some committee has the ability (let alone the right) to dictate what constitutes fitness or improvement. Committees of bureaucrats are demonstrably unable to centrally plan economies, so why should they be able to centrally plan a species? Even if eugenics were moral and desirable, doing it well would involve answering questions a lot harder than "how many light bulbs should be manufactured in July?" and states like the USSR failed consistently at that. I don't advocate eugenics at all. We shouldn't get rid of "inferior" people. We should empower them to improve themselves in the manner of their choosing. Actually we already do this. If I have no legs I can get a wheelchair. So all I advocate really is going further... a whole hell of a lot further. Radical transhumanism is really nothing more than the radical advocacy of medicine, so much so that I doubt the need for a new term. Guaranteed minimum income might actually be a stepping stone here, since it would empower those whose abilities are no longer economically valuable with both money and time. Some will waste it playing Halo and watching TV and drinking beer, sure, but some won't. What will they do with their free time? When interesting things are discovered by a few pioneers they spread virally through populations. It will also prevent the collapse of the modern economy due to collapsing monetary velocity. The Hunger Games is an almost accurate portrayal of a post-labor world that still clings to the Puritan work ethic, but for one detail: I doubt such a society could maintain high technology for long. I do wonder sometimes if our periodic freak-outs about "decline" (e.g. Naziism) aren't at some level psychotic reactions to un-shielded glimpses of the true reality of our condition. Coping mechanisms exist for a reason. When they break down at an individual level, things like suicide and psychotic breaks sometimes result. Historically humanity was utterly powerless to alter its condition, and when you're powerless coping is all you can do. The eugenics fervor of the early 20th century happened as religion started to break down and as we started to comprehend the nature of our "alien god": http://lesswrong.com/lw/kr/an_alien_god/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/kr/an_alien_god/ (Not a total fan of Less Wrong but that article is brilliant.) Another great film in the genre of Dark City is Life is Beautiful, which is an excellent allegory for the role of religion in human existence. We all live in a death camp called nature, and we have people like priests and philosophers who tell us it's all just a game and if we do real well we'll win a tank... or a trip to heaven. I believe humanity has historically used "gnostic" themed fiction like this as a safe way to examine its condition without truly "seeing" it.