6 ms·

First of all I think Eugenics would/will quickly lead to something akin to runaway selection: people will make increasingly absurd decisions mainly driven by st

First of all I think Eugenics would/will quickly lead to something akin to runaway selection: people will make increasingly absurd decisions mainly driven by status markers / perceptual drift and the human race will breed itself into some mad corner. So I don't believe Eugenics is ever going to do what even its most ardent supporters imagine. Second of all the human race does not have some over-arching goals we need to meet like a business. It is or should be like a club run for the benefit of the members: let's create good conditions for people. We can tolerate a bit of complexity and diversity.

hoseja 5y ago
The main problem I see is breeding better citizens for totalitarian states.
- pas 5y ago
  are worker bees or ants happy?
  - SnowHill9902 5y ago
    Is the goal of your life to be happy?
    - kesslern 5y ago
      Yes, what's yours?
      - SnowHill9902 5y ago
        I would rather be happy than unhappy but it’s not one’s goal.
        pas 5y ago
        What's your goal?
mwcampbell 5y ago
> Second of all the human race does not have some over-arching goals we need to meet like a business. It is or should be like a club run for the benefit of the members: let's create good conditions for people. We can tolerate a bit of complexity and diversity. Individuals and groups (including businesses) do have goals though, and it seems natural that some of them feel that they're being thwarted in their pursuit of those goals by expectations that they accommodate every little minority (including the one to which I belong). The backlash against legislation requiring accessibility, for example, is real, as seen in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30726471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30726471
- andrepd 5y ago
  "Poor businesses forced to build ramps and make their websites screenreader-accessible" seems a distinctly weird take to me. If we're no longer taking even the slightest bit of care towards looking after our fellow Man then it's not a world worth living to me. EDIT: It's also not just a "tiny minority", about 13% of the world's population have serious vision impairment. Making streets, businesses, services, products accessible is the very least we can do. It's scary that someone who suffers from this himself would chalk it off as inefficiency and waste.
  - mwcampbell 5y ago
    One can only be exposed to so much backlash from seemingly reasonable people before wondering if they're actually right.
    - scandox 5y ago
      People are not reasonable. They simply have their reasonable moments. If someone is angry because someone else asked for something then I think it's pretty obvious they're not in reasonable-mode.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      "Seemingly reasonable" is a poor place to start. It's somehow similar to the way so many of us expect actually evil people to somehow come with horns or other evil-indicating visual accessories. The reality is that evil people wear suits, and jeans, and shorts and hats and look just like the non-evil people. So it is with "reasonable". The fact that someone can phrase their objections to accessibility that doesn't make them immediately sound like a prejudiced ignorant lunatic doesn't actually mean that they are not a prejudiced ignorant lunatic (it doesn't mean that they are either, but you should remain suspicious). For myself, I had a revelation about such matters when my daughter had major hip surgery (twice). While normally a fully mobile and athletic person, she had to spend several weeks (twice) with a wheelchair. Suddenly it became clear that the accomodations we have made in this direction are not just for people born with disabilities that prevent them from walking: any one of us could find ourselves, either temporarily or permanently, benefitting from ramps and door openers and curb cuts etc. I am absolutely certain that the same is also true of accomodations made in the direction of visual impairment, hearing impairment and just about any other condition that deviates from some (often hypothetical) state of "full functionality". Please, protect yourself from the backlash from these "seemingly reasonable" people. They are ignorant, selfish and of limited scope in their thinking. You deserve better.
jorvi 5y ago
You could just have the government mandate a test, and any embryo that has markers (genetic or otherwise) of a chronic debilitating condition is not allowed to be brought to term. If parents do choose this, the kid will fall outside of the healthcare system for its condition and parents will have to foot the entire ongoing bill. Eugenics does not automatically mean we all customize our embryos to be 2m tall geniuses with patterned body hair. More of an aside, but I’ve always wondered where humans would end up if we did do unbridled genetic engineering. Is 2m the ideal height? 1.80m? 2.40m? What would we discover is the optimal IQ? Etc.
- 0des 5y ago
  I'd probably have a beautiful full head of hair still...
  - netheril96 5y ago
    You wouldn’t exist in that world.
    - 0des 5y ago
      Why?
      - SkittyDog 5y ago
        I believe he's implying that your embryo would not have passed the fitness tests, and so would have been destroyed. So you wouldn't exist. Your parents might have conceived again, and had another child who did pass, to whom they gave the same name. But that child wouldn't be you.
- dagw 5y ago
  Is 2m the ideal height? 1.80m? 2.40m? What would we discover is the optimal IQ? Etc. I think Brave New World treats this question pretty well. We'd probably discover that there is no 'optimal' height or IQ and we'd still need the whole span of "Big Dumb Brutes" to hyper-geniuses. The secret is convince everybody the IQ/physique they've been assigned is the 'actual' optimal and they're the lucky ones that everybody else should envy.
FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
> the human race will breed itself into some mad corner Bit of a tangent, but I think sexual reproduction helps to avoid this. Picture a set of points (people) in Euclidean space. Pick any two, "a" and "b", at random. Add a new point "c" at the midpoint. Unless the overall shape of this swarm is highly nonconvex, then this point "c" is going to be more in the "interior". If we formalized things a little more, we could prove that this operation is a contraction. The Fixed Point Theorem would apply, &etc. So, once your set has reached some convex shape, then there's a balance between these two forces: The contracting force of sexual reproduction, and the expanding force of random mutation. There's also selection of course. I tacitly assume there isn't much more of that happening right now? I could be wrong though; there may be some (strong?) selection against education... Interestingly, it's these educated who I assume would "benefit" from a eugenics regime. But, one bad meme, and the whole thing goes bad...
R0b0t1 5y ago
Why? You need to realize we are currently implementing eugenics, we just don't know what our goals are. There's two types of eugenics, positive and negative, based on the root of postulate. A positive eugenics program selects *for* specific qualities like hair color. Negative eugenics selects *against* deleterious phenotypes. You still need to exercise caution. For example, selecting against depression may be long term bad because the real thing we need to do is reform society to reduce depression. But there are some things, like being born with a disability, that have obvious impact outside of a functioning society that it seems reasonable to select against them. W.r.t. the parent comment to yours, I'm conflicted; I've spoken to people and seen how many issues they have getting accomodation. If people were forced to care, making interfaces for blind people would be pretty easy. But many people refuse to care. The idea of genetic drift due to lack of selective pressure has been studied (recently, and in a way not connected to racism) and was pretty grim. Unfortunately due to the connotations eugenics typically carries it has remained poorly investigated.

hoseja 5y ago

The main problem I see is breeding better citizens for totalitarian states.

pas 5y ago
are worker bees or ants happy?
- SnowHill9902 5y ago
  Is the goal of your life to be happy?
  - kesslern 5y ago
    Yes, what's yours?
    - SnowHill9902 5y ago
      I would rather be happy than unhappy but it’s not one’s goal.
      - pas 5y ago
        What's your goal?

mwcampbell 5y ago

> Second of all the human race does not have some over-arching goals we need to meet like a business. It is or should be like a club run for the benefit of the members: let's create good conditions for people. We can tolerate a bit of complexity and diversity. Individuals and groups (including businesses) do have goals though, and it seems natural that some of them feel that they're being thwarted in their pursuit of those goals by expectations that they accommodate every little minority (including the one to which I belong). The backlash against legislation requiring accessibility, for example, is real, as seen in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30726471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30726471

andrepd 5y ago
"Poor businesses forced to build ramps and make their websites screenreader-accessible" seems a distinctly weird take to me. If we're no longer taking even the slightest bit of care towards looking after our fellow Man then it's not a world worth living to me. EDIT: It's also not just a "tiny minority", about 13% of the world's population have serious vision impairment. Making streets, businesses, services, products accessible is the very least we can do. It's scary that someone who suffers from this himself would chalk it off as inefficiency and waste.
- mwcampbell 5y ago
  One can only be exposed to so much backlash from seemingly reasonable people before wondering if they're actually right.
  - scandox 5y ago
    People are not reasonable. They simply have their reasonable moments. If someone is angry because someone else asked for something then I think it's pretty obvious they're not in reasonable-mode.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    "Seemingly reasonable" is a poor place to start. It's somehow similar to the way so many of us expect actually evil people to somehow come with horns or other evil-indicating visual accessories. The reality is that evil people wear suits, and jeans, and shorts and hats and look just like the non-evil people. So it is with "reasonable". The fact that someone can phrase their objections to accessibility that doesn't make them immediately sound like a prejudiced ignorant lunatic doesn't actually mean that they are not a prejudiced ignorant lunatic (it doesn't mean that they are either, but you should remain suspicious). For myself, I had a revelation about such matters when my daughter had major hip surgery (twice). While normally a fully mobile and athletic person, she had to spend several weeks (twice) with a wheelchair. Suddenly it became clear that the accomodations we have made in this direction are not just for people born with disabilities that prevent them from walking: any one of us could find ourselves, either temporarily or permanently, benefitting from ramps and door openers and curb cuts etc. I am absolutely certain that the same is also true of accomodations made in the direction of visual impairment, hearing impairment and just about any other condition that deviates from some (often hypothetical) state of "full functionality". Please, protect yourself from the backlash from these "seemingly reasonable" people. They are ignorant, selfish and of limited scope in their thinking. You deserve better.

jorvi 5y ago

You could just have the government mandate a test, and any embryo that has markers (genetic or otherwise) of a chronic debilitating condition is not allowed to be brought to term. If parents do choose this, the kid will fall outside of the healthcare system for its condition and parents will have to foot the entire ongoing bill. Eugenics does not automatically mean we all customize our embryos to be 2m tall geniuses with patterned body hair. More of an aside, but I’ve always wondered where humans would end up if we did do unbridled genetic engineering. Is 2m the ideal height? 1.80m? 2.40m? What would we discover is the optimal IQ? Etc.

0des 5y ago
I'd probably have a beautiful full head of hair still...
- netheril96 5y ago
  You wouldn’t exist in that world.
  - 0des 5y ago
    Why?
    - SkittyDog 5y ago
      I believe he's implying that your embryo would not have passed the fitness tests, and so would have been destroyed. So you wouldn't exist. Your parents might have conceived again, and had another child who did pass, to whom they gave the same name. But that child wouldn't be you.
dagw 5y ago
Is 2m the ideal height? 1.80m? 2.40m? What would we discover is the optimal IQ? Etc. I think Brave New World treats this question pretty well. We'd probably discover that there is no 'optimal' height or IQ and we'd still need the whole span of "Big Dumb Brutes" to hyper-geniuses. The secret is convince everybody the IQ/physique they've been assigned is the 'actual' optimal and they're the lucky ones that everybody else should envy.

FooBarBizBazz 5y ago

> the human race will breed itself into some mad corner Bit of a tangent, but I think sexual reproduction helps to avoid this. Picture a set of points (people) in Euclidean space. Pick any two, "a" and "b", at random. Add a new point "c" at the midpoint. Unless the overall shape of this swarm is highly nonconvex, then this point "c" is going to be more in the "interior". If we formalized things a little more, we could prove that this operation is a contraction. The Fixed Point Theorem would apply, &etc. So, once your set has reached some convex shape, then there's a balance between these two forces: The contracting force of sexual reproduction, and the expanding force of random mutation. There's also selection of course. I tacitly assume there isn't much more of that happening right now? I could be wrong though; there may be some (strong?) selection against education... Interestingly, it's these educated who I assume would "benefit" from a eugenics regime. But, one bad meme, and the whole thing goes bad...

R0b0t1 5y ago

Why? You need to realize we are currently implementing eugenics, we just don't know what our goals are. There's two types of eugenics, positive and negative, based on the root of postulate. A positive eugenics program selects *for* specific qualities like hair color. Negative eugenics selects *against* deleterious phenotypes. You still need to exercise caution. For example, selecting against depression may be long term bad because the real thing we need to do is reform society to reduce depression. But there are some things, like being born with a disability, that have obvious impact outside of a functioning society that it seems reasonable to select against them. W.r.t. the parent comment to yours, I'm conflicted; I've spoken to people and seen how many issues they have getting accomodation. If people were forced to care, making interfaces for blind people would be pretty easy. But many people refuse to care. The idea of genetic drift due to lack of selective pressure has been studied (recently, and in a way not connected to racism) and was pretty grim. Unfortunately due to the connotations eugenics typically carries it has remained poorly investigated.