LOL, no. My reaction isn't "omg eugenics". My reaction is "the author's specific proposal is dumb and the article is designed to avoid critical inquiry into the

LOL, no. My reaction isn't "omg eugenics". My reaction is "the author's specific proposal is dumb and the article is designed to avoid critical inquiry into the specific proposal by using a rhetorical trick and flipping presumption". The "one thing I cherry picked" is from the final paragraph. I did not cherry pick. I listed the only actual proposal in the article. The rest of the article is just rhetoric. Placing the actual proposal at the end of the article was intentional. Your comment is exactly the trap the article sets. The intention is for the reader to agree that not all eugenics is bad, and that, therefore, we should default to skepticism of anti-eugenics. But "genetically informed dating apps or government incentives" would have obvious and potentially massive disadvantages. Intelligent and wise people are right to almost reflexively say "lol sounds like a bad idea buddy". Also, the article doesn't actually articulate any reason that we should give the benefit of the doubt to new eugenics programs. Even though modern history provides a decent set of anecdotes that provide good evidence for at least approaching such proposals with some amount of skepticism. The article is mostly just a kind of maddening rhetorical trick that allows the author to side-step making a thorough argument for "genetically informed dating apps or government incentives". The article's whole intent is to flip the burden of proof: "I will propose wacky genetic ideas, and you must prove why we shouldn't do them or you're just acting reflexively and causing tons of harm!" But it works. There definitely isn't even a half decent argument for "genetically informed dating apps or government incentives" anywhere in this article, and giving the presumption of doubt to a government incentive for genetic discrimination is a hilariously ridiculous position, but for whatever reason you're jumping to its defense. > I'm tired of the "I'm scared that we might screw it up so we shouldn't even talk about it" attitude. Making topics taboo and refusing to even discuss things is a big reason why we have negative experiences and outcomes. Who said not to talk about it? Just don't do it in the kind of insufferable way this article does it. State up front what policies you want and provide a serious defense, instead of squabbling about presumption of evidence and launching stupid implicit ad homs for pages upon pages. And if you're going to appeal to a sort of consequentialist utilitarian ethic, state some actual mathematically analyzable utility function. Otherwise it's just a pretend to rigor.