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How far can you take it? Can you talk about implementing eugenics? Because scientifically it's not a completely invalid idea. Preventing people with genetic de

How far can you take it? Can you talk about implementing eugenics? Because scientifically it's not a completely invalid idea. Preventing people with genetic defects and recessive carriers of genetic defects from reproducing whether through execution or restriction does definitively eliminate the defect if such policies were implemented well. The short period of suffering during the culling has the reward of completely eliminating the targeted genetic diseases. I find that it is rare to find someone who is able to think rationally about the topic above. A lot of people have to rearrange the logic of potential solutions such that it fits within a moral framework. They cannot disentangle the logic and keep their analysis completely separate from their own ethics. Executing someone with a genetic defects is logically speaking the most definitive way to stop that genetic defect from spreading. Restriction costs resources and has the potential for failure. You see what I'm saying? Being completely unbiased is a form of psychopathy. But it does let you see truths others are unable to see. Eugenics targeted at actual known genetic defects in both sufferers and recessive carriers does logically lead to a better outcome then the moral path. If you just let natural selection play out the defect could just stick around causing suffering across many many generations of people. But this is the extreme example. The extreme example triggers moral reactions which in turn becomes a mirror to your biases. A more realistic example is: "do I eliminate the jobs of everyone whose livelihood depends on success in the oil industry to stave off the impending catastrophe of global warming?"

Koshkin 4y ago
> Being completely unbiased is a form of psychopathy. Nice. On the other hand, we must remember that biases can be, and are, exploited: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”
bena 4y ago
Yeah, I like to remind people we do eugenics all the time. With plants and animals. We don't call it that because we often feel that humans are a different class of life and we need special words to describe things we do to ourselves. But breeding a dachshund is eugenics. You are selecting for desired traits and not allowing undesirable dogs to breed. Like, it technically works. We don't do it because it also means violating people's privacy and autonomy. And that's just wrong. The mechanisms are inhumane.
- kilgnad 4y ago
  Here's the thing. The logic for eugenics is actually MORE humane then letting it go. Do you have generations of people suffering from genetic defects or do you do one execution and save thousands from suffering? We choose the former not because of logic, but because our moral instincts are evolved to be reactionary rather then analytical. We only feel it's wrong, but in actuality it is not consistent. It's the same biases that cause us to view Thanos as the villain in Avengers. Without getting too pedantic, in a way, he's actually right.
  - bena 4y ago
    It's not entirely that you have to execute people. It's that you have to restrict the rights of people to have sex with who they want. And you have to force others to give up their genetic material to produce offspring they may not want to. There's also the issue of the definition of "suffering". Once you control for the traits people mostly agree are detrimental, where do we stop? Do we control for height? Intelligence? Decreased propensity for certain behaviors? Where's the line? And no, Thanos was not right. Thanos was written by a fucking moron. It took Earth about 50 years to go from 4 billion people to 8 billion. So, in the most generous interpretation of his action, he gave the universe 50 more years. Next, it's kind of implied that it was all life, including animals. You know, livestock. And then you also have the matter of plant life. If that was or was not affected. Regardless, cutting out half of all life also cuts roughly half of your resources as well. It also ignores that at 4 billion people, we were doing a fucking bang up job of thrashing the environment still. And it ignores the fact that there's just a better answer, make more stuff. Or change reality so that far fewer resources are consumed through certain actions. Make energy free. Make it so people don't need to eat. Everything is on the fucking table. The Infinity Stones are essentially limitless. His justification in the films just do not hold up. Both in reasoning and execution. At least in the comic he was doing it to get laid. As base as that is, it's a reason with no issues.
    - kilgnad 4y ago
      See. Rationalization. Bias. Whether it's right or it's wrong. You spend an inordinate amount of effort trying to twist the logic to fit your definition of morality. You aren't trying to put together a conclusion from facts. You're trying to put together the facts to fit your conclusion. Don't you find it convenient that everything tends to have a clear moral solution? In the universe described by the movie, Thanos is right, the heros fought him Despite them knowing he's right. The pedantic details of Thanos being right in reality is not what I'm referring to here, I'm referring to Hollywood Movie logic and how both the audience and the characters went along with it. >There's also the issue of the definition of "suffering". Once you control for the traits people mostly agree are detrimental, where do we stop? Do we control for height? Intelligence? Decreased propensity for certain behaviors? Where's the line?' That is off topic. The point is eugenics for diseases with clear detriment to humanity. It's like I asked you "Should I eat a hot dog." and you're like "What about a pizza, what about 2 hot dogs? What about scarfing down your throat all the food in the entire restaurant? Where is the line??"
nanomonkey 4y ago
Sadly, the devil is in the details of determining whether something is a genetic defect, or an adaptation to an environment just around the corner. Would you get rid of cycle cell anemia even though it gives an advantage towards Malaria? Genetic variability tends to be beneficial in the long run. This can easily be seen with dog breeding, where the hybrid crosses have more vigor than the "true breeds". In the end, one would be justifying a decision based on a bias.
- kilgnad 4y ago
  That's rationalization. There are definitely defects that do not have any trade off. It is bias in itself to think that every genetic trait has a balanced positive and negative. It's the apple and oranges argument people often use with programming languages. They think every programming language is just a tool in a tool box, good for one thing bad for another. They preclude the possibility that certain programming languages can be good for almost everything or that other ones can be complete crap for just about all applications. There is no logical reasoning that precludes either of the aforementioned languages to exist. It's illogical and it's biased to think everything is fair and balanced. Logically speaking, executing the people with clearly defective traits is overall beneficial to society. There's no other way to reason around this. You can try but it'd be a biased endeavor as your specifically searching for reasoning to counter mine for the sake of creating the contradiction itself.
988747 4y ago
Why stop at genetic defects? Just abolish the whole modern medicine: let the sick people die, so only the strongest, most immune survive. Do we really want to live in the world like that?
- kilgnad 4y ago
  That's the logical conclusion is it not? A society of the strongest selected by none other then nature herself. It's our biases that prevent is from acting this way. It's easy to stray off topic here. My point is that we can never fully disconnect ourselves from our biases. The fact that it's so hard to think about eugenics from a neutral perspective without getting confused proves my point. Even you aren't addressing my original point right? You got so caught up in the ethics of eugenics that you're trying to rationalize why eugenics is wrong... which isn't even the main point. A truly unbiased person, who likely doesn't fully exist, would be able to say that eugenics is the most correct solution, but he would say that he wouldn't act out on it because he's an illogical creature with morals.
  - davidgay 4y ago
    > A truly unbiased person, who likely doesn't fully exist, would be able to say that eugenics is the most correct solution, There's a disastrous fallacy in this argument: that you can define a total order on societies (or, if you prefer, the world in a particular state) and objectively claim "this one is better than that one". And even if you could define such an order, it would be based on moral considerations... And of course, you have not even the vaguest hope of objectively measuring this order either.
    - kilgnad 4y ago
      That's again being too pedantic. No point at all in technological process if that were true. Clearly we take actions in getting better because we predict it will be better based off of common sense metrics. If I eliminate genetic defects from society, society will be better. If I cure cancer, society will be better. If I cure smallpox, society will be better. Or should I use philosophical pedantism to question the smallpox vaccine? Again you're using very broad, extremely pedantic logic in attempt to keep your logical scaffold of the world consistent with morality. That is human bias 101. Why are you using this line of thought for small pox and not for eugenics. It's obvious why. Becuase eugenics has a sacrifice of lesser cost then the cost of inaction. But our morality isn't evolved enough to deal with cost benefit analysis. We go with only zero cost solutions only because our moral instincts are simplistic. But this is also not the main point. The main point is basically how hard it was for you to separate the analysis from the morality. You couldn't. You had to target eugenics specifically with overly pedantic logic in order to keep your logic consistent with your morals.

Koshkin 4y ago

> Being completely unbiased is a form of psychopathy. Nice. On the other hand, we must remember that biases can be, and are, exploited: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”

bena 4y ago

Yeah, I like to remind people we do eugenics all the time. With plants and animals. We don't call it that because we often feel that humans are a different class of life and we need special words to describe things we do to ourselves. But breeding a dachshund is eugenics. You are selecting for desired traits and not allowing undesirable dogs to breed. Like, it technically works. We don't do it because it also means violating people's privacy and autonomy. And that's just wrong. The mechanisms are inhumane.

kilgnad 4y ago
Here's the thing. The logic for eugenics is actually MORE humane then letting it go. Do you have generations of people suffering from genetic defects or do you do one execution and save thousands from suffering? We choose the former not because of logic, but because our moral instincts are evolved to be reactionary rather then analytical. We only feel it's wrong, but in actuality it is not consistent. It's the same biases that cause us to view Thanos as the villain in Avengers. Without getting too pedantic, in a way, he's actually right.
- bena 4y ago
  It's not entirely that you have to execute people. It's that you have to restrict the rights of people to have sex with who they want. And you have to force others to give up their genetic material to produce offspring they may not want to. There's also the issue of the definition of "suffering". Once you control for the traits people mostly agree are detrimental, where do we stop? Do we control for height? Intelligence? Decreased propensity for certain behaviors? Where's the line? And no, Thanos was not right. Thanos was written by a fucking moron. It took Earth about 50 years to go from 4 billion people to 8 billion. So, in the most generous interpretation of his action, he gave the universe 50 more years. Next, it's kind of implied that it was all life, including animals. You know, livestock. And then you also have the matter of plant life. If that was or was not affected. Regardless, cutting out half of all life also cuts roughly half of your resources as well. It also ignores that at 4 billion people, we were doing a fucking bang up job of thrashing the environment still. And it ignores the fact that there's just a better answer, make more stuff. Or change reality so that far fewer resources are consumed through certain actions. Make energy free. Make it so people don't need to eat. Everything is on the fucking table. The Infinity Stones are essentially limitless. His justification in the films just do not hold up. Both in reasoning and execution. At least in the comic he was doing it to get laid. As base as that is, it's a reason with no issues.
  - kilgnad 4y ago
    See. Rationalization. Bias. Whether it's right or it's wrong. You spend an inordinate amount of effort trying to twist the logic to fit your definition of morality. You aren't trying to put together a conclusion from facts. You're trying to put together the facts to fit your conclusion. Don't you find it convenient that everything tends to have a clear moral solution? In the universe described by the movie, Thanos is right, the heros fought him Despite them knowing he's right. The pedantic details of Thanos being right in reality is not what I'm referring to here, I'm referring to Hollywood Movie logic and how both the audience and the characters went along with it. >There's also the issue of the definition of "suffering". Once you control for the traits people mostly agree are detrimental, where do we stop? Do we control for height? Intelligence? Decreased propensity for certain behaviors? Where's the line?' That is off topic. The point is eugenics for diseases with clear detriment to humanity. It's like I asked you "Should I eat a hot dog." and you're like "What about a pizza, what about 2 hot dogs? What about scarfing down your throat all the food in the entire restaurant? Where is the line??"

nanomonkey 4y ago

Sadly, the devil is in the details of determining whether something is a genetic defect, or an adaptation to an environment just around the corner. Would you get rid of cycle cell anemia even though it gives an advantage towards Malaria? Genetic variability tends to be beneficial in the long run. This can easily be seen with dog breeding, where the hybrid crosses have more vigor than the "true breeds". In the end, one would be justifying a decision based on a bias.

kilgnad 4y ago
That's rationalization. There are definitely defects that do not have any trade off. It is bias in itself to think that every genetic trait has a balanced positive and negative. It's the apple and oranges argument people often use with programming languages. They think every programming language is just a tool in a tool box, good for one thing bad for another. They preclude the possibility that certain programming languages can be good for almost everything or that other ones can be complete crap for just about all applications. There is no logical reasoning that precludes either of the aforementioned languages to exist. It's illogical and it's biased to think everything is fair and balanced. Logically speaking, executing the people with clearly defective traits is overall beneficial to society. There's no other way to reason around this. You can try but it'd be a biased endeavor as your specifically searching for reasoning to counter mine for the sake of creating the contradiction itself.

988747 4y ago

Why stop at genetic defects? Just abolish the whole modern medicine: let the sick people die, so only the strongest, most immune survive. Do we really want to live in the world like that?

kilgnad 4y ago
That's the logical conclusion is it not? A society of the strongest selected by none other then nature herself. It's our biases that prevent is from acting this way. It's easy to stray off topic here. My point is that we can never fully disconnect ourselves from our biases. The fact that it's so hard to think about eugenics from a neutral perspective without getting confused proves my point. Even you aren't addressing my original point right? You got so caught up in the ethics of eugenics that you're trying to rationalize why eugenics is wrong... which isn't even the main point. A truly unbiased person, who likely doesn't fully exist, would be able to say that eugenics is the most correct solution, but he would say that he wouldn't act out on it because he's an illogical creature with morals.
- davidgay 4y ago
  > A truly unbiased person, who likely doesn't fully exist, would be able to say that eugenics is the most correct solution, There's a disastrous fallacy in this argument: that you can define a total order on societies (or, if you prefer, the world in a particular state) and objectively claim "this one is better than that one". And even if you could define such an order, it would be based on moral considerations... And of course, you have not even the vaguest hope of objectively measuring this order either.
  - kilgnad 4y ago
    That's again being too pedantic. No point at all in technological process if that were true. Clearly we take actions in getting better because we predict it will be better based off of common sense metrics. If I eliminate genetic defects from society, society will be better. If I cure cancer, society will be better. If I cure smallpox, society will be better. Or should I use philosophical pedantism to question the smallpox vaccine? Again you're using very broad, extremely pedantic logic in attempt to keep your logical scaffold of the world consistent with morality. That is human bias 101. Why are you using this line of thought for small pox and not for eugenics. It's obvious why. Becuase eugenics has a sacrifice of lesser cost then the cost of inaction. But our morality isn't evolved enough to deal with cost benefit analysis. We go with only zero cost solutions only because our moral instincts are simplistic. But this is also not the main point. The main point is basically how hard it was for you to separate the analysis from the morality. You couldn't. You had to target eugenics specifically with overly pedantic logic in order to keep your logic consistent with your morals.