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The elite couples breeding to save mankind
- tomcam 4y ago[flagged]
- henriquez 4y ago[flagged]
- dnissley 4y agoIs assortative mating eugenics?
- Johanx64 4y agoCan you name what's wrong with eugenics exactly?
- teachrdan 4y agoBy advocating for selective breeding and genetic engineering, eugenics promotes the idea that some individuals are inherently superior to others based on their genetics, which is a dangerous and discriminatory notion. Furthermore, eugenics often relies on subjective criteria to determine which traits are desirable or undesirable. This can lead to the marginalization and discrimination of certain groups based on factors such as race, ethnicity, or disability. Eugenics has a long history of being used to justify discriminatory policies, such as forced sterilization, segregation, and genocide, which have caused immense harm and suffering to countless individuals and communities. Finally, eugenics assumes that genetic factors are the primary determinants of an individual's traits and abilities, ignoring the complex interplay between genetics and environment. This reductionist view of human biology is not only scientifically flawed but also ignores the importance of environmental factors such as education, social support, and access to resources in shaping an individual's life outcomes.
- jag3421 4y agoYour argument is riddled with strawmen. Eugenics is clearly helpful if you have a strategy selected (breeding for intelligence, strength, etc) and is witnessed in horse breeding, dog breeding, etc, and why top dollar is paid for the offspring of prize winning horses when they are studded out. You should instead attempt to make a compelling argument how it does not apply to humans. That would be worth reading, instead of strawman arguments.
- notch898c 4y agoI'm sure my account will be banned soon, so let me just leave one pondering here: Does many generations of slavery and the associated genetic selection for winning survival strategies impose shifting genetic attributes to the surviving population? --------- re: below [due to rate limiting] Appreciate the honest reply. >The death rates for slaves was 1.8% Ah but I suspect this was after arrival in the mainland. There was a "seasoning" process in the "west indies" where as much as 50% of slaves perished before arriving to market. And I don't think that includes the long voyage across the Pacific nor between capture and initial sale. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasoning_(slavery) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasoning_(slavery)
- robopsychology 4y agoIt's my understanding during slavery, assuming we're thinking American Black slavery here and not something else like Egyptian slavery etc, slaves were allowed to have their own families which they picked and were not selected for some sort of "superior" trait in children. The death rates for slaves was 1.8% and for whites was 1.2%, so I don't think that would have been a factor either. I wonder if any previous human civilization did actually select slaves that were stronger to try birth stronger slaves... horrifying to think about really, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been done.
- zamnos 4y ago> Slave breeding was the practice in slave states of the United States of slave owners to systematically force the reproduction of slaves to increase their profits.[1] It included coerced sexual relations between male slaves and women or girls, forced pregnancies of female slaves, and favoring women or young girls who could produce a relatively large number of children. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_breeding_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_breeding_in_the_United_S...
- mjklin 4y agoIt is simply misguided: “No such program of eugenics could work: there is no lasting agreement about desirable mental or physical qualities; an individual’s worth depends on other, incalculable ingredients. Environmental conditions mingle with inherited characteristics to make us the way we are.” - Out of Our Minds, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto Like “human rights” and “education”, it is much easier to be for “desirable qualities” than to say what they are.
- terminal_logic 4y ago[dead]
- notch898c 4y agoThus it is misguided to pick a mate based on desirable qualities? Or it is OK for the individual but not individuals at scale?
- biohax2015 4y ago> Or it is OK for the individual but not individuals at scale? Yes, that is precisely the case.
- notch898c 4y agoOf course what follows then is the implication the individual is not misguided in selecting for desirable traits. You're basically arguing perhaps for something like decentralized eugenics rather than authoritarian eugenics.
- biohax2015 4y agoHave groups of individuals been any less misguided? Eugenics is one of those ideas that might sound good in theory, but a world in which the government has absolute control over one of your most basic human instincts is a horrible world.
- jag3421 4y ago
- hooverd 4y agoI don't think eugenics is worth debating because it's a pointless broad term. The implementations have not been great though. Usually there are some vaguely good intentions and then deciding it's easier to get rid of the bad traits than to encourage the good traits.
- jag3421 4y agoIf we can create stronger horses through selective mating, why do you believe that would not carry over to intelligence if applied to humans? Why would it not be worth having stronger, healther, and more intelligent humans?
- biohax2015 4y agoThe issue is: who decides who is fit for breeding? You? Maybe you do a good job, but this sort of power will inevitably become corrupted by a failed art student sooner or later.
- jag3421 4y agoThe tribe. It could be enforced at the local level, and/or elevated to a higher level. Also that artist was correct, it's just taboo to admit it.
- Teever 4y agoHow will you be handle being told that you're inferior and that you're not allowed to breed? I don't mean that as an insult. I mean it as an inevitability. Everyone who promotes eugenics always imagines themselves as being the superior one.
- jag3421 4y agoI would rather have a world where we strive to create the best of us, rather than rolling the dice with perpetuating hereditary diseases and leaving our future to blind luck. To answer your question : If I were born with a horrific disease that has a significant chance to pass that down to the next generation, it would be my responsibility to not pass that down to the next generation. I would understand. There are always superior people and inferior people depending on a multitude of variables : time, genetics, intelligence, environment, training, etc. Ignoring genetics as an essential pillar of this is irresponsible.
- jag3421 4y ago[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Teever 4y agoSure, I can. Both the people in the article have glasses. They are inferior and should not be producing 7 children. Can you see the problem? I bet they can't.
- stormfather 4y agoDespite a tremendous amount of social programming to the contrary, for me it's a huge relief to see that people care about this problem and don't want to go extinct.
- throwaway5947 4y agoThe upper classes are drawn to these theories like flies to shit. The biggest lesson from history is that we never learn from it.
- RC_ITR 4y agoThe problem with “elites” breeding to “save the world” are as follows: 1) Who defines elite? Referencing the article, is “working at a think tank” really an indicator of being elite in any sense? I certainly don’t see getting a job at a think tank to be a particular indicator of skill nor do I find the outputs of think tanks to be very enlightening. 2) The problem isn’t that child-rearing is a cool fun thing that people choose not to do because they’re lazy, it’s that we as a society make being a parent suck.. Daytime childcare alone is expensive and complicated enough to turn many people off parenthood. Well off people having children and then never shutting up about it does not solve any problems.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoThere are so few elite that their actions can’t matter due to math. Birth control may be the great filter, as it breaks evolutionary assumptions.
- bell-cot 4y agoA micro-sized number of "elite" couples, talking their baby-making activities up as if that was some OMG Incredibly Awesome New Thing. The article's featured couple has 3 kids, and aspires to have 7 kids. Meanwhile - my lower-middle class grandmother, whose parents were very ordinary rural farmers, had 11 younger siblings.
- barelysapient 4y agoChildren are simply too expensive. My first child cost me over $15,000 in co-pays. School for six hours a day is $1100 a month. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates it'll cost over $230,000 to raise a child to 18. That's before college.
- notch898c 4y agoDepends. If someone seduces a doctor (see the trial of Conrad Murray who was Michael Jackson's propofil fixer who was in deep shit to multiple strippers for one night stand child support) for 20% you could take away 40k tax free and move to a quaint midwest town and come out quite ahead. Also if you're poor as dirt and just feed the kids rice and lentils and rely on (now increased) benefits and public institutions for everything else you can come ahead too. Whether this has anything to do with high fertility rates at the low income bands is up for interpretation.
- ryukafalz 4y ago> Children are simply too expensive ... School for six hours a day is $1100 a month. What? Public school is free and taxpayer-funded in the US.
- barelysapient 4y agoSure after kindergarten. But in the preceding 4 years that’s the payment. And that presumes I want to put my kid in public school, where frankly, academics and safety are severely lacking.
- treeman79 4y ago
- hooverd 4y agoThe couple profiled in the article is not beating the "extremely goofy" allegations. > https://twitter.com/SimoneHCollins/status/1640028250796617728 https://twitter.com/SimoneHCollins/status/164002825079661772...
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoToo many hot takes to quote them all: > Some see the idealized conservative wife as something like a stay-at-home pet. I am grateful my husband does not see or treat me that way. I aspire to be his sword, the perfect tool to exert his will upon reality. or > Extreme life extension only seems benign because no one has tried it yet. Today's life extensionists are analogous to communists of the early 1900s. Life extensionists of the future will be seen as transparently evil and self interested as today's communists.
- Apocryphon 4y agoIs that a Coriolanus reference I see? Ah, a woman of culture.
- Apocryphon 4y agoThey are very, as they say, Reddit https://twitter.com/katienotopoulos/status/1648473159363072002 https://twitter.com/katienotopoulos/status/16484731593630720...
- useragent10 4y ago[dead]
- timcobb 4y agohttps://archive.is/SblzP https://archive.is/SblzP
- twalla 4y agoI imagine if you willingly self identify yourself as elite, you're anything but. These folks sound (and look) absolutely insufferable.
- elzbardico 4y agoThe title is a bit of bait, as well as the carefully chosen goofy photos. From what I read in the article, they are just rich people that think people should have more kids and are doing that themselves. That being said, if the elite think that everyone should have more kids, they should stop getting so much of the economic pie for themselves and sharing a bit more (pay higher wages? pay their taxes? don't go laying off people any time the economy does a burp?) A lot of the people who have only one kid would love to have more, but they are afraid of doing so because of economic reasons.
- yesbut 4y agoBut they went through all of this trouble to justify their sex drives. Certainly that's worth a life of luxury, right?
- notch898c 4y agoIn the US lower incomes are associated with higher fertility rates. This may suggest the elites, to 'solve' this problem, should bankrupt the population further and then give them lots of time unemployed to spur "free" activity taken during the boredom.
- hanoz 4y agoIt's exactly the people keeping the wheels turning, the working class and lower middle class, who can't afford to have children at the moment. The spongers above and below are the ones able to breed with abandon. Doesn't seem sustainable.
- Teever 4y agoYeah, these people say that they want to have 7 kids because they're worried about population decline, but how many of their kids do they want to be janitors or plumbers?
- Bjorkbat 4y agoDepending on how much you believe autism is hereditary you could argue that these couples are going to really cause problems for humanity’s gene pool.
- retrocryptid 4y agomeh. the telegraph. my favourite commentary on the telegraph is this bit from yes, prime minister: https://youtu.be/DGscoaUWW2M?t=57 https://youtu.be/DGscoaUWW2M?t=57
- gct 4y agoHonestly what a weird set of people. If you have to go out of your way to make sure people know you're not Nazis, maybe you're treading a little too close to dangerous waters. > It also means resisting any attempt by what Malcolm calls the ‘woke mind virus’ to assimilate their children into a progressive monoculture. Bwoop bwoop bwoop right wing nut alert.