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that's a hell of a leap - saying take some basic classes (likely not that much unlike how catholic churches require couples classes prior to marrying folks) to

that's a hell of a leap - saying take some basic classes (likely not that much unlike how catholic churches require couples classes prior to marrying folks) to understand how to properly care for a child is nothing like eugenics and gene manipulation.

somenameforme 3y ago
All eugenics requires is reducing to fertility of a target undesired population to below sustenance. It's actually extremely easy to do because of how 'invisible' it is. Imagine there was a society where literally every single woman had an average of 1 child. It'd be quite weird to claim they were being driven extinct as everybody loads up on diapers, yet that society's population would indeed be trending towards 0 at an exponential rate, but with an 80 year 'lag' in the first wave of deaths that would mask the impact. And country after country has demonstrated how relatively easy it seems to be to reduce fertility. Iran is a not so well known example. Back in the 80s Iran started to feel that their fertility was a problem. Their population was growing far faster than they had the resources to sustain, so they instituted birth control availability and mandated 'marriage classes' [1], not entirely unlike what's being suggested here. And in these classes they worked to try to reduce overall fertility. It succeeded far beyond any expectation. Their fertility went from 6+ to 2 in less than a decade. And then it just kept dropping. Today it's down to below 1.7 and it keeps falling. They've long since tried to reverse this trend and started an equal but opposite pro fertility program, but like China also showed - it's far easier to reduce a population's fertility, than it is to bring it back up. These sort of programs work as a perfectly viable proof of concept of a practically invisible eugenics program, and that's quite dangerous. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran
- dustypotato 3y ago
  > Eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. What you described is not eugenics though.
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    Eugenics is generally carried out not through selective breeding, but by removing the populations you do not want to breed. Same thing in 20th century America where the main effort was simply on removing elements from society that "we" didn't want breeding - which has the same effect while reducing the constraints on liberty, which would not be well received otherwise. See, for instance, the famous quote from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. that, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." Interestingly enough, the ruling from that court case (Buck v Bell) was never formally overturned. It's simply that eugenics fell out of fashion, following it being taken to extremes by a certain vegetarian artist in Germany with a knack for rhetoric.
    - EGreg 3y ago
      People have this weird thing where, if something comes about as an emergent property of a market system, then it’s fine, but otherwise a much more carefully organized result is not fine. Like if corporations raced towards an AI apocalypse then there’s no one to blame but if a central planner did it, then that would be an evil plan that should be stopped. Same with non biodegradeable plastic, destruction of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, and so on. (By contrast to all these, fossil fuels are a slowpoke.) For example — we don’t particularly need to do anything to reduce birth rates of technologically advanced societies societies with human rights. That’s because women choose to study and work on their career in their 20s, while men try hard to save up to afford the sky-high real estate prices. The market does the eugenics for everyone. If anything, the fear that uneducated populations or those in low-cost-of-living countries are going to “replace us” is a result of that simple fact. Comparing continents, Africa is expected to continue to have a ton of kids per woman compared to, say, Europe or USA. Religion, of course plays a role. When the condoms are off, the religion doesn’t matter — you’re going to have a lot of babies. The only difference is, how early do you get married? Religions tend to frown on premarital sex.
      - naasking 3y ago
        > Comparing continents, Africa is expected to continue to have a ton of kids per woman compared to, say, Europe or USA. Fertility is most strongly correlated with child mortality IIRC. The more likely your kid is to die young, the more likely you are to have lots of kids. Very low child mortality in developed nations, so very low fertility.
NiloCK 3y ago
... and if you fail the class?

somenameforme 3y ago

All eugenics requires is reducing to fertility of a target undesired population to below sustenance. It's actually extremely easy to do because of how 'invisible' it is. Imagine there was a society where literally every single woman had an average of 1 child. It'd be quite weird to claim they were being driven extinct as everybody loads up on diapers, yet that society's population would indeed be trending towards 0 at an exponential rate, but with an 80 year 'lag' in the first wave of deaths that would mask the impact. And country after country has demonstrated how relatively easy it seems to be to reduce fertility. Iran is a not so well known example. Back in the 80s Iran started to feel that their fertility was a problem. Their population was growing far faster than they had the resources to sustain, so they instituted birth control availability and mandated 'marriage classes' [1], not entirely unlike what's being suggested here. And in these classes they worked to try to reduce overall fertility. It succeeded far beyond any expectation. Their fertility went from 6+ to 2 in less than a decade. And then it just kept dropping. Today it's down to below 1.7 and it keeps falling. They've long since tried to reverse this trend and started an equal but opposite pro fertility program, but like China also showed - it's far easier to reduce a population's fertility, than it is to bring it back up. These sort of programs work as a perfectly viable proof of concept of a practically invisible eugenics program, and that's quite dangerous. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran

dustypotato 3y ago
> Eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. What you described is not eugenics though.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Eugenics is generally carried out not through selective breeding, but by removing the populations you do not want to breed. Same thing in 20th century America where the main effort was simply on removing elements from society that "we" didn't want breeding - which has the same effect while reducing the constraints on liberty, which would not be well received otherwise. See, for instance, the famous quote from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. that, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." Interestingly enough, the ruling from that court case (Buck v Bell) was never formally overturned. It's simply that eugenics fell out of fashion, following it being taken to extremes by a certain vegetarian artist in Germany with a knack for rhetoric.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    People have this weird thing where, if something comes about as an emergent property of a market system, then it’s fine, but otherwise a much more carefully organized result is not fine. Like if corporations raced towards an AI apocalypse then there’s no one to blame but if a central planner did it, then that would be an evil plan that should be stopped. Same with non biodegradeable plastic, destruction of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, and so on. (By contrast to all these, fossil fuels are a slowpoke.) For example — we don’t particularly need to do anything to reduce birth rates of technologically advanced societies societies with human rights. That’s because women choose to study and work on their career in their 20s, while men try hard to save up to afford the sky-high real estate prices. The market does the eugenics for everyone. If anything, the fear that uneducated populations or those in low-cost-of-living countries are going to “replace us” is a result of that simple fact. Comparing continents, Africa is expected to continue to have a ton of kids per woman compared to, say, Europe or USA. Religion, of course plays a role. When the condoms are off, the religion doesn’t matter — you’re going to have a lot of babies. The only difference is, how early do you get married? Religions tend to frown on premarital sex.
    - naasking 3y ago
      > Comparing continents, Africa is expected to continue to have a ton of kids per woman compared to, say, Europe or USA. Fertility is most strongly correlated with child mortality IIRC. The more likely your kid is to die young, the more likely you are to have lots of kids. Very low child mortality in developed nations, so very low fertility.

NiloCK 3y ago

... and if you fail the class?