7 ms·

Interesting, what kind of family policy would you propose, if not that of eliminating non-eugenic individuals? I mean, is there a way eugenics can work without

by dawson 14y ago

Interesting, what kind of family policy would you propose, if not that of eliminating non-eugenic individuals? I mean, is there a way eugenics can work without removing human rights? (serious question, no judgement made) I haven't read Francis Galton's original doctrine so apologies if this is obvious to those who have.

burke 14y ago
Strong financial incentives for selected individuals to reproduce; penalties for others.
- dawson 14y ago
  I didn't think of that! Which is strange considering I'm in China at the moment and it's not too far from the one child policy and their penalty system. Though I would have difficulty defending the human rights argument :) To be honest, I've been thinking about my question since asking and the only answer I can come up with is genetic engineering (designer babies).
- mattmanser 14y ago
  Woo! Force people to have an abortion because they can't afford to reproduce. I want to call that torture, but feel extremist if I do. I can't think of any other way to vocalise it though. I guess there is nowhere good this conversation can go.
  - nnq 14y ago
    You wouldn't have to force an abortion on anyone. Just force a "basic baby tax" to discourage the dirt poor to have children they can't even afford to feed or properly educate and a HUGE "extra baby tax" for any family having more than 2 children (or plug your favorite number in here if you want a certain level o population growth), and invest the collected money in improving education. And boom, instant improvement to all aspects of life! Not really a breach of human rights since you could take it as a minor amendment to the implied social contract. (the tax will not mean much for billionaires, but at least they can afford the best possible education for their kids and with some tax exemptions for important but not so well paid professionals - like university professors) (and you could add something like forced sterilization for people not affording to pay the "extra baby tax" after they've made one.
    - nooneelse 14y ago
      Tying this too to current wealth will easily be seen as locking-in and amplifying possibly unfair advantages in the pre-existing system. Why bother intertwining that negative stigma at the foundation of this idea that is supposed to make us a better species? All this centrally mandated, negative-penalty thinking just puts us at each others throats. The world needs better, imho. Why not have the eugenics institute(s) find people of merit on whatever sets of measures they want and pay those they choose to have kids or to supply sperm/eggs/parenting (whichever they think important for the traits)? Maybe also give subsidized child-care to their progeny. This would allow for competition of metrics between and inside such organizations. Sure only using positive feedback might be a bit slower than also availing ourselves of negative ones. But negative ones seem more tricky to implement, and we don't actually know what the species will need in the future, i.e. if we even have a single goal in this search space. Ethically less complicated to nurture the flowers you want to see blooming than to have a hand in cutting off others.
      - nnq 14y ago
        1. I don't trust "centralized" solutions to anything and an "eugenics institute" dictating what the best traits are seems scary even to me! 2. Yes, amplifying possibly unfair advantages is a nasty side-effect of this, but in a "mostly clean an functioning" capitalist society with not that much corruption, mafia and stuff this could be mitigated (I even goes the US comes close enough to this... by comparison on a global scale). 3. I don't think this will "put us at each other's throats"... poorer people to which the tax is targeted at should feel more motivated to have a better life, like swimming pool and better sports car than to have kids... or we'll need to fix this with more "pro-consumerist propaganda"! 4. And about positive versus negative feedback/motivations... I might have an overly "dark" view of human nature, but I think only negative/pain/punishment will work for those that need to be discouraged in having children (benefits might make the other change their minds and have more children but my intuition tells me it won't work - yes, we need some sort of controlled social engineering experiment to check this assumption, of course).
        nooneelse 14y ago
- aswanson 14y ago
  Who forms the selection criteria?
  - nnq 14y ago
    Make the "penalty" a "tax" and money becomes the criteria. Add tax exemptions for valuable but not so well paid professionals like researchers, university professors etc. (it's not like the poor that would desperately want kids will suddenly struggle to become medical researchers or university professors just to avoid the tax). Plus, you can use the tax money to improve education and give free university education (some countries already have this). And if you're smart but you're not the "academic type", you'll probably find a well paid profession for yourself anyway so you shouldn't worry.
    - vadman 14y ago
      If you want to prevent individuals who are e.g. predisposed to certain disorders from being born, I don't see how money as criteria can help.
      - nnq 14y ago
        It's not supposed to do that! It's supposed to have people with "higher levels of" positive traits like intelligence, self-control, imagination to have more children then those with lower levels (and also to improve the chances that children get raised in families that can afford to offer them good education - so it takes care of the "nurture" part too, not just "nature" - and yes, this means that such a social engineering strategy would be more than just eugenics). People predisposed to certain disorders usually have less offspring anyway... so nature does a pretty good job at this without help (ever seen a person with a severe mental illness having more than a couple of children, even by accident?)
        vadman 14y ago
        Hmm. Well I was thinking in the context proposed by the grand-grand...parent, even though he backtracked: "...eugenics. This is not something I am opposed to from a scientific point of view. We do it with livestock, so why not us?" You can be predisposed to a lot of things -- diabetes, heart problems, and so on -- most of those don't necessarily prevent you from reproducing. But being "intelligent, motivated, imaginative" has little to do with having a "disadvantageous" genetic makeup leading to health issues. So you are not taking the whole "nature" part into account, only part of it. Also note that I am not necessarily supporting eugenics, just thinking aloud. At the same time, I don't see how your proposal is any better than "classical" eugenics from the human rights point of view. We can take it one step further and assign an importance coefficient for voting. Let the professor/researcher vote count for 3 units; as for the proles, .7 will suffice. After all, why shouldn't people with intelligence, self-control, and imagination have more of a say in where the country is headed -- it's mostly their kids who will live in this country in the future, so it's only fair.

by dawson 14y ago

burke 14y ago

Strong financial incentives for selected individuals to reproduce; penalties for others.

dawson 14y ago
I didn't think of that! Which is strange considering I'm in China at the moment and it's not too far from the one child policy and their penalty system. Though I would have difficulty defending the human rights argument :) To be honest, I've been thinking about my question since asking and the only answer I can come up with is genetic engineering (designer babies).
mattmanser 14y ago
Woo! Force people to have an abortion because they can't afford to reproduce. I want to call that torture, but feel extremist if I do. I can't think of any other way to vocalise it though. I guess there is nowhere good this conversation can go.
- nnq 14y ago
  You wouldn't have to force an abortion on anyone. Just force a "basic baby tax" to discourage the dirt poor to have children they can't even afford to feed or properly educate and a HUGE "extra baby tax" for any family having more than 2 children (or plug your favorite number in here if you want a certain level o population growth), and invest the collected money in improving education. And boom, instant improvement to all aspects of life! Not really a breach of human rights since you could take it as a minor amendment to the implied social contract. (the tax will not mean much for billionaires, but at least they can afford the best possible education for their kids and with some tax exemptions for important but not so well paid professionals - like university professors) (and you could add something like forced sterilization for people not affording to pay the "extra baby tax" after they've made one.
  - nooneelse 14y ago
    Tying this too to current wealth will easily be seen as locking-in and amplifying possibly unfair advantages in the pre-existing system. Why bother intertwining that negative stigma at the foundation of this idea that is supposed to make us a better species? All this centrally mandated, negative-penalty thinking just puts us at each others throats. The world needs better, imho. Why not have the eugenics institute(s) find people of merit on whatever sets of measures they want and pay those they choose to have kids or to supply sperm/eggs/parenting (whichever they think important for the traits)? Maybe also give subsidized child-care to their progeny. This would allow for competition of metrics between and inside such organizations. Sure only using positive feedback might be a bit slower than also availing ourselves of negative ones. But negative ones seem more tricky to implement, and we don't actually know what the species will need in the future, i.e. if we even have a single goal in this search space. Ethically less complicated to nurture the flowers you want to see blooming than to have a hand in cutting off others.
    - nnq 14y ago
      1. I don't trust "centralized" solutions to anything and an "eugenics institute" dictating what the best traits are seems scary even to me! 2. Yes, amplifying possibly unfair advantages is a nasty side-effect of this, but in a "mostly clean an functioning" capitalist society with not that much corruption, mafia and stuff this could be mitigated (I even goes the US comes close enough to this... by comparison on a global scale). 3. I don't think this will "put us at each other's throats"... poorer people to which the tax is targeted at should feel more motivated to have a better life, like swimming pool and better sports car than to have kids... or we'll need to fix this with more "pro-consumerist propaganda"! 4. And about positive versus negative feedback/motivations... I might have an overly "dark" view of human nature, but I think only negative/pain/punishment will work for those that need to be discouraged in having children (benefits might make the other change their minds and have more children but my intuition tells me it won't work - yes, we need some sort of controlled social engineering experiment to check this assumption, of course).
      - nooneelse 14y ago
aswanson 14y ago
Who forms the selection criteria?
- nnq 14y ago
  Make the "penalty" a "tax" and money becomes the criteria. Add tax exemptions for valuable but not so well paid professionals like researchers, university professors etc. (it's not like the poor that would desperately want kids will suddenly struggle to become medical researchers or university professors just to avoid the tax). Plus, you can use the tax money to improve education and give free university education (some countries already have this). And if you're smart but you're not the "academic type", you'll probably find a well paid profession for yourself anyway so you shouldn't worry.
  - vadman 14y ago
    If you want to prevent individuals who are e.g. predisposed to certain disorders from being born, I don't see how money as criteria can help.
    - nnq 14y ago
      It's not supposed to do that! It's supposed to have people with "higher levels of" positive traits like intelligence, self-control, imagination to have more children then those with lower levels (and also to improve the chances that children get raised in families that can afford to offer them good education - so it takes care of the "nurture" part too, not just "nature" - and yes, this means that such a social engineering strategy would be more than just eugenics). People predisposed to certain disorders usually have less offspring anyway... so nature does a pretty good job at this without help (ever seen a person with a severe mental illness having more than a couple of children, even by accident?)
      - vadman 14y ago
        Hmm. Well I was thinking in the context proposed by the grand-grand...parent, even though he backtracked: "...eugenics. This is not something I am opposed to from a scientific point of view. We do it with livestock, so why not us?" You can be predisposed to a lot of things -- diabetes, heart problems, and so on -- most of those don't necessarily prevent you from reproducing. But being "intelligent, motivated, imaginative" has little to do with having a "disadvantageous" genetic makeup leading to health issues. So you are not taking the whole "nature" part into account, only part of it. Also note that I am not necessarily supporting eugenics, just thinking aloud. At the same time, I don't see how your proposal is any better than "classical" eugenics from the human rights point of view. We can take it one step further and assign an importance coefficient for voting. Let the professor/researcher vote count for 3 units; as for the proles, .7 will suffice. After all, why shouldn't people with intelligence, self-control, and imagination have more of a say in where the country is headed -- it's mostly their kids who will live in this country in the future, so it's only fair.