2 ms·
Oooph. I'm going to be charitable and make a (horrifying) steelman point for you: Eugenics can be understood as a subset of the ideas of plant and animal breed
by ajross 2mo ago
Oooph. I'm going to be charitable and make a (horrifying) steelman point for you: Eugenics can be understood as a subset of the ideas of plant and animal breeding that have been practiced for centuries. Those are scientifically sound, thus the idea that humans can be bred for certain traits should be too.
THAT SAID, "Eugenics" as espoused and understood over the past two centuries isn't that at all. It's 100%, every time, a pretty face for racism. Human social and ancestry divisions ARE NOT the product of deliberate selection, never have been, and any attempt to conflate the ideas is, yeah, pretty fucking unsound. And horrifying.
- datsci_est_2015 2mo ago> Eugenics can be understood as a subset of the ideas of plant and animal breeding that have been practiced for centuries. That's called "artificial selection", and people who believe that certain groups of humans are somehow superior or inferior to each other because of differences in genetics would love for you to conflate "artificial selection" and "eugenics". There's no need to steelman a concept that has caused unimaginable human suffering.