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Yes well done, seeing that article actually made me order scans for entire family. Why? Because at this point technology seems fairly stable if public outcry i

Yes well done, seeing that article actually made me order scans for entire family. Why? Because at this point technology seems fairly stable if public outcry is directed at easily correctable and easy to miss during implementation bug. This is `future` tech right here - you get a glimpse into your own DNA. What kind of Engineer would I be if I was not a little bit curious about it? Note: I am firm believer in Eugenics, so I might be a bit biased. Edit: there seems to be a confusion about Eugenics, so to clarify I do not believe in Negative Eugenics/Positive Eugenics (which is not letting people breed/letting only fittest breed). What I believe in that if given a choice of 2 partners (Does not matter who, your choice), if you pick the one who will minimize risk of the offspring inheriting genetic diseases, that is enough to make positive progress in Humanity's gene pool. If at least fraction of people follows that logic, it should be possible to measurable reduce inheritable diseases within few generations.

conanite 13y ago
> I am firm believer is Eugenics Eugenics means requiring inferior people to not reproduce. There are some problems implementing this requirement. Do you mean something else?
- vehementi 13y ago
  > There are some problems implementing this requirement. Diplomacy score of 100
- bmelton 13y ago
  I am not into eugenics, and I'm not the poster you're responding to, but eugenics, as a theory, is perfectly harmless, until such time as one begins imposing eugenic criteria for others. Given his interest in his own genetic data, and his interest in eugenics, it could well just be that he sees himself as less likely to reproduce if doing so would be to pass along a detrimental illness or genetic abnormality.
  - TrainedMonkey 13y ago
    Or you pick a partner with DNA to minimize chance of inheritable genetic diseases by offspring.
    - bmelton 13y ago
      Exactly The point, really, is that eugenics itself is not necessarily evil until and unless you attempt to control the reproductive rights of others by your own eugenic criteria.
    - figglesonrails 13y ago
      More easily said than done. :\
  - aaronem 13y ago
    > ...eugenics, as a theory, is perfectly harmless, until such time as one begins imposing eugenic criteria for others. Which becomes nigh-inevitable once eugenic theories are readmitted to the discourse, because once you postulate that individual reproductive behavior has a detrimental effect on society as a whole, it becomes a public health matter. As is trivially obvious from the history of the century just past, that particular slope is very steep and very slippery, and it leads into a crevasse whose contents are horrifying indeed.
    - bmelton 13y ago
      Only in situations where society has power over individual choice, which, I grant up front, is exactly the society we have in America. To put it into perspective though, Michael Bloomberg recently attempted to ban the sale of large sodas in New York City. I, as a personal choice, do not drink soda, because I believe it's the devil, basically. That said, that is only a personal choice. I agree that it's obviously detrimental to society on the whole, but so what? I'm not beholden to society on the whole, nor is society beholden to me. The idea that we should ban soda, even if we know that it is bad for society, and even if we know that it is bad for the individual, is antithetical to freedom, and a practice which I don't support. All that said, I agree that we live in far too controlling a society, and this is exactly why I oppose the notion of socialized health care; which is that as more of society is involved in my medical choices, more of them have incentive to eliminate every unhealthy thing that I might do (and vice versa). Despite the fact that I am a very healthy individual by most standards, I don't want my freedom to drink the occasional soda evaporated by those who mean well.
- cperciva 13y ago
  > Eugenics means requiring inferior people to not reproduce Not necessarily. Saying "you have the BRCA gene... here, have some free birth control pills" would be a eugenic policy, but it's not forcing anything on anyone. The same goes for PGD: It allows parents to have children who lack a "bad gene" and thereby improves the genetic health of the population, but it's not compulsory.
nitrogen 13y ago
Note: I am firm believer is[sic] Eugenics, so I might be a bit biased. You might want to explain that a bit further, before you get associated with the tragic events of the early 20th century and downvoted into oblivion.
- cema 13y ago
  I believe there is no such thing as "downvoted into oblivion" any longer. Still, the point about Eugenics is valid: even without the unfortunate associations with the events of the previous century, the term is rather vague.
- derefr 13y ago
  The GP could mean any of several things, none of which have to do with those events (EDIT: he means 1 and the converse-corollary of 3): 1. Auto-eugenics: the ethical obligation one feels, when one knows they have horrible DNA, to adopt instead of breed. 2. Eugenic engineering: currently, this means "do IVF, look at the zygotes, and pick the healthiest ones to try to implant." In the future, this could involve genetic patches from healthy donors ("gene cleaning") or just plain hacked-in transhuman bonus features. 3. Eugenics, under the original botanical definition of the term: pairing people with really great DNA, and encouraging them to breed as much as possible, and repeating this process over several generations. We already vaguely do this naturally by interpreting health-signals like height or breast size as indicative of mating potential, and we're doing it more explicitly when we select good sperm/eggs from a donor clinic to pair to our own. (The final sci-fi-ish step in this one would be for women to volunteer to/get paid to/pay to (depending on supply vs, demand) "adopt at conception" genetically-"optimized" children matched by the clinics themselves. This would probably be in addition to the gene-cleaning techniques from 2.) Oh, and I guess I should mention this last one, which is closest to the "problematic" version but which, surprisingly, has been attempted to success (i.e. Nobody being unhappy with the arrangement): 4. Libertarian eugenics: Pay people you'd be afraid of reproducing, to not have kids any more. This could be a state rent-transfer, but it's also possible to make it an entirely bottom-up process: any individual activist with some money to give can do their own "vigilante eugenics," finding, say, crack-addicted mothers and offering a lump-sum to get their tubes tied[1]. And this has happened: http://www.radiolab.org/story/251887-what-if-no-destiny/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/251887-what-if-no-destiny/ Really, "the bad eugenics" is a ghost from the past, more an artefact of Nazi beliefs about racial purity than any productive approach to solving the problem. --- [1] Okay, this is less "eugenics" and more "euteratogenics" plus a little "euepigenics." But we're making people here, not show-grade Dalmatians; we care about more than their potential as good breeding stock.
mikeash 13y ago
Since when does choosing your own partner in a way that minimizes the risk of your children inheriting genetic diseases "Eugenics"? For god's sake, it's like saying you're a proponent of Nazism because you think model rocketry is a good hobby. And you wonder why people are confused?!?!?!
- stinky613 13y ago
  That's what eugenics is, at its core. Whether or not one imposes beliefs of eugenics on others is another matter. "the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics)" http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eugenics?s=t&path=/ http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eugenics?s=t&path=/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
  - mikeash 13y ago
    There is no "what it is", just what people understand the term to be. It is, quite frankly, stupid to use a term as loaded as "Eugenics" and then get upset when people don't manage to realize that you're using it to mean something completely different from what it's commonly understood to mean.
- r0muald 13y ago
  Godwin's law, pal..

conanite 13y ago

> I am firm believer is Eugenics Eugenics means requiring inferior people to not reproduce. There are some problems implementing this requirement. Do you mean something else?

vehementi 13y ago
> There are some problems implementing this requirement. Diplomacy score of 100
bmelton 13y ago
I am not into eugenics, and I'm not the poster you're responding to, but eugenics, as a theory, is perfectly harmless, until such time as one begins imposing eugenic criteria for others. Given his interest in his own genetic data, and his interest in eugenics, it could well just be that he sees himself as less likely to reproduce if doing so would be to pass along a detrimental illness or genetic abnormality.
- TrainedMonkey 13y ago
  Or you pick a partner with DNA to minimize chance of inheritable genetic diseases by offspring.
  - bmelton 13y ago
    Exactly The point, really, is that eugenics itself is not necessarily evil until and unless you attempt to control the reproductive rights of others by your own eugenic criteria.
  - figglesonrails 13y ago
    More easily said than done. :\
- aaronem 13y ago
  > ...eugenics, as a theory, is perfectly harmless, until such time as one begins imposing eugenic criteria for others. Which becomes nigh-inevitable once eugenic theories are readmitted to the discourse, because once you postulate that individual reproductive behavior has a detrimental effect on society as a whole, it becomes a public health matter. As is trivially obvious from the history of the century just past, that particular slope is very steep and very slippery, and it leads into a crevasse whose contents are horrifying indeed.
  - bmelton 13y ago
    Only in situations where society has power over individual choice, which, I grant up front, is exactly the society we have in America. To put it into perspective though, Michael Bloomberg recently attempted to ban the sale of large sodas in New York City. I, as a personal choice, do not drink soda, because I believe it's the devil, basically. That said, that is only a personal choice. I agree that it's obviously detrimental to society on the whole, but so what? I'm not beholden to society on the whole, nor is society beholden to me. The idea that we should ban soda, even if we know that it is bad for society, and even if we know that it is bad for the individual, is antithetical to freedom, and a practice which I don't support. All that said, I agree that we live in far too controlling a society, and this is exactly why I oppose the notion of socialized health care; which is that as more of society is involved in my medical choices, more of them have incentive to eliminate every unhealthy thing that I might do (and vice versa). Despite the fact that I am a very healthy individual by most standards, I don't want my freedom to drink the occasional soda evaporated by those who mean well.
cperciva 13y ago
> Eugenics means requiring inferior people to not reproduce Not necessarily. Saying "you have the BRCA gene... here, have some free birth control pills" would be a eugenic policy, but it's not forcing anything on anyone. The same goes for PGD: It allows parents to have children who lack a "bad gene" and thereby improves the genetic health of the population, but it's not compulsory.

nitrogen 13y ago

Note: I am firm believer is[sic] Eugenics, so I might be a bit biased. You might want to explain that a bit further, before you get associated with the tragic events of the early 20th century and downvoted into oblivion.

cema 13y ago
I believe there is no such thing as "downvoted into oblivion" any longer. Still, the point about Eugenics is valid: even without the unfortunate associations with the events of the previous century, the term is rather vague.
derefr 13y ago
The GP could mean any of several things, none of which have to do with those events (EDIT: he means 1 and the converse-corollary of 3): 1. Auto-eugenics: the ethical obligation one feels, when one knows they have horrible DNA, to adopt instead of breed. 2. Eugenic engineering: currently, this means "do IVF, look at the zygotes, and pick the healthiest ones to try to implant." In the future, this could involve genetic patches from healthy donors ("gene cleaning") or just plain hacked-in transhuman bonus features. 3. Eugenics, under the original botanical definition of the term: pairing people with really great DNA, and encouraging them to breed as much as possible, and repeating this process over several generations. We already vaguely do this naturally by interpreting health-signals like height or breast size as indicative of mating potential, and we're doing it more explicitly when we select good sperm/eggs from a donor clinic to pair to our own. (The final sci-fi-ish step in this one would be for women to volunteer to/get paid to/pay to (depending on supply vs, demand) "adopt at conception" genetically-"optimized" children matched by the clinics themselves. This would probably be in addition to the gene-cleaning techniques from 2.) Oh, and I guess I should mention this last one, which is closest to the "problematic" version but which, surprisingly, has been attempted to success (i.e. Nobody being unhappy with the arrangement): 4. Libertarian eugenics: Pay people you'd be afraid of reproducing, to not have kids any more. This could be a state rent-transfer, but it's also possible to make it an entirely bottom-up process: any individual activist with some money to give can do their own "vigilante eugenics," finding, say, crack-addicted mothers and offering a lump-sum to get their tubes tied[1]. And this has happened: http://www.radiolab.org/story/251887-what-if-no-destiny/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/251887-what-if-no-destiny/ Really, "the bad eugenics" is a ghost from the past, more an artefact of Nazi beliefs about racial purity than any productive approach to solving the problem. --- [1] Okay, this is less "eugenics" and more "euteratogenics" plus a little "euepigenics." But we're making people here, not show-grade Dalmatians; we care about more than their potential as good breeding stock.

mikeash 13y ago

Since when does choosing your own partner in a way that minimizes the risk of your children inheriting genetic diseases "Eugenics"? For god's sake, it's like saying you're a proponent of Nazism because you think model rocketry is a good hobby. And you wonder why people are confused?!?!?!

stinky613 13y ago
That's what eugenics is, at its core. Whether or not one imposes beliefs of eugenics on others is another matter. "the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics)" http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eugenics?s=t&path=/ http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eugenics?s=t&path=/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
- mikeash 13y ago
  There is no "what it is", just what people understand the term to be. It is, quite frankly, stupid to use a term as loaded as "Eugenics" and then get upset when people don't manage to realize that you're using it to mean something completely different from what it's commonly understood to mean.
r0muald 13y ago
Godwin's law, pal..