Eugenics

[Rigwyn]

Eugenics:

For those who are unfamiliar with Eugenics, its basically the practice of improving the human gene pool by preventing those with undesirable genetic traits from reproducing. This can be accomplished in a number of ways such as: forced sterilization, discouraging reproduction, social pressure, murder, etc.

I'm not sure if this counts, but when criminals are imprisoned for life - or at least from youth through middle age, they are effectively kept from breeding. One might argue that this is an unintentional form of eugenics as in the long term, if their violent criminal behaviour is indeed tied to their genes, then they are effectively being removed from the gene pool.

Some would argue that this could be a good thing. For example, if you are expecting, you might want to know ahead of time if you are going to have a baby with Downs syndrome so you can terminate the pregnancy and try again. Some folks would consider this murder, or simply immoral, while others would see this as merciful or responsible. My question here is how do you decide if it is right, wrong, wise, foolish, or whatever?

Would it be possible to gently steer the human races towards one that is less prone to inherited genetic disorders and weaknesses, or is mankind generally too corrupt to do this in a fair and responsible way? Is there a fair and responsible way at all?

Lastly, is it possible for people to correctly determine whether or not humanity would be better off or worse off with the elimination of certain genetic traits? If so, does the benefit of doing so outweigh the moral opposition?


Thoughts?

[cdmoreland]

All Ynnwn are a corruption of nature and need to be eliminated!

Is the gene-pool too corrupt or not diverse enough? I have known dumb people who've birthed smart children and smart people who have birthed dumb children. Can we even begin to understand the diversity in genetics to be able to do such a thing? What are all the factors that contribute to intelligence? What part does morality play in this?

[bilbous]

You never know where a random beneficial mutation will occur. All sperms and eggs need to be harvested and be used to create new life. This can be done by our lizard robot overlords in the matrix.

[Mariana Xiechai]

It's funny because I'm writing a book that touches on this concept.

[Aramara Meibi]

are you implying that this isn't already happening on a global scale?

[Rigwyn]

are you implying that this isn't already happening on a global scale?

How do you see this happening?
Are you talking about intention attempts at manipulating the. Gene pool or cases where this happens unintentionally?

@mari - sounds good it sounds there could be some merit to this, but its a very slippery slope.

[Caraick]

Someone tell Tessra we're talking about genetics.  She's got a Master's degree in a related field.


But before she comes in and drops some edjucation on us, I'll just note that eugenics has been practiced for thousands of years already with plants and animals.  We kept the seeds from bigger plants and let the smaller ones die out.  Genetic modification is something that we've been doing for a long time, and it's the reason that we can produce food in such large quantities as we do today. And technology is nearing the point at which we're able to perform similar modifications on humans. 

It sounds like science fiction, but it's not too far from reality.  Humans have always wanted to make themselves better.

[Zalya]

This is a slippery slope.

[bilbous]

Khaaaaan! you lack flavor.

[Volki]

Oh, Rigwyn, you troll....................................

[Aramara Meibi]

how far down the rabbit hole do you wish to go?

here, i'll give you a red pill and a blue pill

[Illysia]

Can it be done, yes. Should it be done by humans now no because I think humans have too far to go on showing enough consideration for each other. Lack of consideration interferes with handling things like eugenics and deciding who lives and who dies in a way that doesn't do more damage than good. Problems would include things like Nazi like genocides, the lack of enough girl babies versus boys, potential preferential selecting for certain non life sustaining and not life harming traits over others thus removing genes that add to human diversity, practically spaying or neutering people for arbitrary reasons and or Gattaca.

At this point, I can see the benefits of eliminating horrible genetic diseases but lack any faith that Eugenics programs would do anything but replace them with horrible societal diseases.

[Rigwyn]

Not fixing a problem because of fear of failure or past failures is not good either.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Holocaust was deplorable and must never be allowed to happen again, but if the medical technology originally proposed could benefit mankind assuming it was deployed in a better way, then perhaps it should not be tossed out the window along with the baby and the bath water.

[Rigwyn]

how far down the rabbit hole do you wish to go?

here, i'll give you a red pill and a blue pill

I took the red pill after barfing up the blue pill. I don't know... it looked like some crazy person's rant about unsubstantiated and non-specific industry shenanigans, new age authors and their publishers and other fairly insignificant folks and their personal views. There's a bit of guilt by association woven into that article too. I guess I'm not really big on far fetched conspiracy theory stuff as it tends to be based on feelings and loose association and not on fact. Admittedly, I ended up skimming after getting about half way through.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on eugenics, Aramara?

[Illysia]

At this point, the problem is not theory but application and I am quite sure that humans are nowhere near the point of being able to apply without making a worse mess than the one being "fixed".

Not fixing a problem because of fear of failure or past failures is not good either.

Maybe if you are talking about fixing a car but failure in this field means you are screwing up someone's life. There is no light fail with Eugenics. The moral argument stems, in no small part, from the fact that we are talking about human beings. This is more consequential than switching out widgets until a machine works perfectly.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Holocaust was deplorable and must never be allowed to happen again, but if the medical technology originally proposed could benefit mankind assuming it was deployed in a better way, then perhaps it should not be tossed out the window along with the baby and the bath water.

Again, the theory might work but there might not be a sound or acceptable way of getting from theory to application. The problem becomes "is it right to mess some people up to help others?" There is no way of making advancement in the field without mistakes. Then what? How do you compensate someone when you may have ruined the rest of their life when they might have been able to get by had they simply been left with their original problem? I think you could only get away with trying things like gene therapy on grown people who can give consent and have low probability of survival so that any treatment attempt is better than none.

I think this is likely more problematic than advancing new surgery techniques since gene interaction seems more complicated than making sure nerves align and muscles remesh. This isn't a matter of letting failure stop you but rather realizing when you are getting too far in over your head. A eugenics program is likely putting the cart before the horse. I think way more research into how genes work would be warranted before anyone even tries that level of application.