If Mort Divine ruled the world

[Omni]

fwiw I don't mean sterilizing all ethnic minorities or anything. A lot of that has come from the realization that people aware of their inferiority are often some of the biggest proponents of eugenics. I can't tell you how self-described autistic folks I've run into on the internet, ranting on about their shitty genetic heritage and low intelligence and how they wish they could have been born into a better stock. Even with famous spree killers and such there's a bit of a trend, incredibly awkward individuals forced into society and hating it, having parents with simultaneous savior- and martyr-complexes that happily bear the burden of a mental cripple, perfectly fine with taking away any agency from their offspring. The ideal solution is required screening for all women seeking to give birth, and threatening to revoke government support should their children have serious defects and require it.

It's enough that I would prefer to describe myself as pro-abortion rather than pro-choice. I mean, I'm a libertarian idealist, but let's say there are a few areas where I have to crack the whip and control people? Then I'm sure as hell controlling those uteri to my heart's content, fuck the "choice" to create a broken life.

This is stupid the genetic markers for autism and other "defects" do not automatically signify that a child will have your perceived shortcomings. It's also worth noting that a lot more people who are autistic successfully integrate into society without issues than people who are uneducated on the subject (such as you) realize.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

This is stupid the genetic markers for autism and other "defects" do not automatically signify that a child will have your perceived shortcomings. It's also worth noting that a lot more people who are autistic successfully integrate into society without issues than people who are uneducated on the subject (such as you) realize.

Autism was just one anecdote given that the average anti-social sperg is still capable of understanding their situation to some extent, unlike someone with Down's or etc. I'm just saying that people spend more time thinking about the family than the person with the disease/problem; just look at any number of invalids withering away on life support and their families selfishly trying to prolong their suffering. It's just a matter of playing good odds. A child is already a huge investment, why take the odds on one you know more likely to be defective when abortions are so cheap?

 

[Omni]

You're literally proposing that we exterminate entire groups of people with specific genetic markers because of the fact that they and their offspring may require certain accomodations because of something that they don't have any choice in, in the minute chance that they actually have a condition that requires it. That's clearly immoral.

Also, talking down about people who have autism like they're lesser than you is pretty outdated and a clear indicator that you aren't an unbiased person in this type of discussion and that you're far from objective on it. The majority of autistic people don't require any special accomodations and many of them excel in a lot of ways. It's ignorant to use that as a platform of discourse in a day and age where experts realize autistic people are developmentally different rather than considering it to be a handicap.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Fetuses are people?

 

[Omni]

No, they aren't, but you're denying an entire group of people the right to ever exist in the future due to genetic markers that make them more likely to have specific conditions without ever knowing what their quality of life would be like in order to exterminate what you consider to be a defect that will never actually be an impossibility even if these measures are taken.

If you have to resort to a three-word ad hominem argument when I never stated what you're saying, you've lost the argument. You clearly don't have a way to justify what you're saying on an objective, unbiased level.

Oh, and I'm actually pro-choice. I'm just not pro-immoral extermination of people that you consider to be worse than yourself because they are different than you.

 

[Omni]

Also, the decision to solely focus only on people who you perceive as having lower mental faculty than yourself when there are more hereditary conditions that are unrelated to this pretty clearly shows a level of irreparable bias on your part.

I'm done with this conversation because you've once again demonstrated an aversion to reality and decided to substitute it with flawed logic.

 

[The Ozzman]

No, they aren't, but you're denying an entire group of people the right to ever exist

Did you just contradict yourself here?

 

[Omni]

Only if you cut off my sentence right there like a Fox News edit of a video of someone saying something that they can use out of context. Even the next three words in my sentence invalidate your claim.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

How can people have a future right to exist when they do not exist yet? Since when are things that do not exist given rights?

 

[Mort Divine]

You are effectively saying to the people that already exist with conditions such as autism "If I had my way you wouldn't exist"

 

[The Ozzman]

Well if you're saying fetuses aren't people, then how are you denying 'people' the right to exist when they aren't people in the first place according to your logic? People who don't exist can't end up existing in the past so the next three words in the sentence are irrelevant to your claim anyway.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

And in an alternative reality where the parents re-rolled and came up with a healthy child, you'd be saying to people "If I had my way you wouldn't exist".

 

[Funerary_Doom]

Also, what HB said is honestly way less offensive than what arg stated. Obviously, they are both wrong in regards to eugenics and how it works. Eugenics does not work with no other animal except maybe a canine and even then when the canine species were breed to produce dog as we know it today, they in the process lost more than a quarter of their diversity. Canines were able to become dogs because canines actually have a lot of biodiversity in their genetic makeup. Humans do not have a lot biodiversity to begin with, unlike canines or other animals of the same species. So in other words, a human from one side of the world and one from the opposite side have more commonalities than differences. Going for an "ideal" in human eugenics is just about the most illogical thing any one could do because it will NOT change human species in the present, but it will in fact cut off the abilities for humans to change in the future. It's common sense (and simple science) that by limiting gene pools of any species (based on pseudo-science, prejudice and just plain ol' dumb ass thinking) will lead itself vulnerable from any change that strays away from the "ideal" conditions.


Also, there's absolutely no -sure- way to predict intelligence, autism, disabilities etc because there are just too many ways genes can be expressed. A lot of eugenics is pseudo-science garbage and yet it gets tons of funding because people with both a superiority and inferiority complex (because honestly you have to have both simultaneously to be so vested in this) push for it and have money and think the only way to "save" humanity is through selective breeding. No, the only way to save humanity is to allow for some differences, pick up a book once every so often, and be interested in others once in awhile.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

But at the same time some of you have no problem with all the people that abort babies because they think those children are "doomed to poverty"? o k

 

[HamburgerBoy]

There are still plenty of biological traits, heritable or not, that determine the quality of one's life. I'm not so much advocating preserving an ideal as much as wanting to prevent mistakes. Biodiversity in the racial sense made analogous to dogs doesn't work. For example, various populations may have roughly similar rates of Down's syndrome, and it's obviously not something that can be bred out of the human stock. We can, however, subsidize and strongly encourage all pregnant women to undergo screening to check if their child has Down's syndrome before birth, as well as shaming those that conscious choose to conceive said child. We're not eradicating a species or a population, just ensuring they don't exist to begin with.

And I agree that diversity is a good thing and that indicators aren't everything. You can find brilliant people that are autistic, there have been studies showing that STEM-type people actually have autistic children more frequently than the average Joe, etc. But there are still a ton of people that should not be encouraged to have children, and I think it's hilarious that people like Omni, someone that's self-described pro-choice, can support the rights of a non-entity only when it involves protecting those with the lowest chance of having a good life.

EDIT: And is it still the late 19th century? Who the fuck funds eugenics studies these days? There isn't much out there more politically suicidal than that; it's an issue that causes both right-wing religious types and left-wing sjws to cry "Hitler!"

 

[Einherjar86]

But there are still a ton of people that should not be encouraged to have children, and I think it's hilarious that people like Omni, someone that's self-described pro-choice, can support the rights of a non-entity only when it involves protecting those with the lowest chance of having a good life.

I think this entire argument is eliding what is meant by "pro-choice."

When we're talking about the future welfare of a child, whether that means economic or genetic, we're not talking about the government's responsibility for stepping in and making the decision for an individual. That's what is being argued against. It's a woman's right to choose. That's where the issue lies - not in the future welfare of a child. If science is able to inform a woman that her child has certain genetic markers, and she decides to terminate the pregnancy, then that's her prerogative.

Future welfare may factor into an individual's choice, but it's still supposed to be the individual's choice. I think that's actually where HB differs more from Omni. I think HB wants pregnancy to be within the jurisdiction of the state (like China, maybe?) - which, if we're being honest, it basically already is, although for different reasons (i.e. our nation's obsession with the sanctity of fetal matter).

 

[Omni]

Jesus Christ. The fact that I have to come here to say that stating that you're denying a group of people the right to ever exist in the future by mandating that they are never allowed to be born is not the same thing as saying fetuses are people when it's obvious as fuck is so stupid. I actually expect a lot more from you, Ozz. You're usually pretty decent.

Also, pro-choice means you agree that women have a right to an abortion if they want one. It doesn't mean that you support eugenics that are mandated by law and force women to get an abortion. That's literally the exact opposite of choice.

I also think arg's first post is intentionally being offensive and not being serious.

 

[Dak]

So if "a group of potential people" are intentionally denied future potential existence because of selecting for traits on the idea that this will be more convenient for society at large, convenient for the parent(s), and maybe even their potential selves, this is horrible terrible no good very bad thinking/behavior. Conversely, if potential future people, which will be denied this future indiscriminately, are denied future potential existence out of purely personal convenience this is a wonderful thing no decent person could possibly object to. Otay.

 

[The Ozzman]

Jesus Christ. The fact that I have to come here to say that stating that you're denying a group of people the right to ever exist in the future by mandating that they are never allowed to be born is not the same thing as saying fetuses are people when it's obvious as fuck is so stupid. I actually expect a lot more from you, Ozz. You're usually pretty decent.

Excuse the fuck out of me, but apparently it wasn't obvious to me. I was just confused is all. I never explicitly indicated that I wanted to deny their right to exist. I wanted clarification on what you initially said by posing that question.

 

[Omni]

Good. I did state it already but I'm glad that you know this and understand what I was trying to say now.