Should Eugenics Make People Superior to Yourself?

[Blowtus]

NM - you are yet to explain why physical strength / stature is a worthy rating scale, when evolution / nature itself would appear to be showing us that it is not.

 

[Blowtus]

where as today there are ugly stupid hated annoying people everywhere, who, frankly, don't deserve to have as much self-esteem as they may have thanks to another's social or sexual poverty forcing them into welcoming such a person as better than nothing...

I enjoyed this bit

I think I agree with the rest too, but I'll digest further before commenting further

 

[Mirdautas Vras]

suppose you, sir, are ugly, and not very smart, yourself: with the idea of actually improving the world, would it be better you restrain yourself from breeding, or simply regulate your breeding with the guidance of science?

After all, the main stock breeders aren't exactly the finest examples of humanity's peak, and I doubt they'd care to be refused the right to breed due to their unwillingness to aspire do a better job than mere happenstance does.

Well hypothetically, it would be much better not to of course there is already enough people on the planet. I wouldn't use science because, scientific enhance while good is unnatural.

 

[Seditious]

NM - you are yet to explain why physical strength / stature is a worthy rating scale, when evolution / nature itself would appear to be showing us that it is not.

Agreed---why should we care if Europeans used to be taller if today we have stilts, ladders, elevators, helicopters, and a thousand technological evolutions to compensate for anything in biological evolution's lacking... we don't lament 'humans used to be so much more hairy, now look at what shivering bald wrecks we are; this really is quite a step backwards' for precisely the fact that we can design any sort of fur-replacement we find suitable.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Agreed---why should we care if Europeans used to be taller if today we have stilts, ladders, elevators, helicopters, and a thousand technological evolutions to compensate for anything in biological evolution's lacking... we don't lament 'humans used to be so much more hairy, now look at what shivering bald wrecks we are; this really is quite a step backwards' for precisely the fact that we can design any sort of fur-replacement we find suitable.

This degeneration in our physiques will lead to extinction. We have (nightmare) visions that instead we will use our technology to evolve into some kind of half-machines or to look like the sci-fi Green men and other such aliens, typically with oversized heads and weedy bodies incapable of childbirth. (So much preferable to the evil that is eugenics). The fact is that it is far more likely that we will just slowly dissappear.

The rate of innovation has been slowing for years, and only has any momentum at all from the efforts of the minds of the Victorian age, which was the age of greatest reason - when Darwinism revolutionised our understanding of biology. Now superstition and religion are coming back and people are shunning rational views of the world. The "progress" we have now in science is almost exclusively to do with reasearch that is geared towards financial profiteering and weaponry. The kind of science born of curiosity alone has been sidelined. The "progress" we have now is killing the planet.

 

[Blowtus]

You make a lot of big claims, as always... why not try to back them up a little? You won't convince any rational thinkers with one sided unjustified rhetoric - that stuff is good for the superstitious and religious.

 

[Seditious]

This degeneration in our physiques will lead to extinction.

do you foresee the source of our extinction being a very tall extraterrestrial whacking us with his shoe?

We have (nightmare) visions that instead we will use our technology to evolve into some kind of half-machines or to look like the sci-fi Green men and other such aliens, typically with oversized heads and weedy bodies incapable of childbirth.

The former is consistant with your primitivist tendencies, but I'm shocked at your latter suggestion---I'd have thought something like 'speciation' would be something you'd favor... I mean, do you have some romantic notion of once again being hairy and small-brained because good heavens look at what pale bald things we've become?... we've evolved to this point, and if we evolve a little darker (or greener), more hairless, bigger skulls, where's the tragedy? the same process is what made us what we were thousands of years ago, which you seem to want to hold on to. It sounds almost like you'd rather oppose naturally developing into what becomes most fit, as if that which was once the best still is, and, in fact, cannot be surpassed...

 

[Norsemaiden]

do you foresee the source of our extinction being a very tall extraterrestrial whacking us with his shoe?

Of course not. When a child is born with severe genetic defects does it require an extraterrestrial to attack it for it to die? It just dies. I can't believe Blotus and you can't see how obvious that is.

The former is consistant with your primitivist tendencies, but I'm shocked at your latter suggestion---I'd have thought something like 'speciation' would be something you'd favor... I mean, do you have some romantic notion of once again being hairy and small-brained because good heavens look at what pale bald things we've become?... we've evolved to this point, and if we evolve a little darker (or greener), more hairless, bigger skulls, where's the tragedy? the same process is what made us what we were thousands of years ago, which you seem to want to hold on to. It sounds almost like you'd rather oppose naturally developing into what becomes most fit, as if that which was once the best still is, and, in fact, cannot be surpassed...

Hairy and small brained? Our brains are getting smaller now. If we don't halt, and ideally reverse this process then the future won't exist for us in any form. The only speciation that I forsee happening that can leave anyone alive long-term is if we find some way to regain the strengths we have lost.

Why do you say "hairy" - obviously I am not talking about some kind of apeman here, but how we were at the advent of civilisation. The people who first created civilisation were in peak mental and physical form. They were good looking, intelligent and healthy. Why do you prefer ugliness, stupidity and sickness to that?

If my argument does not convince it is not because the argument is wrong, but because many people lack the necessary spirit to see the truth of it. The weakest fear and hate strength and will find any way they can to oppose it.

Do you claim that domesticated animals are a product of evolution? They, like us, are bred in a process that by-passes natural selection. But one day all this artifice will collapse and natural selection will have its chance to salvage what it can. That will be a lot more painful for humanity than would be an attempt to manage the process in accordance with how we percieve that the end result of a return to natural selection would purge us.

 

[Seditious]

Why do you say "hairy"

I say 'hairy' because if turning 'green' by evolution is bad, turning 'bald' by evolution must be bad too... that's why I found it odd you seem to support a natural development, yet throw an evolution straying from aryan perfection in with the defilement of our species with mechanical implants...

 

[Seditious]

If my argument does not convince it is not because the argument is wrong, but because many people lack the necessary spirit to see the truth of it. The weakest fear and hate strength and will find any way they can to oppose it

oh dear

you don't want to go making that claim... frankly it looks like an abuse of Nietzsche from here... accusing people of not accepting a claim because they're weak rather than because the argument is weak.

I don't think anything in mine or Blowtus' posts would lead you to suggest we have some agenda to debunk any unflattering truth about the species, or deny any philosophy that lacks compassion and some sacred-life principle... so I think it's pretty weak that you'd accuse anyone who doesn't agree with you with only doing so because they don't like your conclusions, rather than because they haven't seen any good reasoning toward it [yet].

 

[Blowtus]

Do you claim that domesticated animals are a product of evolution? They, like us, are bred in a process that by-passes natural selection. But one day all this artifice will collapse and natural selection will have its chance to salvage what it can. That will be a lot more painful for humanity than would be an attempt to manage the process in accordance with how we percieve that the end result of a return to natural selection would purge us.

You seem to be viewing evolution / natural selection as only occurring in certain circumstances that appeal to you. Survival and pro-creation is occurring even today, amidst our consumerist, tolerant society. To suggest that natural selection only occurs in specific circumstances is rubbish - the selection criteria merely change, further away from your noble caveman ideal. Perhaps the driving factors in the selection appear more 'temporary' and 'specialised' (as with funny looking pure-bred dogs) with 'possibly' less broad range scope for survival. If you want to start arguing coherently along those lines I might start to agree...

 

[Norsemaiden]

You seem to be viewing evolution / natural selection as only occurring in certain circumstances that appeal to you. Survival and pro-creation is occurring even today, amidst our consumerist, tolerant society. To suggest that natural selection only occurs in specific circumstances is rubbish - the selection criteria merely change, further away from your noble caveman ideal. Perhaps the driving factors in the selection appear more 'temporary' and 'specialised' (as with funny looking pure-bred dogs) with 'possibly' less broad range scope for survival. If you want to start arguing coherently along those lines I might start to agree...

Yes there is still evolution going on, despite the domestication (which works against natural selection and is artificial selection) but the differences between our present minds and bodies and those of the people at the beginning of western civilisation are due to the adaption to civilisation itself, and the effects of keeping alive a large pool of people who could not have survived without the assistance of civilisation.

 

[Norsemaiden]

The academic discussion of domestication often involves terms that serve to white-wash its effects, such as “neoteny.” Neoteny is defined as the retention of juvenile characteristics in adult animals, and it does occur in the animal kingdom naturally, where it offers an ecological advantage. But neoteny is also a trait almost universally found in domesticated animals. It is selected for by human breeders to create greater docility. Such is the normal terminology, which makes the process seem benign enough. But if we strip away the white-wash, then we can also say that domestication was a eugenics program to warp animal bodies, to retard their growth, and to trap them in ever more childlike bodies. Wild wolf cubs wag their tails and bark often, but they outgrow this behavior as they grow older into mature adults. Any dog owner can recognize the “neoteny” in that comparison. A dog is an eternal cub, incapable of ever fully growing up. A dog’s floppy ears are another neotenous trait. Particularly in behavior, such neoteny has been observed in wolves—but only among captive wolf packs, as signs of abject submission, where the normal egalitarianism of the wild pack is replaced with patterns of hierarchy and constant struggles for dominance. To strip away the academic white-wash, the behavior of the domesticated dog reveals a life of groveling submission. The least neotenous breed of dog, the basenji, is bred in Africa as a hunting companion—as an equal, “neither needing nor appreciating a great deal of human attention or nurturing,” ...

...if we were to try to compare these events to relationships between people rather than species, we might think of a man who falls in love with a woman, marries her, and after several years of happy marriage decides to violently rape her. He finds he enjoys the experience, and begins to rape other women, as well. If we were to say that this is still copulation just like before, that would be trivially true, just as it is trivially true to equate domestication with co-evolution, but that statement obscures far more than it reveals. It would be far more significant to point out how the relationship changes—how a relationship of mutual trust in a shared environment is violently overturned and replaced with patterns of domination...

...Domestication entailed both biological and behavioral changes. At first, domestication of any species of mammal is almost always accompanied by a dramatic reduction in body size; this is so generally true that it is used as the main indicator that domestication has occured. Only later are animals bred for extreme sizes, either larger or smaller. But there is one part of a domesticated animal’s body that becomes significantly smaller, and never recovers: the brain. Horse brains decreased in size 16% following domestication; pigs, 34%; dogs, between 30% and 10% (Simonds, 1998). Domestication selects for stupidity alongside tameness, and brings with it a toll on intellect that can never be recovered...

...Humans have been domesticated...

http://anthropik.com/2007/07/rewilding-humans/

 

[Blowtus]

sure - domestication is just a term for a specific form of change in the environment / selection criteria. Apply it to humans if it pleases you, doesn't really have any bearing on whether evolution is occurring or not. Dogs still evolve, the criteria necessary for their survival are merely altered.

 

[Seditious]

sure - domestication is just a term for a specific form of change in the environment / selection criteria. Apply it to humans if it pleases you, doesn't really have any bearing on whether evolution is occurring or not. Dogs still evolve, the criteria necessary for their survival are merely altered.

apparently an exoskeleton or a buff viking body is preferable to medicine and an immune system...

 

[Norsemaiden]

apparently an exoskeleton or a buff viking body is preferable to medicine and an immune system...

We are becoming reliant on an increasing number of artificial props for survival. And meanwhile the rate of genetic illness is increasing, miscarriage is increasing, birth defects are alarmingly high, etc. We can't take these artificial props for granted. It would be much better not to need them.

 

[Blowtus]

We are becoming reliant on an increasing number of artificial props for survival. And meanwhile the rate of genetic illness is increasing, miscarriage is increasing, birth defects are alarmingly high, etc. We can't take these artificial props for granted. It would be much better not to need them.

Why?

 

[Seditious]

the rate of genetic illness is increasing, miscarriage is increasing, birth defects are alarmingly high, etc.

and that could be correlated with things like 'living underneath powerlines', 'alcohol during pregnancy', 'poor nutrition', and the like... meaning a cultural change, cleaning up our way of life, our breathing atmosphere, our electromagnetic atmosphere, the chemicals we ingest, could resolve these problems you raise, and we could continue on the peaceful path to becoming bald scrawny green technology-dependent humans :zombie:... and you'd still have a problem with it

 

[Norsemaiden]

and that could be correlated with things like 'living underneath powerlines', 'alcohol during pregnancy', 'poor nutrition', and the like... meaning a cultural change, cleaning up our way of life, our breathing atmosphere, our electromagnetic atmosphere, the chemicals we ingest, could resolve these problems you raise, and we could continue on the peaceful path to becoming bald scrawny green technology-dependent humans :zombie:... and you'd still have a problem with it

Let's get this clear. Are you saying there is no reason to suppose that there is an increasing proportion of genetic defects in our population?
Are you saying that if two people with a genetic defect are kept alive by medicine and they breed there is absolutely no evidence that this their condition is likely to be passed on?
Or do you think that, as these harmful mutations accumulate in the population, it means we are still getting stronger because of medicine, or something else like "God" for example?

I do think both you and Blotus are being deliberately idiotic and just trying to be annoying.

Here is a newspaper headline from nearly 25 years ago. Can anyone find anything more up-to-date? I think the problem has increased substantially.

Physicians and statisticians who analyze patterns of births in the United States have concluded that the number of babies born with some physical or mental defect has doubled over the last 25 years

Important factor in this:

Survival of an increasing number of people with such diseases as diabetes, whose children acquire the condition by heredity.

- Improved medical technology that enables the survival of, as an example, some premature babies with birth defects who, only a few years ago, would have died.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpa...0A965948260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=print

Congenital Heart Defects


About 40,000 infants (1 out of every 125) are born with heart defects each year in the United States (1). The defect may be so slight that the baby appears healthy for many years after birth, or so severe that its life is in immediate danger.

Heart defects are among the most common birth defects and are the leading cause of birth defect-related deaths (2). However, advances in diagnosis and surgical treatment have led to dramatic increases in survival for children with serious heart defects.

http://www.marchofdimes.com/pnhec/4439_1212.asp

Shouldn't we be taking steps to prevent genetic defects from being spread?

The following list of disorders is a small list and by no means encompasses all genetic disorders. The disorders listed are ones that are mentioned throughout our web site

http://www.idph.state.ia.us/genetics/genetic_disorders.asp

 

[Blowtus]

I do think both you and Blotus are being deliberately idiotic and just trying to be annoying.

I think you're being deliberately evasive and unwilling to confront the issue head on. Why is it better not to rely on 'artificial' (whatever that really is) props? Whatever state we evolve to, our survival is always reliant on the rate of environmental change not overtaking our ability to keep up. Technology gives us a far greater ability to react to environmental change than otherwise.