If you want to argue against the merits or lack thereof of Eugenics, provide an argument, not a link to a comic. It brings up a point; eugenics hasn't been necessary so far. There are a number of circumstances which I believe make the coming century very different, and I believe I've stated and restated them all several times already.

dumducky, Eugenics allows decrease of population, and, really, I think you can figure out what 'inferior genes' means.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 29 2009, 7:35 pm by Centreri.

No
Just what do you think you are, a mere human deciding what is superior and inferior? and how do you even define superiority or inferiority of a gene in the first place? In a literal sense- there is no rightful standard you can define 'genes'. Intellect does not necessarily measure 'gene' superiority since most inferior intellect isn't cause by 'inferior' genes as you would call it. Plus you have failed to consider other factors that make us human, not just intelligence- which in sum makes up the total value of one's gene; which is also quite hard (quite possibly impossible) to measure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence#Factors_affecting_intelligence
That means whatever you're trying to do would have no effect on overall intelligence whatsoever- other than the decrease of population (which there are much more effective methods of, talking in your sense.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Regression_towards_the_mean
(note the equation) If you wanted to 'decrease' population while getting rid of the most stupid people in the cheapest way possible, the easiest way is to find a large area with the lowest possible intelligence average. And just spread a engineered pandemic in that area, and deliberately contain it within that area. You could even make it look like it was an accident, and there would be no one criticizing the government of genocide or mass sterilization (I dont even know whats worse- or the idea of this atrocity.)- except for the fact that they helped too late. It would be clean getaway and you have what you want. 'For the greater good', as you would say. And what a leap backwards for the Humanity.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 30 2009, 3:38 am by BeDazed.

Whoa whoa whoa. Hold on for just a second, macro evolution is untestable (currently), this means it can not be proven by the scientific method. It simply takes too long. The only testable and verifiable, with the scientific method, type of evolution is micro evolution -variation within species and types of animals. This means that eugenics can only speed the micro evolutionary rate in which humans change. Basically, we can't speed up the process in which humans develop into non-humans, because we don't know yet if macro evolution even happened. Sure, lots of people and scientists believe that macro evolution occurred, that's nice and dandy, but contrary to beliefs are laws which are completely testable and verifiable with the scientific method. Until macro evolution breaks out of its "theory" state, you can't do anything with it except talk about it.

Also, there are major limits to micro evolution. Micro evolution can be seen as a simple mathematical ratio such as x : y; this represents a specific race or species, say.. Humanity.. The left side of the ratio can be our genetic makeup (x), and the right side can be our "health" (y) or ability to live. The farther away y is from its original value, the more corrupted and frail the human will become. If you try to add or subtract parts to one side of the ratio, it inherently affects the other, taking away an amount as well as getting closer to a "desired" amount.

This is exemplified in the growing of potatoes. Some potato companies seek to can sweet potatoes, and want them to taste sweet. In order to save money on the amount of sugar added into the canning process, the company breeds the sweet potatoes to have a high natural sugar content. Once you start breeding potatoes with higher and higher natural sugar content levels, the amount of health risks increases non-linearly. There is simply a "genetic limit" at to which the potatoes simply won't be able to survive after breeding them to have a high level of natural sugar content. This can be applied to any type of breeding in which a specific trait is being pursued -focusing on one thing will always neglect another.

In my opinion, and I will not back it up with citations as it's just an opinion and doesn't prove or disprove anything, the best possible choice for any sort of eugenics is to simply let humans breed at random, that way you will have the most natural breeding possible, which won't be affected by intelligent selective breeding.

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Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 3 2018, 5:26 am by DavidJCobb.

Eugenics is an obsolete concept at this point. Genetic engineering is just beyond the horizon, so there's really no point. But I do agree that some people should not be parents. I would suggest a "Parenting License" to test whether you are capable of being responsible for the entire life of a human being. It's not about the inherent human right to have a child, but about the right to have good, capable parents.

How can someone else know enough to decide whether someone should have children? The problem is that many people would disagree with the standards the government would impose. (For example, someone might think it's alright if a parent lets their hypothetical kids drink soda on weekdays, while others want to restrict caffeinated beverages to weekends. This is just an example that might lead to a standardized test question on a "Parental License" exam.) In addition, countless individuals would not approve of state control like this, thus a "Parental License" probably will never be implemented in the US. There's really no way to force people to stop having babies, no matter how hard you try. Mass infanticide is one of the only quick solutions.

How can you decide whether you are fit to be responsible for human lives? It's not like buying a pet. You are literally owning a human being for the most crucial years of his/her life. Anyways, it can easily be regulated with fines. If you have a baby, you will never be able to get away without registering it unless you plan never to take it to a hospital. Once the law finds out you have an illegal baby, you are fined a grievous amount, like 20,000 dollars.

That's exactly the argument I'm making against your government-sponsored population control plan. No one person or group is "perfectly" fit to decide whether another human should be born.


Look what China had to do to reduce birth rates. It's not as easy as you think.

Correct. However, they don't need to be "perfectly" fit. They need to be fit enough to advance the needs of society as a whole. This applies to both 'parenting license' and eugenics.
I'm sorry, but what exactly did China do that any strong government couldn't?

The side effects of the Chinese attempts to reduce birth rates have been pretty bad from a humanitarian perspective - most families want a son, and there have been numerous cases where parents have abandoned baby daughters because of the one child policy. You have to think of the possible consequences of any birth rate reduction scheme.

China is weird. What else is new. Better abandoned daughters than another 300,000,000 mouths to feed.

Also, those daughters are not just abandoned, they are also unregistered- because of it, China's population is larger than its actual consensus. Thats the problem. That means more mouths to feed than the actual numbers. What was thought to be a 'good idea', just like yours turns out to become the source of problem than to solve the problem.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Nov 21 2009, 3:23 am by CecilSunkure. Reason: Deleted claim breaking rule 2-3.

Sure. Population is a bit larger than it says. Still better than... fine, 280,000,000 more mouths to feed. If you support China's population continuing to grow at the rate it was growing at (it doubled in fifty years, even with the methods implemented by the government - but at least it's slowing down), then we have nothing to discuss. If you have an alternate solution to what China's government did to curb population growth, then state it here. If neither of those apply, then you have no right to be arguing with me on this subject.

I agree with Centreri here. Something needed to be done in China. Sure the solution is controversial, and other solutions could have been used, but at least they did something. That "something" that they did would have taken a democracy like ours ages to complete and institutionalize. If you take a look at the numbers, the benefits outweigh the cons, even though the solution could have been dealt with in a different way.

I agree with Centreri here. Something needed to be done in China. Sure the solution is controversial, and other solutions could have been used, but at least they did something. That "something" that they did would have taken a democracy like ours ages to complete and institutionalize. If you take a look at the numbers, the benefits outweigh the cons, even though the solution could have been dealt with in a different way.[/quote

Humans have a biological aspect here too. They want to reproduce because it is their biological purpose. Wether they know it or not, in some slightly primitive part of their brain, they want to.

As for hte whole 'right to have kids' debate.

1. There was a book series made on this, and it wasnt nice, and unlikely...i think, but similarities would probably occur.

2. Give me some basic guidelines you would have, how would it work etc, its too open ended atm. It could be a test, it could be a criminal record check.

Lets assume its a test.

1. it cant be just written. people can flunk written tests and know the answers due to choking, and you cant say a parent that chokes is incapable of raising a child.

2. Theres two people in classical parenting, so they're both going to have to pass this test, correct?
Because wanting to marr-ninja owned gtg.

Also, the growth rate is only slowing down because of the faulty consensus. You actually reasoned without knowing that growth rate is the differential of the population, and without an actual consensus of the population, contending to the actual growth rate is rather- stupid? Of course the growth rate slows down! For reasons so oblivious. For all you could know, the growth rate might not even be slowing down, at all. They want a son? They get one.
Plus, this isn't even the 'topic'. What China is doing is not Eugenics. It is only population control, which they pretty much screwed up big time. The difference between birth control and eugenics? Birth control is unselective, overall suppression of breeding while Eugenics is a selective, partial suppression of breeding.
Well, if you want to stop them from growing? That's easy, let them grow until they all starve to death. The American way of thinking 'something needs to be done, something must be done' is not the case. If there is an effective method of slowing down the actual growth rate of China (1,242,612,226 consensus, 1,345,751,000 estimate), one must say the rule of inertia also applies here.
If you so want them to do something, they're already doing a fine job themselves. The real thing is taxing more to the lower class than the middle and higher class, and cutting off all humanitarian support for 'second class citizens'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_China#Human_rights

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Nov 21 2009, 8:20 pm by CecilSunkure. Reason: Removed response to deleted post.

We're not the government. We won't outline the ideal test for you right now, because we're not paid to do it. I'll be vague and say that it'll probably be multifaceted. First of all, I'm aware that the differential is the growth rate, and I don't know where you got that I didn't. Second of all, why would the population growth rate slow down? If you check the http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:CHN&q=china population chart#met=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:IRN:IND">same website for India and Iran (the former less industrialized than the latter), both have a fairly constant population growth rate, while China's has been significantly decreasing. You can't attribute this solely to unregistered persons, because linear extrapolation of China's population growth chart at certain points (1970, for example) would show that the 'actual' population would reach as high as 1.8 billion persons, which is, of course, ridiculous. There are not 400,000,000 unregistered persons in China. In fact, the significant decline in population growth rate started circa 1975, while the One-Child policy was introduced in 1979 and pushed the growth rate down even more. The one-child policy doesn't necessarily prohibit having many children - rather, it makes it exceedingly expensive to have them, creates a propaganda campaign supporting smaller families, and the limits are smaller for minorities and those in rural areas, as well as for other special cases. Some areas even allow a second child simply if the first one is a girl. This is all gotten from wikipedia, if you want the source.

Second of all, while this isn't eugenics by nature, it is a rather ineffectual form of eugenics in practice, as those richer can afford to have more children. This is, however, besides the point.

What I find really appalling is that you're bashing the One-Child program, which allows for a peaceful, suffering-free transition to Western birth rates, and your own solution is to let them die out from lack of food.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Nov 22 2009, 2:53 am by Vrael. Reason: unnecessary

I doubt there was a lack of suffering induced by the One-Child policy.

The basic model of human (or any organism's) population is that there will always be a group living on the edge of unsustainability. When the environment is able to sustain a greater population level, that "edge group" will have enough resources and a new group of people/organisms will become the new "edge group." If this model is followed, the population HYPOTHETICALLY never exhaust resources (considering existing resources would be regenerated i.e. food), they would only use what is possible.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 22 2009, 2:54 am by Vrael. Reason: fixed quote to reflect prior edit

It's relative. Relative to mass starvation.

I'm afraid I'm not completely clear what you're trying to say. BeDazed's solution was waiting until there are so many people in China that mass starvation is inevitable. If you're saying that it won't reach that point, that's you arguing with him, not with me.

I think, rayNimagi has it confused with entire depletion of the population and just suppression. If the population is allowed to grow unchartedly, then there will be more shortage of food than required to feed all. And if you knew the world, then you would know that distribution of such is always not fair. But you also forget that resources like food can only be generated at a constant rate, which means there will be shortage of food when consumption rises, given that it rises.\

Also, even though I am bashing the One-Child policy, I never said they shouldn't do it. I can't agree on the concept, but I don't decide what they do or not.