all 50 comments

[–]Drewski 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

I'm not opposed to voluntary genetic testing during pregnancy, but no human has the right to tell another that they're not permitted to reproduce.

[–]fschmidt[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There are plenty of other options besides the 2 you mentioned.

[–]Mcheetah 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

no human has the right to tell another that they're not permitted to reproduce.

Ethically, it's "bad." Science wise, it's the responsible and logical thing to do.

[–]binaryblob 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

but no human has the right to tell another that they're not permitted to reproduce.

I don't think you know the legal system in that case, because this is currently already done in many developed countries.

[–]Drewski 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I'm talking about natural rights, not the legal system. People's rights are violated all the time.

[–]binaryblob 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

People have the "natural right" to kill another, so they too have the right to tell another they're not permitted to reproduce according to your logic.

[–]Drewski 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Murder is not a natural right.

[–]binaryblob 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

You are born with that ability. It's just as natural as opening your eyes.

[–]Drewski 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You are confusing abilities with rights.

[–]binaryblob 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If you are referring to natural rights as described in some theory, that's obviously easy to falsify, which makes it unscientific. I can't easily show that electromagnetism doesn't exist in comparison.

There are no rights, since all those rights are relative to whether or not you are starting at a barrel.

[–]Mcheetah 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm talking about natural rights, not the legal system.

Rights are defined as "legal entitlements to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way." Rights are laws and laws are man-made. So there are no such thing as "natural rights." You are the one confusing rights with abilities. Not to jump into this conversation here...

no human has the right to tell another that they're not permitted to reproduce.

That literally happens all the time. In prison, amongst infected people, in China ("One Child Policy,") and so on... Rights are laws and plenty of countries have laws prohibiting or limiting childbirth. You are now confusing ethics & freedoms with rights, which is not how that works.

Plenty of trannies believe they have the right to not be "misgendered." But plenty of people also believe in the right to not have to lie to capitulate the feelings of a mentally ill narcissist who believes he's a woman. In the US, you have the right to freedom of speech. In Canada and the UK, you don't, so they can send police to you if you don't lie to that dipshit tranny and call him a "she/her." Rights are determined and governed by the country that imposes them, not by people for merely existing.

[–]DesertOfMirrors 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Depends what you mean by eugenics. If you mean a bureaucracy that determines who gets to have children, then no, too vulnerable to the kinds of corruption that happens with increasing centralization and control. That would ultimately make matters worse. If you mean cleaning up the perverse incentives that currently distort the genetic marketplace, then yes.

[–]fschmidt[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The perverse incentives are fundamentally built into modern culture and cannot be fixed. Eugenics must be implemented outside of modern culture. My plan does use positive eugenics: http://www.arkian.net/

[–]binaryblob 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If we could do eugenics, we should. It's just that some safe guards would have to be kept in place to ensure some diversity. Giving birth to people that we already know to be defective, is not good for the person being born nor for society.

The level of eugenics we can currently do, is quite unsophisticated. Single location changes can probably be done with a high level of success, but we can't do changes in 100 places (Harvard did this in an adult, but it's not a routine thing).

In an eugenics world, nobody would have to wear glasses for example, which would be a net benefit to society. The thesis that "only perfect humans would exist" (as if that would be a bad thing) is not even practically possible. It's like saying that "AI will take over the world", before any intelligent AI exists (spoiler alert: no intelligent AI has ever been programmed into a computer of meaningful size in public, although it might have happened in a military context).

I was indoctrinated in high school that eugenics were bad, but since I learned that with slightly different red blood cells, we could sprint for 15 minutes instead of twenty seconds I can't imagine why anyone not would want to be able to do that. Imagine that you could just walk up Mt. Everest without even breaking a sweat untrained. Imagine that you could go on a space walk without oxygen. In fact, imagine that you could just enable some kind of built-in body armor going into a harsh environment; the possibilities of eugenics are endless. How about bullet wounds that would heal within milliseconds of impact? There is nothing that prevents that from working, other than a lack of engineering knowhow. It's just that religious nut jobs killed it, before it ever became a thing.

[–]RankAssPalace 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Humanity was shit and human is a word to describe shit, literally. Why do u think theses stankclowns always push Humanitarianism?the natural order was disrupted when the concept of MAN was lost hu-man rhesus positive scientism these rhesus negative people would die without everyone supporting their retard asses

[–]Mcheetah 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Yes. Absolutely. And I hate that people think it was only some kind of "Nazi" thing when it makes the most logical sense. We don't need sick, morbidly obese, or short people reproducing.

Hell, MOST of the entire planet right now is comprised of genetically inferior, short, unhealthy human beings. Pretty much everywhere outside of northern Europe. And no, this isn't a retarded alt-right "Race Realism" thing; it's statistically the facts. The Dutch and Norse people right now are the only genetically optimal people on the planet, with perfect health, height, and genetics for homo sapiens.

If I was a retarded Race Realist, I wouldn't be saying the rest of humanity needs to be doing whatever The Netherlands is doing right now. Because most of the rest of humanity has short, ugly, obese, sedentary humans filled with processed food, GMOs, and enough chemicals to give men tits, and my home country of the US is not at all immune to this. Hell, we've been poisoned even more than most of the Western world. Most of us can't do anything to reverse our broken DNA; we're already fucked. But there's still hope for Gen Alpha.

So yes, I am a big believer in bettering humanity through science and improved health. I wish people would leave the retarded Hitler shit out of eugenics.

[–]binaryblob 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

If the Dutch and Norwegians were so healthy, then why do they have so many sick people? It might be that other countries are even worse, of course. Feel free to show the facts.

[–]Mcheetah 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

If the Dutch and Norwegians were so healthy, then why do they have so many sick people?

How? What "sick people" do they have?

[–]binaryblob 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

37% of Norwegians has a chronic illness. In The Netherlands, it's a similar number from a quick Google. Apparently, both are near the EU average, which is surprisingly high.

[–]Mcheetah 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I looked this up myself. They said the Norway one was among older people, usually around age 55, and was due to environmental factors.

I looked up The Netherlands data as well.

"The life expectancy of Dutch men now stands at 79 years and it rates amongst the highest in the European Union. The average life expectancy of women is 83 years, which is in the middle range in the EU due to relatively high rates of smoking by Dutch women in the past. Dutch life expectancy increased sharply by more than 3 years in the past decade."

At 37% of the population having chronic illnesses for Swedes, and 44% for the Dutch, both are actually healthier than much of the rest of Europe (54%), and Europe is way healthier than the US and Canada (60%), and North America is healthier than most of the rest of the world.

The Dutch's main problem was smoking, which lead to lung cancer. Next was obesity/heart disease. After that, depression/suicide. So they actually seem to be healthier than most everyone else, albeit not as optimal as I thought. They should really be more at 5% given their height, natural selection, diet, and lifestyles of high cardio. But yeah, smoking and depression, I guess.

[–]binaryblob 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Those numbers are depressing. Makes one wonder what the numbers are for the rest of the world. Knowing how these numbers changed over time would also be interesting. In the year 10000BC unhealthy people would just die.

[–]hfxB0oyA 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The fundamental problem with eugenics is that by it's nature, it must follow one point of view as to what constitutes a "good" template of what a human should be. This then needs to squeeze out competing visions, each of which may be more or less extreme, but no less authoritarian, which needs to lead to conflict of a greater or lesser degree.

[–]jet199 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

I'm pro the government paying smart women to have kids and stay at home rather than working.

In think Sweden is the only country who have managed this so far.

[–]Musky 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

We must impregnate Jet for the good of the human race before it's too late.

[–]binaryblob 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

Isn't jet199 a dude?

[–]Musky 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

She's an attractive woman that's the same age as me. 😍

[–]binaryblob 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Pics or it didn't happen. How old are you?

[–]Musky 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I don't want you guys ogling her. I'm 43.

[–]binaryblob 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I don't ogle the elderly.

[–]dinker 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

/u/jet199 looks a bit like Winnie the Pooh.

I have seen her picture

[–]Musky 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Damn whipper snapper.

[–]binaryblob 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Does that work as a pickup line or is that still a WIP?

[–]Musky 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'll let you know.

[–]chadwickofwv 1 insightful - 3 fun1 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

No, I am not a Democrat.

[–]Musky 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I only support voluntary eugenics.

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (14 children)

There's nothing wrong with our genes. We're currently well-adapted to our environment, so there's little to no evolutionary pressure on us. Because we're changing our environment so rapidly, we'll become more poorly adapted within a few hundred years, and evolutionary pressure will resume.

[–]fschmidt[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Like the dodo birds?

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Hopefully not! Sometimes a species just can't possibly evolve fast enough to deal with the introduction of a new apex predator, but that isn't going to be our challenge.

[–]fschmidt[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Actually the current human challenge is Fisherian runaway selection as I described.

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Last time I checked, we definitely weren't evolving gigantic tailfeathers or some other weird ornamentation that makes it harder to live.

[–]Mcheetah 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

There's nothing wrong with our genes

If you can look around you at all of the short, obese, hideously UGLY creatures filled with chemicals, fast food, and GMOs that make up all of us and say "there's nothing wrong with that," then you are 100% part of the problem. And more than likely, a derelict in life, as well. AIDS and most STDs didn't exist 50 years ago, and obesity didn't exist 100 years ago. But sure, "there's nothing wrong with modern-day humanity's health." Are you also a body positivity person too?

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

The stuff we put in our bodies aren't a matter of genetics. That's lifestyle. It affects our health, but not our genes.

[–]Mcheetah 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

It's both. Lifestyle affects genetics when these people decide to reproduce. And no amount of exercise in the world is going to make an adult taller, healthier, or less diseased. It 100% has an effect on genetics and human genes right now are seriously fucked-up because of lifestyle choices most of us were forced into, like working long hours, eating cheap food, etc.

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

That is simply not how genetics work. Lifestyle choices don't alter or affect the germ line in any way. What you're describing is Lamarckism, which has been completely discredited over the last century.

[–]Mcheetah 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

You're saying tall athletic people don't produce tall athletic children, smokers don't produce children born with health problems, and fat people don't produce children predisposed to obesity? It's all left up to chance and random luck? Okay...

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Do you seriously think that if you regularly lift weights, it will change your germ line so that if you then donate sperm, the child will be stronger than they would have been if you hadn't lifted?

It's kind of shocking that someone with even a high school education could believe that.

[–]Mcheetah 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's shocking that someone with a high school education could believe otherwise and not simply Google this shit yourself. No shit, there are SOME THINGS based on lifestyle you can't inherit. But there are SOME YOU DEFINITELY DO. That's the goddamn point. You're outright saying hereditary environmental genes don't exist, which is retarded.

"Environmental factors often influence traits independently of genes. But not always. Sometimes the environment changes a gene—either its DNA sequence or its activity level. Either of these effects can change the proteins that are made from a gene, which in turn affects traits."

To you, epigenetics also apparently don't exist.

Do you seriously think that if you regularly lift weights, it will change your germ line

Muscles aren't your genes...

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Of course epigenetics exist. They also don't change the germ line. Epigenetics are about gene expression, not changes to the genome.

The germ line is four billion years old. It's an unbroken genetic lineage. You seriously think that if you eat poorly, or lie on the couch too much, or get exposed to toxins, it damages your genes themselves?

If that were true, all life on Earth would have been extinct billions of years ago. Every organism on Earth is being bombarded with solar radiation every second of every day. You think sedentary lifestyles can compete with that??

The only thing that's going to change the human genome is evolutionary pressure. As there is currently none, the genome is not changing appreciably. Simple as that.

[–]jet199 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Having fat genes is very useful in times of famine

[–]Mcheetah 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

We're not in times of famine right now, though. Hell, world hunger isn't even a food shortage problem; it's a transport problem. Rich nations waste so much food right now due to simply having too much of it or letting it go to waste and rot, and if there was a quick and easy way to transport that food across nations, or even across cities, no one would ever be hungry anywhere.

But yes, I get being Rubenesque was attractive during medieval times when food was scarce and fatness was seen as a sign of wealth. Nowadays it's the opposite and being fit is seen as a sign of wealth (considering poor people don't have the means nor time to spend 10-15 hours a week in a gym running in place.) But no one needs to be fat in modern times unless they live somewhere where it's sub-freezing year round. So Eskimos and Siberians can be fat, sure. The rest of us are just being fed poison through processed foods.