Comments on Crash Landing: Modern "Enlightened" Murderous Eugenics (MEME)

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The moral way to improve the race is to pass on to...

2007-08-12T17:28:00.000-04:00

The moral way to improve the race is to pass on to your offspring your own good genes, which you acquired by not being aborted by your parents.

Julian, do you have a suggestion for an improved s...

2007-08-04T13:48:00.000-04:00

Julian, do you have a suggestion for an improved substitute that expresses the spirit of self directed genetic evolution?

Julian: Eugenics is derived from Latin words mean...

2007-08-04T13:36:00.000-04:00

Julian: Eugenics is derived from Latin words meaning "good birth". Eugenics is not a proper noun, but has a meaning of its own primarily centered on its ends, the purification of the human race through improving genetic lines. The fact that the previous bias was toward centralized mechanisms is relevant, but seems properly considered to be a contigent aspect of the general movement.

An analogy might be the technocracy movement. Generally speaking we all understand the meaning of technocracy, but in its early years it took very specific forms, many of which would be considered outdated by modern technocrats. That nowadays technocrats may disagree with four out of five technocratic ends, still they hold the most essential tenet, the governing of men by judicious application of scientific analysis and technology.

Likewise with eugenics. You may dislike the association, but complaining about the usage of eugenics is a losing battle, especially considering the lack of better substitutes.

LP: I outlined above additional perversions engendered by the pursuit of control of the genetic development of man, like Gattaca-esque racism, unhealthy obsession with youth and the destruction of the family that goes hand in hand with this. There are naturally more. People are stupid, human nature doesn't change much though we become analytically more intelligent (or at least we have more powerful analytic and scientific tools at our disposal). The temptation to play God is always there and there are instances in history of the consequences. I do not consider this to be a "moral preference", but a moral statement of fact, not logically deducible but evident to those with discerning temperments.

The goals of futurists are lofty, with dreams of ending death and increasing control over the construction, appearance and operation of our bodies, perhaps wedded to a a vision of space travel or perhaps even more grandiose, a change in human nature itself.

All of these ends are not really that new, though they have been updated and cast in a new form. The socialists sought such utopias, as did alchemists and many other groups.

"The more general problem is that eugenic ends, ev...

2007-08-03T16:04:00.000-04:00

"The more general problem is that eugenic ends, even when pursued by voluntary mechanisms on oneself via genetic engineering, are disordered ends and will naturally engender other disordered ends and means."

Can you explain this more? The example you give is 'eugenic' genetic engineering leading to 'eugenic' abortions, but it's not clear to me that eithor of these is 'disordered' or otherwise bad, aside from moral preferences about genetic tampering. Can you give another example?

"It seems Julian and Ezra are expressing aversion ...

2007-08-03T14:43:00.000-04:00

"It seems Julian and Ezra are expressing aversion to guilt by association, since they don't seem to question the goals of eugenists per se (except perhaps insofar as they believe some of their particular genetic goals were based on irrational or immoral assumptions)."

If by "the goals of eugenicists" we stipulate that we're talking about "permitting people to seek to give their own children specific sorts of genetic endowments" as opposed to "hoping to change the genetic character of the population as a whole," I think that's about right. (Though, again, this has little to do with why most people support abortion rights.) I'm not sure why this is unreasonable. The debate is complicated enough without having to wade through all the confusion created by tagging one side with a label associated with so many beliefs and practices that are regarded with universal horror--and indeed, so regarded by the very people who are getting the label ascribed to them. Wouldn't you regard it as an unfair misrepresentation if I identified you as an adherent of some ideology, on the grounds that you agreed with one of its tenets, though you vehemently rejected the other 5?