OK. Another thought I had about this eugenics ideal is how does it plan to deal with the human personality trait of competiveness (in varying degrees...but still a general trait).

Also, as I discussed with another eugenics guy in an older thread, how does eugenics plan to stop the constant mutations of human DNA?

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I am an American. That's the way most of us put it, just matter of factly. They are plain words, those four: you could write them on your thumbnail, or sweep them clear across this bright autumn sky. But remember too, that they are more than just words. They are a way of life. So whenever you speak them; speak them firmly, speak them proudly, speak them gratefully. I am an American. ...a tradition

To a large degree competitiveness is definitely something to be encouraged.

On the issue of mutation, it seems foolish to try to prevent it. Simply track the mutations great enough to be noticed so you can remove those with harmful mutations from the program.

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During the journey we commonly forget its goal. Almost every profession is chosen as a means to an end but continued as an end in itself. Forgetting our objectives is the most frequent act of stupidity.
-Friedrich Nietzsche, The Wanderer and his Shadow

All good socialists have villas in Southern France. That's not the point.
-Eurosocialist

I'd just leave it alone, eugenically. As Porras notes, it's something to be encouraged-- but I think it should be encouraged at a cultural level, and then allow the results of that cultural shift filter into the eugenics programs indirectly.

Frankly, if we are talking about a government-managed program, I would not want the government to be making value judgments over what personality traits are "desirable" and ought to be encouraged on the genetic level. We've seen enough of that garbage in the public schools. If we're talking about large-scale privately-funded programs... I would still argue in favor of leaving it alone, but I believe that competing programs should be established with different eugenic goals, ideologies, and methods. If some prefer to breed for competitiveness and others choose to breed for cooperation, so be it.

Mutation is a good thing, in the long-term. It's just a matter of structuring the programs so that beneficial mutations, when they arise, lead automatically to higher reproductive priority. Negative mutations will take care of themselves.

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What I would like to propose for your consideration is an argument (or three) that suggests that many of your policies suggested here would not actually benefit or improve the genepool.

En garde!

Argument#1.

It is a principle of evolutionary theory that opportunities for random mutations that are adaptively beneficial to any given species are maximized and optimized by the largest possible gene pool of that species. Thus, any system or policy that inhibits or limits access to the largest possible gene pool is species-limiting, and thus potentially, species-threatening.

It is also a principle of evolutionary theory that genetic adaptation to changing environments is of critical importance to the success or continuation of any given species. Thus, any system or policy that inhibits the ability of any given species to have maximal opportunities for genetic adaptations is inherently species-limiting, and thus, potentially, species-threatening.

It is also a principle of the science of biology that genetic changes actually occur over time due to random mutations. Some random mutations are successful and are genetically passed on, while other random mutations are not successful and are not genetically passed on. Thus, any system or policy that inhibits the ability of any given species to have maximal opportunities for random genetic mutations to occur is equally species-limiting, and thus, potentially species-threatening.

On this basis, I can only reject all eugenic-based policies, even the most voluntary or common or mildest forms of it, as inherently limiting the ability of the human race to survive unknown challenges of the future. At the very least, I think we it to the next generation to NOT reduce their opportunities of survival.

Argument #2.

Human breeding is not something we need to do more of or encourage in any way at all. We already have more than enough people and a seemingly endless supply of babies on this planet.

If one is truly interested in enhancing human living conditions and ensuring human species survival, then maximum random is our best bet for breeding, but otherwise, we ought to perhaps be educating and giving healthcare to all those human beings we already have lots of. That would be the best way of ensuring happy, healthy and prosperous future generations on the largest scale.

That is to say, the best way to give your own children the best possible future, in every respect, is to help other people as much as possible. That improves the general quality of the environment for your children - giving them optimal opportunities for success.

Argument #3.

How can you (or anyone) presume to know what is the best genetic foundation?

Good healthcare, good nutrition and good educations are objective measures and can be rationally observed and/or determined. So yes, these are things that human parents actually can rationally provide for their children.

But genetic foundation? How do you measure that? One can only apply a subjective bias there. There is no ground for claiming an objective measure unless you have a clearly stated object or well understood goal. So what is the goal of genetic planning? That's always suspicious.

Besides, nature supplies the best tool for genetic survival in random mutations - why reject that in favor of a preference or subsidies for human planning of what nature does best?

The Rabbit shall patiently await the Rat's reply.

The Rabbit's first arguement is why I believe this eugenics idea is a pipedream. It's still interesting, though, on the discussion and curiosity level, to me.

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I am an American. That's the way most of us put it, just matter of factly. They are plain words, those four: you could write them on your thumbnail, or sweep them clear across this bright autumn sky. But remember too, that they are more than just words. They are a way of life. So whenever you speak them; speak them firmly, speak them proudly, speak them gratefully. I am an American. ...a tradition

Your last sentence make me wonder if I took too much acid and wandered into a chinese restaurant placemat.

Aside from that, if we are expected to reject eugenics on the basis of excessive manipulation, why can't we just a easily see it as another form of specific mating preference manifesting itself in the natural world?

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This land was made for you and me
-Woody Guthrie

This is correct only from the perspective of trying to encourage the spread of future beneficial mutations. From the perspective of attempting to encourage the spread of already-existing beneficial traits, it is best that the people with those beneficial traits have increased access to potential mates, and that people without those beneficial traits have reduced access.

Also worth noting that this principle of evolutionary theory is based on social and ecological environments in which reproductive success is largely based on overall health and competence in survival skills such as hunting, foraging, or avoiding predators. In a social and ecological environment where reproductive success is largely based on religious fanaticism, government handouts, and/or inability to properly use birth control, the process of natural selection is not going to have the same effect on the spread of beneficial mutations.

However, within the human species, the trait which is most closely linked to adaptability is intelligence-- because we, as a species, do not tend to adapt to our environment so much as to find ways to adapt our environment to ourselves. The only exception to this is in resistance to disease, which can be most effectively maximized by encouraging heterosis-- encouraging outgroup breeding.

Every problem of resource shortage on our planet is not a result of actual shortage of resources, but failure of our system of distribution. There is sufficient living space for several times the current human population, sufficient agriculture for the entire human population to enjoy American-style excess, and sufficient arable land for the agricultural production to likewise be increased several times over. Even the more pressing problem of localized water shortages is something that could be easily handled by wasting less water on landscaping, relocating population centers closer to fresh water, and by improving our distribution channels.

Further, I would argue that our population problem is not the result of excessive birth rates, but of insufficiency mortality-- because of our progress both in healthcare and in security, our ecology is not sufficiently challenging to keep population growth at reasonable levels.

Of course, more pressing-- and most often ignored-- is the fact that every industrialized economy requires consistent population growth in order to remain viable. Without a continually refreshing supply of new labor and new consumers, the economy declines and becomes incapable of supporting the aging population. Our worries concerning retiring Baby Boomers and Social Security are but a small taste of this problem; Japan is a better example of this trend, but they are far from facing the worst of it.

Such solutions, while practical and very much desirable, are inherently short-term. Providing high quality education and healthcare for the citizens only improves their lives for the duration of those programs-- and in the case of education, for another twenty years or so afterwards. Since governments are inherently stable, and government programs under democratic regimes moreso, any benefits derived from those programs are going to be short-lived on an evolutionary scale.

The benefits of eugenics programs, assuming they last longer than a single generation, are considerably more lasting.

And, of course, your argument seems to be assuming that these programs are mutually exclusive-- which I think is absolutely not the case. Universal healthcare seems to be a natural and inevitable extension of the kind of eugenics programs I am proposing-- at least, if they are government-operated-- and universal quality education is necessary to take advantage of the gains in native intelligence that the eugenics programs are intended to provide.

Certainly agreed.

The first and most obvious method is to observe-- and preserve-- the best-available phenotypes. Even in the absence of genetic science, this has been the method employed by Man to improve the characteristics of every known species save his own. Intelligence testing may be crude, but it is at least vaguely effective, and it is comparatively far easier to measure other markers of genetic fitness such as symmetry of physical features, body proportions, and skeletal structure. Medical histories can inform us of genetic defects and/or inherent resistance to communicable diseases.

And even in physical variations that can be modified by lifestyle decisions, a person's state of overall fitness can make indirect implications of genetic health-- predisposition to healthy body type and/or personality traits which contribute to healthy decisions and habits.

Second, with the advent of genetic science, we are capable of measuring and cataloging individuals' genetic makeup, which will in the future allow us to draw correlations between specific genes and specific phenotypes. As we gain in knowledge of the human genome, we will be able to make far more precise and informed decisions regarding our genetic suitability and that of our mates-- not to mention, informed decisions regarding genetic screening and/or modification of our offspring.

We can also attempt to provide good parents for our children, both by trying to be a good parent, and by selecting a mate that we believe will be a good parent. This is largely the same process by which we would attempt to provide a genetic foundation-- through deciding with whom we will conceive and raise children.

Perhaps not in a case-by-case measure, but certainly we can make informed decisions statistically-- people who are physiologically and psychologically healthy must have a healthy genotype by default. While people with good genes might become ill or deranged by environmental causes, people with healthier phenotypes are statistically likelier to possess healthier genotypes and vice versa.

And while there is, of course, some subjective bias in any person's reproductive decisions, eugenic thought does at least introduce some concern for objective and measurable criteria. It is impossible to make reproduction a purely objective decision, and I would never dream of doing so... but at least paying attention to genetic factors when deciding to reproduce means that the process is no longer wholly subjective.

I've already stated my goals. I want my children and my grandchildren to be considerably smarter and healthier than the general population of humanity-- and to be smarter and healthier than I am, if possible. I want each successive generation of my descendants to be smarter and healthier than the last.

And it seems to me that the best way to do that for my children, aside from securing quality healthcare and education for them, is to ensure that their mother is as smart and as healthy as a woman can be while still being foolish enough to put up with my bullshit.

The best way that I can provide this genetic advantage for my grandchildren, and every subsequent generation, is to ensure that my children have more reproductive access to suitably fit mates-- which means, in large part, ensuring that there is a larger supply of genetically fit young men and women their age.

Because, as a result of the same human planning, nature can no longer act upon human evolution appropriately. Our much-celebrated progress in keeping the sick and the weak alive, against the laws of nature, has removed the survival pressures which allow the natural process of evolution to make our species healthier and stronger.

If we are to prevent our species from succumbing to dysgenic evolution, we must either abandon fifteen thousand years of societal progress, or use our human capacity for organization and adaptation to simulate the evolutionary pressure of the survival of the fittest. Like the vast majority of people, I consider the first solution to be rather unpalatable; unlike the vast majority of people, I do not consider ignoring the problem to be an acceptable solution, either.

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Excellent post, Mr Rabbit! KUDOS.

What I find especially telling about Mr Rat's response to it, is that he again shows his real agenda by failing to answer this question from you:

"How can you (or anyone) presume to know what is the best genetic foundation?"

I might be more likely to ask:

WHO is it that will be in control of deciding what is or isn't a "desirable trait" and also WHO will be in control of deciding
WHO will and WHO will not be eligible for this "boon to humankind?"

Until these critical questions are answered, the motives behind this "pie-in-the-sky" proposal, will forever remain suspect.

So tell us, Mr Rat, WHO will watch the watchers?

Johnny K

I think I answered the question adequately. And I find your now-repeated insinuation that I have some "hidden agenda" baseless and offensive.

Please, either explain what you think my "hidden agenda" is and the reason for your belief, or stop making deliberately vague and unsubstantiated accusations against my personal character.

Since the programs I am proposing are voluntary and would have no more coercive power than, say, our participation in Social Security, I am comfortable with allowing the government to make these judgments-- as far as their participation is concerned.

If their decision-making process is subject to public oversight via transparency laws, so much the better. I don't like the notion of the government keeping secrets from the people supposedly controlling it.

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I'd prefer an answer to a sidestep, but I've come to expect the latter from folks like you.

I've answered your questions and I haven't sidestepped anything. And still, all I get from you is "folks like you" and "hidden agenda".

Do you actually have anything to contribute to the conversation?

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Johnny K - what the bark is your problem? The Rat has repeatedly stated that he envisions a private program rather than one built on government mandates, and that he would prefer that there be Several private programs available so that people are not limited to one vision of possible 'improvement'.

Your comments lead me to think you suspect some white-supremecist, and possibly Nazi, agenda. Assuming KtR could snap his fingers and put his ideas into place, yes, there would be such a gene-bank. As well as a black-supremecist gene bank. And an athletic gene-bank (which at first glance would be black-dominated, but may be not if sublines were included for gymnastics and other niche sports). And an intelligence bank, which IMO would be white-and-asian dominated, but certainly not exclusive to those races. And a beauty-bank, which seems to me would be dominated by mixed-breeds, allowing for exotic appeal to both (all?) of the source breeds/races. And potentially other specialized gene-banks if there were proper demand for them. So where is the 'evil hidden agenda'?

You are the one sidestepping here, with every post including vague insinuations of malice, but never having the guts to make any outright accusations. Rabbit, who seems to share your dark suspicions, is at least providing reasonable discourse on the subject that might lead to rejecting the OP on an intelligent basis rather than purely out of paranoia.

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Today's forecast: Government corruption.

Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'

Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian

You mean high intelligence - IQ is just a number for someone's ability to solve little logical problems in a short time.

If "society" asked me to sterilize myself because I'm "unfit" - even if it was just a suggestion - I would be deeply offended. Especially if I am indeed unfit (which I am in some ways! Although nothing major, I believe).

When I say deeply offended, I mean the kind of state which would either lead me to severe depression or armed revolt. So I think this last step is a bad idea.

I don't think making our children more intelligent and physically fit is worth such a thing. This is, imho, the risk of all of that program. By designing a master class among men, you're making some people more human than the others. Harmony or personal performance ? You're choosing the latter, I'm not so sure.


Makes sense. The idea would be to pay mothers/fathers who stop work to raise children based on their previous salary. That kind of stuff is already being implemented in some nordic countries, I believe.