Who says your descendants have a place in it? You shouldn't think about it like that, if you want to be convincing. It shows your subjectivity.

That doesn't address the argument, you're merely stating that, luckily for you, your bogus implementation of that program won't do as much damage as it could have. (Anyway, you agree with the mark idea - so it's useless to debate that any more).

If I sound like an idiot - why are you responding to my post?
If I don't sound like an idiot - why are you treating me like one?

My problem is obviously not with acknowledging generally that people are not equal in abilities, it is with marking them individually (and giving them different rights based on different marks - but that's only secondary). Sure, society already does that to a large extent. However, society's marks as of now do not determine one's intrinsic value, only one's competence in a particular field. What you plan to do, on the other hand, is a great step towards telling people "that's how much you're worth, as a human being".

PS: A society which cares solely about performance, as yours do, has confused the means with the end somewhere on its way.

__________________
Client: In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!
Tailor: But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look at the world, and look at my trousers.
(Beckett)

I'm gonna inject some sanity to this discussion.

We are talking about breeding a superior human-being here, aren't we?

I'm sure that any woman would wet herself upon hearing about Rat's eugenic goals.

"Hey babe, you have all of the genetic traits I've been looking for. Let's get married and start our own master race!!!"

No offense but this has been tried before.

Let natural selection take it's course. Perfect physical symmetry seems to be what attracts humans the most. Women are attracted to broad shoulders and tight butts, and men are attracted to a pear shaped body with wide hips and large breasts. I don't see how much more complicated it can be.

__________________


"We can't screw it up any worse than they have." - Barack Obama

Wanna bet?



"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste...." - Rahm Emmanuel

Thus, by definition, you assert that every poster that has participated in this thread discussion is insane.

Forgive me, but I cannot be bothered to take your post seriously on that account.

There isn't much more in your post that I can respond to-- we'll only end up arguing in circles because of the clear difference in our priorities-- but this I must address.

I did not intend to give offense, nor to condescend to you.

__________________

Then why bother responding?

__________________


"We can't screw it up any worse than they have." - Barack Obama

Wanna bet?



"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste...." - Rahm Emmanuel

Flagging your insult for what it was.

Note to Rat: I'll reply later on today - 7pm EST.

I'm generally referring to genetic immunities to viral diseases.

I fear your 'preferred breeding' techniques might make the development of such immunities less likely to occur - thus, the danger to species-survival that I referenced previously.

As for your "prudence" - why should the species surivival depend upon your view of what is prudent? Forgive me, but I have a low opinion of collective and/or corporate and/or group actions -- they are rarely noble or admirable. Lowest common denominator seems to be the most salient characteristic. But you base the integrity of your system (and the potential survival of the species) upon their prudence?

I don't see how your plan is functional. Those genetic mutations are random. Thus, the best environment for opitmal opportunities for beneficial genetic mutations is the largest possible breeding pool and the least number of limitations upon breeding selections. Your system specifically opposes the largest possible random breeding pool. Thus, your system specifically reduces the likelihood of such random beneficial genetic mutations to occur.
Your claim to wait twenty generations for the assessment sounds clever but is entirely unrealistic given human parameters.
You appear here to be giving credence to the old "initial conditions" argument. How can we trust these validity, veracity and quality of the choices made for these "initial conditions"? Even the slightest variation can affect the downstream result in a large way. And humans are not known for honesty and cupidity when the stakes are particularly high (and winning this breeding lottery is a very high stakes game for the participants, if only on ego-grounds).
The oil numbers I see says that the world will run out of the stuff by 2042 (approx). That's a shortage no matter how you try to slice it. As for water and food, there is no shortage of that stuff at all -- and this is not a failure of distribution channels unless you are talking about people distributing themselves. Fact is, we have millions, if not billions of people living in stupid places that don't have any water and can't produce sufficient food. We have the food and water, just people insist on living where there is none (Arizona is the fastest growing US state over the last 25 years - I rest my case - it has very little food production and virtually no water supplies to speak of).
And it is a well known fact that the western countries have to pay their farmers not to produce stuff in the quantities they are capable of.
No, the problem is not failure of distribution. It is far more complex than that. The supplies are there (but not in oil - oil suffers from too much good distribution in fact - it is available everywhere and quite often at below market prices too!)
Rising populations are the reason one has resource shortages. Kill off half the planet and we will have a food surplus and many years of extra oil (depending on which half one kills off!). They are intimately linked. Large populations demand more resources than small ones.
The fact that despite all attempts to the contrary (and public subsidies), the poor have been outbreeding the wealthy for centuries, if not millenia, I'm sure is just a statistical anomoly that can be reversed if only we had the right plan for it.
Raising a middle class kid costs a $100,000 at least. I can't imagine good stable married middle class families lining up to have a half dozen of those - not without BIG subsidies to make it happen. And a maid - and a chauffeur.
The opposite goes for the poor. To them, bodies are labor and labor is money. More bodies means more money. The math is quite simple.
So immigration can easily solve this temporary population-age imbalance problem, but it causes new problems? Please define. If it is a plank in your argument for eugenics, then it is relevant to this discussion.
I repeat, there is no shortage of human beings on this planet. We have a 'surplus' of humans on this planet by any economic measure. In this respect, there is no possible need whatsoever to try to increase the breeding of any given group at all, in any way.
Ah, so not only are you counselling the adoption of your eugenics policy/programs, you are also establishing a new system of human thinking that transcends human generations? Please define. Without it, your argument here certainly is a tautology. Your program will last only as long as humans pay attention to it. This applies to everything all the time. If humans carry it for generations, it will last for generations. That applies to education, healthcare or breeding programs. You can't just insist that one is going to be short term and the other is going to be long term, and then say the longterm one is better because it is longterm (or the short-term one is inferior because it is short-term). That's a tautology since they are arbitrarily defined as short-term or long-term to begin with.
At least several generations now. That's actual progress here. Not some hypothetical commitment to longterm planning envisioned by your plan. Anyone can hypothetically assert 'longterm' planning. Its the delivery side of that where humans have a very poor track record. How are humans going to magically change their spots? Humans are not intrinsically longterm planners. Your plan requires that we become so. I don't think one can change human nature by fiat or even popular agreement to do so.
You keep saying that your breeding distinction is not a racial one - that it is (apparently) an objectively economic one. And we all know the data that shows that economics of any given individual is a function of a) family wealth, b) education and c) healthcare. So if everyone is given access to the same family privileges, the same quality education and the same quality healthcare, the econonomic distinctions you speak of will no longer be salient. They are a function of politics, not economics.
In other words, the improvements you speak of are readily available right now, but we lack the political will to make them so. But you insist we can only achieve these 'improvements' by encouraging some selective breeding policy?
Once again, I accuse your plan of seeking a solution to that which is not a problem. We have a significant political problem in dealing with wildly unequal income distribution, that's a fact. Breeding games to favor the most unequal half will only make this problem worse.
The key point here is that denial of the advantages of middle class family support network and the denial of the advanced education and the denial of the quality healthcare is what makes people poor. It is not bad breeding doing it. Fix the other elements and the results will reflect that. Your system assumes that poor people are poor because they are inherently inferior and unable to compete. I say they are kept that way for the privilege and profit of your middle class (and the elite ruling class above them).

*Post split into two sections due to forum software limitations*


And you have not shown that there is any substantive or objective basis to the term "sound reproductive decisions". All I see is your subjective value system imposed - and a policy to limit liberty.
I like maximum liberty - I will only countenance a tiny reduction in liberty if there is a 'pay-off' greater than the reduction of liberty, and it is shown that this is comparatively the best possible policy with the least possible reduction in liberty - and most of all, the policy must be shown to actually deliver the goods for which the reduction in liberty is required (this is a paraphrase of the four parts of Canada's Supreme Court 'Oakes Test' for testing the constitutional validity of any given category of rights violations - I find the formula quite useful for judging all kinds of things).
Your eugenics policy appears to fail all four parts of this test. The 'payoff' is entirely theoretical and contains many unknown elements that have no bearing upon the reductions in human liberty proposed (that is to say, your plan needs extreme long term planning - the process of developing such long term planning is not directly connected to the reduction in breeding liberty (means & ends are not connected). And I've shown that your policy is not necessarily the best possible policy for achieving the same goals - other policies of proven effectiveness are available (that require less reduction of liberty).
I don't agree that there is such a thing as "inferior members of the species". Your program suggested the designation here was stable marriage and economic status. Those who lack these two things are in no way shape or form to be considered "inferior members of the species". I consider usage of that term in this context to be reprehensible.
Again, my suspicions are raised. I thought your plan was all about improving the lot of the most fortunate ones (on a voluntary basis of course). Now you use the kind of language that suggests the opposite? (that the real problem is getting rid of the riff-raff).
Besides, if they are "inferior members of the species" how will they have the brain-power and the rationally considered long-term planning sufficient to take advantage of your program?
And why should they? Indeed, I don't think you've given sufficient explanation as to why the great masses of "inferior human beings" won't storm your sperm banks and trash the place on principle - or burn you in effigy. I'd consider that far more likely than any 'voluntary' joining your program from this class of people.
Bottom line is that economics is a bloody artificial way to decide upon who is 'good breeding material' and who is not. The artifice of economics just gets repeated in the artifice of your eugenics program. Marx would be horrified, but would have to admire the brilliance of the self supporting logic of it all.
See above regarding the tautology of this argument. I just wanted to add that you are clearly defining your policy as entirely utopian here. The passion of human dreamers to force fit humans into some longterm utopian scheme of improvement is always just a mask for totalitarianism in reality.
I'd rather keep my liberty now than gamble it all away on the authority and wisdom of your central breeding committee and wait a dozen generations for the payoff.
The tyranny of mediocrity will be the only result of such a plan. I admire your honesty in the use of such terms as "sacrifice". That tells it all in my book. Why should anyone have to sacrifice anything here?
I don't accept that logic. The more rational thing is to say, don't create the database if one is so certain that it will be comprimised and abused.
Your database isn't required for human survival (indeed, I think it inhibits that) thus, it not necessary. If it is inherently dangerous, it is not desirable.
The strongest determinant of socioeconomic status is education level and family education level. The strongest determinant of education level is socioeconomic status. Your system seems to want to take the "output" from our politically ordered and wildly anti-egalitarian economic system and call that "objective reality" as if it was a function of nature. I don't accept that.
Switch your well-bred baby from a stable married family of middle class status with one from the poor side of town. Do it at birth and don't tell anyone. The poor kid in the middle class family will likely grow up to be one of your 'stable and prosperous' types that you want in your breeding pool. The rich kid thrown into the ghetto isn't likely to make the 'stable and prosperous' designation for breeding.
That's the point that your eugenics policy completely ignores. Stable marriages and a good economic livelihood is a function of having a middle class family socio-economic status (even if one's parents are actually idiots, the socioeconomic status provides substantial benefits) - not bad genes.
Indeed, brilliantly successful people seem to consistently breed mediocre children.

Yes, that applies to all your political goals - all of them seem to center around using Government to enforce your vision of what society ought to be.
I've always considered the proper public policy ought to be that which benefits the largest number of the citizenry - not which gives the largest benefit to some sub-set of the citizenry.
Indeed, once government policy formally favors one section of society over another in such a significant way (favoring breeding), it is just a matter of time before that society you speak of is no more.
Machine gunning your pregnant women and blowing up your sperm banks is the most likely result of your policy. I can't see any other rational outcome.

Isn't it best just to ignore then to respond in anger?

When I first started reading this thread I couldn't believe what I was reading. I didn't mean anything personal, it just felt that this topic was drifting into fantasyland. I'm not saying you have no right to but I was just trying to bring the discussion back to reality.

You are discussing genetic breeding of superior beings are you not? Don't you think that the best way to insure superior traits in humans is to cross-breed with other races thus insuring the largest pool of genetic possibilities, that way the most dominant traits and the most desirable traits are passed on?

__________________


"We can't screw it up any worse than they have." - Barack Obama

Wanna bet?



"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste...." - Rahm Emmanuel

What anger are you referring to? The one where you called everyone in the thread insane? That's the only example available here.

I'm calling your bluff. If you had actually read this entire thread, you might realize that I'm actually arguing precisely the opposite point that you accuse me of.

Ergo, I conclude that you haven't actually read this thread. But you apparently do feel qualified to comment upon it though, and insult the posters too. I find that ironic and amusing.

It would appear that an otherwise intellegent and civil discussion going on here apparently annoys you and that you are doing your best to drag it down to the usual trolling & trash-talk fest that USPO is so famous for?

No surprise there.

The best defense against people like myself, I.E. trolls, is to ignore them or better yet place me on ignore. However instead of an insult I would like some comment about what I said about mixing of races to increase the gene-pool, or is that beneath you?

I'm afraid you're guilty of dragging it down with your angry response.


And..........please don't put words in my mouth.

I never called anyone insane, all I did was say I wanted to bring some sanity to the discussion. There is a difference.

For that matter you place even more words in my mouth by implying that I said I had read every posting in this thread. Do you make a habit of reading every single posting in threads you respond to? Sure I don't. I read enough to gather what was going on.

Most of this thread seems to be a discussion about breeding the master race. I could be wrong, but, it was like listening to a White Supremacist with a college degree trying to show someone how smart he was by talking about hypotheticals that should never seriously be tried in a society. The fallacy is attempting to talk him out of it in a purely intellectual manner. I wanted to attempt to interject some reality into the discussion. Problem is you thought I was making a blanket statement which I was not. Sorry bout that.

__________________


"We can't screw it up any worse than they have." - Barack Obama

Wanna bet?



"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste...." - Rahm Emmanuel

I believe that with modern medical technology, and the vast genetic diversity of the human species-- which I don't think I could harm even if I wanted to-- that pandemics are no longer a potential extinction threat.