Eugenics And Reproduction Licenses FAQs: For the Common Good

post by Zero Contradictions · 2024-08-13T16:34:21.890Z · LW · GW · 14 comments

This is a link post for https://zerocontradictions.net/FAQs/eugenics-FAQs

Contents

  1. What Is Eugenics?
    1.1. But it’s completely subjective what “good” or “better” humans are.
    1.2. Examples of Socially-Acceptable Eugenics in Modern Society
  2. Why Should We Implement Eugenics? How Is Dysgenics A Threat To Humanity?
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1. What Is Eugenics?

There are various ways to define eugenics, as it is used in this FAQs:

• Eugenics is the deliberate social regulation of the genome.
• Eugenics is about consciously selecting for traits that make people better members of society.
• Eugenics is about selecting for traits that we value in other human beings, such as intelligence, health, and responsibility; and selecting against traits that we negatively value, such as irresponsibility and propensity to violence.
• Eugenics selects for traits that are socially positive and selects against traits that are socially negative.
• Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution. – This definition is historically notable for being a slogan of the International Eugenics Conference, but it’s too vague and inaccurate. In a sense, one could argue that the unregulated reproduction that is occurring today is the “self-direction of human evolution”. The eugenics that we’re proposing must be directed by society.
• Eugenics is selective breeding or artificial selection, as managed by society. However, “selective breeding” tends to apply to crops, plants, animals, and other organisms used by humans, rather than humans. Another important distinction is that “selective breeding” for non-humans tends to have connotations with top-down eugenics, whereas we’re proposing laissez-faire eugenics for humans.

Regardless, what is considered “eugenic” is always relative to a given environment and a set of values. If the environment in question is not specified, it’s usually assumed to be Modernity or the society that one lives in. No matter what we do, the social environment places selective pressures on the human genome.

In a biological context that doesn’t involve humans, “eugenic” is usually defined with respect to biological value, from the perspective of an organism. In which case, eugenics is the improvement of genetic qualities through selection, to make organisms more adaptive to their relative environments. But that is not the definition of eugenics that will be used in this FAQs. When we and most other people are talking about eugenics with respect to humans, eugenics is defined according to social value and modern civilization. We believe that eugenics will be necessary to sustain modern civilization.

Different people each define “eugenics” differently, with the broadest (and dare we say more accurate) definitions including the prohibition of incest and the selection of desirable traits since those help improve the quality of the gene pool. A gene pool cannot maintain a good quality if it allows a significant amount of incest, so prohibiting incest should count as negative eugenics at the very least.

The definition of Eugenics and people’s opinions of it are affected by the Sapir-Whorf Effect. Some people mistakenly believe that eugenics has to involve race, that it has to be tied to Nazism, or that it has to involve cherry-picking specific traits, and many other misconceptions, so this FAQs page was created to address all these misunderstandings and explain how eugenics can, in fact, collectively benefit society.

Figure 1: The Infamous Eugenics Tree (1923)

We are mainly arguing for (eugenic) population control (EPC), above all else. Fortunately, a favorable genetic selection will naturally follow from that, similar to how natural selection improves the fitness of organisms in nature. Depending on how eugenics is defined, the regulations we are proposing arguably don’t count as eugenics after all. If so, then we’re only proposing population control and nothing else. For this reason, many of the sections on this FAQs page will link to the Overpopulation FAQs page, where the questions are answered there.

1.1. But it’s completely subjective what “good” or “better” humans are.

It’s intersubjective, not subjective. Most people can agree that we want smart, healthy, responsible, and productive humans who will make positive contributions to society. That is great criteria for laissez-faire eugenics. From an ideal society’s perspective, majority rules when determining what would be “best” for the society.

Making people better doesn’t sound like such a horrible thing, but it does imply that people aren’t born equal, and so it conflicts with the humanist belief in the intrinsic value and equality of human beings. The racial aspect of dysgenics makes it even more taboo. Not only are individuals unequal, races are also unequal. Eugenics doesn’t require racial genocide, but any race-blind eugenics program would affect racial demographics.

Instead of dealing with the moral and social issues involved, our culture just pretends that evolution doesn’t apply to humans. This is not rational. It is willful ignorance. – Blithering Genius, Dysgenics, Overpopulation and Conventional Ignorance

1.2. Examples of Socially-Acceptable Eugenics in Modern Society

Main Article: You’re Probably A Eugenicist - Diana Fleischman.

There is already popular support for several widely practiced and commonly accepted forms of Eugenics in modern society. Those instances just aren’t called Eugenics when they occur. Some examples include:

• Outlawing incest between close relatives.
• Aborting fetuses that have severe birth defects.
• Replacing defective mitochondrial DNA in children conceived via IVF.
• GMOs and the selective breeding of plants and animals.
• The prohibition of sperm and egg donations from people who have ADHD, ASD, or do not meet certain height requirements from some donor banks.

We support all those instances of eugenics, except for the last one.

Historically, Eugenics used to have a lot of public support in the early 1900s. So much so, that many Western countries had eugenics laws in the past. If the Nazis never rose power, it’s quite possible that most of the world never would’ve developed such negative (and irrational) attitudes towards Eugenics.

But abortion doesn’t count as eugenics.

Of course it does:

• US Senator Rand Paul has compared abortion to eugenics.
• Abortion is a Tool of the Eugenics Movement - Matt Walsh.
• The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a eugenicist.
• The Link Between Abortion and Eugenics Makes Its Way to the Federal Appeals Courts.
• Footnote buried in leaked abortion opinion invokes ’modern-day eugenics’.
• I was pressured for wanting my at-risk baby. Abortion and eugenics can’t be separated.

Just as there are no rational arguments against eugenics, there are also no rational arguments against abortion.

Related: Four Beneficial Evolutionary Mutations That Humans Are Undergoing Right Now.

2. Why Should We Implement Eugenics? How Is Dysgenics A Threat To Humanity?

A better question would be: Why shouldn’t we implement eugenics? We live in a time where there is unprecedented evolutionary mismatch between the people living in society and the modern technological industrial environment. Biological evolution is slower than cultural evolution and humans evolve more slowly than pathogens.

(see the rest of the post in the link)

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