Eugenics

Lets converse about a topic that has quite a bit of a volatile background. What are your thoughts on eugenics? What do you think are the pros and cons of it? Any feedback is welcomed. Thank you

Eugenics is something that shouldn't be forced on a society. So I can't say I'm too happy with fluoride in the water, or a pesticide/former chemical weapons manufacturer being in charge of the majority of the food that ends up on our shelves. That said, I'm perfectly fine with eugenics if the participants are willing, and know what they signed up for. But moral red flags aside, its technically its what our genes are telling us to do anyways, so if you're listening to your inherent feelings of attraction towards someone, and they return that attraction, then whatever happens next furthers eugenics whether you like it or not.

Some interesting ideas are brought up in Frank Herbert's Dune series of books if you read through the whole series. With no natural predators aside from disease, our society is getting weak and in some ways dumb. Even people that think they are capable struggle to survive in adverse conditions. Just watch that show Naked and Afraid. Only native groups of people who still live a traditional primitive lifestyle have good survival skills. Without technology, many people would not survive if they had to take care of themselves.

Eugenics isn't about how well one knows how to survive, rather, it's about how genetically fit one is.Think the Nazi regime and you'll get the picture. It's something that generally speaking, goes against current ethics. While good from the natural stand point, it takes away from the humanity standpoint. It's saying, if you don't meet standards, you can't breed. Honestly, I think that would kind of limit genetic diversity.

I indirectly meant that most people are fat and lazy and breed with other fat lazy people since they don't have to outrun predators or chase down food.

It does apply if we start controlling certain factors to reduce how much children fat and lazy people have to improve the genetic stock.

I don't advocate Eugenics unless everybody has the option to be altered to look beautiful like myself http://pa1.narvii.com/5980/1fe328946903b250e41b370b0ec737fb25d00097_hq.gif

Eugenics relies on the idea that evolution is all about improvement. In my mind, evolution is all about creating diversity so that if something catastrophic happens, there's a good chance that one of the various genetic lines will hopefully stand a chance against it. Eugenics is a great way to set us up for mass extinction. For example, if an obese person has more fat stores, and humanity was facing a food shortage, they might be able to hold out longer than someone with very little meat on their bones. If we start eliminating those people, then maybe no one would survive. We don't know what will be considered "adaptive" 500 years from now. We just have our current society's ideas of positive traits to go off from, and that sounds like a recipe for disaster when you start assuming those will always be the best traits for any given situation.

I think yaasshat meant is that being obese and/or lazy aren't exactly based solely on your genes. Not in the same way something like eye color or hair color or certain disease states are. So they're not terribly good examples of something related to eugenics. But yeah you want more genetic diversity. That's actually the heart of survival of the fittest. It does make me think about sickle cell and malaria. Sickle cell is a terrible disease that causes lifelong pain, problems and shortens a person's lifespan that no one wants and no one wants to subject their kids to but at the same time it's sort of desirable to have sickle cell trait (carriers, they don't have the disease) in that part of the world because it gives a protective advantage against malaria.