If so, then unvaccinated individuals dying, humans wiping other species or other ethnicity is evolution too.
Dysgenics happening now doesn't occur is a stateless society. It's happens with governments which ban many things and implement income redistribution, and also governments cooperate on wide scale to prevent many things.
Evolution doesn't have a 'job', it's a mindless process that doesn't care about human values. Eugenics is merely about guiding the process to achieve results in accordance with human values. Currently, evolution is selecting for low intelligence, social malignancy, and poor immune systems, among a very long list of other undesirable things. So it would accord with my values to have a eugenics program correct for this. The future I would desire would initially look like Israel — a nation with a mere ten million relatively intelligent souls and yet also with a space program. But the sky's the limit. Who knows what wondrous societies would be possible if intelligence were pushed higher than even the Jews'?
People aren't bothered as much by infectious diseases as in the past so the selection for disease resistance is probably lessened, and we can expect immune systems to weaken or become dysfunctional due to random drift. We have basically removed all selection pressures other than fecundity for modern-day humans, so everything that evolution used to optimize for besides fecundity will be expected to decline.
Weakening selection for a trait isn't same as selection for lower values of a trait (as with "too stupid to use contraception => more children"). I think SMV is still selected and I think immune system somehow influences SMV.
it's a mindless process that doesn't care about human values.
Yes, that's kind of my point. Evolutionary fitness has fuck all to do with whatever traits you might prefer. Thus I ask you the same questions I asked @Westerly
Who do you think you are to impose your values on evolution?
Humans inevitably impose themselves on the natural world in pursuing their goals, so I would say that I am simply a human who has systematized this particular matter and sees value in bringing evolution, like other natural processes, under human cultivation. The values would have to do with wanting to see generally positive, virtuous behaviors increased in their distribution and negative behaviors decreased, and ultimately this would be because I would rather live in the resultant world rather than our present, declining one, so it would be about serving myself.
I’m nobody special, but neither is the guy that decides we need to have a policy ensuring no children starve, but his policy shapes evolution just the same. Nearly every policy that touches on life and death is influencing evolution whether you like it or not. At least we can acknowledge that and bring it into the discussion of tradeoffs. Instead you seem to just want to stick your head in the sand and pretend our actions have no effect on evolution.
I don’t seek to impose any values. I’m not arguing for sterilizing Africans or whatever you think I’m angling towards. I’m just trying to explain eugenic/dysgenic to someone that seems to be willfully misinterpreting it
Suppose we made a policy all children will be provided the necessities of life (food, medicine, shelter, whatever). This would be selecting for those who have the most children regardless of their ability to provide for them. So I mean in a sense this would be “evolution doing its job”, insofar that it was maximizing reproductive success given the situation.
But I think most would consider it dysgenic, because “has children beyond their personal means to provide” would seem to be an undesirable trait to most. To some extent we can control the environment within which “evolution does its job”, so what kind of evolution will the environment we’ve created lead to? A kind we want? Or a kind we don’t want? So the label of dysgenic or eugenic is just passing a value judgment on the results of evolution given the environment parameters we control.
I would think most evolutionary changes would not be value-neutral, so every change to the environment that affects evolution could be considered either eugenic or dysgenic. I guess you might disagree here if you consider all or most things to be value-neutral, but I think most would disagree
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Notes -
Dysgenics is nothing more than a sneer-word for evolution doing it's job, CMV.
If so, then unvaccinated individuals dying, humans wiping other species or other ethnicity is evolution too.
Dysgenics happening now doesn't occur is a stateless society. It's happens with governments which ban many things and implement income redistribution, and also governments cooperate on wide scale to prevent many things.
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Evolution doesn't have a 'job', it's a mindless process that doesn't care about human values. Eugenics is merely about guiding the process to achieve results in accordance with human values. Currently, evolution is selecting for low intelligence, social malignancy, and poor immune systems, among a very long list of other undesirable things. So it would accord with my values to have a eugenics program correct for this. The future I would desire would initially look like Israel — a nation with a mere ten million relatively intelligent souls and yet also with a space program. But the sky's the limit. Who knows what wondrous societies would be possible if intelligence were pushed higher than even the Jews'?
sorry, what?
People aren't bothered as much by infectious diseases as in the past so the selection for disease resistance is probably lessened, and we can expect immune systems to weaken or become dysfunctional due to random drift. We have basically removed all selection pressures other than fecundity for modern-day humans, so everything that evolution used to optimize for besides fecundity will be expected to decline.
Weakening selection for a trait isn't same as selection for lower values of a trait (as with "too stupid to use contraception => more children"). I think SMV is still selected and I think immune system somehow influences SMV.
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Yes, that's kind of my point. Evolutionary fitness has fuck all to do with whatever traits you might prefer. Thus I ask you the same questions I asked @Westerly
Who do you think you are to impose your values on evolution?
What values would you seek to impose?
Humans inevitably impose themselves on the natural world in pursuing their goals, so I would say that I am simply a human who has systematized this particular matter and sees value in bringing evolution, like other natural processes, under human cultivation. The values would have to do with wanting to see generally positive, virtuous behaviors increased in their distribution and negative behaviors decreased, and ultimately this would be because I would rather live in the resultant world rather than our present, declining one, so it would be about serving myself.
More options
Context Copy link
I’m nobody special, but neither is the guy that decides we need to have a policy ensuring no children starve, but his policy shapes evolution just the same. Nearly every policy that touches on life and death is influencing evolution whether you like it or not. At least we can acknowledge that and bring it into the discussion of tradeoffs. Instead you seem to just want to stick your head in the sand and pretend our actions have no effect on evolution.
I don’t seek to impose any values. I’m not arguing for sterilizing Africans or whatever you think I’m angling towards. I’m just trying to explain eugenic/dysgenic to someone that seems to be willfully misinterpreting it
More options
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Suppose we made a policy all children will be provided the necessities of life (food, medicine, shelter, whatever). This would be selecting for those who have the most children regardless of their ability to provide for them. So I mean in a sense this would be “evolution doing its job”, insofar that it was maximizing reproductive success given the situation.
But I think most would consider it dysgenic, because “has children beyond their personal means to provide” would seem to be an undesirable trait to most. To some extent we can control the environment within which “evolution does its job”, so what kind of evolution will the environment we’ve created lead to? A kind we want? Or a kind we don’t want? So the label of dysgenic or eugenic is just passing a value judgment on the results of evolution given the environment parameters we control.
I would think most evolutionary changes would not be value-neutral, so every change to the environment that affects evolution could be considered either eugenic or dysgenic. I guess you might disagree here if you consider all or most things to be value-neutral, but I think most would disagree
Two simple questions;
Who do you think you are to impose value judgments on evolution?
What values do you seek to impose?
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