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Dissentient argues most people are probably eugenecists.
https://dissentient.substack.com/p/eugenicist
I think they are using the term eugenics in a way I wouldn't. I have generally thought eugenics as a top down phenomenon. Central control/influence of the gene pool. From that perspective, attempts at regulating conception technologies like preimplantation genetic diagnosis with polygenic risk scores are a form of eugenics.
This article is excellent, well written and clear. Bravo to the author.
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They seem to be using a broader definition which includes
-Government laws outlawing some behaviors such as incest
-Social pressure such as judging and shunning people who engage in incest or people with serious genetic diseases having children
-Individual efforts such as genetically screening your own sperm and egg donors.
Which is a superset of what is normally considered eugenics, which would normally be the first and maybe arguably the second, but not the third. (Note one could take this even further and add a fourth point by suggesting that pretty much any form of mate selection is a type of eugenics since it prevents undesirable people from reproducing, but almost nobody would actually call that eugenics).
But I think the strongest part of the argument is the appeal to incest laws. Most people agree that we should have top down control outlawing incest, most people justify this on eugenic grounds, or just "it's gross and unnatural", a feeling which mostly derives from eugenic instincts. Therefore, most people are at least slightly eugenic.
And of course they are. It's weird not to be. The reason eugenics is bad isn't because the goal of improving the human race is itself a bad goal, it's because many eugenics activities have bad side effects, are cruel to the targets, and/or are easily abusable by whoever is in charge of implementing them. A government which is allowed to sterilize anyone it declares to be genetically unfit will immediately abuse this power to wipe out people it doesn't like for any reason, rather than using the power only on the actually genetically unfit.
In so far as it's possible to apply softer pressures and smaller actions as an individual towards this goal without those side effects, these limited eugenic goals are good. Siblings should not have children with each other. And, no people or groups are systematically harmed by anti-incest policies, because there are a very tiny number of pairwise relationships prevented by this, and those people are allowed to reproduce with any of the other billions of people on the planet. People with serious heritable genetic diseases should not reproduce with anyone. It is cruel to deliberately inflict that on a child when you know ahead of time what will happen. And while abstaining is a high cost to the people who might want children, and I would hesitate to outlaw it entirely due to the vagueness and slippery slope of what does and does not count, we should absolutely shame them and judge them and criticize them if they do it anyway.
I think the reason why most people draw a distinction between the two definitions of eugenics is because the narrow definition is the bad one, and the broad one is good and most people agree with instinctively, but the word "eugenics" has such a negative connotation that people want to make sure that connotation is only applied to the narrow case that actually deserves it.
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Right, and the state declaring that brothers and sisters legally cannot wed and have children (because to do so would have a negative impact on the genetic fitness of the state's population) is absolutely a top-down intervention. Given that virtually everyone in the West (and I assume most people in the far east) supports the prohibition of incest, it's accurate to say that virtually everyone in these regions is a eugenicist.
When people hear the word they jump to the most extreme examples of it (forced sterilization, ethnic cleansing), but if you believe that it's appropriate for the state to intervene to improve the genetic fitness of its population you're a eugenicist whether you like it or not.
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