SecureSignals
Civilization is simply a geno-memetic-techno-capital machine
1yr ago
The other LW article I've seen takes the same approach of trying to distance the embryonic selection from eugenics:
In my view, the term “eugenics” should not be used to describe embryo screening. In most people’s minds “eugenics” conjures images of government-sponsored sterilization efforts, genocide, and racist pseudoscience. I understand the technical definition is just “good for genes”, but this is not what comes to mind for most people when they hear this word.
Even worse, most of the horrible things done in the name of “eugenics” in the past were in fact not eugenic at all! The entire Nazi theory of genes was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how genes worked. They believed that non-aryan peoples were “contaminating” the “pure aryan bloodline”, and that only by purging those who were unpure could they make a perfect master race. Which is of course not just a morally repugnant theory, but also wrong.
If you want to have a productive conversation, I would suggest using the term “epilogenics” to describe non-coercive means of improving genes that are in line with what we expect those affected would want. There are of course still some concerns with epilogenics (increasing inequality for example), but they are decidedly NOT the same concerns that people have about eugenics.
From what I've seen, they want to use the technology to selfishly give their own offspring a leg-up over the rest of society, they don't actually want to approach social issues with eugenic-minded thinking- they still denounce that. Supporting embryonic selection won't even make a dent in dysgenic spiral, and good luck being saved by gene editing when even they are too afraid to openly associate with eugenics and don't seem interested in challenging the bad arguments against it.
It looks to me like they are just applying the euphemism treadmill to change the word to something the public won't throw a fit over and then supporting eugenics.
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Notes -
The other LW article I've seen takes the same approach of trying to distance the embryonic selection from eugenics:
From what I've seen, they want to use the technology to selfishly give their own offspring a leg-up over the rest of society, they don't actually want to approach social issues with eugenic-minded thinking- they still denounce that. Supporting embryonic selection won't even make a dent in dysgenic spiral, and good luck being saved by gene editing when even they are too afraid to openly associate with eugenics and don't seem interested in challenging the bad arguments against it.
It looks to me like they are just applying the euphemism treadmill to change the word to something the public won't throw a fit over and then supporting eugenics.
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