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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29423 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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I think that eugenics should be practiced in order to eliminate as many genetic disorders and conditions as are reasonably possible. Cystic fibrosis is absolutely a genetic destiny with a sharp and severe impact on quality of life and I don't see why we should just accept that some people are going to be born with horrible conditions when it is within our power to fix it totally within one or two generations.

The Motte: “I’d like to eliminate genetic disease from the human genome.”

The Bailey: “Only the genetically fit should be allowed to direct civilization.”

I am a distributist who does not believe that anyone should be "directing civilization" beyond the collective will and actions of the people, because I don't think "genetically fit" is really properly definable. The subtler personality traits required to be a good leader depend on the circumstances of each present moment - a nation stuck in a bunch of permanent wars and a nation who just discovered a brand new deposit of a critical economic resource need very different personalities in charge to get the best outcome. The strength of my eugenic position gets solely to wiping out the egregiously bad (genetic disorders) and then just not subsidising and encouraging dysgenic breeding like we do now.

I’m Objectivist-adjacent, so I have no desire to live under a “collective will.” It usually results in the stupidest possible policies being enacted.

I hope, based on your earlier reply, by “dysgenic breeding” you mean genetic disease and not anything related to race.

I’m Objectivist-adjacent, so I have no desire to live under a “collective will.” It usually results in the stupidest possible policies being enacted.

You do not actually have a choice here. I said "collective will and actions of the people", which translates to the desires and actions people actually take - you might not want to let other people make decisions for you, but you do have to live with the decisions they make for themselves.

As for dysgenic breeding I wasn't thinking about race at all - but it absolutely would fail the disparate impact test. I don't particularly care what colour the inhabitants of the trailer park are (skin colour is correlated with a bunch of the things I care about despite not being the basis for these decisions), but I freely admit that these policies will be better for asians than just about any other group.

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