Eugenics Revisited

[Twilight Hue]

An OP that touches on eugenics and the latest SFIA episode bring me to this question. Eugenics has kind of a bad reputation today, not in small part through who supported it in the day and how it was planned to be implemented.
But is it really that unethical to want a healthy population? When genetics was discovered, the thought was to simply stop people with "bad genes" from reproducing, but today we have the option to edit our genes. We can "bioform" our offspring to be adapted optimally to life in a future ecology. We could eliminate illnesses and vulnerabilities, e.g. to obesity, with just a bit CRISPR/Cas9. (Not by "training", sorry.)

Shouldn't we?

Eugenics is something that can be a great benefit or a great disaster, but at the end of the day I'm a big supporter of eugenics and I think people should concentrate on their best traits , people of good stock , and trying to pass their genetic advantages on to their descendants in order to make life easier and better in general for the future and try to avoid passing on negative traits to help prevent future suffering.

 

[Estro Felino]

I'd have to give much more thought based on
much more observation to decide where to
draw a line. But my 1st impression is that
improving the lot of humans (not just fixing
severe maladies) is a good idea.
Government funding could be cost effective
in improving quality of life.

I thought you antagonized the State.
I mean...the State is for bettering people's life.

That's why the State needs to limit people's freedoms, sometimes: because the greater good is a spiritually superior purpose.
Individualistic purposes are egoistical, self-destructive and destructive.

 

[Revoltingest]

I thought you antagonized the State.

I lack the power to antagonize it.

I mean...the State is for bettering people's life.

Ideally it is.
But its record is mixed.

That's why the State needs to limit people's freedoms, sometimes: because the greater good is a spiritually superior purpose.
Individualistic purposes are egoistical, self-destructive and destructive.

It appears that you favor
more limitations than I.

 

[Estro Felino]

It appears that you favor
more limitations than I.

Definitely.
I consider making babies a big responsibility.
In a parallel world that many would define Dystopian, I would prefer to have a State that gives the permit to make children.
Especially when there are irresponsible parents.

 

[Heyo]

The ethics of eugenics? It has been deemed mostly unethical from recent history. An alternate route would be to test a theory of conscious manipulation over the duration of several generations.

Gene editing is conscious manipulation. And currently one of only two methods that are known to work. (The other, of course, being good old selective breeding.)
But even if your Lamarckian evolution would work, it would be a form of eugenics, conscious change of the gene pool for the betterment of the human race.

 

[Balthazzar]

Gene editing is conscious manipulation. And currently one of only two methods that are known to work. (The other, of course, being good old selective breeding.)
But even if your Lamarckian evolution would work, it would be a form of eugenics, conscious change of the gene pool for the betterment of the human race.

Ok, feel free to opt out of testing the proposed theory. There's only one way to do this, which is to simply test it and stick with it, then to inform the kids so they can choose to continue the testing also, and so on until it has been proven. If it's never proven, guess what? They will have still increased their abilities, as will have every generation that follows.

 

[Augustus]

We could eliminate illnesses and vulnerabilities, e.g. to obesity, with just a bit CRISPR/Cas9. (Not by "training", sorry.)

Shouldn't we?

Even if we assume it will be effective at eliminating diseases, it won't be as simple as “flipping this switch turns disease X off”.

There will be unintended consequences and hidden risks. We already know CRISPR produces these, and we also know that 2nd and 3rd order risks may take years to appear and only happen with the right combination of circumstances (let’s say a child born to parents with gene edits a and b respectively).

Our ability to do things advances faster than our ability to understand them.

It will happen regardless, so whether individuals support it or not doesn’t really matter. Hopefully the benefits will outweigh the consequences of the hidden risks.

I guess there will be far more negatives than many people imagine though.

 

[Valjean]

The ethics of eugenics? It has been deemed mostly unethical from recent history. An alternate route would be to test a theory of conscious manipulation over the duration of several generations.

But that's eugenics!
How are you defining the word?