WTF kind of question is this?
Is it a thing? OK, yeah? A concept of an idea, maybe.
Is it anything approaching moral, ethical or humane? No.
Nooo.
Nope.
Nuh-uh.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Yeah it’s one of those things that in theory it could make sense, it could be. However since we are humans, there does not exist any way that would not be morally abhorrent to some group of people. There’s zero way that in doing it this way wouldn’t destroy x group of people. And that’s why it can never be done. Eugenics is just too close to genocide.
It’s impossible for me listen to someone arguing in favor of eugenics without hearing, “we’ve gotta get rid of those people- you know the ones in talking about, right?” Fuck that noise.
It’s always some narcissistic asshole who thinks they’re the prototype for a new master race.
No. Read dystopian novels like Brave New World and you’ll understand why.
I believe that it exists as a concept. That’s what you’re asking, right?
I believe in the right hands that some types of eugenics can do a world of good. I know hitler and japanese did it and it got an ugly label. But what about if we could tell a parent this child will have no diseases his entire life at the stage of birth? Kind of like Gataca
All other concerns aside, I think if we start controlling genes we’ll end up writing our genes into a corner.
I just think of south Korean beauty standards and how I have a hard time differentiating all the kpop artists due to the homogeneous beauty standard being universally applied.
Assuming your honesty and good faith on asking this question, the real treasure on our gene pool is it’s diversity. Eugenics would, by definition, reduce it.
You could assume that it’s a low price to pay for health, longevity, strength, intelligence, beauty and so on, but it’s not that simple.
Even some diseases (out or the possibility to develop it) can be beneficial under the right circonstances, e.g. sickle cell anemia can improve resistance to malaria.
It would be great to be able to prevent most diseases before it happens and treat it if it happens (for free, in a universal health care system), but eliminate the genes would be a very bad idea, a healthy specie needs it’s diversity to avoid extinction, and we sometimes feel like we are above that risk, but we are not that special.
Gattaca was taking a lot of license for the sake of the movie. A lot of diseases are multifactorial and while genes might play a role, they’re not the only factor and often not even the main factor. The movie ignored things like epigenetics, early life exposures, lifestyle, age, sex, and just plain variance that are all factors that can play into chronic diseases.
That being said, allowing parents to make decisions based on genetic testing isn’t itself eugenics. Eugenics is a top-level idea revolving around the idea of improving the quality of human genetics as a whole. And that requires an institutional judgement of what are good quality genes and bad quality genes, which necessitates us saying some people are better quality than others and opens up the door to racism/homophobia/transphobia/ableism/etc. Eugenics is always bad, while personal medical decisions based on genetics can be reasonable.
Where do you get these questions?
