Making better humans, or rather, making less-bad ones

[MadImmortalMan]

The risks that short majority will create a future where everyone is short are simply too great.

It seems like most things are created with shorter people in mind. To take a Raz vein, I wonder if it would be easier to weed out tall people or to re-shape the world to accommodate everyone being tall.

We could just put rotating blades in every public place six feet above the ground.

[crazy canuck]

The risks that short majority will create a future where everyone is short are simply too great.

It seems like most things are created with shorter people in mind. To take a Raz vein, I wonder if it would be easier to weed out tall people or to re-shape the world to accommodate everyone being tall.

We could just put rotating blades in every public place six feet above the ground.

The weak always try to bring down the strong.  Or steal their wine.  Tis the way these days.

[Ideologue]

Ide, if you have gotten over your STEM infatuation I applaud you

See, I get pushback on education reform like what I'm suggesting is genuinely crazy, but it's really Languish that is crazy on this one.  Eugenics, the transparency society, communism, establishment of world state--these are radical ideas, that maybe people aren't (quite) ready for (because they're weak and greedy and cowardly, which is why they're necessary in the first place).  But my view that there is a catastrophic problem in how we fund higher education?  Not only is this entirely mainstream, it is increasing in popularity every day.  This is one fight I'll almost certainly win.

Anyway, once art programs are made efficient enough to produce, with reliability, commercially viable artists (and history programs, commercially viable historians, etc.), I'll be very happy to fund them at that level.

[Ideologue]

I'm not.  I'm really angry at Jake for ignoring the very first thing I said (and probably failing to read any of it) and thereby being a pompous, disingenuous shit.  I want to say mean(er) things back, but I won't.

But since he brought it up: if I'm such a big joke, why should I have been born, Jake?  If I can't manage my life, and you're right, why should I have been given existence when another combination would have been happier?  You don't have an answer, other than platitudes.

Sorry for the negativity.

Sorry... was in a pissy mood when I posted that.

My point is that it's very difficult to distinguish between how you articulate the negativity you feel about your own life and how you articulate your arguments for eugenics, so the eugenics thing really comes across as an extension of your current self-loathing. Also, I'm really unfond of eugenics.

Well, obviously, any insights I have on the subject come from my experiences, which have been routinely bad, largely as a result of poorly-adapted traits, like impulsivity, aggressiveness, poor social intelligence, poor intelligence in other things, and narrow shoulders.

For what it's worth, I think you're managing your life fine other than the apparently fundamental unhappiness.

Yeah, me too.

The thing is, I don't think Ide's ideas are even that radical - they are simple ineffective.

As I already said, in most civilised countries you can already abort pregnancy where a foetus is damaged or suffering from a disease; and both prenatal tests to check that and the cost of the abortion procedure is refunded by the local NHS. So people can take a decision more or less freely. I don't think promising additional hand-outs to people would make them take a different decision (and if it does, it would be for wrong reasons which should not be encouraged by the state).

If there is a question I guess, it is whether the state should assist you financially if you want to raise a kid who is, effectively, a vegetable and you were aware of this while you could still have a legal abortion. This is, imo, a much more interesting moral conundrum. I think it should, as the cost is likely negligible in the overall order of things, and the alternative is much more problematic.

Fwiw, I think you actually have very good objections to a soft eugenics program.  (Though I disagree that it matters what the motives are for taking the money.  It's behavior that interests me.)

What I'd like, though, is that the debate on eugenics be reopened, without the hateful baggage of the past, if for no other reason than to educate people acting in their private lives and maybe open up new horizons for them.  A lot of people are taught that unconditional love for a child means bringing it to term, even if it sucks and its life will suck.  I don't think this is a very useful expression of a parent's love at all.  But I can't even discuss this with prospective partners--because the topic itself is forbidden.  Yeah, if I had my druthers, I'd abort my kids till I got a girl, specifically, without any physical, behavioral or cognitive impairments.  It's impossible to explain that to people without coming off as hateful, when hate has nothing to do with my opinions on the subject.  Being a parent means creating a life and that is a profound responsibility that we take altogether too lightly.  I'd like people to be able to say, without fear of recrimination, "I really do not want a kid with depression," because that isn't an expression of disdain, it's an expression of clear-sightedness.

[Jacob]

See, I get pushback on education reform like what I'm suggesting is genuinely crazy, but it's really Languish that is crazy on this one.  Eugenics, the transparency society, communism, establishment of world state--these are radical ideas, that maybe people aren't (quite) ready for (because they're weak and greedy and cowardly, which is why they're necessary in the first place).  But my view that there is a catastrophic problem in how we fund higher education?  Not only is this entirely mainstream, it is increasing in popularity every day.  This is one fight I'll almost certainly win.

Anyway, once art programs are made efficient enough to produce, with reliability, commercially viable artists (and history programs, commercially viable historians, etc.), I'll be very happy to fund them at that level.

Who's the "we" you refer to?

[Ideologue]

America.  I've always wondered why CC had such strong feelings about an issue that doesn't affect him, but whatever.  I'm used to foreigners getting bent about American politics.

I don't know if the Canadian model is even that similar.  Your SLs can be discharged in bankruptcy, for example.

[Jacob]

I'd like people to be able to say, without fear of recrimination, "I really do not want a kid with depression," because that isn't an expression of disdain, it's an expression of clear-sightedness.

See... this really makes you come across as saying "I wish I'd never been born at all" but wrapping it up in so much bombastic rhetoric and rationalization.

[crazy canuck]

America.  I've always wondered why CC had such strong feelings about an issue that doesn't affect him, but whatever.  I'm used to foreigners getting bent about American politics.

I don't know if the Canadian model is even that similar.  Your SLs can be discharged in bankruptcy, for example.

If you think that American politics and policies do not affect Canada you are mistaken.

[CountDeMoney]

Build your own goddamned ports and ship your own oil, dammit.

[crazy canuck]

Build your own goddamned ports and ship your own oil, dammit.

We are trying.

[Jacob]

America.  I've always wondered why CC had such strong feelings about an issue that doesn't affect him, but whatever.  I'm used to foreigners getting bent about American politics.

I don't know if the Canadian model is even that similar.  Your SLs can be discharged in bankruptcy, for example.

So you're doing the thing where you talk only about the US, but you use universal arguments to do so. Because when you talk about the value of STEM and the uselessness of the humanities, as is your wont, you typically do so in terms relating to the inherent values of those fields rather than how they fit into the education systems and economy of the US at present.

[garbon]

Yeah, if I had my druthers, I'd abort my kids till I got a girl

[dps]

Your SLs can be discharged in bankruptcy, for example.

FWIW, that's a problem about bankruptcy laws, not about higher education funding per se.

[derspiess]

Okay let's sterilize Ide.

[CountDeMoney]

Okay let's sterilize Ide.

He keeps eating the way he does, he'll take care of that on his own.