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

[Razgovory]

If there is a major backlash toward one of the choices, then why allow the choice at all? 

"You are allowed to choose A or B, but if you choose B you are a horrible monster".

Where's the major backlash against B? Who here has objected to a woman choosing to abort a foetus because they perceive the foetus to be at risk for health problems? Who - outside of pro-life fundamentalists - in the rest of the world outside of languish object to it?

You can probably find someone to object to society wide gender-bias in abortions in some places, but that hasn't actually been brought up yet.

It was my understanding that Ide's idea was not forcible abortions but government subsides and incentives for abortions for the purpose of eradicating bad genes.  As such I'm seeing people angry at the idea of the government incentivizing such abortions.  But from your posts I get the idea that you are basically okay with the same act so long as government is not explicitly endorsing it for this reason.  Oh and people who oppose abortions are "fundamentalists".  Is my understanding correct?

[Razgovory]

I should note that when was Ide was in law school and bragging about being part of the "Knowledge economy", I suggested he actually try to a degree in engineering because he seemed to have real talent with mathematics.  He brushed me off saying Math was just something he did for fun.

[Ideologue]

That doesn't sound like me at all.  What kind of math did I do for fun?  I used to multiply large(ish) numbers in my head, but that's not really High Math.  I've always been bad at serious mathematics.  I got like 540 or some similar low-ass number on my math SAT.

Anyway, I was stupid then.

[CountDeMoney]

Agreed.  Ideally the Keystone pipeline will be delayed long enough that it wont be needed any longer and all our oil can go to more profitable markets.  Win win right?

It springs a leak in Oklahoma, I don't see any of you fuckers coming down with a bottle of Dawn and a roll of paper towels to clean it up. 

...says the guy driving a gas guzzler. I don't see any of you fuckers giving up driving so that we won't need that oil.

Go fuck yourself.  Sideways.

[CountDeMoney]

Agreed.  Ideally the Keystone pipeline will be delayed long enough that it wont be needed any longer and all our oil can go to more profitable markets.  Win win right?

It springs a leak in Oklahoma, I don't see any of you fuckers coming down with a bottle of Dawn and a roll of paper towels to clean it up.

Still safer than hauling it in Warren Buffett's rail cars. You going down with the Dawn for the next derailment?

At least that's an American mess.

[Jacob]

America's Future Leaders:

Once again you're speaking in absolute and universal terms on the values of STEM, LA, and FA while ostensibly discussing the US.

Anyhow we've been over this ground interminably, and you're treading the same ground you always tread. I still think you are full of shit in your idiosyncratic way. I'm sure we'll revisit the topic again, but that's it for me right now.

Happy People Science:

The impact is on the child themselves.  Even if the state winds up spending a million bucks with no return, the most egregious suffering belongs to the kid.  Since they are not an extant human life from conception till (let's say for simplicity's sake) birth, avoiding that suffering does not in any sense impinge on a non-extant person's rights to exist.  It's a neat trick: the worst you can do to a non-extant person is stop them from being alive; you can do so much worse to a living human being it isn't funny.

But by disregarding the parents, you are doing harm to them. Forcing women to abort children based on your standards, rather than theirs, is harming them, however much the foetus may not care.

I don't know how many pregnant women (or expectant fathers) you've been around, but imposing unwanted abortions on them is gonna fuck them up. That's a fact. Miscarriages are rough. Forcing them on unwilling people with all the machinery and bedside manner of the state is going to make them a whole lot worse.

Regarding tests for "impulsiveness" and the like--my hypothetical assumed the technological capacity to test for it.  And, of course, it's coming, so it's not just "intellectual masturbation" or whatever you called it.  And yes, "impulsiveness" is way genetic.

Making moral arguments based on a non-existing technology, with a scientific basis that consists of your bald assertion, to address an issue based on discredited sociology is pretty much the definition of intellectual masturbation.

I think Peter Dinklage is a pretty good actor.  I have decided it best not to play into this kind of rhetorical gambit: Dinklage is.  He's beyond the ambit of the discussion.  The only person who can decide whether Dinklage should have been aborted or not is him.

... well, and his parents, right?

This is, however, not the case for people who do not have brains yet--at that point, they are just material, to be molded, shaped, or discarded based on our best knowledge and practices, without sentiment.

This probably goes to the very core of my disagreement with you. Your argument that these life and death decisions, that shape the lives and psyches of everyone involved, should be made without sentiment is basically abhorrent. That's where eugenics went wrong in the past, and that's where your arguments are wrong now. The sentiments of the people involved are of supreme importance, and anything that discards them for abstract reasons of policy or ideology is frankly monstrous (and for the record, oh my sensitive friend, I am not calling you abhorrent or monstrous, just this argument you are making).

Incidentally, it supports my longtime observation that whenever people attempt to dress up moral (and most other) arguments in "logic," "dispassionate facts," and "pure reason" they're trying to pass off their own sentiments without even acknowledging that's what they're doing. Your argument is not based on our best knowledge and practices, it's based on your emotions and abstract hypotheticals removed from the realities of how people live their lives and divorced from any actual science on the subject.

Education is the key part: a shift in the values away from the Judeo-Christian "life" to a materialist "quality of life."  Depending upon the amount of pain experienced by the person over the child's lifetime, it's possible it edges into outright abuse.  I don't know if it should be a crime, but it is certainly a sin.

I don't have a problem with the concept of valuing "quality of life" over "life", but I think that is a choice to be made by the individual, not the state.

Incidentally, it's pretty silly - and outright contradictory - that you speak of moving away from Judeo-Christian values yet use its language and conceptual framework to argue you position... well, actually, you're using Christian language - nothing Jewish about sin.

Riddle me this: what is morally different with creating a life that you know will be torturous, and kicking an infant in the head until it has brain damage?

The answer is: fuck you Martinus, that's a shit analogy.

[dps]

Of course.  That's true of everybody.

You think libertarians don't?

Well, in theory at least, libertarians want to allow each individual to follow his or her own values.  In practice, of course, even someone arguing for basic human rights is seeking to impose their values on the body public.  My problem with what you're doing is you're essentially trying to pass off your opinions and value judgments as scientific fact.  Or as Jacob worded it:

whenever people attempt to dress up moral (and most other) arguments in "logic," "dispassionate facts," and "pure reason" they're trying to pass off their own sentiments without even acknowledging that's what they're doing. Your argument is not based on our best knowledge and practices, it's based on your emotions and abstract hypotheticals removed from the realities of how people live their lives and divorced from any actual science on the subject.

Damn it, Ide's force me into the position of agreeing with Jake....

[Ideologue]

... well, and his parents, right?

Not anymore, at least not under SC law.  But you guys are really pro-choice in Canada, so it could be different.

Jake, I can't respond to a lot of that because you keep mentioning this "forced abortion" thing that I've never advocated.  "Should" and "I'll make you" are two different propositions, after all.

Well, in theory at least, libertarians want to allow each individual to follow his or her own values.  In practice, of course, even someone arguing for basic human rights is seeking to impose their values on the body public.  My problem with what you're doing is you're essentially trying to pass off your opinions and value judgments as scientific fact.  Or as Jacob worded it:

I've also always said that the scientific determinations should be left to scientists.  I'm speaking in generalities about principles, not in the language of administrative decisions.

[garbon]

I've also always said that the scientific determinations should be left to scientists.  I'm speaking in generalities about principles, not in the language of administrative decisions.

So that there will be more politicking among scientists/medical practitioners than there already is?

[dps]

I've also always said that the scientific determinations should be left to scientists.  I'm speaking in generalities about principles, not in the language of administrative decisions.

So that there will be more politicking among scientists/medical practitioners than there already is?

Taken on its face, that post from Ide would imply that he's unaware that, politics aside, scientists universally agree on almost nothing and even facts on which they are in general agreement have historically often been shown to be inaccurate.

Beyond that, some of the stuff Ide is talking about, I don't see how you could scientifically determine what's desirable.  Sure, pretty much any sane person is going to agree that not having cystic fibrosis is better than having it, but what about a tendency to be impulsive?  Is being impulsive categorically a bad thing?  I don't see how it is.  Sure, diving into a body of water with no idea how deep it is and cracking your skull open on a submerged rock is a bad thing, but without some impulsiveness, there'd probably be no creativity, either.

[Jacob]

Not anymore, at least not under SC law.  But you guys are really pro-choice in Canada, so it could be different.

Jake, I can't respond to a lot of that because you keep mentioning this "forced abortion" thing that I've never advocated.  "Should" and "I'll make you" are two different propositions, after all.

I was getting your position on eugenics mixed up with your heavy state dirigisme in other areas, I guess, if you are only proposing "incentives" rather than "brute force." Still, I don't think the state should be involved in that sort of thing; the alleged benefit to the population and state is nebulous at best, in spite of the fondest wishes of your sci-fi fantasies.

I've also always said that the scientific determinations should be left to scientists.  I'm speaking in generalities about principles, not in the language of administrative decisions.

That has, historically, not produced the best result. Forced sterilization of different races and social classes, for example, has been carried out by scientists using contemporary scientific facts and knowledge. Atrocities have been carried out by scientists in the name of science.

Leaving ethics to science easily leads to very gross things.

[Jacob]

Damn it, Ide's force me into the position of agreeing with Jake....

See? That's the kind of thing that happens! 

[Jacob]

It was my understanding that Ide's idea was not forcible abortions but government subsides and incentives for abortions for the purpose of eradicating bad genes.

He's basing it on a science-fantasy understanding of genetics - the "bad" genes that cause depression, impulsiveness, studying the humanities, and taking on too many student loans in a fucked up educational eco-system have not in fact been isolated; nor will they, I'm willing to wager.

As such I'm seeing people angry at the idea of the government incentivizing such abortions.  But from your posts I get the idea that you are basically okay with the same act so long as government is not explicitly endorsing it for this reason.

I'm not okay with the gov't incentivizing it either, though it's less abjectly terrible than forcing it. The gov't should stay out of fucking around with the gene-pool and improving the race. That shit is discredited.

Oh and people who oppose abortions are "fundamentalists".  Is my understanding correct?

Maybe fundamentalist is the wrong word, since it apparently has fairly specific meanings in the context of various religions. That said, I think the only people who would seriously admonish a woman for terminating a pregnancy where significant health problems were expected - which is what I'm talking about - would do so out of profound religious convictions. More specifically, I think they'd be doing so out of profound Christian convictions, as I'm not aware of other religions that have staked a strong position there.

And those people are, IMO, somewhere between severely misguided to outright evil.

[Ideologue]

Actually, I doubt they could be isolated.  Those are traits with many genes acting in concert to produce them.  It's the specific combinations we'd seek to reduce the incidence.  The human species would probably not benefit from improved genetic hygiene.

I'd leave that for actual genetic engineering.

[Razgovory]

It was my understanding that Ide's idea was not forcible abortions but government subsides and incentives for abortions for the purpose of eradicating bad genes.

He's basing it on a science-fantasy understanding of genetics - the "bad" genes that cause depression, impulsiveness, studying the humanities, and taking on too many student loans in a fucked up educational eco-system have not in fact been isolated; nor will they, I'm willing to wager.

As such I'm seeing people angry at the idea of the government incentivizing such abortions.  But from your posts I get the idea that you are basically okay with the same act so long as government is not explicitly endorsing it for this reason.

I'm not okay with the gov't incentivizing it either, though it's less abjectly terrible than forcing it. The gov't should stay out of fucking around with the gene-pool and improving the race. That shit is discredited.

Oh and people who oppose abortions are "fundamentalists".  Is my understanding correct?

Maybe fundamentalist is the wrong word, since it apparently has fairly specific meanings in the context of various religions. That said, I think the only people who would seriously admonish a woman for terminating a pregnancy where significant health problems were expected - which is what I'm talking about - would do so out of profound religious convictions. More specifically, I think they'd be doing so out of profound Christian convictions, as I'm not aware of other religions that have staked a strong position there.

And those people are, IMO, somewhere between severely misguided to outright evil.

I'm not a geneticist, I don't think I Ide is, nor do I believe you are.  I'm not in a position to decide what exactly is discredited or not.  I do know that some people have genetic pre-disposition towards certain things.  Many of these pose "significant health problems".  When you say things like, "The gov't should stay out of fucking around with the gene-pool" are you saying that you would government efforts opposed to curing genetic illnesses like Tay-Sachs?  Cause that's what it sounds like with such blanket statements.  So perhaps you would like to clarify.

I would also like the to know are you okay with the government providing money for abortions in general and just become outraged if the government has a motive for their action beyond simply providing money.