Political Crossfire Forums

[venaliter]

Please do not attack this thread instantly. If you are offended, please explain in a kind and intellectuall manner or leave the thread before going further.
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Humanity is at such a high number that we are now beginning to fight ourselves through overcrowding. Our "morals" that origionated from darwinism continue though the ultimate threat against our species is largely as far from us as it will be until we colonize other worlds as it is now. So why do we spend more on Social Services than any other budget? Why do we spend money trying to help humans who can never be "normal" to a point where they can contribute to our race? If we begin selective breeding, trimming substandard organisms from our species, then won't we be able to hit three birds with one stone? We will help the ever-growing problem of overpopulation. We will slow the spread of genetic defects. We will be able to allocate funds from regressive social services and apply them to advancing sciences such as Space travel and more-efficient/less-harmful energy plants. The only things stopping us from achieving this are the morals that we still have lying around. These morals are relics from when we were a smaller group of people and needed survival of as many as possible. They were reimpressed after the Black Plague, after the harsh colonialism of the 18th century, etc. Can we cast aside our morals or do they have too powerful a grip on the public?

[ramashkagromik]

first post, maybe your last :lol: , but a brave one.
hmm, selective breeding you say? hmm...

Selective breeding sounds like a perfect idea in theory, just like communism. Sounds like a utopia where people never get sick and parents pick the physical characteristics and genes of their children. Where there are no alchoholics and no crooks, where kids don't do drugs and government coexists in peace with its citizens. It all sounds perfect in theory, really, but you try to institute selective breeding anywhere in the world and you'll hit a wall. Not only a wall of protestors, but also a wall of laws and ethics that would need to be dealth with to make Selective breeding possible without starting World War III. And please tell me, who will decide which genes are good and which ones are bad. What may be a defect for you is an advantage for the rest.
Quote: Can we cast aside our morals or do they have too powerful a grip on the public?
THe morals do have a powergrip as you say. Before instituting selective breeding try to convince the world that religion is opium for the people, as one "boy" said. After you make the whole world atheist, you can start planning on the institution of selective breeding. Either you are curious or you watched GATTACA too many times... :roll:

[Fido]

I believe in negative Eugenics. We are keeping people alive with our technology who would die without it, and they have more rather than less children as a result. Now, with every genetic disease may come a useful mutation that may at some point keep the whole population alive, but if we are encouraging more disease with our treatment of disease there should be limitations. The problem is that the moral forces look only to protect life, and I agree that none should be killed. On the other hand, some problems grow rather than diminish, and the cost of keeping some people alive means there will be more financial stress among those least able to afford it. We just cannot have anything approaching a rational discussion of the issue so long as the morality train has been hijacked by the least rational segment of the population. And the flip side is bad too. If great wealth is consumed in treating incurable disease, this makes poverty more wide spread, and poverty is felt to be a threat to life, and like disease it results in greater population rather than less. people who feel their lives threatened have many children as proof against mortality, while those in possession of great wealth can hardly be persuaded to breed. Ironic isn't it?

[Korimyr the Rat]

Yes, but less extreme.

There's simply no need-- or call-- to forcibly exterminate or sterilize anyone. We are not that overcrowded, and we are not that dysgenically oriented.

For the most part, we'd be better off simply instituting a birth subsidy for mothers not already on Welfare, encourage healthy people to breed... and then let Nature take her course. Take the warning labels off of things. Quit stopping people from killing each other. Start a few nasty ground wars-- the kind that involve civilians.

If you're really concerned about the good of the species... get involved in things like the Nobel Prizewinners' sperm bank and similar projects. Get some money together and start rewarding prize specimens for breeding with each other.

Figure if things fall apart like you're worried about... they'll be more than capable of taking care of themselves.

[political scientist]

I appreciate your courage in introducing a yopic that many do not want to talk about. I respect your opinion and can see where you're coming from,
BUT....
I personally have to place morals before progression. While some people are deformed, mentally ill, or inept in other ways, the fact of the matter is, they're still people. They don't get a say in how they're born, but yet they pay the ultimate price? And whose to say the selection will stop there? Will certain races, members of certain religions, or homosexuals faces annhialation, similar to Hitler's selective breeding? Where do you draw the line, especially when the government's involved?
Even if you eliminate those who are mentally ill, deformed, retarded, etc, society will not move along without these types resurfacing. Many deformaties and mental illnesses are not caused by genes. Many are caused by drugs, environment, mother's physical condition, etc.
It's just like what ramashkagromik said, selective breeding sounds great in theory, but it's unrealistic.
By the way, welcome to PCF, I hope you enjoy the time you spend here; you'll find us bizarre but informative! :wink:

~Political Scientist

[Fido]

political scientist wrote: I appreciate your courage in introducing a yopic that many do not want to talk about. I respect your opinion and can see where you're coming from,
BUT....
I personally have to place morals before progression. While some people are deformed, mentally ill, or inept in other ways, the fact of the matter is, they're still people. They don't get a say in how they're born, but yet they pay the ultimate price? And whose to say the selection will stop there? Will certain races, members of certain religions, or homosexuals faces annhialation, similar to Hitler's selective breeding? Where do you draw the line, especially when the government's involved?
Even if you eliminate those who are mentally ill, deformed, retarded, etc, society will not move along without these types resurfacing. Many deformaties and mental illnesses are not caused by genes. Many are caused by drugs, environment, mother's physical condition, etc.
It's just like what ramashkagromik said, selective breeding sounds great in theory, but it's unrealistic.
By the way, welcome to PCF, I hope you enjoy the time you spend here; you'll find us bizarre but informative! :wink:

~Political Scientist

As you point out, much in the way of birth defects are the result of an environment, and that environment is one increasingly poisoned. Certainly the rich would like it if we executed all our culls. They might breath easier if we destroy the evidence. The fact is that we attacked Saddam for having chemical weapons while our drug and chemical companies use us for guinea pigs. The world is their toilet.
But if you look at all of humanity you cannot say, and may never be able to say that we can do without this one or that. We are terribly inbred, and other genes from distant lands may be all that will save us.
It is purely retarded that retarded people are encouraged to breed by some people, or that one man should have many wives as this reduces still further the gene pool. Wars should also be rejected, because they are the opposite of Darwin's theory. In war it is the fittest who die and the four fs who live to breed. Send retarded people, or the old, or infirm, or criminals and politicians to fight and you would be improving the whole of humanity.

[bob.appleyard]

venaliter wrote: Please do not attack this thread instantly. If you are offended, please explain in a kind and intellectuall manner or leave the thread before going further.

Okay, but it will be difficult.

Quote: Humanity is at such a high number that we are now beginning to fight ourselves through overcrowding.

Demonstrate that the Earth is "overcrowding", and that this has any connection to wars (which I'm assuming is what you mean by "fighting ourselves").

Quote: Our "morals" that origionated from darwinism continue though the ultimate threat against our species is largely as far from us as it will be until we colonize other worlds as it is now.

Demonstrate that Darwin made any contribution to moral philosophy. The rest of the sentence is meaningless to me, please rephrase.

Quote: So why do we spend more on Social Services than any other budget?

I'm assuming you mean "than any other part of the budget"...

2006 estimate for spending on "education, training, employment and social services" (note that social services only comprisea part of this figure) is $109,651m . Compare this to defence: $535,943m.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/pdf/hist.pdf

Quote: Why do we spend money trying to help humans who can never be "normal" to a point where they can contribute to our race?

Who are these "abnormal" people to whom you refer?

Once these points are clarified, I can respond to the rest of your post.

[bob.appleyard]

To the main question, I disagree with selective breeding because I don't trust anyone to do the selecting.

[melchizedek22]

I think they tryed selective breeding in 30's 40's Germany,how did that work out!

[bob.appleyard]

Selective breeding in dogs produces ugly, ill creatures.

[Korimyr the Rat]

melchizedek22 wrote: I think they tryed selective breeding in 30's 40's Germany,how did that work out!

Well, pretty good for a program that was only allowed to run for one generation. Those "Aryan superbabies" were, on average, healthier and fitter than average and grew up to be more educated.

If you're talking about the Jewish/Rom/Slavic genocide... well, that was a separate program. And it was a dysmal failure-- only about seven million dead, and all of the targetted ethnic groups made immediate and dramatic comebacks.

[THEXRATED]

Resources on this planet are finite. We just recently passed the line where nature still produced more than we used. This is largely thanks to a man. There are some estimates that one third of the planet will be desert in not so long time from now.

I do not think there is a question that eventually population growth will have to be controlled with selective breeding. However, there are two parts to this at least: genetics and birth control. Both will most likely be influenced by future governments and science.

The moral question our future generations will face will likely to be whether they must allow individuals to survive or let humanity to perish. In my opinion that is not a choice at all.

[DevilMan]

[quote="melchizedek22"]I think they tryed selective breeding in 30's 40's Germany,how did that work out![/quote]

They also did it in America during WWII just if the war was to drag on for a few more generations...

[THEXRATED]

DevilMan wrote: melchizedek22 wrote: I think they tryed selective breeding in 30's 40's Germany,how did that work out!

They also did it in America during WWII just if the war was to drag on for a few more generations...

Much of it was based on pseudo-sciences like eugenics that is pretty irrelevant with today's scientific understanding. However, with genetic engineering some positive things could be achieved wihtout a doubt.

[British boy]

Quote: Send retarded people, or the old, or infirm, or criminals and politicians to fight and you would be improving the whole of humanity.
So your argument is that when we can no-longer contribute to society we should die? Forgetting compassion for those less fortunate, what about freedom of the minority? I think it would be a dark day for the human race if your "plan" was to succeed.
We should send the politicians though :-P

[Numb]

No way, some of histories most influential people came from disfunctional families. Alot of famous musicians got there influence from theer experiences.
Not to mention alot of disabilities are considered personality traits by some people.
Howard Hughes for example is a famous aeronotical engineer who had cases of OCD and probably depression. If only rich and successful people bred it would be a disaster for our species. Look at the Bush family, George Bush senior is successful but look at his kid!