Right. Let's discuss if this is feasible.
This was Hitler's little pet project, as well. To create a master race by weeding out undesirable traits by selective breeding.
Now, I'm not even talkiing about creating a master race - far from it. But I do believe that we, as a race, are spiralling downward into devolution if we don't act sooner or later.
In nature, it is normal and accepted for 'lesser' individuals (be they sickly, of subpar intelligence or simply misshapen) to be culled. The dumbest duckling of the lot will run farther away from its mother than its peers, causing it to be snatched up by the cat lurking around the corner. Likewise, a bird born with a defective wing will never fly, and hence, will probably be rejected by the parents even before they have to spend time and resources on it.
SO, for this reason I think the common gene pool of the entire human race needs a bit of chlorine. It's great that humanitarians have made sure that all those with such defects are in fact not only welcome in our society, but are well-taken care of. I don't mind that one bit.
But then they start talking about their rights as humans to reproduce. And that makes my heart skip a beat, because it is UNNATURAL and an ABERRATION. Not of the religious kind, mind you, but of the biologic; slowly but surely we are weakening our common defenses against disease, hereditary genetic defects and psychological quirks invisible to the surface observer. For every wheelchair-bound paraplegic we keep alive, hundreds will eventually die or suffer if these people are allowed to procreate uncontrollably.

I am even willing to draw this discussion into homosexuality. Homosexuality is, by all my standards, a slight genetic difference in both sexes for the purpose of preventing procreation. 'Nature', if you have to consider it as an entity, 'knows' that with almost 7 billion, there are FAR too many of us. Homosexuality is simply a genetic marker to gently prevent overpopulation. Which would explain why it occurs in animals, but to a much lesser degree (there aren't 7 billion bonobo's in the world).

Now, this is what it's all about; do you think it's time for governments to start regulating this kind of thing? I consider myself to be against all sort of official/government sanctions telling people how to live their lives, but keep in mind; this is about the preservation of the species as a whole. YOU and I will never have to worry about this, since we are already alive with or without genetic defects.

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Not that I don't agree with the principles of eugenics, but there have always been homosexuals. There is documented homosexual behavior even in relatively underpopulated animal species. As for the realistic institution of eugenics as common practice, we have no reason to do so. Science and technology advance us at rates eugenics simply could not keep up with.

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Systematic eugenics is highly unlikely if not utterly impossible, especially given the current moral climate. That being said, natural selection already does this to some extent, and to a much greater extent in times of hardship. If humans overpopulate the world then we will be subjected to the same forces that lead to culling in the animal world such as disease and starvation. Even though the world is completely f'd up right now it is still able to maintain us. When it can no longer do so there will be outbreaks of disease which will kill the weakest of us and make mankind as a whole stronger. Limited resources will also lead to war although I'm not sure war is a "selective" process (i.e. one that is based on "stronger" or "weaker" genes) as much as wholesale destruction. The winner of wars may just be the most batshit crazy retards who are willing to go the farthest, not the highest example of our species.

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I'll go a bit further then I would in person. I agreed with OP completely. I'd support this, even though I may be unable to bear children as a result. A lot of people don't want to look at the ugly truth, but it's there. Walk down the street… how many people wearing glasses do you see? 25%? 50%? I do, and so do my mother, father, and brother. How many obese people? How many do you think have a genetic disposition to obesity? heart disease? cancer? diabetes?

So I'm thinking - suppose people had the balls to speak out and say what no one wanted to hear, suppose somehow the moral climate was changed to facilitate a degree of selective breeding. How far could it go? Would you ban only the mentally ill and crippled from reproduction? Would only attractive, healthy people be allowed to breed? Somewhere in the middle? What about people with a history of depression, or criminal activities? How the hell would this even be regulated?

That's all.

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@54,977

He's bringing up the most important point of the Eugenics problem: How do we know what's best for all of us? Hitler made the mistake of assuming that evolution is "straight path," that it would continuously lead to bigger, better, and stronger human beings. This is completely false, because in evolution, there is no "right" path. Don't think of evolution as linear path, think of it as a spider web, with us in the very middle. We could go many different directions, but none of them are "better" than the others.

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@54,999

The problem with Hitler's vision was that it was his alone. It's a simple enough process for educated, objective thinkers to decide as a whole what sort of non-fixable characteristics are undesirable and in need of culling. Most minor hereditary problems such as eyesight can be fixed, and even the mentally handicapped can produce intelligent offspring. Any sane person would agree that everyone deserves at least one chance. The ultimate problem isn't so much who to allow to breed, but how to get over our moral self righteousness as a people in order to euthanize the bad seeds who have been shown to egregiously or consistently squander and abuse their opportunity. When you throw emotions and religion into the mix you fuck everything up, and, unfortunately for humanity, that's exactly way things are run right now.

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@55,004

At the most extreme, you'd only need to sterilize the children born to these people, and let time do the rest. even that I believe that would be far too heavy handed for society to accept, though. A fine or other lesser penalty for unlawful childbirth would be slightly more realistic - it would be protested, broken and defied, yes, but I believe it would make enough impact to be meaningful, and allow those with more desirable genetic traits to begin reclaiming the gene pool.

There is also simple education, and… well, propaganda. Make sure the odds of passing on various genetic defects and weaknesses are publicly available. Ads, fliers, pamphlets in the doctor's office, use the public school system's health curriculum. It still sounds immoral, and people might hate it, but make sure the overlaying theme is to protect future generations. Imagine if government funds could be allocated to give all 'legal' children a college education, job training, health insurance. Too bad this will never happen, though, at least not in the US… or maybe it's a good thing. It's hard to imagine how it would really pan out.

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Eugenics simply doesn't work. Every time you cut something out for a gained advantage, you end up losing something else. Eugenics assumes that there is an ultimate human being that we can strive to become. This is just not true, and you people are making that mistake. Evolution is not a branching tree, it's a spider web. If you've ever played the game Bioshock, there's a very good quote that the plastic surgeon says. "Why must we have two eyes? Why not three, or four?"

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Don't worry, the human race is still evolving. There is just selective pressure towards breeding for what makes people successful in society, intelligence, rather than what makes for success in a jungle like brute force and endurance. This is going to be more interesting in a lot of ways.

I saw on the news recently that there is a huge number of stupid bitch mothers who refuse to give their kids vaccinations because they might cause autism. When their kids die of measles, their stupid bitch genes will die off. I think evolution works for entire countries and cultures, too. Human cultures have been competing with each other for all of history, and the only ones still left are the meanest, toughest and smartest. So if the dumbfuck American Christian voters vote to ban genetic research and teaching biology, and tell kids the sun revolves around the earth - that just means the Chinese will develop better science and eat the USA for breakfast in a few years. Evolution in action!

Oh, and homosexuality in humans doesn't preclude having kids at all, traditionally.

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Hey now, we're not that bad here in America =P

Then again, I'm from the Midwest.

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I stopped reading at "devolution"
Omg, the american education system sucks.

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@55,204

Yeah, exactly. There's no such thing as "forward" or "backward" in evolution. There's no such thing as "devolution." Whatever traits allow you to survive best in your environment are passed on. So if there are certain traits that are becoming more and more common in the human population, it's not "devolution." It's simply what works and allows us to survive. Again, this is why eugenics doesn't and will never work. Evolution doesn't go in a straight line, you've got the wrong concepts in your head.

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@55,213

Agreed. Evolution is not a straight line goal from raw/"worst" to finished/"best", it's a meandering road that breaks into numerous tangents. Our genes and gene combinations are so varied and intricate that to try and "improve" our species by removing the disabled/stupid/ugly/unpopular would be utterly doomed to fail, save we only allow births by laboratory. That is, eugenics is bound to fail unless we turn into a sci-fi parody.

On another level, a large part of what separates man from the animals is morality. We may be a mix of good and bad, but we are unique among the species in our awareness of such a concept. Eugenics is unquestionably immoral. And by going down that path, the very nature of what we are would be changed; I, for one, would not want to be around, nor recognise my species, in a world of heartless, chiselled Adonises.

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