|
In my limited experience with other nationalities Australians are easy to chat too and good fun, Germans are dry but easy going and Finnish folk are pretty miserable alcoholics.
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 01:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 10:16 |
|
|
I've only been to Mexico and Canada outside of the US and everyone I met in those countries seemed like neighborhood friends. Outgoing, super nice, and loved drinking with the American.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 02:26
|
|
|
Eugenics is evil. Also it's bad. Also it's not even a real thing because people can't identify or prioritize actual good. Anyway, it's a good way to identify lovely people. I've been overhearing a lot of eugenics conversations lately. Academia is poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 02:27
|
|
|
Instead of eugenics I think fixing potential problems genetically while in the womb would be a better thing to focus on. Imagine a world where you can just pop that extra chromosome out of the embryo and eliminate down syndrome.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 02:41
|
|
|
Pick posted:Eugenics is evil. Also it's bad. Also it's not even a real thing because people can't identify or prioritize actual good. Anyway, it's a good way to identify lovely people. I've been overhearing a lot of eugenics conversations lately. Academia is poo poo. Every wanna-be-intellectual teenager in an "edgy" phase likes to advocate for eugenics and getting rid of the "weak and unproductive" parts of society. Some never grow out of it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 02:41
|
|
|
Solice Kirsk posted:Instead of eugenics I think fixing potential problems genetically while in the womb would be a better thing to focus on. Imagine a world where you can just pop that extra chromosome out of the embryo and eliminate
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 02:43
|
|
|
Everyone is always like "ohhh cucky pizzone is THE FUNNIEST meme  " and just go on about it all the time and text to me. Honestly I like tane more 
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 02:44
|
|
|
Sucrose posted:Every wanna-be-intellectual teenager in an "edgy" phase likes to advocate for eugenics and getting rid of the "weak and unproductive" parts of society. Some never grow out of it. Yeah but I'm seeing it in way too many people my age, and frankly older.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 02:46
|
|
|
I think we've all seen Jurassic Park, so we know that women will start turning into frogs and then mate. Or something.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 02:50
|
|
|
Solice Kirsk posted:I think we've all seen Jurassic Park, so we know that women will start turning into frogs and then mate. Or something. that's fine
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 02:55
|
|
|
Pick posted:Eugenics is evil. Also it's bad. Also it's not even a real thing because people can't identify or prioritize actual good. Anyway, it's a good way to identify lovely people. I've been overhearing a lot of eugenics conversations lately. Academia is poo poo. Eeeehhhhh the base idea of eugenics is fine in the sense of "improve humans but improving our gene pool." In theory we could genetically engineer higher disease resistance, faster and stronger bodies, better brains, and the like. That and remove genetic diseases. That would get rid of a bunch of different kinds of cancer as well as horrifying things like tay-sachs. In theory it's fine. In practice, well...Nazis. A common view at the time was that bad genes came from non-white people while pure white people already were totally perfect and awesome. The concept gets a bad reputation because most of the time it's brought up it's used to justify horrifying, despicable things. It wouldn't be a problem if, say, whenever a couple wanted to have a baby they could pick and choose sperms and eggs to remove genes that contained genetic disorders. That just becomes a problem when you believe "is X race" is a genetic disorder.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 03:22
|
|
|
Nope, see, even with that you've already come to the conclusion that you know the correct limits of human diversity. People try to use dog breeds as a positive example of selective breeding, but even the working breeds tend to be plagued with physical and behavioral problems that make them ill-equipped to survive, because guess what? People aren't as intelligent, rational, or dispassionate as they think they are.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 03:26
|
|
|
Eugenics is going about it the wrong way. We need cybernetic implants to fix our human bodies.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 03:28
|
|
|
i remember you educating some of us about a bone-growth disease in satin guinea pigs lately, Pick. that seems like useful & good eugenic knowledge. i get that satin guinea pig breeding might be a eugenics related issue in the first place, but at least some of you with that kind of knowledge can pull in a different direction.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 03:30
|
|
|
Pick posted:Nope, see, even with that you've already come to the conclusion that you know the correct limits of human diversity. Actually notice that I didn't say I knew the correct limits. Really just "hey we can use this to make some improvements." Kind of the point of it is instead of making evolution totally about random chance nudging things in the direction we'd like it to go. Dog breeds are pretty much exactly what not to. I am not one to talk about the specifics because my education was in computer science, mathematics, and pottery. I'd leave that to biologists and doctors and whatever to figure out. Though the other side of it is Mu Zeta posted:Eugenics is going about it the wrong way. We need cybernetic implants to fix our human bodies. gently caress evolution it moves too drat slow. Take out these meat brains and staple machines on that poo poo these meat bodies suck.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 03:34
|
|
|
I think ive even posted it in this iteration of the thread, but eugenics is actually good.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 03:38
|
|
|
I know this is a thread for unpopular opinions, but shut the gently caress up Jastiger
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 03:41
|
|
|
Pick i love you but no. Toxic Slurpee is right. Its immoral not to select for non cancer genes or terminal diseases for example if we had the capability.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 03:46
|
|
|
You are either pro-eugenics or pro-dysgenics.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 04:10
|
|
|
Jastiger posted:I think ive even posted it in this iteration of the thread, but eugenics is actually good. I think I recall from the last time this came up, you're actually using a really non-standard definition of eugenics, so what you think you're saying is "we should develop medical technology to test embryos for genetic disorders" but what everyone else is hearing is "I'm a Nazi".
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 04:25
|
|
|
Pick posted:Nope, see, even with that you've already come to the conclusion that you know the correct limits of human diversity. It sounds like you are arguing against eugenics because you think the ones who'd be doing it are incompetent, not because it's wrong in some absolute sense. Therefore, well just have to wait until the scientists get better at it. 
doverhog has a new favorite as of 06:03 on Jan 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 05:58
|
|
|
Pick posted:Nope, see, even with that you've already come to the conclusion that you know the correct limits of human diversity. I don't consider finding ways to eliminate anencephaly, Tay-Sachs disease, and other fatal defects in utero to be bad or even controversial unless you think women and babies should be forced to go through the horrors of a still birth because it's more natural or whatever
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 06:05
|
|
|
Pick posted:Nope, see, even with that you've already come to the conclusion that you know the correct limits of human diversity. That's a pretty good analogy for why positive-sounding ideas like achieving 'better' disease resistance through eugenics aren't really all that sound in practice. Falling onto words like good, bad, positive, negative, etc to describe genes implies a level of knowledge above our ability to assess the situation as a society and not really in a way that just reflects our current understanding of the science either. I'm speaking as someone with a relevant scientific background. You don't flip switches, you alter function (and expression) like say widening an intake pipe to produce a more powerful engine - that change does not sit in isolation especially not in something regulated like a cell where the same 'pipe' will often be slightly rejiggered and reused elsewhere despite having the same master blue print. IMUO substituting a known good for a known null is about the limit of gene manipulation for therapeutic purposes (I know even that definition could lend itself to abuse but it's not like that isn't an ethical question modern medicine isn't already struggling with anyway), so long as we don't get carried away here - for example there's nothing radically aberrant about average or below average disease resistance, supposing we could even identify and intervene in those situations, but functionally no disease resistance always warrants radical medical intervention one way or another and targets like that are much more appropriate for gene therapy despite potential consequences imuo. Pick posted:Instead of eugenics I think fixing potential problems genetically while in the womb would be a better thing to focus on. Imagine a world where you can just pop that extra chromosome out of the embryo and eliminate edgy also just produces turner syndrome
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 06:06
|
|
|
Pick posted:Nope, see, even with that you've already come to the conclusion that you know the correct limits of human diversity. When dogs (or other animals) are bred purely for working functions, they usually stay fine and healthy. When animals are bred just for their looks or other human ideas of "fitting the breed standard" you wind up with increasingly inbred and deformed freaks with lots of health problems. I used to like dog shows, but I came to the realization that organizations like the AKC are complete garbage that don't maintain breeds and don't do anything good for dogs whatsoever. If you want a certain breed of dog, you'd be better off buying an unregistered one from some hick in the woods who breeds them for whatever their intended purpose is. Sucrose has a new favorite as of 06:13 on Jan 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 06:06
|
|
|
just as an aside, imo, if some of you work with & are knowledgeable about that kind of genetics & eugenics stuff, it might make for an interesting Ask/Tell thread.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 06:11
|
|
|
hard counter posted:That's a pretty good analogy for why positive-sounding ideas like achieving 'better' disease resistance through eugenics aren't really all that sound in practice. Falling onto words like good, bad, positive, negative, etc to describe genes implies a level of knowledge above our ability to assess the situation as a society and not really in a way that just reflects our current understanding of the science either. I'm speaking as someone with a relevant scientific background. You don't flip switches, you alter function (and expression) like say widening an intake pipe to produce a more powerful engine - that change does not sit in isolation especially not in something regulated like a cell where the same 'pipe' will often be slightly rejiggered and reused elsewhere despite having the same master blue print. There are some real edge cases, like Tay-Sachs, but let's be honest, that's not the bulk of what eugenics targets. I mean, if someone said, hey, women are inherently kind of physically weak, we should only allow strong women like Jang Miran to reproduce, that'd be one thing.  Oh, and you know what? Humans have kind of a glass jaw, let's get some cherubism in there,  And you know, large breasts tend to get in the way and cause back pain, so we should be like other mammals whose mammary glands are only enlarged while actively lactating-- bla bla I could argue that on philosophical terms. But it's really about a new external "stabilizing selection" (really, normalizing selection) that promotes an imaginary and conspicuously aesthetically-driven ideal of "normal", not legitimate normalcy, begging the question of whether such an exercise is even beneficial to humanity overall. If anything we should be promoting physiological diversity to increase the human capacity for specialization, no? You know, more giants and dwarves and whatnot, everything else is favoring specialization lately. I mean, that argument is just as sound. I could explain this better if I were a little less tired and a little less tipsy but my point is with very few exceptions that are truly made for human welfare (e.g. conditions that always cause stillbirths), I'm not convinced the rationale is altruistic. Furthermore, there is value in diversity of experience. It's easy to say, oh, blindness is always bad. A child born blind will have a "harder" life. But it's not always clear that this is true, since people have their own individualized frames of reference. Happiness of a person doesn't map very closely with the things we, as a society, take for granted result in happiness. Oh, but they're more dependent on others. Okay, but that's definitely a reflection of our culture that self-sufficiency is prioritized. It's assumed that John Milton is a great literary figure, but wouldn't he have been "better" if he didn't have to dictate everything? If he could do it himself? And the answer is, in a sense, does it matter? He was already doing far more historically significant stuff than other non-blind people, did he need to be able to do that other poo poo? Ultimately would it have mattered? quote:edgy Pick has a new favorite as of 09:22 on Jan 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 09:14
|
|
|
We are entering an interesting future for humanity. Thanks to technology and healthcare, a lot of people are surviving previously lethal genetic traits, passing them on, and having those children survive. I'm not saying at all that humans living longer is a bad thing, just that we've managed to remove a very basic part of nature from ourselves; survival of the fittest. So without eugenics, and since humans are garbage is guaranteed to end poorly, we need to "fix" ourselves with other means. Probably cybernetic enhancements. But unless we find a way to create synthetic organs and bodies for free the same day we figure out how to create synthetic organs and bodies, it will create such an unbelievable and unprecedented disparity the likes of which humans have never seen before. I know it's a common and somewhat overplayed trope in sci-fi, but we would absolutely face a future where the rich are immortal superbeings, able to replace any damaged part of themselves on a whim, while the poors still require chemotherapy to take care of that pesky brain cancer. No matter how the future of humanity plays out, it's going to result in awful people who will abuse it having access to it first.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 10:49
|
|
|
Fashionable Jorts posted:We are entering an interesting future for humanity. Thanks to technology and healthcare, a lot of people are surviving previously lethal genetic traits, passing them on, and having those children survive. I'm not saying at all that humans living longer is a bad thing, just that we've managed to remove a very basic part of nature from ourselves; survival of the fittest. Pretty much this, medical science is ultimately a large-scale, funded enterprise that yields to the highest bidder. When you develop a godly power, you can bet the only people with access to it are the immensely wealthy. Or if they can't benefit from it, they push to shut it down through legislation. Science is pure, but not so the man conducting or funding it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 12:38
|
|
|
Go back a hundred years and eugenics was a "progressive" position. George Bernard Shaw, for instance, was a great believer in eugenics as a scientific tool for "uplifting" the poor and needy in the socialist society he envisioned. Quite infamously, on the same night that the Beveridge report - which gave rise to the British welfare state - was being debated in parliament, William Beveridge himself was giving a speech to the the Eugenics Society in London.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 12:41
|
|
|
Pick posted:There are some real edge cases, like Tay-Sachs, but let's be honest, that's not the bulk of what eugenics targets.  on the whole but I wouldn't call tay-sachs or conditions like it an edge case myself, but I also wouldn't go full-eugenics on them either. I wouldn't screen the whole population to flush them out, I wouldn't legally mandate that unaffected carriers cannot procreate or can only procreate conditionally, or take further steps to pry then out of the genepool but I would treat affected persons asap with all the means available. My reasoning is that some disorders underpinned by genetics eventually already require radical medical intervention if someone just wants to survive and extremes like machine-assisted living can only take you so far before full deterioration. If there needs to be such extreme medical intervention anyway I'd rather use the one that strives for the least harm to the patient- a tricky judgement call but one I think most people would agree on here. I know people will argue around that, where to draw the line or whether minor issues also warrant intervention but medicine already deals with those issues. HGH is usually only proscribed to HGH-deficient people (other legitimate disorders too) but it has has been abused by a minority of, for example, mothers who just want taller sons or adults who just desire its affects on skin, hair, muscle and weight despite the list of side effects and risks to themselves or their child. Steroid abuse is well-documented and usually follows similar thinking. Etc, etc, etc. Ideally medicine will continue to expand to cover more serious diseases and syndromes despite the -potential- for such abuses. Society needs to grow too if it's to prudently regulate these newer radical forms of intervention, that's one confrontation that's a long time a-coming. Fashionable Jorts posted:We are entering an interesting future for humanity. Thanks to technology and healthcare, a lot of people are surviving previously lethal genetic traits, passing them on, and having those children survive. I'm not saying at all that humans living longer is a bad thing, just that we've managed to remove a very basic part of nature from ourselves; survival of the fittest. I don't want to nitpick too much but It's never been survival of fittest in the traditional sense, it's always been survival of those who are good at passing on their genes right now, under present conditions. Opossums are tremendously successful opportunists, resist snakebites and lyme disease well but also have a crazy short lifespan and high susceptibility to old age diseases like cancers - most don't live more than 2-4 years before falling apart. You'd think natural selection would handle such a major flaw (or have prevented such a major flaw from arising in the first place since this phenomena is an aberration in them) but natural selection actually don't give a gently caress so long as you can have kids who can also have kids under prevailing conditions. If conditions drastically change, extinction likely occurs. Natural selection just hosed you in the rear end by priming you wrong but whatever, something else will take your place. I wouldn't call natural selection basic per se. Humans have had reproductively successful inbred royals for as long as there have been organized societies, maybe longer, despite the obvious accumulation of rare disorders in the important people - that's nothing new but we'd certainly call the development of organized societies that led to that point beneficial to humanity on the whole. Modern healthcare letting off previously lethal traits like narrow-hipped women off the hook isn't really losing a basic part of nature that wasn't worth losing to begin with imho, some would argue that we still face a kind of natural selection anyway, just primed for modern living. In any case natural selection was never an optimal system for developing anything except short-sighted perpetuation. There are far more extinct species that couldn't survive the earth despite being shaped it than there are survivors looking across biological history. The rest of the post is close enough to science fiction right now that I have no [un]popular opinions about it 
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 20:04
|
|
|
Sucrose posted:Every wanna-be-intellectual teenager in an "edgy" phase likes to advocate for Fixed that for you.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 22:51
|
|
|
The other thing with eugenics is that it is used as justification to deny certain people the right to breed. From the standpoint of human rights that is in the category of "oh gently caress no." Same goes for mandated genetic screening. No; that crosses lines I'd rather not be crossed and leads to Nazis. Same goes for forcing certain people to have babies. That's just right out. "Make babies if you want to or, if you prefer, don't" is a basic human right as far as I'm concerned. I don't think it's unreasonable however to offer it as a tool to people who want it. I'm sure there are a lot of people who have horrible genetic diseases in their gene pool they'd rather like to not risk passing on to their offspring.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2017 23:36
|
|
|
Problem is that even purely optional genetic manipulation leads to an absolutely gigantic disparity based on class - it could end up with the superwealthy being nearly a literally different (and surely touted as superior) species
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2017 01:05
|
|
|
Doesn't Peter Thiel get regular blood transfusions from men under 25 because he thinks it keeps him fit?
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2017 01:13
|
|
|
Mu Zeta posted:Doesn't Peter Thiel get regular blood transfusions from men under 25 because he thinks it keeps him fit? Yes and I hope he gets a loving stroke
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2017 01:15
|
|
|
Pick posted:Yes and I hope he gets a loving stroke I remember for the longest time people calling him a vampire and I assumed it was just a joke about how rich he was or that he lived in a castle or whatever and then being blown away when he was almost literally a vampire
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2017 02:11
|
|
|
Blair Witch 2016 wasn't half bad.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2017 03:10
|
|
|
Sentient Data posted:Problem is that even purely optional genetic manipulation leads to an absolutely gigantic disparity based on class - it could end up with the superwealthy being nearly a literally different (and surely touted as superior) species Not if it's freely available to everyone. Basically all medicine leads to the rich living longer and being healthier than the poor if it's only available to those who can pay for it. Like, if you have to pay for your own cancer treatments then a lot more poor people than rich will die of cancer.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2017 03:18
|
|
|
The rich getting better stuff than the rest of us isn't exactly new. "But it will benefit the rich more!" is kind of a crappy reasoning for not doing something. The other thing is that, as time goes by, expensive thing exclusive to the rich tend to get cheaper and available to pretty much everybody. Luxuries are an obvious exception (we'll probably never have literally everybody living in a gigantic mansion or eating caviar all the time) but look at stuff like anything used for communication, cars, manufactured clothing...all sorts of stuff starts as exclusive to the rich but as it becomes increasingly common everybody gets it. Look at modern medicine; yeah only the very wealthy get the best cures but there's a ton of very useful stuff that costs pennies to make. ...though the pharmaceutical companies run by those rich people like to make 5,000% returns on costs but eh...
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2017 03:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 10:16 |
|
|
We're still many decades if not centuries away from genetically engineering human babies. It's not exactly a pressing concern. This is a problem for people of the distant future. Medical science is about to take a huge step back, anyway. Antibiotics are being less effective against new strains of bacteria and soon we wont have any antibiotics. Its also becoming harder to discover new drugs, and the number of approved drugs has fallen in recent years. And antivaccination is becoming more popular idea. We're heading towards a decidely less "high tech" world, not a more "futuristic" one.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2017 04:18
|
|