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SUBJ1
We both feel that the other is failing to make sense and, as such, this conversation is increasingly pointless. I have simply no idea where you have picked up the idea that I have an inferiority complex.
My opposition to eugenics is quite straightforward - it comes down to Article 16 of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights -
“”(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State. |
Proponents of eugenics wish to do away with that right on the basis that selective breeding produces "better" human beings. That very concept chills me to the bone.
They do not. You can still have a family, but the father won't be the biological father. Your criticism is invalid.
Thinking that getting somebody pregnant is a big deal and therefore doing that would make the person a bit more "equal" to others seems like inferiority complex to me.
Thinking that getting somebody pregnant is a big deal and therefore doing that would make the person a bit more "equal" to others seems like inferiority complex to me.
No, that just says you have never experienced holding your new born child in your arms. Getting someone pregnant isn't a big deal - it's the big deal, it's the biggest deal of all, it's what it's all about. Nothing else comes close - my first gig in front of a 10,000+ audience was a high I'll never forget but not even in the same ball park as holding my son in my arms. I have a massive superiority complex over you in that I do understand these fundamentals because I have experienced them whereas you, quite patently, have not.
Have you ever tried just holding babies that just came out of your wife in your arms? I heard it's better if the baby is not related.
Yes.
You were misinformed.
Misinformed indeed. I have held numerous babies, mostly other people's, of course. I still remember the occasion when I experienced an overwhelming undeniable involuntary wave of affection for my son, who was two or three days old at the time, the little pink frog.
We are often unaware of our built-in capabilities until they are called upon. This is why I have little patience for verbal speculation without observation or experience to back it up. Based in the head rather than the core, that kind of speculation seems to be happening here, big-time.
Lumenos, you seem to be a senseless douche.
To sum up your main "arguments" here, read my (friend's) book and you don't know what love is. <cough> Hovind <cough>
You make excellent pun on birth control, which, as far as I can tell, is the real evil y'all are dismissing. Are your genes just as satisfied with an aborted fetus? So shouldn't you be opposed to abortion (as with all other birth control)? (Keep in mind that unlike the BON I have said nothing to support forced eugenics, which is an entirely different issue IMO.)
There is a difference between offering a courtier's reply and pointing an uninformed interlocutor such as yourself at something that might help. Your writings carry the marks of someone who lives in your head, without much connection to earthbound reality, and who thinks you can deduce all worthwhile knowledge using the bits of verbal language you already know. Experience is one cure for all that.
I don't care whether you know what love is or not.
Your continued shifting focus, RTFP failure (one small example) and refusal to familiarize yourself with accurate vocabulary remind me of <insert snarky description of playing chess with a pigeon>. Views can change, and birdbrains can become human. You might get better.
If someone is against abortion or birth control, then they shouldn't do it. Nobody's business but theirs.
In other words, offering the coutier's reply is different when you are right instead of wrong. Allow me to demonstrate: My experience suggests to me that my sole intention is not merely to replicate genes. I don't doubt this plays a large role in your life and that of many/most people. Do your purport to understand my conscious/subconscious motivations better than I do? Supposing you do not, we have different programming. The question is, whose inclinations are better? My inclinations are to better our lives, your's are to propagate your genes (supposedly).
But my "coutier's reply" isn't a great argument because you have "science" (ie "Dawkins") to tell you that I don't know my true purpose.
"Your continued [...] RTFP failure (one small example)"
- I believe in all likelihood I misread and there was not some COINTELPRO joker desperately trying to make us believe that we are each other's enemy. (You once lectured the class on the quality of eduction one may receive on an Internet forum. I do make many mistakes and I often acknowledge them.) However, none of my arguments in this thread or the "pro-choice eugenics" forum, were based on that premise and therefore this is yet another ad hominem remark.
- Did I read another post wrong? Is there a post where someone has explained how Dawkins has verified that we are gene propagation machines? Was there even evidence Dawkins would agree with that assessment? Or is the only "argument" here to RTFB and HAFB (have a fucking baby)?
That phobe/phile hiccup was too easy, sorry. You did own up to it.
Not going to comb through the thread for other examples, but another example leaps to mind: taking "way of making another egg" and bringing consciousness and intent or teleology into it was at the very least an extrapolation, a non sequitur.
I offer the thought that our consciousness, subconsciousness and other brainal functions are a product of much more low-level body chemistry. That chemistry is not simple. It may not even be strictly deterministic, but still it has profound effects which many people do not even notice.
Not enormously relevant but interesting, there is a video of some molecular simulations of DNA activity, and protein synthesis.
Apology accepted. I might have some other things to apologize for. I don't like making people feel bad, especially me. Anyway, getting back to business...
Your next example is not quite as apparent as the first. I thought the whole "eggs way of reproducing itself" was a counter-intuitive scoff at teleology.
Chemistry that is possibly not deterministic? You mean "random" or some sort of supernatural"/"metaphysical"?
I wouldn't argue that chemistry/people isn't deterministic, but here we are talking about whether neuro-memetic chemistry is like unto software, while genetic chemistry is like unto hardware. Jack's statement in the OP suggests not only that hardware determines behaviour, but that its sole "function" is to reproduce hardware. My computer could be said to be using humans to reproduce and evolve itself, if you squint and consider the possibility.
That analogy between people and computing machinery is too flawed to be very useful. Biology does not offer a bright line between hardware and software, begging the question of whether organisms have either such thing to begin with.
WTF is "neuro-memetic chemistry?"
No need to squint to take the view that computers (and networks of them) are using humans to accomplish their development and reproduction. More reality and less science fiction about it all the time.
I'm talking about the effect of environment on the brain. How, for example, through one's environment one may come to believe that we are gene-propagation machines and go on to use this as a basis for an ethical principle that would forbid us from promoting voluntary eugenics on the grounds that it restricts the normal/natural functions of the body and mind.
"If someone is against abortion or birth control, then they shouldn't do it. Nobody's business but theirs."
- And what does that have to do with the price of fish?
- Sir, do you or do you not have an argument against "pro-choice eugenics", which does not equally condemn (pro-choice) contraception? (Please inform me if I have used meaningless and inaccurate vocabulary again.)
WTF is "pro-choice eugenics," and who made up that term?
Procreation is something that happens in populations. Applying a uniform set of criteria to that is a forlorn hope, even in the most effective authoritarian regimes. Love is well-known to to laugh at locksmiths.
Individual reproductive choices are exactly that: individual. The reasons for them are manifold, and subject to neither fiat nor facile analysis.
You are certainly free to make up your own language, and in that effort you have my sympathy and applause. Just don't expect to hold very many fruitful discussions with it outside whatever circle of adherents it may gather.
"Pro-choice eugenics" is a "politically correct" term for "private voluntary eugenics", here I have authoritative source so you will know this is a real term made up by experts and consensus or something.
If I call it "private voluntary eugenics" then will you stop using the straw man of "mandatory eugenics" as if you are arguing against something I have typed? (I think if you abort someone for being gay, that is rather mandatory, but just to be "concise".)
Any form of eugenics faces the slippery slope towards social mandate. Have you sampled European attitudes regarding nuclear family size lately? Getting the state involved is a scarier prospect, largely because of the opportunities it offers for bureaucratic incompetence.
Most people on this planet have no idea that there is such a thing as private voluntary eugenics. Even such a benign (in my view, at least) thing as planning family size may be a statistical outlier. Can you point at anything that credibly shows statistically significant effects of "voluntary eugenics," preferably on a global scale?
"Even such a benign (in my view, at least) thing as planning family size may be a statistical outlier."
- Outlier: a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample
- No comprende, Senior.
Are statistically significant effects necessary to show that voluntary eugenics is a legitimate or useful term. Or are statistically significant effects necessary to show that voluntary eugenics could have a beneficial effect (worldwide)? If the latter, I think there are benefits for those who practice it, and that is enough. The usual way is just for people to consider genetics when they make a baby or adopt a child.
"Getting the state involved is a scarier prospect, largely because of the opportunities it offers for bureaucratic incompetence. '
- How about just deleting the bullshit statement from the RW article, which implies selective breeding does nothing? I don't recall saying anything about involving the state. I would think more people would support state involvement when there is significant risk of a genetic physical disease, at least.
Desculpe-me, senhor.
Looking at a global sample, I suspect that the number of carefully planned babies is far far far (...) far smaller than the number of kids that just happened. It is rightly more about populations than individuals.
Like it or not, "eugenics" carries historical baggage that "selective breeding" does not connote. Not many people complain about breeding different strains of non-human animals, which is why restaurants can get away with advertising anus burgers. Well, actually, the sign said "Angus" before the smartass dishwasher changed it.
The talk page of the article would be a better place to discuss propsed changes to it.
So? As you imply, selective breeding suggests animals, which isn't what we are talking about.
If you are trying to avoid an issue, it helps if you don't allow any word into you vocabulary, for the thing you don't wish to discuss. I feel I'm pulling teeth here.
The point about the RW article, is not what is in an article that isn't likely to influence anyone. The point is, that this is what I take issue with, and this is what you refuse to acknowledge.
A small percentage of the world invents, discovers, and creates the most significant contributions to science, technology, and culture. Even if only a few more intelligent people get the message, it could make a big difference, because their progeny have the greatest potential to change the world. This isn't only about improving the entire human genome, it is about improving the entire world's knowledge and culture.
When the brilliance of an Einstein is discovered, he should be encouraged to mate with many women who seem to have good genetics; all sorts of women of different ethnicities and characteristics. There were probably willing women, if Einstein were willing, and not burdened with counter-productive norms of monogamy, the purity of abstinence and virginity, the shame of open sexuality. "Open sexuality" includes polyamory or at least shamelessly donating seamen (to avoid risk of infection or to avoid having sex with someone he isn't attracted to). If he was mentally restrained, embarrassed, or otherwise discouraged from expressing or exploring his sexual urges, from a young age, this may have stunted his libido and willingness to spread his seed far and wide. Just a possibility and one we have yet to focus on, for all this nail chewing over mandatory eugenics.
We have a big problem when people like Einstien are too timid to get their freak on, while those who are dim and reckless are fucking like mad. We must find the lion in these sensitive intellectuals and glorify their natural (male) polyamory.
Similarly, those other myn [good natured gentlemen] who appreciate the privilege to raise the uber-children, should not be made to feel they are FAILING and INFERIOR, with terms like "cuckold", based on the presumption that they are supposed to be spreading their own genes. They are the ones the uber-children will bond with and learn from. They are their fathers/mothers in the emotional sense. They might have children with a "lower" tier of women, and they will be raised/educated partially by others... in villages... eco-villages with yeti tribesmen and facepaint dancing around the peace fire with all the Asians, Jews, blacks, Puerto Ricans, Caucasians, dwarfs, elves, leprechauns, etc. Instead of football, on the massive drive-in theater type movie screen it's Einstein live webcam, sweating hairy sexercise, terrifying the old gods, spewing holy profanities, grunting and shivering with his fertile concubine, furious lust fever, will he give her the seed or pull out and unload into the sperm injecting receptacles held by the meuwing masseuses, to impregnate themselves? Closeup on the taint area with microphone magnification, we hear each Earth shatteringly loud spasmolitic squirtful injection synchronized with the villagers pounding great rocks and logs on the ground, hooooowwwwling hoooooowwwling, screaming catharsis, over and over, the final climax and ... breathing... he raises his heavy face to the white sun and cries, "It is finished!"
Why should this lifestyle be presumed to be soooo weird and frightening? It is like the red scare or homophobia. Aaaauuugh those people are uneuropean/unamerican!!!! They threaten our way of life!!!! What if their ideas become popular and then we will all have to live as they do!!! WE MUST NEVAR APPROVE OF ANY NOTIONS OF BETTER GENES!!! Be proud of your eugenophobia!
Well, that certainly puts things in perspective. Going for the whole William S. Burroughs thing, I see. Keep pecking away at it; maybe your chops will one day equal his. Or not.
It is not really supposed to be choppy, as in a "put down". It is meant to be funny, novel, and break the polite chains of sexual phobias. The giant outdoor movie screen may be a bit inefficient use of resources unless we need a big building with no windows... nevermind. Sorry for the headaches, I'm not given much feedback on what is causing those. Could it be their brains are growing?
The BON is not me BTW, even though they copied one of my posts. The BON is perhaps arguing for manditory eugenics, I am arguing for voluntary eugenics.
What occurred to me is that, most of your arguments are really opposed to birth control. Eugenics is just the reason in this case, but birth control is what is preventing humans from carrying out their only natural function (which they cannot oppose?).