What's wrong with ~~eugenics~~ genetic planning?
The arguments I [s]have seen[/s] know so far are:
You can think of eugenics as extended care, for the future of humanity as well as for the afflicted.
- a) that the question of what traits are good and bad is subjective.But that's a problem with any kind of judgement, including such obviously OK judgement as judging a person with bad grades as unfit to get a qualification or judging a criminal in court (Just in case someone thinks I am, I am not comparing the two).
- b) that it gives to much power to a single organisation.But it can just be from a common attitude in society.Also note that dating sites have a lot of power in this area.
- c) that people classed as unfit would feel bad at not being able to reproduceThat is a bad thing. But they can still adopt and does it really outweigh the potential benefits?
You can think of eugenics as extended care, for the future of humanity as well as for the afflicted.
Comments (82)
Now I do agree that some people are better than others. So what? That's just the nature of life. I wouldn't want only great people to exist... Just imagine a society formed of Alexander the Greats. That would result in chaos, as none of them would accept to be ruled. Not everyone can be Alexander, and there can only ever be one sun in the sky. Alexander is indeed great, but morally he is the equal of everyone else. There is only one equality in this world, and that is our moral equality.
The thing I hate about modern day progressives is precisely that they try to force people to be a certain way - and they seek to level everyone to the same standard. We should all be equal - and equally bad as well. No Alexanders. In your eugenics driven world, we should still all be equal - only that equally superior. I have distaste for both.
See my answer to b: Quoting Ovaloid
Not an attitude of "I don't want to be with you because you are genetically inferior" but one of "I love you and want to be with you but I'm afraid we'll have to adopt or use IVF/artificial insemination".
Quoting Agustino
It's not necessarily true that every one would be equally great. They would just be greater than before.
The only real cure for humanity's affliction is for it to die. Eugenics assumes that you can improve and in time fix the human condition, which is false.
What do we have that other species don't that means we should go extinct?
That's unreal. I want my child to be mine, out of my own flesh and blood if possible, not out of another's. To have a wife who says she loves me, and yet feels that I'm not sufficient to make for a good child is insulting.
What's stopping you then? :s If you really believe that, you can always start with yourself. I don't understand this position at all. If you really believe that the solution to man's problems is death, then you should stop advising others, and implement the solution yourself!
I don't see this point. When your wife points out a fault which you have, which is truly, in her eyes a fault, in other words she truly believes that you have this characteristic, and that it is a fault, why should you be insulted by this? You need to face the reality of your deficiencies, and don't ignore them under the assumption that it is a deficiency of the one who discloses them to you.
Sure but what does that have to do with my response? She certainly isn't telling me that I have a character fault and therefore she won't have a child with me and we need to engage in artificial insemination or adoption instead, is she?
Why don't you lay out a plan for eugenics. Its issues should be quite easily apparent.
Individuals with known inheritable diseases are (or should be) counseled (not sterilized) on the advisability of their reproduction.
When forced eugenics was last national policy in the United States (and it was policy in many states) it was based on very crude assumptions -- not just crude by 21st century standards, but crude by early 20th century standards as well. If people seemed mentally dull and had inconvenienced the community by having children they couldn't support, they might be sterilized.
Mental retardation is a disability and unfortunate, of course, but it usually isn't a genetic disability. There are economic reasons to prevent the retarded from reproducing (by using vasectomy or birth control implants), and those are different than eugenic rationales.
If blue-eyed blond people want more blue-eyed blond people, or if darkest ebony people want more darkest ebony people, then they should breed with like kind. But there is nothing genetically superior about following such a course. One might merely like the aesthetics better. If we can't indulge in aesthetic flourishes, what does free will mean?
I doubt this honestly speaking. If you look at who most folks choose as their partners, it's people who are convenient for them - not for their kids.
Human values and properties are too complex and multivariate to construct a eugenic plan for either the species or one's children. Our rate of offspring production is fast enough (too fast, in some cases) but the term of maturation is very long. Waiting 25 years to see how the kid turned out is an impractically long period of time to wait if one wants to personally breed better children.
Human beings haven't displayed convincing evidence that they can maintain difficult enterprises over the long run. Supervising our genetic future is a very long-term project.
Fortunately for those who breed by convenience rather than futuristic goals, genetic regression to the mean saves us all. (Over the long run, we tend to be average.)
I join with Agustino in disagreeing with this. Whatever it is that makes a breeding pair attractive to each other probably has nothing to do with non-obvious but serious genetic flaws.
And eugenics is a social plan, not personal preferences.
I think that's exactly what she'd be saying to you. How do you understand otherwise?
If she's saying she won't have a child with me because of a character defect I have, then that is insulting. It's one thing that I have a character defect, and another to think that because I have a character fault, my child will inevitably have it, and furthermore she'd rather have someone else's child than mine for this reason. That smells of extreme pettiness to me and should be morally condemnable.
If the fault is hereditary then so be it, a fact is a fact. Face up to the facts instead of being insulted. You might be a good lay, and good at other things, but your lacking in genetic material. So she's going to get that somewhere else. So what?
>:O You ask some very strange questions my friend. I'd find it very peculiar indeed if your wife said that to you and you had no problem with it.
The issue is obviously that I presumably also want to reproduce and have a child which is my own, and so her doing that frustrates my natural desire, and this frustration of natural desire based on the motivation that my genes are "not good enough" is evil.
It's very clear to me, if I was a woman and I loved a man, then I would never say "Oh I'm not going to have a child with you because you have a penchant for laziness (say) and I don't want the child to have such genes"
What difference does it make - as Hillary Clinton would ask you - if such is the norm or not?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
>:O Okay, you go do that with your wife then. I think I prefer not to.
The whole idea of her having a child holding her genes, and me not having the option to have a child with my genes - because my genes are crooked and inferior - that whole ideology speaks of oppression and abuse. Moreover, it screams of rampant feminism of a kind I haven't yet seen - as in why would anyone create the asymmetry? Might as well get other people to give birth to the child, both of whom have great genes, and we just raise the child...
And I might as well add that if she wants to be my wife, then she better accept what is forced upon her from me (referring to the genes) - otherwise she can find another man. I don't see why I should bow down before anyone if they don't like me for who I am. What you think I'm a masochist? You think I will go around like that torturing myself on purpose? Like for real now... I actually thought you were joking >:O
But some folks I noticed, are willing to do anything for something of this world. Many do anything for sex for example. Humiliate themselves in the worst ways - you're never gonna see that from me. My life is for one thing only - never to humiliate myself before any of the powers and principalities of this world, but rather, against all the odds, to stand tall for what is true, just and righteous.
Why do you see a matter of choice as oppression and abuse?
Quoting Agustino
Yeah, you go ahead and force your genes upon your wife in a non-consensual way, after all, she's your wife and it's her duty to allow you to do that. Do I sound like I'm joking? If so, I'm a pretty sick joker, and that might be why I mostly refrain from joking.
Why then don't I have that choice? Why does she have the choice to say I want a child with these genes, and I don't? And moreover she gets to put her genes in there, and I don't get to put mine. So she'll raise HER child, I will raise a different one. That's outrageous beyond belief - if only Aristotle for example was around here to listen to such debauchery! Really this is so oppressive and abusive it's so evident! It's so evident that in this relationship the woman is king and the man is slave. How can you not see that BASIC fact?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And where have I said non-consensual? I said if she doesn't accept me for who I am, she should find another man. I'm not a slave, and neither should you be one, regardless of the pressures of the world. Fuck the world, your integrity matters more! The world can be taken away from you, it's perishable and thus worth nothing, however, your own will, your own integrity, nothing can take it unless you give it. So don't give it.
As I said, it would be something you discuss, and choose together, as husband and wife. It is not your choice, it is not her choice, that's how that type of union works, you choose these things together.
Okay so if I am opposed what happens? Because I can guarantee that I would be opposed. Furthermore, what happens if I want a child that another woman gives birth to (after being impregnated with my semen artificially), and I want me and my wife to raise it? I don't think she'd accept that either. I don't understand why you want to introduce these oppressive elements in a relationship.
In my experience - not in a marriage - but in a relationship - she chooses some things, I choose others, depending on what each of us is best at. But each is free to make his/her choices in the realms that belong to him/her and the other can ask questions, make suggestions, etc. but they will follow in the end.
No - as far as I see most people aren't fit and capable to raise the next generation, and yet they still do. That's why we're organised in society and not otherwise.
From an evolutionary perspective, we only need be fit enough to raise a generation until they are old enough to reproduce themselves. It seems obvious to me that our romantic preferences were shaped by evolution.
For example, the reason why most men find the hourglass shape and slightly curved back attractive in women, is because this is a healthy shape for women to have babies and live. If a womans pelvis shape is too narrow, then the likelihood of the baby's head fitting through the birth canal is much lower and the likelihood of the mother dying is much higher. Also, The reason why women are attracted to strong assertive men, is because this is the character trait that is the most likely to result in the baby having enough resources to maintain a healthy childhood.
Our consciousness.
Quoting Agustino
I was gonna reply to something else, but I feared I might trigger you.
And eugenics is a social plan, not personal preferences. [/quote]
We're not just talking about non-obvious genetic flaws with regard to eugenics, we're talking about the possibilities of shaping human features in a cosmetic or performative way out of personal preference. Though I know natural selection isn't a eugenics program of any sort, the same forces, cultural or instinctual, that help us pick our mates also help us to determine what we want our children to look and act like.
Why are so many South Koreans getting plastic surgery (and why do they have to attach a picture to their job resume)? I'm sure they would leap to any eugenics program that would make it easier on their children in such competitive atmosphere.
New Yorker: About Face
It's gene-worship, basically.
Again, see this is what I was telling you in the other thread. Every time you come up with something like this as a way to avoid discussion and explaining your beliefs/positions. So it's getting annoying to interact with you because you simply never engage in discussion.
I don't know - most men from what I see are attracted to women who are perceived, by society, to be worth being with. It's not really a rational affair. If that type of body is perceived as worth having, then they will be attracted by that. If you look through history, physical features that were found to be attractive have changed, many many times, and it's mostly a function of the prevailing culture. Now the prevailing culture is materialism - hence our society may be telling us that the best bodies are those that give the best children.
Quoting aequilibrium
I very much doubt that women are - in their majority - attracted to strong assertive men. If that was true, Vladimir Putin would have all the women in the world head and heels over him. Young girls would be day-dreaming about being in bed with Putin. He's quite possibly the most assertive, and strongest leader there is in the world at the moment. And yet this is very very far from the truth. Most women would hate being with a man like Vladimir Putin - that's why he doesn't have a wife. In fact, I have noticed quite the opposite. Most women - there are exceptions of course - tend to prefer average men or if not, people like rock stars, musicians, artists, and so forth rather than the strong, bold, assertive leader. Instead look at Brad Pitt - fucking Brad Pitt - is that guy the strong, assertive man? >:O No, he's just a joker who plays pretend for a living. And yet most women day-dream to be in bed with him. Putin could probably order Brad Pitt arrested and thrown in the river - he can ensure the survival of his children over Pitt's. And yet Pitt gets the women >:O
Both men and women generally tend to have an aversion to greatness of any kind. If you look at the lives of strong and powerful men for example, many of them may have had many women over their lives, but no woman generally wants to remain with them - in the end they are always alone. It's lonely at the top.
What do you mean? "Designer baby"?
No, I would want him/her to be the baby of me and my wife. Part of the joy of having a child is knowing, that despite all the bad traits he or she may have, he or she is the child of you and the woman you love.
I should add that I want the child I deserve, I don't want to pick.
As for whether I'm allowing for such a right... I'd say no, because I don't see why anyone would have the intelligence to make the right choices... better to let nature do her thing.
But you would want to avoid severe genetic defects that might upend your family's future well being, right? So you don't really mean what you just said.
The difference between genetic counseling and eugenics is that in the former case, individuals are informed of the genetic problems that may or will come with reproduction, but are left to finally decide what to do. In the latter case, individuals are ordered and/or coerced into breeding or not, according to the dictates of the state.
We are not close to being able to facilitate personal preferences, except to abort children who lack features we want -- like either male or female, for instance. Intelligence, shoe size, and so on can't be selected for at this point.
You know what BC...
If I know the severe genetic defect is certain, then yes I will want to avoid it. But if it's just a possibility with nothing to suggest it's actually going to happen, then I would leave it up to fate, not for me to decide.
But you would in fact be deciding, because you don't need to have a child.
What does the fact that I would be deciding have to do with whether or not I need to have a child?
What's so bad about suffering? It's part of life, I fully acknowledge that the child will suffer, that's unavoidable. But life is worth living, at least for me, despite the possibility - certainty - of suffering. Sure there is suffering in life, but why get fixated on it? Why not focus on the undying spirit in man? Man learns from his suffering about his own greatness - about his own spirit. The fires of the world can burn the flesh, but not the spirit.
Quoting Agustino
Did you just ask me this? Really?
Quoting Agustino
Okay...
Quoting Agustino
No, it's not unavoidable. Guess what, Agustino? If you don't have the child, the child won't suffer, thus it's avoided suffering, :o
Quoting Agustino
So, because you think life is worth living, your child will also agree, amirite?
Quoting Agustino
None of this matters were you and I and your potential child not to exist.
I mean, what's so bad about suffering that makes all of life not worth having? Would you choose not to attend a great dinner just because you'll have a headache if you attend?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
So... that's like preventing a village from the uncertain possibility of getting flooded by not building it in the first place. But this is a trick of language - you say "the suffering is avoided" - and I ask you, who is avoiding the suffering? The child can't be avoiding anything, because only beings who are alive can avoid. So the whole assertion that "X is avoiding suffering" in the circumstance where "X doesn't exist" is nonsense.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Not necessarily, but he should at least have the chance of agreeing. Why are you so sure he won't agree?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
But that's purely hypothetical.
Suffering only exists because life does. No life, no suffering. This also means no love, but love also only is because of the world. And no, your dinner analogy falls short to adequately describe life.
Quoting Agustino
Suffering is a necessity, you've already admitted this truth. A village flooding is not.
Quoting Agustino
X is avoiding everything, which necessarily includes suffering. Nonexistence is passive avoidance, not active.
Quoting Agustino
Why should he? Who decides that he should? Oh yeah, you, not him. Your potential child also has to decide whether he wants the choice of choosing whether to be or not to be, so how might it do that, logically?
Quoting Agustino
And this is purely a cop-out.
Our disagreement revolves around this. How is it possible for something that doesn't exist to avoid, passively? Do you say non-existent pink elephants are avoiding the hungry lions? Do you say nonexistant thiefs are avoiding jail? To me, because I'm a follower of the Great Ludwig Wittgenstein (who is listed up there as my favorite philosopher, just as I am listed as your favorite :P ) - meaning always occurs in a context. In this case, for the word avoid to have any meaning, it must occur in the context of existence. If I tell you that non-existent doors avoid being closed, you'll tell me I'm fucking nuts, and I need to see the shrink. And this says something about the meaning of my words - namely that you'll treat my sentence as having no meaning, because it doesn't!
Quoting Heister Eggcart
But who decides that he shouldn't? Isn't THAT also me? There's no sitting on the fence. One has to risk, one has to make the jump. Both positions entail risks. One the one hand you decide for the child that he shouldn't have the choice - you never ask him. On the other hand I decide he should have the choice - I haven't asked him either. That's the nature of life - this is inescapable.
It is in the nature of opposites to passively avoid their antitheses. Because nonexistence does not exist, nonexistence passively avoids being what it isn't.
Quoting Agustino
Your unborn child already doesn't exist. It doesn't need to choose whether it wants to exist because it only knows nonexistence. You're not choosing it's nonexistence, you only choose whether to keep it there.
I think we can use the term to apply to designer babies in a Capitalist setting, even though as you say it is speculative sci-fi at the moment. The term is possibly too shadowed by its history and should maybe be abandoned to your definition.
You've seen the film, GATTACA, I'm sure, where citizens are discriminated against on the basis of whether they've undergone pre-birth genetic enhancement.
In other words, we should all listen to the black people's music, they got the shit right. Fuck the police (and the Nazis)! >:O
Have you read the signs, Agustino?
This is a tautology. Tautologies are empty of meaning, they don't say anything about their subject matter, except that they don't say anything. What you're saying is like me telling you
"A hand is a hand". Nonexistence doesn't exist. Non-existence avoids existence... dsdjasdh is dsdjasdh
Quoting Heister Eggcart
It doesn't need to choose existence - but maybe it should have the option to exist. Who is it to say that I should choose not to have a child instead of choose to have one? Both are risks. Maybe I am depriving the child of something great. Maybe I'm sending him to suffer. Who knows? None of us - thus we live in fear and trembling.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Interesting black folk music! I like it!
No, it's just a fact of the matter.
Quoting Agustino
Maybe, perhaps, idunnowhynotsure? Really?
Quoting Agustino
Well, I am, in this discussion. And you should, too.
Quoting Agustino
How is not having a child a risk? The child doesn't exist. It cares not for whether it may exist or not because it necessarily can't care.
Quoting Agustino
This is completely secondary. Greatness, love, happiness, whatever else doesn't warrant one to will another into existence through procreation.
Quoting Agustino
Maybe? Why are you backing down? You acknowledged that suffering is a truth, there's no ands, ifs, or buts about it. If you procreate, your child will suffer. Period. End of story.
Quoting Agustino
You do know, you're just trying to wriggle your way out of my grasp.
So, fuck a woman and make a child? You've not shown me why I'm wrong, so c'mon, Agustino. Let's go, bro.
No, facts are not tautologies, simply because facts represent things which could be otherwise. Nonexistence couldn't possibly be existence, and thus it can't be a fact.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Possibly.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Yes I can see that much, but I don't understand why you consider your option superior. I for one don't consider your option inferior, but I simply think you don't have anymore justification than I do.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Because who knows whether the child should or shouldn't exist?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Why do you think it doesn't warrant one to will another into existence?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
I'm not backing down, I'm acknowledging your position as possible, but not justified.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Yes I actually believe I have. I've explained to you that in no way can you say the child will avoid suffering if you don't have him. And thus the whole justification you had to say that your position is superior to mine is gone. I'm not trying to say my position is justified and yours isn't - I'm saying that NEITHER yours nor mine is justified.
Where did I say it did? You misunderstood me before.
Quoting Agustino
Why?
Quoting Agustino
If I point a gun to your head and fire, you could survive but be impaired, or you could die. If my intention was to sustain what you were before, ie to keep you alive, surviving, then I'd never would have chosen to shoot you in the head. But if my intention was in fact to kill you, but I didn't actually kill you, then I'm still in the wrong because I've still forced my will upon your own, even though you lived.
Quoting Agustino
Because it does not follow that what redeems existence necessarily redeems nonexistence. Love may make life worth living, but only because I am, because I exist. Were I not to exist, which is to suffer, then I would have no need of love, as there would be no suffering to define love's antithesis.
Quoting Agustino
Suffering is of the world, not of nonexistence. The child cannot necessarily experience suffering if it does not exist. Therefore, if the child does not exist, it does not suffer, which means it has avoided suffering by not suffering. This is super simple to understand. I don't think I can write it any clearer.
This is incoherent. If something redeems existence, say Love, then it follows that existence isn't ultimately an evil, because it can be redeemed. But if existence can be redeemed, and is not ultimately an evil, then your whole antinatalist position falls apart, because you can no longer claim that life is necessarily a tragedy, and thus birth is necessarily to be avoided if possible.
The trouble is it's misleading. You make it sound like the child has acted to avoid suffering while also living. In truth, it's not that the child avoided suffering, but that a suffering child was prevented by denying them existence.
What you are saying here is more an excuse to deny the responsibility for this act. If love makes life worth living, then we ought to give thus child existence so they can experience. Non-existence cannot be used to deny others what they deserve. It's a path which lets the powerful get away with anything and then calls it moral-- "That poor man, he doesn't exist with money or resources, so no-one needs to help him out." The absence of moral outcome cannot be used to deny a moral outcome someone else deserves.
No doubt an anti-natalist postion is possible, but that works no the basis existence cannot be redeemed-- not even love is important or wonderful enough to overcome the pains of suffering. Thus, the argument goes, an attempt to bring new life into the world is unethical. It doesn't work by redeeming the non-existence, but rather holding existence is beyond both redemption and justice-- no-one deserves to be brought into the suffering of life.
This is the issue with morality in general. It's debatable whether we are forced into acting morally, or we choose to do so. I don't think anyone would argue that morality is not good, and should be avoided, because it is something which is forced on us. But surely it can be argued that morality is forced upon us.
Willow, it's time for us two to each open our calendars, and make note of this great day when we finally agreed on something!
Individuals selecting traits for their planned infant from a menu of genetic possibilities is certainly related to eugenics, but because it is directed by individual choice, doesn't have the same 'shadowing' as that practiced by states in the US or by Nazi Germany.
There are problems inherent in the market-driven designer baby scenario. We see the consequences in India, where for the last 30 years or so parents have used abortion, and infanticide, to obtain preferred male babies. The result is that there are now too many male babies and not enough female babies for the now-adult men to marry. If all the extra male babies were gay, that would be advantageous for all these forced bachelors, but they are straight, 9.7 times out of 10.
Were Americans, for instance, able to choose from a menu of features, i would expect to see a lot more tall, muscular, blond men with nice teeth and blue eyes. Fine by me; tall, muscular blue-eyed blonds with great teeth are nice to look at, but who will the surplus studs marry if there are too few females? Will the blonds form an elite caste? "No skinny, short, fat, black-haired, dusky skinned, gap toothed individuals need apply"?
Quoting Nils Loc
No, didn't see Gattaca. I've added it to my list of "should see, must read, ought to do, over-due, deep doo doo if I don't do" list.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
No, this would actually be me, the person deciding not to procreate. Although, I don't think I really know what you're trying to say here.
You just turned 180 degrees, and then 180 degrees again. Saying the same thing a different way doesn't altar the thought, Miss Willow.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
wot
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Nope. Me, myself, and I think life is worth living because of love. The child I may bring into existence may not agree.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
You've essentially just said that non-existing entities deserve to exist. Okay, why do you say that? If every unborn child deserves to exist, then I should expect to see you with lots and lots and lots and lots of kids running around...no? Why not?
You're talking about someone who already exists in this world, so you've not properly compared anything to an unborn, non-existing child.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
I don't assign a negative value to birth, so I'm not an antinatalist.
That's what makes your position incoherent. Without a negative value to birth, it makes no sense to deny potential children existence, for any reason. To argue someone ought not exist becasue of the suffering which will occur during their life is to place a negative value on their birth.
What if they were to agree though? How can you make the decision to deny them that opportunity? This is why you are assigning a negative value to their birth. On the off change they won't find life worth living, you decide they will not be at all. What justifies this decision on your part?
Certainly, not the fact they don't care because they aren't alive yet. That's just a naturalistic fallacy that someone failing to care what you do makes it okay. This is what I mean about denying your responsibility. You try to pass off your denial of life to the child as if it was an act without significance to what happens in the world.
The point is made on the idea that love redeems a life of suffering. If that is true, without qualification (e.g. without a negative value assumed to birth, limitation to your own experience), then the non-existence of a child is no reason to deny them a life containing love. Their suffering soul be fine because love would be their to make life worth living anyway.
Also, this is lazy rhetoric. If I held the above position, I wouldn't necessarily have acted morally myself. Even if we assume I meet other criteria which might be critical to having a child (e.g. that I have a willing partner), I might have failed to meet this standard of having children. You cannot expect such an ethical argument to be false just because someone hasn't lived up to it. That's a category error-- the confusion of how someone acts with the significance of a moral position.
"Hypocrisy" is a logical fallacy. Just because someone doesn't do what they say people ought to, it doesn't mean the moral argument they are making is wrong. If a serial killer tells you not to kill people at random, their argument is still right, even if they might be constantly violating that ethical precept constantly.
*grabs popcorn*
I'm anti-procreation, not anti-birth.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
There's no opportunity cost for that which does not exist.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
So, nonexistence cares? huh, how?
This "someone" doesn't exist, though........
The only significance in the world that results from my not procreating is what affects me. The world is not affected by what does not exist in it. Non-existing children only matter once they've been willed into the world, which is why I'm against abortion, for instance.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Life is suffering, and one is only ensured to suffer, not to find love. Love is but a possibility, not a certainty. Redemption does not make the world good, it merely brings the fallen back up to its knees, figuratively speaking.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
This is a rhetorical comment, right?
I have precisely no idea what you're trying to tell me here. Please rephrase and help me understand.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Who, what, dafuq? If someone agrees with my position as I understand it, and they still have children, then they're morally bankrupt and do not have the authority to posit what they don't practice. Good intentions must lead to good actions. If one never acts in accordance to their supposed intentions, then they've not truly intended to act the good.
I'm literally going to pop some popcorn here in a minute. Got a box of movie theater popcorn at the store, looks gnarly (Y)
Although the sodium may end up killing me... >:o
What the hell is a potential child? If we made every potential child become an actual, existent child, wouldn't the earth be so overrun with children that they'd pile right up to the moon or something?
So like what's going on right now?
It's going on with some people right now, sure.
For example the Nazi's deemed jews to be unfit.
To presume to know what biological traits are the most fit objectively is to presume to have all knowledge about nature and evolution.
Sorry I am skeptical that any one can know what traits are best suited for reproduction and what traits are not.
I doubt anybody could know such thing because it implies there is some objective goal of evolution.
Do you believe consciousness to be an inherent bad or is it just bad the way consciousness interacts with the other attributes of humanity?
Either way, why?
I expected it to be [spoiler]something like the fact that we're the most powerful species and therefore those able to do the most damage[/spoiler]
Quoting Bitter Crank
Actually the way I, OP, used it, it could also mean a cultural attitude and thinking or saying otherwise shows that you haven't actually read the OP properly.
I don't know why you are telling me this 16 days after I posted my comment. I could have died and been buried a couple of weeks ago, and might have left this world without your ever-perceptive correction.
If posters want their texts to be read in a very specific way, then they better write precisely structured posts so that errant "misreadings" are nigh unto impossible. We cast our bread on the water. If gulls rather than swans swoop in and snatch it... well, that's life in the big city.
Are you trying to say that a person should not complain if he or she is misunderstood?
Surely being understood and contributing what it is that the poster wishes to be understood is the entire reason behind posting something.
http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/829/proper-interpretation