And now, a message from the Pro-Eugenics Right
Posted on October 5th, 2007 by Brad
I hope the Chinese – or somebody – really do manage to start a successful, gene-based eugenics program soon. America is too infantile to do so. Mankind does not have much more time, considering the realities of looming Peak Oil, Peak Gas, Peak Uranium and other Peaks. The liberal and religious types, as usual, will blather nonsense about Hitler, Holocaust, mean-spiritedness, etc., etc. Such types have already caused far too much damage to evolution.
Indeed. After all, what have genetically inferior cripples — the ones whom liberals and religious types irrationally oppose executing at childbirth — ever done for mankind?
They fly their fascist flag high, don’t they?
What we really need are more Cheneys, Giulianis, and Kristols.
They are making the dangerous and ill-founded assumption that the genes they represent will NOT be among the first batch to be cleansed from the gene pool.
I’m confused. Aren’t these the same bunch who don’t believe in evolution and believes that we shouldn’t be playing g*d (schiavo anyone)?
My thoughts exactly, Billy.
We could just as easily require all children to have the compassion gene, as well as the logic gene, or maybe the logical compassion gene. Any way you look at it, they are certainly lacking in these departments.
Uhhh, has it occurred to these geniuses that a eugenics program isn’t exactly healthy for a representative democracy? I mean you breed a group of people, tell them they are the elite and are superior to us normies, and then expect them to accept rule by our numbers? It’s practically a manufactury for an aristocracy.
Is the proposed eugenics program based in IQ? If so, I’d be careful what right-wing fantasies I wish for.
I don’t agree with everything in that article, but it’s hard to argue that our species is doing just fine and doesn’t need some kind of basic shepherding (and by that I don’t mean by aliens or God). Overt genetic manipulation aside, by relying on the inherent variability in humans, simple husbandry could give us an out.
We are tightly bound by evolution to all other living things on this Earth. Even if we could effortlessly teleport to anywhere in the universe we would never find another world that we could eat the local flora or animals. Our species is inextricably tied to this world & we seem to be doing our level best to screw it up.
If he’s worried about humanity’s survival in a post resource peak world, why does he think a mega-science project to invent Over Men would be a better plan than, say, conservation and research on how to shift to renewable resources?
His Grace,
What makes you think these people have any interest in representative democracy?
I, for one, pray for our new genetically-enhanced overlords.
Such types have already caused far too much damage to evolution.
Pyotr Kropotkin made a strong case in Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution for mutualism as a strong feature in evolution, so the people who stick to the swashbuckling, screw-you-I’ve-got-mine philosophy of life certainly are utilizing the full repertoire of evolved responses. I don’t know if that means that they’re a “damage to evolution” because that phrase doesn’t parse out to anything which has any biological meaning at all.
I’d suggest that any eugenics program should start with the TCS kiddies, but I’m not entirely sure that they’re contributing to the gene pool.
“America is too infantile to do so.”
AGAIN with the “infantile,” the “mature,” etc. I used to think this way, too–when I was a highly-repressed and chronically depressed 14 year old. All my peers were sniggering at fart jokes and drooling over Playboy, but not me. Why? Because (I told myself) I was “mature.” It took another, oh, 33 years for me to wake up and understand the truth.
What? Am I suggesting that these thinkers and opiners are at heart highly-repressed adolescents?
Is there any doubt?
His Grace said,
Uhhh, has it occurred to these geniuses that a eugenics program isn’t exactly healthy for a representative democracy? I mean you breed a group of people, tell them they are the elite and are superior to us normies, and then expect them to accept rule by our numbers? It’s practically a manufactury for an aristocracy.
Well, European royalty and Ivy Leaguers have been doing just this for centuries now. However, in the former case, notable consequences included bad teeth and hemophilia, while in the latter, we get today’s Republican Party.
“why does he think a mega-science project to invent Over Men would be a better plan than, say, conservation and research on how to shift to renewable resources?”
Because the latter scenario doesn’t give him the same smug sense of satisfaction as the former. He can blithely advocate for eugenics because it makes him feel rough and tough and harshly pragmatic-but-hey-that’s-the-way-ya-gotta-be in this dog eat dog world. Liberals and religious types are “infantile” and he is a mature, clear eyed realist who sees what needs to be done. Typical.
I think it would be cool if our New Americans had genes from like tigers and bears and buffalo and could be like 15 feet tall, then we’d really be able to invade some places and share the crap out of some brown people.
whaaaa!?!
certainly are utilizing the full repertoire of evolved responses
That should be “certainly aren’t utilizing the full repertoire of evolved responses”. Clearly I need to use preview for more than seeing if I’ve closed my tags properly.
I dunno El Cid – RIAA(or a label) just won a case against someone in Minnesota, so the viability of that whole sharing thing is questionable.
If we’re trying to drain a little of the swamp out of the gene pool, why can’t we just round up everyone attending the GOP’s convention in next year, and kindly escort them to “the Island”? Wouldn’t that be cheaper, much more effective, and all together totally satsifying?
Overt genetic manipulation aside, by relying on the inherent variability in humans, simple husbandry could give us an out.
And we also get the Kwisatz Haderach.
Am I suggesting that these thinkers and opiners are at heart highly-repressed adolescents?
Amen. This is somewhat similar to the paradox of poor conservatives voting against their own best interest. They somehow believe, against a preponderance of evidence, that someday they will be recognized as superior (with eugenics or income).
then we’d really be able to invade some places and share the crap out of some brown people
Take that and your $20 back to the Larry Craig thread.
Eugenics? Stephen Hawking is far from the only person who would be affected.
I learned about Charles Steinmetz in 8th grade. Tell me HE didn’t vastly improve our standard of living.
Oh and Charles was a (gasp ! faint ! ) Socialist.
These people make me ill.
NEWS FLASH: Hawking is one of those dirty and blasphemous “scientists,” so I doubt eugenicists would lose much sleep over the loss of his kind.
Howlee shit this guy is fucking brilliant:
Ooops, I meant “scare” brown people, not “share”. RIAA, I’m sorry.
He can blithely advocate for eugenics because it makes him feel rough and tough and harshly pragmatic
Harshly pragmatic in a way that means he doesn’t have to give up long, loner drives in his SUV to buy corn-fed meat shipped from god only knows where, but clear-eyed realists prefer spending billions to create super-men to spending money to transition from fossil fuel based agriculture or improve mass transit.
Human beings are already incredably intellligent. We don’t need enhanced intelligence, we need enhanced cooperative skills, empathy and foresight.
Speaking of smarts, *ifthethunderdontgetya* till this morning I read your name as “ThunderingDonkey” and often wondered what it meant…
“other Peaks”
What? What other Peaks? Twin Peaks? Peaks-a-boo? Take a Peak? I am with child wanting to know what the other peak Peaks are? Please, someone help me.
Oh! We can do that. We don’t even have to have a reason.
“I am with child wanting to know what the other peak Peaks are? Please, someone help me.”
One very frightening scenario is the Cheetohs Peak. Worldwide production of Cheetohs is declining precipitously, and many conservatarians are worried that the impact will be felt in basement apartments across the country.
Speaking of smarts, *ifthethunderdontgetya* till this morning I read your name as “ThunderingDonkey” and often wondered what it meant…
As fair an interpretation as any other.
Here’s another piece of mongoloid logic from Dr. Miller:
Right, whenever somebody offers me a job I ask them “What about the law? Will I be above it? No? Then I’m gonna need more money.”
tb: Here’s another gem from Miller. Click on the link in the post for full effect. According to his Blogger profile, he teaches economics at Smith College. That’s right, Smith.
The ghost of Spencer lives on and may never really be put to rest. For what it’s worth, Darwin loathed absolute selectionist types like this in his own time. He sat on the Origin of Species for years partly due to his belief that it could be readily misinterpreted in just this fashion.
There’s two evolutionary theories at work today. One originated with Darwin (although he was working with preexisting concepts of his time) and is scientific and systematic. That covers everything from the mechanistic extreme of Dawkins’ gene selection to ‘softer’ approaches like neutral theory, mutualism, etc. The important thing to recognize is that modern evolutionary theory is a synthesis and acknowledges a variety of influences that affect the workings of natural selection.
More importantly, the evolutionary synthesis is not friendly to eugenics. The history of human evolution suggests that the nature of our exceptional intelligence is rather subtle. Not only is there no hard evidence that human intelligence can be extended beyond its current (rather narrow) range by any amount of genetic manipulation, there’s also no indication that human intelligence is the kind of Mendelian attribute that can be cultivated through selective breeding.
On the other hand, you have the simplified social/pop-science version of evolution, rich with Lamarckian influences and pretty much founded by Spencer and Haeckel (the former of whom coined ‘the survival of the fittest’, one of the most unpleasant and misleading phrases ever attached to the theory of evolution). Pop evolution is strictly selectionist, progressivist, and extremely simplistic in its view of inheritance. It honestly resembles a Japanese RPG (9999 HP!! 255 Damage!!) more than any modern conception of evolution.
The truth is that although there may be some heritable elements to human intelligence, they’re probably dwarfed in terms of real effect by the structure of our society and how it raises children and applies natural and acquired ability. That is, eugenics would only have real utility in a society which had already solved the issue of potential Einsteins living their lives out in sweatshops or rotting their brains out with TV.
Yet another pseudo-fascist techno-geekanerd. Who ever said that he, and most everybody like him just want to feel that they are they hard headed realists, etc. who are so much smarter and morally superior to all those liberals and “religious types” got it right. Sad and creepy.
If somebody had said, “Miller teaches college, guess what his subject is,” I’d have responded, “He has the same self-righteousness, and the same mastery of logical argumentation as Thomas Sowell, so he must teach economics.”
I agree with Hooser. When I read that I thought “economics major.” The fact that he apparently teaches it at the college level is just makes it more depressing.
Maybe someday I will manage to start a successful, cake-based good-cake factory soon.
Yep, eugenics is the only solution for running out of oil. Not solar power, not wind power, not geothermal energy or nuclear plants or ethanol or fuel cells. Eugenics, bitches!
“round up everyone attending the GOP’s convention in next year, and kindly escort them to “the Island”…”
OK, but only if it’s a very tiny island, with one palm tree and a little sand mound beach. That way everybody will have just barely enough room to stand up, and they can all plot their ways to squeeze the others off to make more room, etc.
We’ll install a hidden web cam in the single palm tree, of course. And take bets.
Brad: TCS has been a joke and also full of sickos for some time. At first, when I began reading there some 3 yrs ago, I thought they were just science geeks, and I likes me some of those. Ain’t so, tho. For Christ’s sake, they give “equal time” to “Intelligent Design.”
They are neocon, right-wing whack-jobs for the greater part. In my opinion, Arnold Kling is destroying any reputation he might ever have had in legit libertarian circles by continuing to publish there.
Just want to point out that whatever nobbled Hawkings’ motor neurons, it probably wasn’t his genes.
I know I’m completely missing Brad’s point here.
Just want to point out that whatever nobbled Hawkings’ motor neurons, it probably wasn’t his genes.
Fiddle with his genes correctly and he’d have an unnobblable body.
Gosh, this century’s off to a great start. Just look at all the wonderful old slime from yesteryear that’s once again oozing over the landscape – creationism, imperialism, social Darwinism, books rehabilitating Joe McCarthy, op-ed pieces defending slavery… and now eugenics, one of my faves.
I just can’t wait to see what’s next.
A picture is worth a billion words.
[…] Eugenics “Pro-choice?” By Mona Interesting post at Sadly, No! about a vile commenter at TCS who wants us to “upgrade” the human gene […]
I once paid a guy $20 so I could nobble him in a public bathroom.
But only because he intimidated me with his taupe skin.
In my defense, taupe is way darker than beige!
Which is significantly darker than white.
It would be even cooler if they had genes from ligers:
This geek had better learn to “watch what he says, watch what he writes”, as another Neocon once phrased it. The Bush Family — by its own admission, in the person of Bar — carries a serious polygenetic neurobiological defect that leads to dyslexia (Neil), substance abuse (Dubya), and Crohn’s disease (Marvin), among other problems. And Cheney, of course, has a lesbian daughter, and same-sex attraction seems to be biologically determined as well. Not that the Oval Office Occupant has ever deviated from the time-tested Repub “One law for me, and another for thee” standard (IOKIYAR), but they’re also quite touchy about The Help getting mouthy…
I think you need to find a better example than Stephen Hawking.
Ok kiddies why are you calling this guy a Fascist?, Fascism was not and is not a racist ideology, it is extreme Nationalism, if you are trying to suggest his ideas are racist then call hin a National socialist which was based on race.
Fascism was not and is not a racist ideology, it is extreme Nationalism
Extreme nationalism needs an Other.