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arachnivore OP t1_j4ow15c wrote

Reply to comment by Thiizic in Singularity Mods removed this post about Nick Bostrom defending eugenics by arachnivore

>If we have the technology to make our children healthier at birth then we have an obligation to do that.

Eugenics isn't the same as medicine. What the actual fuck?

>Eugenics: the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable.

We don't need to bread an Ubermench to cure diseases.

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nortob t1_j4p16dn wrote

What is it exactly about Bostrom’s view that you disagree with? > In contemporary academic bioethics, the word “eugenics” is sometimes used in different and much broader sense, as including for example the view that prospective parents undergoing IVF should have access to genetic screening and diagnostic tools (as is currently the established practice in many countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom). There is a rich bioethical literature on these issues (see e.g. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/eugenics/), and it involves many complex moral considerations that cannot be captured in a single word or a slogan. I would be in favor of some uses and against others. Broadly speaking, I’m favorable to wide parental choice in these matters, including for some applications that would qualify as “enhancements” rather than “therapies”—to the extent that this distinction makes sense.

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arachnivore OP t1_j4p3ars wrote

Why can't you people stay on one subject for more than one reply. It's like debating flat earthers, I swear!

Do you, or do you not understand the difference between Eugenics and Transhumanism?

To answer your question:I think Bostrom is intentionally muddying the waters. I'd love to see him actually point to a single person who believes that genetic screening and diagnostics tools for IVF alone constitute eugenics.

The term has a very clear definition:

>Eugenics: the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable.

It's not just medicine. It's about breeding a race of people. It necessarily means there is some authority dictating what is desirable and what is undesirable for an entire population.

It has historically been used to horrific ends and it's pretty difficult to see how Bostrom himself might "redefine" it to be something less troubling or how eugenics could be used toward benevolent ends. Why impose your decisions on an entire race of people? Why not let individuals choose for themselves what traits they want or don't want?

Bostrom seems to believe in some form of Eugenics. That's clearly implied by:"Do I support eugenics? No, not as the term is commonly understood."

So there is some other definition of eugenics that he DOES support?All we get for an answer is what he thinks is overly broad (which definitely is NOT "the term as it is commonly understood". IVF genetic screening isn't "commonly understood" to be eugenics by any stretch of the imagination and I think Bostrom fucking knows that!

Does Bostrom believe that people working on such powerful technology should NOT be weary of the possible ill effect their work could have on society? Does he think that chastising the use of racial slurs and bigotry in the academic communication of such science places too much burden on scientists? Really?! That sounds pretty dumb.

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SoylentRox t1_j4p3nat wrote

Umm, think this came up a few days ago on here.

I support eugenics if the consequences of not doing it are significant and well known.

Like, it's one thing if your 'master race' is buncha people of a particular appearance who are still just humans and capable of losing.

On the other hand, if the edits make people, say:

(1) live for centuries (2) regenerate limbs (3) they are all smarter than the smartest people who ever lived (4) they are better in every sport all the time, with modified tissue that gives them superhuman strength and toughness (5) They all look like models, from age 15 to age 950.

Once you are talking about such vast improvements - something a super-intelligence could likely work out exactly how to do in a matter of a few years once one exists - it's arguably dooming any unedited child to, well, being retarded, ugly, and dead at 80.

In that situation, your "principals" have a crippling and large cost to someone not yet born.

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arachnivore OP t1_j4p447n wrote

You've completely ignored the whole part of Eugenics that makes it fraught with problems:

>Why impose your decisions on an entire race of people? Why not let individuals choose for themselves what traits they want or don't want?

I've repeated this so so so many times. It's not rocket science.

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SoylentRox t1_j4p4loq wrote

For the same reason we make parents vaccinate their children and send them to school. Because we know what happens if you don't do that.

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arachnivore OP t1_j4p5pyf wrote

Jesus christ. There's a line between keeping your children from dying and dictating the color of their skin. Somewhere in the middle there is complicated ground where the answer isn't so clear if something is for the good of a child or eugenics and that definitely deserves discussion, but it's not this bullshit of:

>Hurr! durr! Transhumanism = Eugenics! Hurr! Durr!

That everyone in this post is replying to me with like a bunch of lobotomized dipshits.

The problem is: The mods seem to think burying discussion about the problems of eugenics is a good idea and Nick Bostrom seems to think the main problem is that its frowned upon in academia when you act like a huge bigot, use racial slurs, and spout debunked Nazi "science".

Like, yeah Nick, I'm sure we'd be making way more progress in the field if we just let a bunch of racist trolls publish their "work". That must really be the biggest problem facing the field. \s

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cloudrunner69 t1_j4p3z55 wrote

I think the definition of eugenics needs an update.

Old school mad Nazi scientist eugenics = bad

Transhumanist eugenics = good

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arachnivore OP t1_j4p4z2q wrote

No, it doesn't. The word means what it means. The part that makes it bad is that it's about breading a race. That necessarily implies an authority imposing its will on a large group of people. You can have transhumanism without eugenics. This is not complicated.

It's not some fluke of history that every time eugenics has been put into practice or proposed it's been a few people saying "I don't like these people, we should get rid of them. I like these other people: we should breed more of them." The concept is INHERENTLY BAD AT ITS VERY CORE.

When you do away with the idea of breeding a race (AKA: Eugenics). You're left with individual choice. Do I want a tail? yes! Do I want twelve arms? Nah. Should someone be forcing me to decide which traits are "good" or "bad"? FUCK NO!

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cloudrunner69 t1_j4p64em wrote

Meh I disagree. Eugenics was always about improving/enhancing the human physical body through crazy stuff like breeding only certain people. This was only because they didn't have the technology that we have today. Not to mention the obsession with nationalism. But we don't live in that place anymore which is why the definition needs updating, because we live in different times.

There is no reason why words cannot be redefined, we do it all the time. Troll, catfish, cloud, tablet, cougar. All these words have been redefined in the last few years, what's the difference?

Maybe we could say there is eugenics and there is forced eugenics. See what adding an extra word can do, amazing right?

But hey you seem to have taken a pretty stubborn position on this so I have no interest in trying to convince you there is nothing wrong with eugenics anymore.

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arachnivore OP t1_j4p6vbz wrote

You can disagree all you want. It just makes you wrong and ignorant.You could read about it. Who came up with it. What the actual definition of the word is, etc. if you want to be less wrong and less ignorant. But making up your own definition and history is wrong and dumb and ignorant.

Why the fuck would you choose to redefine the term Eugenics to something that has no relevance to what it meant to the creator of the term or the historical use of the term or the dictionary definition of the term?

You're going way out of your way to appologize for Bostrom being an idiot.

Should we "redefine" Rapist to mean "a unicorn that dances on rainbows"? WHY?

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cloudrunner69 t1_j4pbosc wrote

Oh I see what's going on now. You're using this latest Bostrom stuff as a platform for virtual signalling.

Ok, this makes sense why your comments are all so emotionally charged and you're dismissing what others are saying rather than trying to have a rational discussion about the subject. Cause you don't care what other people think.

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arachnivore OP t1_j4pct6a wrote

My comments are emotionally charged because 9/10 of the replies I’ve gotten are either pro-eugenics or incredibly ignorant about what Eugenics even means. It’s distressing. You seem to think it’s a synonym for genetic engineering. It’s not. You seem to think we should just redefine words on a whim so that nothing means anything anymore. It’s distressing to see how profoundly ignorant this entire community is about why Eugenics is bad. It’s distressing that the mods want to bury any discussion about it.

I’m not trying to signal shit. I’m not being cryptic. I’m being very direct. You don’t have to read between the lines. My thoughts are all there in black and white.

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