Eugenics/Designer-babies... is the concept really that bad?

[Neo-Scholastic]

It starts with editing out disease genes, then you have mandatory sterilize the people carrying the disease to protect the gene pool, insurance cost reduction, the common good etc. 

This is quiiiite a leap.

Is it? It already happened. Not once, but twice. First, here in America. We actually had competitions for best breed families at State Fairs. Then the National Socialists picked it up. In the future the concepts will be the same, but it will just be sold to you in a different guises, like worker efficiency and Medicare cost reductions. Price Waterhouse already put together a couple of different scenarios, here: Megatrends

And since this is AF, I think people who advocate subjective morality, based on evolved traits (that will cease to apply), need to think long and hard about how to forestall the rationalizations that will come fast and persuasively in the absence of something fundamental in which to ground ethics. The golden rule and survival fitness don't work so when when some people start to consider themselves an entirely different species, i.e. trans-human. And to what extent would such trans-humans consider themselves beyond the reach of regular ole' homo sapiens morality. I'm pretty sure they will think of us like Neanderthals, our extinction inevitable.



Sometimes the slippery slope isn't a fallacy; but rather a legitimate fear based on past experience.