(November 12, 2012 at 9:11 pm)TaraJo Wrote: Ok, so, as far as down syndrome goes, we automatically abort them before they're born. I'm assuming you'd do the same thing with many of the other genetic birth defects I mentioned, right? Parkinsons? Sickle Cell Anemia? What about traits that are partially genetic? Diabetes? Heart disease? Alcoholism? Mental illness? Are we going to eliminate those traits from our gene pool as well?Depends on what society needs. We can keep them alive, resorting to sterilization only when the genetic pool becomes too unwieldy for the healthcare system to treat them. Until then, they are free to live and go about living normal lives.
While you're considering that slippery slope, consider this one as well: social darwinism is generally used to justify objectivism. However, if you want to use social darwinism to emphasize traits that are productive to society, what do you do when someone decides they want to eliminate selfish douchebag genes from the gene pool? I think the world would be much better if we eliminated some of these greedy bastards like Grover Norquist, the Koch brothers and Donald Trump and I think the world would be much better if the kind of greedy traits they're known for were eliminated from the gene pool.
Euthanasia will only be the final stage on that path, if things really become too much to bear. Say, if food shortages occur, and people are starving to death- instead of letting people live and die based on chance factors like poverty, geographic location, etc, we let people live and die based on how best to preserve genetic quality.
Listen, I know this sounds controversial, but it's only because of society. A few decades ago genetic population management had a serious place in political discussion in the United States, before the boom of social conservatism in the 50s.
It's going to come up again very soon, when the rising population and dwindling resources start becoming noticeable problems.
(November 12, 2012 at 10:51 pm)cato123 Wrote: C'mon Vinny. Are you ducking me? I asked a two word question replying to your assertion regarding 'the' path to a superior race. Your voice has littered the last two AF pages on this thread, but have conveniently ignored my obseration. Who?
Sorry cato. I thought such a question was surely rhetorical. I didn't know you were being serious. I'll try to answer it.
(November 12, 2012 at 8:14 pm)cato123 Wrote:(November 12, 2012 at 6:53 pm)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: Social darwinism ultimately creates a better, stronger human race.
Says who?
Says common sense. Darwinism rewards the fit and allows for the spreading of superior genetics.
It's simply common sense to think it would work in much the same way for human beings.
(November 12, 2012 at 10:41 pm)The_Germans_are_coming Wrote: Still, it doesnt make the ape human.It doesn't make the ape human, I agree. But I'm saying "being human" is not special as opposed to "being a potato" or "being an orangutan".
One can debate on what might be a moral and what might be an inmoral way to treat other species, but one cannot equate the life of a human with the life of other species.
Only because a infant behaves like a animal at the beginning of it`s life, this does not mean that it is not human, a infant child will grow up to be an adult human.
a infant child is a human being
a cockroach is not
a dog is not
do i need to paint you a picture?
humans equal to animals? Are you one of these people who think that a chickenfarm is like ausschwitz? please dont be.
They are all different categories of living things occupying different regions on the tree of life.
![[Image: 450px-Phylogenetic_tree.svg.png]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=upload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F7%2F70%2FPhylogenetic_tree.svg%2F450px-Phylogenetic_tree.svg.png)
If your claim is that "being human" makes you special, than this is little more than discrimination based on species, no? You treat one species better than another, and the better species is yours.
Do you not know how this is discrimination?