[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Personally I think the best guide to these kinds of decisions is to look to the natural world. I am aware that our intelligence and compassion is what elevates us above the animals, but an individual that is never going to be able to survive independently or ever raise young of its own never lasts very long in any other species.

Are you against socialized medicine?

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Are you against socialized medicine?

Done right, no. The way we do it over here now, much of it is sheer lunacy.

[Uncle Skeleton]

How can it be "done right" without contradicting the guide of the natural world, where we make decisions based on whether the patient would survive if they were any other species?

[subego]

Can you rephrase this? My brain can't lock around it for some reason.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by subego 

Can you rephrase this? My brain can't lock around it for some reason.

Who me? If so, my brain can't lock around it either, that's why I'm asking. I want to learn something new today.

[subego]

I don't understand the question though.

Are you saying we make decisions for patients of other species?

[Waragainstsleep]

Like it or not, you have to cater to social opinion to some extent when it comes to socialised medicine.

I take some issue with spending tens of thousands on IVF treatments when there are plenty of kids up for adoption and plenty more that probably should be.
To some extent it is like a mandatory insurance policy anyway, but there have been cases where people with terminal illnesses have launched campaigns against the NHS after they refused to pay for extortionate experimental drugs or treatments. I don't object to the 'spare no expense' policy if its got a good chance of success in saving someone, but spending money that could save dozens for a 5-10% chance of saving one is irresponsible. Especially if that one has the option of selling their own house to pay themselves.
I'm not thrilled at the NHS spending money on homeopaths or acupuncture or other pseudoscience treatments.

As for taking a eugenics type of approach to it, its not as common an issue as you'd think. For a start it only applies to people whose conditions are genetic and who are breeding age or below. Would it be fair or right to ask them to be sterilised in order to prevent further spread of their conditions and the associated future burdens of quality of life for the individuals and cost to the state? Can't be unfair to ask can it? This would be a seriously controversial step though. It would be highly controversial in this country where everyone believes in evolution, I can't imagine how well it would go down in the US. Of course most of the evolution deniers aren't big fans of socialised medicine anyway....

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Like it or not, you have to cater to social opinion to some extent when it comes to socialised medicine.

Which is why I won't have anything to do with it.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

Which is why I won't have anything to do with it.

Not such a big fan of democracy then?

[Chongo]

Ah, that's what Obama meant when he told parents not to worry, their children with pre existing conditions will be covered. He meant their if their children born (Mandidory prenatal genetic screening and aborting children not meeting the standard for birth?)

[Chongo]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

You can start the inevitable Nazi comparisons if you like, but when these defects are genetic, there is also a perfectly good argument for working towards removing them from the gene pool. That is literally what is supposed to happen if we didn't insist on interfering.

It was Margret Sanger and the Birth Control League (now Planned Parenthood) that promoted negitive eugenics years before the Nazis rose to power.

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Not such a big fan of democracy then?

Not really, mob rule is dangerous and fickle.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Chongo 

It was Margret Sanger and the Birth Control League (now Planned Parenthood) that promoted negitive eugenics years before the Nazis rose to power.

I know they didn't come up with the idea, but it was them who really tainted its reputation given their "other activities".

I don't advocate murdering people or even forcing them to be sterilised, but otherwise eugenics is not really much different to what we have been doing to plants, livestock and pets for centuries now.

[Shaddim]

Humans aren't plants, livestock, or pets. Fuuuuuck, some of you people have some scary notions.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

Humans aren't plants, livestock, or pets. Fuuuuuck, some of you people have some scary notions.

Why is trying to eradicate nasty genetic conditions scary to you?

In the long run, I believe its inevitable that people will start genetically modifying their kids to be taller, prettier, smarter, etc. It will start with eliminating diseases, then move on to making them resistant to non-genetic conditions, then they'll be picking eye colours out of a damned catalogue. Its only a few decades of research and a couple generations of Kardashians away....

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Why is trying to eradicate nasty genetic conditions scary to you?

In the long run, I believe its inevitable that people will start genetically modifying their kids to be taller, prettier, smarter, etc. It will start with eliminating diseases, then move on to making them resistant to non-genetic conditions, then they'll be picking eye colours out of a damned catalogue. Its only a few decades of research and a couple generations of Kardashians away....

I think Gattaca outlined the issues rather pointedly; the upper class will benefit while the poor will "make do". We don't fully understand what even 1/10th of what each gene controls, yet some are more than happy to start mixing them up to design future generations. Until we have all of it sorted we shouldn't even begin to start human tests (if even then).

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Why is trying to eradicate nasty genetic conditions scary to you?

In the long run, I believe its inevitable that people will start genetically modifying their kids to be taller, prettier, smarter, etc. It will start with eliminating diseases, then move on to making them resistant to non-genetic conditions, then they'll be picking eye colours out of a damned catalogue. Its only a few decades of research and a couple generations of Kardashians away....

Because "nasty genetic conditions" are part of human existence. You don't always end up with exactly what you want in life. Instead, you learn to adapt and make something good out of what life hands you, rather than having godlike control over all aspects.

As nice as it would be to be little gods on earth, the inherent selfish survivalist nature of human beings would be catastrohpic if combined with total power. Being able to pick your child's traits out of a catalog is a pretty terrible idea. I'm pretty sure it falls under the category of "using science for evil".

When we give people that much control over their lives, what will they demand next? In fact, it makes me wonder if part of why we're seeing more mental problems in modern society today (things like anxiety and depressive disorderse) is because people are unable to be satisfied with the lives they have. Instead, there's the "more more more" and "better better better" mentality, which can never be satiated.

Sorry if this doesn't make very much sense. I'm having a hard time articulating the gravity of endorsing eugenics for the masses.

[Shaddim]

Pfftt, my next kid will be an Olympic gold medalist swimmer. I'll make sure he has webbed fingers and toes, with gills.

[Waragainstsleep]

I'm not saying designer babies is a good thing, just that it will happen. I also think it remains some way off and agree that failure to properly understand the genome in far more detail than we currently do will result in some horrific unintended 'byproducts' but I still think sooner or later when the tech is mature enough it will happen.

As for "genetic abnormalities being part of the human experience", that isn't a good reason to not do anything about it. If you followed that attitude to its logical conclusion then you should be living in a cave hunting with spears and probably having a life expectancy or 30 or so. Of course it won't surprise anyone that I'm not going to buy "its all a part of god's plan" as a reason to justify any position.

Anyone who could prevent their offspring from being born with Cystic Fibrosis or Huntingdons and chose not to would be a monster. Like those families that refuse basic medical treatment for their kids in favour of prayer.

[Chongo]

Would you consider behaviours as something that should be "screened out" as well?

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Chongo 

Would you consider behaviours as something that should be "screened out" as well?

I'm not even sure thats possible but if it turns out there is a gene for murderousness that doesn't also provide something beneficial like resistance to disease then you may as well take it out if you're making changes anyway right?

I think a lot of people tend to think along the lines of one gene per trait but it isn't like that. The gene that makes you more resistant to lung cancer might give you eczema or asthma. Or the gene that makes you more susceptible to alcoholism might also make you a colourblind genius. Im guessing this is the sort of thing Shaddim is referring to when he points out that we don't really know what we are doing. Yet.

[ghporter]

Let's differentiate between essentially eugenics and a specific individual with enough self knowledge to be able to see that the extreme demands of raising a special needs child are not appropriate for him or her. It would be wonderful to eliminate Tay Sachs, or sickle cell anemia, or other genetic-based problems. Is that eugenics?

What bugs me about the guy with great hair that is supposed to live in the Governor's Mansion in Austin is that he and his cohort are smugly sure that THEY know best for everyone. Yeah, right. They use their view of their own religion to make decisions for the whole state - and in the process make our state government a mockery yet again. Getting one's buttocks handed to them by SCOTUS for the plainly malicious redistricting they did wasn't enough, so now they've enacted a statute that WILL get my state back in federal court and eventually in SCOTUS, to be again royally drubbed because this statute is essentially no different from others that have already been struck down. Way to spend MY tax money, guys. Not that poor kids need health care or food or anything...

(I'm leaving it at that so my blood pressure can settle back down.)

[Uncle Skeleton]

(sorry for the late response, I've been forcibly detached from my precious connectivity (stupid hotel wanted $20 a day for wireless!))

Originally Posted by subego 

I don't understand the question though.

Are you saying we make decisions for patients of other species?

No. We don't, they don't (make any decisions for each other or themselves), but socialized medicine (and all other welfare btw) does, and I don't see how it could possibly exist in any implementation without doing so. Does that help? I don't understand your misunderstanding, but I took a stab at trying to answer it anyway, which is generally a recipe for disaster. So if I only made things worse, sorry

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

... but spending money that could save dozens for a 5-10% chance of saving one is irresponsible. Especially if that one has the option of selling their own house to pay themselves.
I'm not thrilled at the NHS spending money on homeopaths or acupuncture or other pseudoscience treatments.

I am asking about the entirely other end of the spectrum, how can ANY treatment under socialized medicine be compatible with the ideals of "looking to the natural world" and "survive independently or be abandonned," even the most uncontroversial "no brainer" treatments? In the natural world, victims of (inherited or acquired) blindness or paralysis wouldn't be cured or comforted by the collective, even if the injury was caused by someone else's greed and the victim couldn't provide for themselves (the most sympathetic and uncontroversial scenario I can think of). The natural world doesn't have any socialized medicine, welfare, taxation, or any other progressive (or conservative, mostly) ideals. How can any "look to nature" philosophy be anything other than hardcore no-exceptions libertarianism? (I'm asking because I want to know, not because I want to needle you about it; honest)

As for taking a eugenics type of approach to it, its not as common an issue as you'd think.

Eugenics is neither necessary nor sufficient to describe what you said earlier, it sounds like moving the goal posts (or I'm just misunderstanding the context in which you brought it up?). Is eugenics what you were trying to say before, and "look to nature" etc was just a misnomer for it? Or did you bring up eugenics just because of my question about socialized medicine? I would (have) rather(ed) we could answer that first discrepency without getting side-tracked, if that wasn't what you were referencing from the beginning.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

As for "genetic abnormalities being part of the human experience", that isn't a good reason to not do anything about it.

No you're right it's not, but there is a far better reason to shun eugenics, called informed consent. Eugenics by definition means doing "it"* to future generations, who are (or will be) people who can't possibly give informed consent. If you do "it" instead to the parents (or non-parents, just people who want to fix themselves and not breed), in such a way that it _doesn't_ affect the germline, then that solves the informed consent problem, but it also means that "it" is not eugenics anymore. The very trait that defines "it" as eugenics (namely editing the germline) is what makes it unethical because of informed consent.

There are various different forms of medical ethics, some of which are arguably archaic and obsolete. But I don't think informed consent is one of the bad ones, in fact I would be ok naming it the very best of all our ethical practices. I would be interested to see what criticisms you have for the ideal of requiring informed consent.

*"It" being whatever the proposed action is, ranging from culling the weak to precisely altering DNA, to adding symbiotic microbes or nanobots that provide the ability to time travel or communicate by telekinesis. The reasoning is intervention-agnostic, and rests only on the premise that all interventions carry non-zero risk of adverse side effects (which you yourself also touch on below).

Anyone who could prevent their offspring from being born with Cystic Fibrosis or Huntingdons and chose not to would be a monster. Like those families that refuse basic medical treatment for their kids in favour of prayer.

Yet this is contradicted by what you already said next (it is exactly what I would have said to rebut your claim, if you hadn't said it yourself):

I think a lot of people tend to think along the lines of one gene per trait but it isn't like that. The gene that makes you more resistant to lung cancer might give you eczema or asthma. Or the gene that makes you more susceptible to alcoholism might also make you a colourblind genius. Im guessing this is the sort of thing Shaddim is referring to when he points out that we don't really know what we are doing. Yet.

Can you comment on a way to disentangle these (I claim) contradictory axioms?

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Yet this is contradicted by what you already said next (it is exactly what I would have said to rebut your claim, if you hadn't said it yourself):

I think a lot of people tend to think along the lines of one gene per trait but it isn't like that. The gene that makes you more resistant to lung cancer might give you eczema or asthma. Or the gene that makes you more susceptible to alcoholism might also make you a colourblind genius. Im guessing this is the sort of thing Shaddim is referring to when he points out that we don't really know what we are doing. Yet.

Can you comment on a way to disentangle these (I claim) contradictory axioms?

Only to say that my comments in this thread regarding genetic manipulation are forward looking and therefore hypothetical. I don't think we should go poking around in things we don't fully understand yet unless we have a high certainty of a favourable result. You wouldn't try to defuse a bomb if you could run away from it, but if you were trapped in a room with one and you had some wire cutters, you might as well try right?


I can honestly say I've never looked up the dictionary definition of Eugenics before just now and I'll be the first to say I'd prefer the ideas I'm suggesting here weren't tainted with that label. I just figured it would come up sooner or later so I raised it myself. Actually my dictionary doesn't say anything about lack of consent. I'm guessing thats where the Nazis came in.

As for following the natural order, I'm not saying we should use that as an excuse to give up on medicine altogether, that would be silly. I was talking primarily about conditions that affect the gene pool. A broken leg would probably have killed you 100,000 years ago, but today its not really a big deal.

The dilemmas only come when you get someone of breeding age (especially if they haven't bred yet) who either has a very nasty incurable condition, or is just genetically weak for lack of a better term. Most people know someone like this. There was a kid at my school who had dreadful asthma and eczema, his mouth was permanently just a hole in the middle of a big cold sore and he would catch a bug of some kind two or three times a month. He was overweight (might have been because he was incapable of exercise for more than five minutes, though I recall seeing him put roughly a tablespoon of salt on a serving of what you would call french fries once) and I believe there was some genetic predisposition to blood clots among other things during the few years I knew him, he lost at least one close relative. I remember thinking back then that he should do his kids a favour by adopting them (actually I was sure he was gay and would have to do that anyway but apparently I was wrong). I know he has several kids now, I hope he did adopt but I doubt it. Most of those conditions are treatable or manageable by themselves, but collectively it seems a little thoughtless to risk sharing them all with your offspring.

I'm not saying you should put these kids down or that you should refuse them treatment, but I personally think it would be ethically sound to encourage them to start considering adoption when they decide to start a family and maybe raise the issue of voluntary sterilisation.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Only to say that my comments in this thread regarding genetic manipulation are forward looking and therefore hypothetical. I don't think we should go poking around in things we don't fully understand yet unless we have a high certainty of a favourable result. You wouldn't try to defuse a bomb if you could run away from it, but if you were trapped in a room with one and you had some wire cutters, you might as well try right?

Well that kind of gets to my point about informed consent... if the person trapped in there with the bomb is the same person who gets to make the call about whether to start poking at the bomb, then that is far more ethical than if it's someone outside the situation playing fast and loose with someone else's safety. If you make a decision to change your own body, then you're taking on your own risks. If you make a decision to change the bodies of future generations, then you're foisting those risks on others. The whole point of informed consent is that you're not as motivated to be careful with your risk-taking when it's someone else who will suffer if you choose badly.

I can honestly say I've never looked up the dictionary definition of Eugenics before just now and I'll be the first to say I'd prefer the ideas I'm suggesting here weren't tainted with that label. I just figured it would come up sooner or later so I raised it myself. Actually my dictionary doesn't say anything about lack of consent. I'm guessing thats where the Nazis came in.

No that's where plain old logic and reasoning came in. Why don't we start with your own definition of "eugenics," and tell me where this reasoning is faulty:
1. Eugenics means the changing of human heritable characteristics (feel free to replace with your own definition, but I am confident the following logic will still hold). Without heritability, it is simply not eugenics.
2. This necessarily changes the physical state of people who aren't even born yet.
3. Those future individuals have no opportunity to opt out of this change.
4. There is some finite chance/risk that the change will ultimately be discovered to be a mistake.

Is any of those logical points in error? What I'm trying to say is that the problem with eugenics is entirely independent of its historical baggage, I'm trying to say that it can be demonstrated to be unethical from first principles, not just from its track record. Unlike what people say about communism (eg "it works in theory but is too vulnerable to abuse"), eugenics is unethical in principle, not just in practice.

As for following the natural order, I'm not saying we should use that as an excuse to give up on medicine altogether, that would be silly. I was talking primarily about conditions that affect the gene pool. A broken leg would probably have killed you 100,000 years ago, but today its not really a big deal.

I'm not following you here. A broken leg isn't caused (or cured) by genes. How is it relevant to "conditions that affect the gene pool?"

The dilemmas only come when you get someone of breeding age (especially if they haven't bred yet) who either has a very nasty incurable condition, or is just genetically weak for lack of a better term. Most people know someone like this.

This dilemma is easily solved by the principle of informed consent. Judgement calls are left to the very same person who will be bearing the negative consequences in case the judgement made ultimately proves to be a bad one. This is why I asked you if you have an objection (or alternative) to informed consent.... do you?

There was a kid at my school who had dreadful asthma and eczema, his mouth was permanently just a hole in the middle of a big cold sore and he would catch a bug of some kind two or three times a month. He was overweight (might have been because he was incapable of exercise for more than five minutes, though I recall seeing him put roughly a tablespoon of salt on a serving of what you would call french fries once) and I believe there was some genetic predisposition to blood clots among other things during the few years I knew him, he lost at least one close relative. I remember thinking back then that he should do his kids a favour by adopting them (actually I was sure he was gay and would have to do that anyway but apparently I was wrong). I know he has several kids now, I hope he did adopt but I doubt it. Most of those conditions are treatable or manageable by themselves, but collectively it seems a little thoughtless to risk sharing them all with your offspring.

I'm not saying you should put these kids down or that you should refuse them treatment, but I personally think it would be ethically sound to encourage them to start considering adoption when they decide to start a family and maybe raise the issue of voluntary sterilisation.

How do you know that these conditions are inheritable or incurable? If a cure is found tomorrow for example, then we (the current generation) have sacrificed others (the future generations) for no good reason. They suffer for our bad decision (that is the situation that informed consent is here to avoid; it doesn't stop suffering, but at least we each have control of our own fate, and if anyone is suffering it is due to their own judgement, not someone else's).

So anyway, this still does relate to the abortion debate, because it demonstrates (to my satisfaction at least) that the question of whether the embryo is a person or not is still the single necessary and sufficient distinction to deciding on the ethics of abortion. Even though it's not an easy question, at least it's an appropriate question, because people deserve the benefit of informed consent (barring the endangerment of other people), and non-people don't.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Well that kind of gets to my point about informed consent... if the person trapped in there with the bomb is the same person who gets to make the call about whether to start poking at the bomb, then that is far more ethical than if it's someone outside the situation playing fast and loose with someone else's safety. If you make a decision to change your own body, then you're taking on your own risks. If you make a decision to change the bodies of future generations, then you're foisting those risks on others. The whole point of informed consent is that you're not as motivated to be careful with your risk-taking when it's someone else who will suffer if you choose badly.

Sorry, I thought we were talking about the consent of the person being sterilised, or the parents of the child being modified. Its all very well wondering about the consent of an egg that has barely been fertilised, but for all you know it never wanted to be born in the first place. Since you can't ask consent of the unborn, the only practical ethics to consider are those of the people making the choices for it. If their intent is to make it healthier, and the risk of mistake is sufficiently low, I see little problem. Its not like there is zero risk if you let genetics take their natural unmodified course, and you might just as easily make a mistake when choosing some conventional medical treatment for a non-genetic illness or injury. You can't expect a 10 year-old to make an informed decision about having their appendix out. Parents make medical choices for their kids every day and no-one considers that unethical.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

No that's where plain old logic and reasoning came in. Why don't we start with your own definition of "eugenics," and tell me where this reasoning is faulty:
1. Eugenics means the changing of human heritable characteristics (feel free to replace with your own definition, but I am confident the following logic will still hold). Without heritability, it is simply not eugenics.
2. This necessarily changes the physical state of people who aren't even born yet.
3. Those future individuals have no opportunity to opt out of this change.
4. There is some finite chance/risk that the change will ultimately be discovered to be a mistake.

Is any of those logical points in error? What I'm trying to say is that the problem with eugenics is entirely independent of its historical baggage, I'm trying to say that it can be demonstrated to be unethical from first principles, not just from its track record. Unlike what people say about communism (eg "it works in theory but is too vulnerable to abuse"), eugenics is unethical in principle, not just in practice.

Again, I thought you were saying that the term eugenics implied that people were being forcibly sterilised or genetically modified against their will or without their knowledge or consent. I won't argue with the rest of the definition, but doesn't that mean that any genetic screening at all can be classified as Eugenics? I always thought the general idea of Eugenics was simply to accelerate the rate of evolution in an effort to better the species. Is evolution unethical? (I'm not trying to be awkward, I swear) Random mutations happen during reproduction. They are pretty important actually but again, if the science is well enough understood as to minimise the risk, isn't it better to try to weight things in favour of your child?

Very few people regardless of their ethics or beliefs would say no if you offered them the chance to wave a magic wand and have their kids be 100% free of genetic diseases, abnormalities and susceptibilities to diseases. I don't think that number would shrink that much if you then offered them a second magic wand to have their kids grow bigger, stronger, fitter, faster, smarter and more beautiful than they otherwise might have. People go to extraordinary lengths to give their children every available advantage.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

I'm not following you here. A broken leg isn't caused (or cured) by genes. How is it relevant to "conditions that affect the gene pool?"

That was my point. We talked about letting nature take its course and I was just trying to demonstrate that I wasn't advocating putting down people with simple problems just because they would have been more serious a few centuries ago.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

This dilemma is easily solved by the principle of informed consent. Judgement calls are left to the very same person who will be bearing the negative consequences in case the judgement made ultimately proves to be a bad one. This is why I asked you if you have an objection (or alternative) to informed consent.... do you?

I don't but I have concerns about the practicalities of it. In recent years, the UK government has tried to make the NHS look more like a marketplace by offering people choices of where to get treated and even publishing league tables in some cases. I'm not a fan of giving people this kind of choice when it comes to socialised healthcare partly because people won't weigh the needs of others against their own needs when making these decisions which defeats the object in many ways. My main objection though is that we have ended up with a bunch of f***ing idiots who think they can shop around for second and third opinions until they get one they like, when in fact they have no clue what is actually good for them and their condition.

Informed consent should usually be "we want to do this to you", "this is roughly what it means", "this is what could go wrong", and "the odds of success are _".
Sometimes it could be "you have a choice between low risk and high risk, the higher risk will have a better result if it works, take your pick."


[QUOTE=Uncle Skeleton;4238687]
How do you know that these conditions are inheritable or incurable? If a cure is found tomorrow for example, then we (the current generation) have sacrificed others (the future generations) for no good reason.[/QUOTE


Most people will have some idea of how many of their less desirable features and conditions are hereditary simply by looking at their family members. Obviously cold sores are not hereditary, but the kid in question was affected by them much worse than anyone else I have met since so it doesn't seem like an unreasonable assumption. Besides this, this hypothetical is predicated on having the level of technology where we would be able to tell which of these features or conditions were genetic and which weren't. I don't think we should start making designer babies as standard any time soon, but I do think it will become commonplace eventually. Its just a matter of time and research.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

They suffer for our bad decision (that is the situation that informed consent is here to avoid; it doesn't stop suffering, but at least we each have control of our own fate, and if anyone is suffering it is due to their own judgement, not someone else's).

How is someone suffering for their own judgement if the decision was made before they were implanted into a womb?

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

So anyway, this still does relate to the abortion debate, because it demonstrates (to my satisfaction at least) that the question of whether the embryo is a person or not is still the single necessary and sufficient distinction to deciding on the ethics of abortion. Even though it's not an easy question, at least it's an appropriate question, because people deserve the benefit of informed consent (barring the endangerment of other people), and non-people don't.

To my mind the abortion debate should always distill down to a question of defining some kind of 'point of no return' during pregnancy, except where the health of the mother is at risk. I also believe that this point of no return should be debated by and ultimately decided by people better qualified than me.
Wherever that point of no return is set, abortion up to that point should be freely and easily available to any women who want it. It should really be a right. Perhaps it ought to be an amendment to your constitution. (Or do you still amend the bill of rights?)

The PONR itself should be set by and subject to periodic review by some panel of qualified individuals who would regularly look at the latest scientific studies and decide whether to alter the PONR. This panel should obviously not be made up of elected government officials, in order to make sure that a republican government can't just load it with illiterate religious f***wits who would immediately set it to 0. You know, like they do with education boards and that national science council.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

I always thought the general idea of Eugenics was simply to accelerate the rate of evolution in an effort to better the species. Is evolution unethical? (I'm not trying to be awkward, I swear) Random mutations happen during reproduction.

There is a major difference between natural evolution vs any decisions we make about directing it. It's the "decision" part. In the abstract, if a particular bad thing happens, then it is more unethical if that bad thing was the result of someone's decision than if it was random. Do you disagree? For example, if you stub your toe by accident, that is more acceptable than if I decide to stub your toe. Even if the end result is the same, I have no right to decide to do that to you. (I believe the reasoning for this is more than just a nebulous concept of resentfulness and blame, it relates to the moral hazard; if the bad thing happened by someone's decision, then if not discouraged the bad thing will start to happen more often, whereas if that same bad thing happened by chance, then whether we discourage it or not will have no effect on the frequency of it happening again)

Very few people regardless of their ethics or beliefs would say no if you offered them the chance to wave a magic wand and have their kids be 100% free of genetic diseases, abnormalities and susceptibilities to diseases. I don't think that number would shrink that much if you then offered them a second magic wand to have their kids grow bigger, stronger, fitter, faster, smarter and more beautiful than they otherwise might have. People go to extraordinary lengths to give their children every available advantage.

Well that would be why I already listed among my premises that there is some finite risk involved. Science is not a magic wand, but if it was then things would be different. I agree with that.

That was my point. We talked about letting nature take its course and I was just trying to demonstrate that I wasn't advocating putting down people with simple problems just because they would have been more serious a few centuries ago.

So we should "look to the natural world" except when we shouldn't? How do you know when to do which?

Most people will have some idea of how many of their less desirable features and conditions are hereditary simply by looking at their family members. Obviously cold sores are not hereditary, but the kid in question was affected by them much worse than anyone else I have met since so it doesn't seem like an unreasonable assumption.

Family members share a lot more than DNA. They share environment, diet, learned behaviors, biases, mythologies, etc. What if your classmate is mormon and his magic underwear is giving him a rash because it contains manganese or something? His offspring will probably suffer from the same brand of underwear...

Besides this, this hypothetical is predicated on having the level of technology where we would be able to tell which of these features or conditions were genetic and which weren't. I don't think we should start making designer babies as standard any time soon, but I do think it will become commonplace eventually. Its just a matter of time and research.

Why does the designer human concept have to be about babies? Why not start with designer adults (where the changes are not germ-line)? And then, why not keep it there?

How is someone suffering for their own judgement if the decision was made before they were implanted into a womb?

That's my point, it can't because doing that is impossible. That is why eugenics will always be unethical. Until we invent time-travel of course, then someone can make an informed decision to go back in time and eugenicize themselves.

To my mind the abortion debate should always distill down to a question of defining some kind of 'point of no return' during pregnancy, except where the health of the mother is at risk. I also believe that this point of no return should be debated by and ultimately decided by people better qualified than me.
Wherever that point of no return is set, abortion up to that point should be freely and easily available to any women who want it. It should really be a right. Perhaps it ought to be an amendment to your constitution. (Or do you still amend the bill of rights?)

The PONR itself should be set by and subject to periodic review by some panel of qualified individuals who would regularly look at the latest scientific studies and decide whether to alter the PONR. This panel should obviously not be made up of elected government officials, in order to make sure that a republican government can't just load it with illiterate religious f***wits who would immediately set it to 0. You know, like they do with education boards and that national science council.

So basically, the elite panel of experts should be in charge of making the decision, but if they ultimately arrive at a different one than you would have, they're wrong?

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

There is a major difference between natural evolution vs any decisions we make about directing it. It's the "decision" part. In the abstract, if a particular bad thing happens, then it is more unethical if that bad thing was the result of someone's decision than if it was random. Do you disagree? For example, if you stub your toe by accident, that is more acceptable than if I decide to stub your toe. Even if the end result is the same, I have no right to decide to do that to you. (I believe the reasoning for this is more than just a nebulous concept of resentfulness and blame, it relates to the moral hazard; if the bad thing happened by someone's decision, then if not discouraged the bad thing will start to happen more often, whereas if that same bad thing happened by chance, then whether we discourage it or not will have no effect on the frequency of it happening again)

I see where you are coming from but I can't agree with you there. I think the ethics are more about the intent behind the decision than the decision itself. And is omission of action always more ethical because its a default? Wouldn't you want me to catch you if you lost your balance on the edge of a cliff? Or would that make it unethical on my part if you went on to have a kid that became a serial killer?

What if I gave you $1M? Maybe you pay off your debts, buy yourself a couple of nice things and generally get your life into the sort of state you'd like it to be in, at least financially speaking. I'd like to think that would be my intention for you if I were to do something so generous. But if you go totally off the rails and go on a bender of drink and drugs and end up with an incurable STD and $3M in debt to a violent gangster loan shark, does that make me unethical?
For me the ethics are decided by the intent, not the outcome. People make decisions for each other literally billions of times a day be it parents or policy makers. Are they all taking massive ethical gambles according to you?

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Well that would be why I already listed among my premises that there is some finite risk involved. Science is not a magic wand, but if it was then things would be different. I agree with that.

This is a forward looking hypothetical. We have to be allowed to idealise certain points otherwise there would be little or no conversation to have here since we both agree that this cannot be allowed to happen at our current levels of genetic knowledge and technology.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

So we should "look to the natural world" except when we shouldn't? How do you know when to do which?

Some of these decisions will be tricky, but as we both keep pointing out to each other, many conditions are not relevant to the gene pool (unless you broke your leg because you have brittle bones or because you are stupid and jumped off a roof trying to copy a stunt you saw on WWE Smackdown).

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Family members share a lot more than DNA. They share environment, diet, learned behaviors, biases, mythologies, etc. What if your classmate is mormon and his magic underwear is giving him a rash because it contains manganese or something? His offspring will probably suffer from the same brand of underwear...

Please try to follow the spirit of the discussion rather than picking apart examples and analogies. I'm just saying if I was that genetically ropey, I'd think twice before risking passing that on to my kids. Assuming I ever actually get that choice. It probably never occurred to him.
I'm pretty sure not all of his various undesirable traits can be attributed to his underwear.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Why does the designer human concept have to be about babies? Why not start with designer adults (where the changes are not germ-line)? And then, why not keep it there?

I think we already do quite a lot of that. Also, I never said we should be making designer babies, only that people will when they can. I'm thinking future equivalents of Paris Hilton or the Kardashians first. Maybe some of the crew from Jersey Shore or in the UK, Essex.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

That's my point, it can't because doing that is impossible. That is why eugenics will always be unethical. Until we invent time-travel of course, then someone can make an informed decision to go back in time and eugenicize themselves.

How far would you travel though. What if you go ten generations forward and find someone who gets lobotomised because I made his great great great great great great great great grandfather half an inch taller? Would that make me an unethical so-and-so?

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

So basically, the elite panel of experts should be in charge of making the decision, but if they ultimately arrive at a different one than you would have, they're wrong?

My take is that abortion should be allowed and available up to a certain point and that I'm not qualified to decide exactly where that point should be. Also, the vast majority of other people are not qualified to decide where that point should be. especially those who have no interest in looking at evidence on the subject because their minds are being made up for them before they start by the wrinkly old leader of a band of pedophiles half way across the world.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

I see where you are coming from but I can't agree with you there. I think the ethics are more about the intent behind the decision than the decision itself. And is omission of action always more ethical because its a default? Wouldn't you want me to catch you if you lost your balance on the edge of a cliff? Or would that make it unethical on my part if you went on to have a kid that became a serial killer?

All other things being equal (meaning same outcome, and that outcome is a negative one), yes inaction is always more ethical than action. Neglecting to save someone from falling off a cliff is more ethical than pushing them off the cliff.

What if I gave you $1M? Maybe you pay off your debts, buy yourself a couple of nice things and generally get your life into the sort of state you'd like it to be in, at least financially speaking. I'd like to think that would be my intention for you if I were to do something so generous. But if you go totally off the rails and go on a bender of drink and drugs and end up with an incurable STD and $3M in debt to a violent gangster loan shark, does that make me unethical?
For me the ethics are decided by the intent, not the outcome.

Rather than "intent," I would say the theme is "free will" and "personal responsibility" (not coincidentally closely related to my earlier descriptors of self-determination and informed consent). All of your counter-examples follow the pattern of blaming X for enabling Y to use Y's free will to do something negative (that was fully predictable from Y's perspective). X enables Y to live and Y becomes a serial killer. X gives Y $money and Y spends it on debt and disease. The fault can only be attributed to X if you ignore Y's free will. But why can we ignore Y's free will without ignoring X's free will? We can't blame X for X's decisions if X has no free will. It's kind of hypocritical to hold X accountable for decisions but not Y. That's why I don't think your examples thus far have been fair comparisons to a scenario where X's decisions affect Y's life without any further contribution by Y's decisions (and without Y having an opportunity to object).

Under the "intent" model of ethics, sloppiness is not self-correcting. I could go my whole life making decisions affecting others' lives negatively, just because I hadn't bothered to follow through and examine the unintended consequences after I gain the benefit of hindsight. Because I entered with good intentions (or claimed to; the intent model is also not corrective of deceit, especially deceiving oneself), I would be free and clear to keep making those mistakes, even of spreading my behavior to others, without my behavior ever being identified as unethical.
By contrast, under the "personal responsibility" model of ethics, sloppiness and deceit are both self-correcting. I could go through my life making sloppy decisions affecting my own life, but there would be no way for me to avoid facing the unintended consequences. From a practical/performance perspective, "personal responsibility" is simply a better implementation of ethics than intent. IMO.

People make decisions for each other literally billions of times a day be it parents or policy makers. Are they all taking massive ethical gambles according to you?

Yes. That's why carrying the responsibilities of parenthood or public office is a heavy burden, that's why all other things being equal self-determination is better than being ruled by others, and all other things being equal market economies are better than planned economies. All other things are not always equal, which is why we still have politicians and guardians, but it's more ethical (results in a more ethically favorable outcome) to use self-determination whenever possible.

This is a forward looking hypothetical. We have to be allowed to idealise certain points otherwise there would be little or no conversation to have here since we both agree that this cannot be allowed to happen at our current levels of genetic knowledge and technology.

Some simplifications are more valid than others. I challenge the simplification that elective medicine will eventually become risk-free. What medical interventions from the past have evolved to be risk-free? The thing about non-elective medicine is that the risks of doing them can be weighed against the risks of not doing them (like leaving an inflamed appendix is even riskier than removing it; people don't risk removing it unless it is inflamed). That's why elective medicine is qualitatively different, because there is no risk of not doing it.

Some of these decisions will be tricky, but as we both keep pointing out to each other, many conditions are not relevant to the gene pool (unless you broke your leg because you have brittle bones or because you are stupid and jumped off a roof trying to copy a stunt you saw on WWE Smackdown).

Please try to follow the spirit of the discussion rather than picking apart examples and analogies. I'm just saying if I was that genetically ropey, I'd think twice before risking passing that on to my kids. Assuming I ever actually get that choice. It probably never occurred to him.
I'm pretty sure not all of his various undesirable traits can be attributed to his underwear.

Following the spirit of the discussion is exactly what I'm trying to do, though in this instance it has been difficult for me to communicate it; please bear with me. I'm trying to challenge (what I perceive to be) your core assumption that there is a clear categorical difference between acquired and genetic traits (negative traits) and it's ethical to exterminate the latter. Inherited traits might not be as genetic as we think, they might be treatable or become treatable, they might have positive side effects that we don't know about, or they might turn out to be mere risk factors and display symptoms only in combination with environmental triggers which can be altered with informed consent. That a trait is familial (or assumed so by a disinterested classmate ) should not be a free pass to turn the carrier from a person into a test subject; their perspective and their right to self-determination are as valid as anyone else's. But I've been trying hard not to put words in your mouth, rather to try to steer the conversation so that you clearly state your position, so feel free to correct me if I've misread you.

I think we already do quite a lot of that.

Yes but with informed consent. My point is that jumping to the no-consent form (simply because of the excuse that consent is impossible) is a big disruption, not a minor one.

Also, I never said we should be making designer babies, only that people will when they can. I'm thinking future equivalents of Paris Hilton or the Kardashians first. Maybe some of the crew from Jersey Shore or in the UK, Essex.

The question is whether those people would/could be ethical in doing so. I have no doubt that some people will behave unethically if technology provides a new method of doing so.

My take is that abortion should be allowed and available up to a certain point and that I'm not qualified to decide exactly where that point should be. Also, the vast majority of other people are not qualified to decide where that point should be. especially those who have no interest in looking at evidence on the subject because their minds are being made up for them before they start by the wrinkly old leader of a band of pedophiles half way across the world.

They're doing essentially the same thing as you: delegating a difficult moral decision to their chosen moral authority.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

When we give people that much control over their lives, what will they demand next? In fact, it makes me wonder if part of why we're seeing more mental problems in modern society today (things like anxiety and depressive disorderse) is because people are unable to be satisfied with the lives they have. Instead, there's the "more more more" and "better better better" mentality, which can never be satiated.

Sorry if this doesn't make very much sense. I'm having a hard time articulating the gravity of endorsing eugenics for the masses.

While not immediately relevant to eugenics, my first thought upon reading your post is the rate at which we're drugging kids (read - overwhelmingly boys) for being kids. There will be implications. Yes, we wanted the perfectly patient child who kept more silent, more still, more pliable, and more amiable, but at what cost to his imagination, expression, motivation, cognitive development...

[Chongo]

Sounds like "Gattica" meets "Equilibrium"