GuyNBlueJeans You may not be aware of this, but the rate of demographic increase is going down almost everywhere in the world. Every first world nation is in demographic decline, except for the United States which maintains replacement rate via immigration. Most nations do not have the bureaucratic capacity to implement the policy you propose here. The only ones that can really do it credibly are first world nations, which are already in decline. Demographic decline is a worry for most nations as they fear their cultural heritage will fall into the dustbin of history as the natives are replaced by immigrants. Some people project that Muslims could become the majority in some European nations by the end of the century. Muslim nations have some of the greatest population growth, and even their rate of growth is declining. There is a demonstrable corrolation between demographic decline and being industrialized. There are major economic issues that follow demographic decline that can lead to power vacuums and land grabs that would destabilize national order in the afflicted areas.
So your idea seems good but:
It’s already occurring naturally
It could lead to unintended economic upheaval and regional war in the places where it could be credibly enforced.
Eugenics was directly influenced by Darwin’s theories - its proponents believed they could assist natural selection by doing some selecting of their own.
While this took many different forms, from the American progressives’ desire to rid society of the feeble-minded right through to Hitler’s desire to craft a master race - all of them looked to Darwin for inspiration.
Now, of course we understand this now to be a perversion of Darwinism. But it wasn’t universally seen as such at the time, and of course today, some people still haven’t read enough Darwin or history to similarly reject this.
I’d call the idea unenforceable. Everyone pretty much agrees teenagers shouldn’t be getting pregnant, parents watch them and lecture them and government spends money to discourage them, but teenagers still get pregnant.
Kaloun – Yes, there are many fine people that came out of a not-so-good upbringing. But considering how many people there are in the world, and the level of problems facing humanity, it just seems like it would be a good idea if people could put their egos aside and start being honest about things. Seems kinda selfish not to.
By the way, did you see the three examples (on this thread) I mentioned of people that should never have been parents? And the sad truth is is that there are lots of them out there just as bad!
I’ve never heard anyone lament the fact that the Neanderthals are all gone. So why should anyone cry if the wack-jobs among us can’t bring kids into the world?
If you think you would be an unfit parent, why wait for a law to be passed? Why not go get sterilized right now?
Because we can’t agree on exactly who counts as a wack-job, nor whether being a wack-job is always incompatible with being a decent parent.
It’s not that we can’t agree that some parents are indeed morally unfit for the tasks of parenting; it’s just that in most cases, you can’t tell who’s going to be an unfit parent until they actually reproduce.
This is not the first time in this thread that this point has been explained to you, and you don’t seem to have found any satisfactory response to it.
Ah, yeah, because of the “Seriously,” and the raised-eyebrow smiley, I was drawn to think you weren’t actually pro-eugenics, but I didn’t catch the reference to literacy tests and thus wasn’t exactly sure about the nature of your post. Glad to have that all cleared up, then.
It’s like this movie that was on TV around 1968. I didn’t see it myself, just caught the preview of it is all. It showed this old guy in a small town that I think was a doctor of medicine. And so in the preview, it showed him working in a garden while mumbling to himself something like, “The world is like a garden, and so like a garden it needs to be cleaned of weeds now and then.”
I guess he was a doctor that was eliminating people via drug injections, or something.
Of course, his way of dealing with the undesirables is way different than what I’ve proposed, as my solution doesn’t involve taking peoples lives (once they’re in the world).
By the way, did you happen to hear what ran at the top of the CBS national news this evening? FBI crime stats indicate that for the second year in a row, murders and violent crimes are up!
I guess all those lovely “parents” out there are going throttle up with getting it done in the sack, no?
Eh, I dunno. I try not to base my moral views on 40-year-old TV program teasers. But hey, if it works for you.
Define undesirable. Seriously. Imagine I am an inspector, of an organisation founded on your ideas. I walk along the street looking out for undesirables. What am I looking for? If I stop someone to interview them, what questions will I be asking? Off the top of my head, people who’d be interested in seriously maiming other people against their will would strike me as undesirable.
Now ask yourself what i’d be looking for under a system voted for by a majority of the country. And then ask yourself what i’d be looking for under a system voted for by New York, or Massachusetts, or Texas.
What kind of power do I have? Can I by myself make a decision as to who gets snipped? Do I need to get a second opinion? I hope not; another inspector might stop me neutering all those darn gays.
What’s down? What’s holding steady? With those stats, why, I could make exactly the opposite point to yours. What does that tell us? Well, I guess it shows there’s no link there. Huh.
I wonder whether there’s a poster in this very thread that these sentences might apply to.
Oh, this is so easy that I’m not gonna bother.
What does a wack-job walk like and look like?
No, I don’t.
Famous last words.
Actually his way sounds very similar to your way. You propose turning America into a police state. Police states murder people, always. Therefore, you’re lying when you say that you don’t propose murdering people.
So getting it done in the sack is now a violent crime in your book. I know, some people are into BDSM, but…
By the way, people in this thread have asked you several dozen questions. Do you intend to answer any of them?
Hell, I’ll just ask one really simple question. Not that I expect an answer to that one either.
GuyNblueJeans, you have been told that your plan strongly resembles eugenics. In what way do you think it is different from eugenics as that philosophy was put into practice those places that it was?
I don’t wish to split hairs with all this history crap and trying to bog things down by refusing to acknowledge the merits of what we both know would be better than what’s going on now.
It would be nice if everyone would just be responsible and take a good long look in the mirror and ask themselves: “Can I be an excellent parent to a child if I were to have one? Can I afford to raise a child? Am I attractive (or ugly like GuyNblueJeans)? Will the world benefit if I bring a child into it with my genes? Will I love and be there for my child for the long term?”
Most people don’t take parenting that seriously, hence the crime rate is going through the roof and every indication is that it’s going to get much worse before it gets better. Unless we come to our senses, I truly believe that it will take a direct act of God to save us from going over the edge and never returning!
Why is this on your list? It’s a shallow and ridiculous thing to consider. If you’re with somebody, I guess you’re attractive enough; if you’re having a surrogate or something it’s a non-issue.
What does this mean? What genes do you think are not beneficial and should be eliminated?
Show me some evidence on this, please. Show me something long-term, not “I saw a trailer for CBS news that says crime is up for the last two years.”
I belive that *every single person * in this thread has asserted that they **know ** your idea is a terrible one, *much * worse that “what’s going on now”. Have you read a single response?
I’m almost tempted to post a few YouTub clips in order to help you people get some sense of what’s going on in the real world. You almost seem to be on drugs or something with all this denial business. Very strange!
I’m talking about clips of some very mean people just being themselves. People that go up to another human being and slug him hard in the face in a fast-food joint so as to run off with his wallet.
People that were raised by sub-humans. People that the world is better without.
I really see no point in going through the trouble, as those arguing with me would just do their shuck and jive thing of making excuses for the scumbags.
