US Federal Eugenics Program

[Askance]

@BrightNShiny

This is sooooo true. For example, we seem to be plagued with a surplus of Wall Street Welfare Queens. So, I would suggest that we change your plan to pay Wall Street executives not to reproduce. That way, we won’t have to go bail out their mooching asses every 20 years when they crash their own companies. I say we start with offering a cash payment to big Wall Street Welfare Queens like Jamie Dimon, and then work our way down the ladder from there.

@johngalt2014

The offer stands for them too. It stands for every US citizen of reproductive age. How could it possibly be more fair?

Magnificent!

[QUOTE=Anatole France]
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
[/QUOTE]

Can’t say fairer than that.

[lance_strongarm]

@Damuri_Ajashi

As someone who believes in eugenics I don’t think that the OP is really talking about eugenics so much as trying to reduce reproduction among the poor. Using poverty as a proxy for intelligence and using intelligence as a proxy for value or evolution.

Eugenics that only select out for poverty is a pretty bad program. Steve Jobs and Andrew Carnegie might never have been born. Half the professional athletes of today might never have been born. Heroes like Audie Murphy might never have been born. Some of the greatest artists of our time might never bave been born. People who deeply and profoundly affected the course of human history might never have been born.

Irony.

[Shodan]

@Little_Nemo

You’re still missing the central point. As long as we’re talking about positive numbers, A and B together will always be larger than A or B alone. This is a basic mathematical axiom - you can’t argue against it.

We are talking about incidence and percentages.

If you removed all of the stupid people in the world, the smart people who remained would not become smarter. But all of your arguments are based on the premise that somehow they would.

No they don’t, as I have already mentioned.

Do you think evolution works by removing dumb people and thereby making smart people smarter?

Regards,
Shodan

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Great_Antibob

Arguing that certain people would or would not have been born is rather missing the point. Maybe without them, somebody else steps up. Maybe not. You’d have to assume that (1) such people are historically irreplaceable, which is doubtful in itself, and (2) that such people could be weeded out by this half-assed eugenics program in such a way that nobody else could fill the void.

Do you really think that if Audie Murphy hadn’t stepped up and single handedly held off six tanks and hundreds of german soldiers using the .50 cal gun atop the burning wreckage of a burning tank destroyer, someone else would have just stepped into the breach? That the event was inevitable even if Audie Murphy had never been born?

Audie Murphy was unremarkable in almost every way except his poverty. He joined the army because he didn’t meet the physical requirements for joining the marines. And yet he was one of the greatest heroes of WWII.

@lance_strongarm

Irony.

How so? Did I whoosh myself?

[Little_Nemo]

@Shodan

We are talking about incidence and percentages.

No, you’re talking about percentages. Which is the wrong tool for this issue. Intelligence is about raw numbers not percentages.

Eliminating stupid people does not make smart people any smarter. And eliminating stupid people does not increase the number of smart people. So eliminating stupid people does not increase the amount of intelligence.

And as I’ve pointed out, stupid people have some measure of intelligence. So if you eliminate the stupid people, you eliminate that amount of intelligence.

Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj, and Penny are sitting in a room. Measure the amount of intelligence in the room. Now kick Penny out of the room. Measure the intelligence in the room again. Did the intelligence go up? No. Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj didn’t become smarter and no fifth genius entered the room. All you did was subtract Penny’s intelligence. Penny may have been the dumbest person in the room but when you removed her, you still reduced the amount of intelligence in the room.

[Great_Antibob]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Do you really think that if Audie Murphy hadn’t stepped up and single handedly held off six tanks and hundreds of german soldiers using the .50 cal gun atop the burning wreckage of a burning tank destroyer, someone else would have just stepped into the breach? That the event was inevitable even if Audie Murphy had never been born?

Audie Murphy was unremarkable in almost every way except his poverty. He joined the army because he didn’t meet the physical requirements for joining the marines. And yet he was one of the greatest heroes of WWII.

How so? Did I whoosh myself?

Better question: Would it have ultimately mattered? Except maybe to Hollywood (and I doubt even then)?

This is precisely my point. The US wouldn’t have lost the war without Audie Murphy. His lone presence did not significantly affect the results of any of the campaigns. Yes, he made a difference in individual battles, but for purposes of the US Army, the US, or the human race, he made no real difference to the outcome.

For a good example, say the Chicago Bear’s never got Matt Forte. He’s a great running back.

Does his absence affect the outcome of games? Sure.

Does his absence potentially affect the playoffs and which team wins the playoffs? Sure

Does his absence materially affect the game of football at all? No.

Even if he was never born, the games play out differently. Different teams win. Players perform differently and get different stats. So, the course of history is somewhat different but not in any major way. His absence doesn’t mean Al Davis wins 8 more Superbowls over the last 10 years. His absence doesn’t make other teams that much better or worse or changes who wins the World Series or Wimbledon.

Yes, his absence changes highlight reels and specific events. No, this makes little to no difference to the greater course of history.

[Great_Antibob]

Actually, to add to this.

Being for eugenics generally but focusing on individuals specifically is indicative of cognitive dissonance.

Individual people are inherently impossible to predict.

The biggest problem with Damuri’s argument is confirmation bias. You have examples of people who are born due to a lack of a eugenics program.

How do you know there wouldn’t have been BETTER outcomes and even more remarkable individuals if we had implemented the OPs eugenics program? You don’t. Maybe they would have been born and we would have shining examples of the potential greatness of humanity. But we don’t have them because we never tried it.

But who cares? To the greater flow of history, they don’t really matter. We still progress technologically. We still gain more and more knowledge. The details change but the big picture stays the same.

So, arguing for eugenics generally but against the OPs program specifically and using individuals as examples is just a really, really sloppy, barely coherent argument. It doesn’t make much sense, and, yes, it’s akin to a self-whoosh.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@panache45

And of all the characters in Atlas, the one that the OP resembles most is Dr. Robert Stadler. Draw your own conclusions.

He strikes me more as a Floyd Ferris.

[Shodan]

@Little_Nemo

No, you’re talking about percentages. Which is the wrong tool for this issue. Intelligence is about raw numbers not percentages.

No, percentages are the correct way to discuss the idea. Because changing the percentages of a given trait is what eugenics is supposed to do, what evolution does, what animal breeding does, etc.

Don’t go into the dairy business - you’ll lose your shirt.

Regards,
Shodan

[Jonathan_Chance]

@Little_Nemo

Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj, and Penny are sitting in a room. Measure the amount of intelligence in the room. Now kick Penny out of the room. Measure the intelligence in the room again. Did the intelligence go up? No. Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj didn’t become smarter and no fifth genius entered the room. All you did was subtract Penny’s intelligence. Penny may have been the dumbest person in the room but when you removed her, you still reduced the amount of intelligence in the room.

I just want to throw out a corrolary for this. Removing Penny from the room might remove a certain type of intelligence but it’s also removing the largest depository for social intelligence in the room.

There are many forms of smart. It’s not just ‘if you can’t handle quantum mechanics you must be dumb’.

[lance_strongarm]

@Jonathan_Chance

There are many forms of smart. It’s not just ‘if you can’t handle quantum mechanics you must be dumb’.

Yes, and this is where I jump in again and expand on this by pointing out that being smart is not the only value in human life, for oneself or for humanity as a whole. I know some really smart assholes.

[andros]

@Little_Nemo

Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj, and Penny are sitting in a room.

To be perfectly honest, the fact that I needed to Google those names makes me feel just a little bit Übermensch.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@andros

To be perfectly honest, the fact that I needed to Google those names makes me feel just a little bit Übermensch.

Okay, then suppose the Professor, Thurston, Lovey, Ginger, Mary Ann, the Skipper and Gilligan are in a room…

[andros]

@Bryan_Ekers

Okay, then suppose the Professor, Thurston, Lovey, Ginger, Mary Ann, the Skipper and Gilligan are in a room…

…aaaaand I’m back in the muck with the rest of you losers. Gee, thanks.

[Little_Nemo]

@Shodan

Don’t go into the dairy business - you’ll lose your shirt.

Don’t keep comparing life to a dairy farm - you’ll lose this debate.

@Shodan

No, percentages are the correct way to discuss the idea. Because changing the percentages of a given trait is what eugenics is supposed to do, what evolution does, what animal breeding does, etc.

So you’re going all in on this point. Good. Then I guess it’s time to put the cards on the table.

I say raw numbers are what’s important. You say percentage is what’s important.

So if it’s raw numbers than the room with Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj, and Penny in it contains more intelligence than the room with just Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj. If percentage is the answer than the room with just Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj (which is 100% smart) contains more intelligence than the room with Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj, and Penny (which is 80% smart).

So which is it, Shodan? Don’t try to change the subject. Just answer the question. Does the room with Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj, and Penny contain more intelligence than the room with just Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj? Yes or no?

Anyone want to take a side bet that Shodan won’t answer the question?

[Bryan_Ekers]

I gather his view is that Penny’s departure frees up space and resources, letting Raj and Howard consummate their bromance and produce a new person with more intelligence potential than Penny.

[eschereal]

@Bryan_Ekers

I gather his view is that Penny’s departure frees up space and resources, letting Raj and Howard consummate their bromance and produce a new person with more intelligence potential than Penny.

One might suggest that Penny serves as a distraction to Leonard, diverting resources from his brain to his gonads, thereby reducing his raw intelligence to some degree. The conundrum remains, though, whether Penny’s presence in the room is a greater distraction for Leonard than her absence from the room.

I think it has also been demonstrated somewhere that on occasion, a really smart person explaining a point of their expertise can gain an improved understanding of their knowledge by looking at it from the perspective if someone who does not understand it. Good teachers do still learn stuff, sometimes in unexpected ways.

[BrainGlutton]

@Bryan_Ekers

Well, actually, that’s not what evolution does, but whatever.

Here’s what evolution does. Very good summary. Pay special attention to the “Myths” section at the bottom of the page. E.g.:

Myth: Evolution picks winners.
• It’s actually the other way around: Evolution picks losers. Organisms which are ill-suited to their environments, and the genes that make them ill-suited, are selected against. In a sense, “winning” evolution would be having children who have children who have children ad infinitum. There are no winners in this Endless Game, just organisms that haven’t lost yet.
• Particularly tragic is the myth of Superior Species, particularly in the form of Social Darwinism. No creature is inherently “better” than another. A cheetah is particularly well adapted to running down fast prey, but it will never outfight a bear, which will never be as deft with its paws as a raccoon, who can’t swim with the fishes, who don’t know how to do math. We are each of us what we are, with nearly the same 3.5 billion years of evolutionary history behind us. And a tree won’t have nukes, anger and lower back problems.

<snip>

Myth: Evolution is nothing but chance.
• One of the arguments thrown at evolution is that “none of this could have just happened by chance” (see above re: religion). No evolutionary biologist argues that this is the case. Chance is flipping a million coins and having them all land on heads. Evolution by descent with modification and natural selection is flipping a million coins, keeping the heads, flipping the rest, keeping the heads, flipping the rest… If you think about it, the whole point of evolution is to accumulate “luck” in this way.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@BrainGlutton

Here’s what evolution does. Very good summary. Pay special attention to the “Myths” section at the bottom of the page. E.g.:

I gathered, but it tends to come down to semantic hair-splitting over whether or not “bestows rewards on those with good traits” is the same as or different than “doles out punishments on those with bad traits.”

@your cite

the fishes, who don’t know how to do math

Then why do they go to school?

[Little_Nemo]

@For You

One might suggest that Penny serves as a distraction to Leonard, diverting resources from his brain to his gonads, thereby reducing his raw intelligence to some degree. The conundrum remains, though, whether Penny’s presence in the room is a greater distraction for Leonard than her absence from the room.

No analogy is perfect. If you scaled the scenario up from a room to an entire country, I think there’d be enough separation to keep Penny from distracting Leonard or rendering Raj speechless.

But you’ve raised a possible point. If stupidity was somehow contagious then you could argue that stupid people make smart people less intelligent. I don’t think this is true (why wouldn’t the reverse also work and smart people make stupid people more intelligent?) but I’m throwing the eugenicists a bone here and giving them at least an argument to base their beliefs on. Even if it’s a false argument, it’s better than anything that they’ve offered up so far.