this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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It's always lovely to be reminded that eugenics remains a popular idea so long as you don't call it that.
I mean, this is a good idea for a big reason other than genes though, people who are currently addicted to meth shouldn't be having kids, not from a gene perspective but as an unfit parent and as an unsafe pregnancy standpoint.
While I agree with you, the problem is, that it opens the door for a lot of other forms of eugenics. Once we decided that Meth users shouldn't have kids we can quickly expand the definition of who is "allowed to have kids". People who take LSD? Those psychopaths. Stoners? Homeless people? Black people?
It gives a certain group of people power over one of the most intimate secsectors of someone's private life. No one can guarantee, that at some point we are not the ones being included in the definition of "unfit for parenting" simply because we have the wrong political views or something like that.
This is only because the word "eugenics" has been made a bad word because people assume that anything called "eugenics" must be similar to the horrible things the Nazis did. It's the non-central fallacy -- such things are eugenics only in the same way that Martin Luther king is technically a criminal (he did violate the law by protesting) or abortion is murder (a "human being" does "die").
Polygenic scoring on embryos is legal and eminently doable if you're wealthy enough to afford it; it's a very effective way to eliminate the risk of debilitating genetic diseases like Down's Syndrome, and can greatly reduce the risk of things like Alzheimer's or some types of cancer. It also can improve the IQ of your child by up to ~8 points or so, which correlates (plausibly causally) with higher education and income in life. So basically, it's an effective way to help make your child more privileged. Right now it's only affordable by the very wealthy though, but perhaps in ten years it will be very cheap.
Notice though that it's unrelated to race pseudoscience and murder, even though race pseudoscientists and nazis like to talk about genetics and IQ.
jsomae, do you want Gattaca ? Because that’s how you get Gattaca !
And next for sale we have this worker with very small hands, through multiple generation of human breeding we have developped this fine pure bred specimen perfectly adapted to reaching into tight spaces and machinery, its mind is docile and obedient and doesn't get spooked easily by the loud sound of working high speed hydraulic presses. Very agile with tools and can read schematics but no artistic ability nor speech as a side effect of the genetic modification, on the plus side, they cannot form unions.
Imagine if we got genetic engineering back when everybody inherited their parent's job. People named Smith would look like dwarves.
Yes, most humans would be genetically designed living tools to serve the few real, pure bred, unmodified humans
For them liberation would only mean death, not that they could imagine life in different way
for copyright reasons, they would also all be sterile of course
I find it surprising that you think the rich and powerful would not choose to genetically enhance themselves (their children) to be smarter, more attractive, etc. They would surely be the first to do so.
Yes it does make sense that they would give up their identity, their being, their humanity just for a leg up to win a place in the machine, for a shot at running the machine, king of the shit hill, that does explain a lot.
How bad could it be? Ethan Hawke succeeds in the movie even though he's got no real genetic qualifications.
Gattaca is a great warning about what could happen if we have gene-elitism. If you've forgotten, the premise of Gattaca is that the main character isn't genetically enhanced, but he's still sufficiently capable; it's only stigma, not an actual lack of ability, which is a threat to his career. We already live in a world where some people are privileged and some people are not, and despite this, there's been a Black POTUS, women astronauts, and so on. That a lack of privilege is a barrier that can be overcome with hard work is basically central to liberal ideology; I don't see it disappearing in the west any time soon.
I think GATTACA is more a warning that gene editing will become a luxury of the wealthy, and inherently will be elitist, with no realistic way to separate the two. It will just become the new rich and connected qualifier, doesn't matter the actual capacities of the people, the one with the money, and connections, will be much more likely to get the thing.
In the USA, health-care is already a luxury of the wealthy. Perhaps if we improve the IQ of our population with free access to polygenic scoring and IVF, we'll stop voting in lunatics who benefit the wealthy. :P
Anyway, most medical advancements start out only available to the wealthy, and then trickle-down to the lower class. At least, that's how it works in countries that have good health care, not so much the U.S. (despite the U.S. holding so-called "trickle-down economics" on a pedestal). Still, sequencing a genome cost usd$1million in 2000, but is now like usd$50.
If polygenic selection follows the same curve as other genetic procedures and 25 years from now (that's 1 generation) it costs $50, then I can't really see it being something that disproportionately benefits the wealthy. Why would somebody turn it down at that price, if they're going to have a kid? It would surely save them money in the long-run, since it reduces the risk of disease.
Yeah, you get the older, less advanced, gene editing tools, while the rich maintain their lock into the cutting edge. The new marker will be a combination of age and generation of genetic tech applied. This is also considering that it will be a broad application of the tech that is available to the lower classes, not just things that make them better soldiers and laborers.
Imagine somebody saying this about any other form of healthcare:
"Yeah, you get the older, less advanced cancer-fighting drugs, while the rich maintain their lock on chemotherapy. The new marker will be a combination of lifespan and generation of hospital bed. This is also considering that it will be a broad application of the tech that is available to the lower classes, not just things that only help cure diseases in soldiers and laborers."
Yeah! Legitimate points! I could see some forward-thinking philosopher objecting to the notion of health-care with ideas like this 100 years ago. And yet, I'm so glad we live in a world with healthcare so I am much more likely to live a long and healthy life, and I still have a chance at finding the right treatment for chronic pain. 100 years from now, we'll all be grateful that we have genetically-boosted lifespans and intelligence and we don't suffer from genetic diseases just because somebody objected, "but what if this helped the rich more than the poor?"
We need to make genetic modification something that isn't gate kept by the rich. You might not think that horror scenarios where you will be genetically engineered to operate in a determined class/occupation, aren't possible, or probable, but I do. Without having some sort of regulation forcing genetic engineering to be universally available to everyone, with no exceptions, I see this being a very strong risk for the long term.
I'm not generally one to advocate for free-market capitalism, but in this case, I think you would need to explain to me why genetic engineering would be withheld from people given that free access would be more profitable.
the cost. everyone gets everything, no stratified application. The only way to keep genetically engineered casts from developing due to this would be if everyone gets it. Similar thing with very advanced automation. Once the technology hits a certain point ownership has to be shifted to the public at large. If some ownership, and others don't, for whatever reason, these technologies make a gap in power hitherto unknown. If the billionaire class exert outsized influence due to their resources now, then being able to simply decide how genetic engineering is used, or to own the machines that create almost all of our production, they will simply just be the god kings of an advanced tech era.
These types of things need to be completely socialized, no owners, no IP holders, no cost gates, etc.
Yes, I agree it should definitely be accessible to everyone. Just like any other kind of healthcare is already in my country. As for the cost, one could redirect funds from healthcare toward it. It should save money on healthcare in the long-run. At least, once the price is in the low-thousands of dollars, it should definitely balance out. It's still on the order of usd$10k though at present.
this is great if the IP holder continues wanting to play ball with socialized medicine
are you this skeptical every time a new treatment for something comes out?
There are other hazards and i don't trust this society to deal with any of them in healthy ways.
I don't trust society to fairly give out any kind of health-related benefit. The USA just ended PEPFAR this year, condemning millions in africa to die of easily-preventable diseases. But you don't see me protesting the very notion of medical science.
Im seconding the 'this is how you get gattaca' comment.
If i could crispr myself in my garage, there's some shit I'd absolutely do right now. Like wonder when i got a garage.
But we cannot, as a socisty, be trusted with this tech until the billionaire class are exterminated.
If you want to have it and not have a dystopian nightmare shit show, get started on hunting the filth.
I don't really see why billionaires change the calculus. So what if they get slightly genetically superior children? They already have everything. As much as I want to tear down billionaires, I'm more interested in seeing the lower class be elevated than I am in not letting billionaires get further ahead.
You haven't actually read/watched any of the media we're talking about here, have you?
Like, we could get the full 'echopraxia' dystopian suite if we arent careful.
And with billionaires around, we can't be.
Gattaca is one of my favourite movies. Is there another thing you're talking about?
I liked the way posthuman society was portrayed in the 'firefall' novels, how fucking bleak and horrible it got, but omg.
Are you from the SF bay area? Is this the thing where you only ever got STEM education and now can't like piece of art, even a dystopian one, without trying to make it real?
I'm canadian. I have heard that san fran is Canada's 4th biggest city by population or something like that, but no, I don't live there.
Something I wonder is why people treat gattaca like it's exactly and completely prescient, but at the same time have no worry at all about AI x-risks because "terminator was science fiction, so there's nothing to worry about."
I mean we do take kids off crackheads. Repeatedly in some cases.
Looks like it’s time to reinvent the Torment Nexus from famed science fiction novel “Don’t Invent The Torment Nexus”. Maybe it will go well this time!
We already practice eugenics. Its a term that covers a lot of things. There's a line between good eugenics and bad eugenics. I'd say secretly bputting birth control in drugs to control population is bad eugenics.
This isn't an ethnic group or permanent, though. I think the bigger ethical issue is that birth control can have dangerous side effects.
I get why you think that, but it does not say permanent.
If the birth control lasted 1-6 month to ensure active addicts would not have children, I would be kind of in favor of it. There is nothing good about a child being raised by meth addicts or taken by CPS and going through orphanages/foster care.