I also had two sisters. One is 25 and joined a cult in Texas. The other is 24 and still lives at home with my parents. Neither of them graduated high school.

This sounds more like a parenting issue and nont in intelligence issue.

You guys realize you will never achieve anything by arguing with steve right? Save yourselves the trouble and let him post to himself.

[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1327253938' post='4905136']
I also had two sisters. One is 25 and joined a cult in Texas. The other is 24 and still lives at home with my parents. Neither of them graduated high school.

This sounds more like a parenting issue and nont in intelligence issue.
[/quote]

It was very much related to their intelligence. My parents inherited everything they have. They have inherited a house, a trailer, several acres of land, somewhere around 20 thousand dollars, and a couple cars. Yet my father has rarely held a job and my mother refuses to work. I don't know if you've ever seen the show hoarders but my parents have a ridiculous number of animals and mounds of trash piled to the roof in the trailer, the house, and even a few cars in the yard.

Eugenics isn't a necessity. There are plenty of solutions to the problem of overpopulation and the perceived decline in human intelligence.

That said, I am tired of the whole 'all life is equal and valuable' ideology. There was an article recently about parents upset that their mentally disabled toddler was turned down for a kidney transplant.

Sorry folks; if we have one kidney and given the choice between a mentally disabled toddler and one that's not... That is an easy choice.

Eugenics isn't a necessity. There are plenty of solutions to the problem of overpopulation and the perceived decline in human intelligence.

That said, I am tired of the whole 'all life is equal and valuable' ideology. There was an article recently about parents upset that their mentally disabled toddler was turned down for a kidney transplant.

Sorry folks; if we have one kidney and given the choice between a mentally disabled toddler and one that's not... That is an easy choice.

Funny thing is I actually posted that on my facebook. Here is what I said:

Knowing the supply of organ transplants are very low. Should the mental state of recipients not be taken in to account? I mean if someone is a complete vegetable in that x rays of the skull show only a brain stem, should they really be put on a waiting list along side someone's mother, father or potentially productive members of society? Just something to think about...[/quote]

You cannot believe that all life is "valuable" if you are thinking about a life's value in the economic world view you've been indoctrinated.

You propose that your parents should not have been allowed to have offspring based on their intelligence, and yet 1/3 of your parent's offspring are above-average and productive members of society. I know a wealthy family, in which both parents hold PhDs, who treated their 4 kids very well - yet all 4 are pot-smoking slackers who dropped out of high school to leach off the system.

By pretty much any arbitrary standard, your parents have actually done substantially better at parenting (1/3 successful offspring > 0/4).

And this is the fatal flaw of any eugenics solution: there is no possibility of an objective standard by which to judge the 'value' of a member of society. Even if such criteria were possible, there is no way we could guarantee that our criteria were beneficial to the long-term development of the human race.

Someone did indeed call social workers to remove my sisters and I from the custody of my parents but there was no clear signs of abuse. I'm afraid at the moment a child must undergo severe abuse to the point of being life threatening in order for action to be taken.

I'm still bemused at how you jump from 'the social welfare safety net is badly implemented' to 'K1LL TH3 BR33D3RS!!!'. Would it not be simpler to just reform the system, so that social workers can effectively carry out their job?

Knowing the supply of organ transplants are very low. Should the mental state of recipients not be taken in to account?

Intelligence is not a prerequisite to being a good parent (in practice, genius-level intelligence often leads to terrible parenting). Intelligence is not a prerequisite to being a productive member of society (in practice, genius-level intelligence makes for very poor workers). As long as an individual has survivability and a reasonable quality-of-life expectation, intelligence should not factor into the equation.

[sub][sup](in this particular instance, there *are* both survivability and quality-of-life issues - but that doesn't mean we can set a general precedent)[/sup][/sub]

The funny thing about eugenics is that while the base idea, as disgusting as it may seem to some, is technically right, it so entirely misses the point.

Eugenigs is totally not how nature works. Mutants are not a bad thing, variants are not a bad thing. Mutants are the only reason why we still exist. Life as such is an eternal nano-scale war. New mutants have or do not have an advantage under certain environmental conditions.

Mutations decide for example whether you'll get ill and eventually die from a significant HIV inoculation like 99.9% do (although your GP will tell you "it's not like this is still the same lethal contagion it used to be 20 years ago, we have uh... treatments, and uh... stuff... and you can... uh.... well, kind of live... like normal"), or whether you simply aren't affected because you're a mutant and a protein in one of your receptors is folded "the wrong way", preventing the virus from entering the cells. It's hard to tell which way is right and which is wrong, don't you think? Maybe we should just kill everyone with "wrong receptors", just to be sure.

Monocultures are one of the most stupid things man has done, ever. Ask your local forest warden about it.

Nature has mutations everywhere, all the time. Some turn out to be an advantage, some turn out not to be. Sometimes they might be an advantage, but other factors anihilate them. Cro-magnon man had a bigger brain than we do (almost 1/4 larger than the size of Neanderthal), and was more muscular, too. Heck, how come they didn't survive? Maybe they were too busy observing stars and painting walls while others were busy bashing heads. Shit happens.

Pretending one knows what's "best" for humankind just shows a huge amount of ignorance and arrogance.

Indeed.

To some the statement "It takes all kinds of people to move the world" is a profound one. To others, they want to start putting an economic value onto everyone because they've been indoctrinated into capitalism.

I do not buy your arguments.

Your initial argument is that without eugenics, population growth would continue unchecked. This is easily refuted by viewing the aggregate population statistics for the developed world. The answer to population growth is clearly education and the empowerment of women.

Your second initial argument is that some unspecified genetic properties are going to decline because the bar to reproduction is so low. This apparently will result in a world full of "breeders". Again, you propose eugenics is the solution. I'm afraid you haven't given any compelling evidence for any of this, or even for your assumption that the mutations in the gene pool are detrimental in the long run.

In your later posts, you have a new argument related to intelligence and child rearing. I have a number of objections. You haven't defined how "intelligence" would be measured. Secondly, your own story is somewhat of counter example, despite the alleged lack of intelligence of your parents, you say you are "above average". Thirdly, you haven't proven that more "intelligence" is a cruicial factor in reducing or eliminating child abuse. Finally, you haven't advanced any case for why eugenics would work better than any other "remedy" to this "problem".

Your arguments are weak for someone who claims to be "above average".

Your upbringing was unpleasant. This is not the solution.