You dont know what those people might have achieved without their "problems ". Given choice I, m sure all those quoted would have chosen "within the norm" appearances/ characteristics. Has Van Gough really added to human well being. He was a deeply troubled and sad individual in his own life. He suffered that so you could enjoy his paintings.??? Who is being selfish?
Brexit, for once some facts.
- Thread starter flecc
- Start date
You are confusing eugenics with genetic adjustments they are not the same thing at all.
As so often, my brain has been subverted by some dim memories. The very word always brings to the fore:
Careful with That Axe, Eugene
Careful with That Axe, Eugene
The person who thinks they have a divine right to determine whether others live or die without consulting them?
Most people enjoy van gogh (without a u, he wasnt an island in the south atlantic) because of a sense of identification with his struggle. That isnt selfish, it's the kind of empathy that brings us together. The antithesis of the narcissism of the current climate.
That doesnt mean he would have chosen struggle had he had choice. We dont know, but I, d hazard a guess he would have said no thanks. I, ll take obscurity with good health, mobility, and social acceptance.
OG. I didnt make that assumption and besides our "civilization" does exactly that. (80,000 abortions annually in UK)
The process you criticise could be used to rid us of many things that ruin, change and on occasions destroy life.
Its not the process we should be criticising but how its used. (or not used)
You are simply searching for sticks to beat government with. This isnt one.
JA. Thanks for spelling lesson. I, ll remember it now.!!! Serious. Van Gogh.!!!We never stop learning do we.
Go and read Huxley's Brave New World (it's good scifi). We cannot escape the human condition. It isnt about fame (or obscurity). One doesnt have to be Buddhist to recognise in our suffering precursors of more fundamentally inescapable aspects of life (death). Eugenics is an act of denial and denial does not fundamentally make things go away, it simply makes us disown things in ways that make them rupture.
No, the confusion is yours, narrowing eugenics to a definition confined to it's past misuses. That is what I'm arguing.
.
No OG, not the person. The democracy which creates the safeguards, all of us.
And it's not deciding who lives and dies, it's deciding a small minority who will never be conceived, in most cases to live a life of suffering.
.
That isn't the way that societies work is it? you are quoting a situation that does not fit with the historical record
All say
Ahh! Diddums
https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-eu-trade-demands-are-ridiculous-and-unreasonable-11935283
Government dismisses EU trade demands as unreasonable and ridiculous
The government says that Brussels is being tougher on the UK over trade than it has been on other countries.
Ahh! Diddums
https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-eu-trade-demands-are-ridiculous-and-unreasonable-11935283
Government dismisses EU trade demands as unreasonable and ridiculous
The government says that Brussels is being tougher on the UK over trade than it has been on other countries.
you can't breed out trisomy 21.
It's one of the consequences of natural mutations.
I have a nephew with Downs. His Mum is a GP doctor.
Yet we kill them before birth.
That apparently is the definition of eugenics you and OG are applying, a false one created from the misuses by the Germans and Americans in the past.
.
I’m just remembering a day whilst biding my time waiting for the weather to improve so I can go out on my bike.
Not so, the historical record of democracies is one of constant improvement in this respect. Many of the things we once regarded as defects are no longer regarded in that way. Homosexuality for example. We once dealt with by killing, later by punishment, then by "treatment", finally by acceptance.
Similarly we deal with disability in very different ways from what was once the cruel norm. Now we spend vast sums to try to ensure disabilities have the least possible effect on those afflicted, even at the cost of inconvenience to the unaffected.
Similarly eugenics now has a very different meaning to that of ancient Greek philosophers or the more recent misusers. Where it doesn't it remains unacceptable. That is why I mentioned the killing of 98% of Downs child conceptions.
.
ER, don't forget the Chinese are still using the same techniques and the definition of Eugenics is clear enough.
"Eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population by excluding certain genetic groups judged to be inferior, and promoting other genetic groups judged to be superior. The concept predates the term; Plato suggested applying the principles of selective breeding to humans around 400 BC.
Wikipedia "
And now you are trying to give it a new and sanitised description
The meaning has not changed when the original logic is still being applied en masse