/sci/ - Science & Math

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>>4622003
That picture is dumb. The guy needs no more than double the current resources, and it will be quite enough to get over the wall.

>Why are there no laws for sperm donors etc. to have to do this?

Because if you eliminated the possibility for mental illness there would be no sperm donors whatsoever.

>>4622053
That's hardly realistic. There are certainly identifiable people in the genetically "best" 20% compared to general population. Only those should have the legal right to spawn offspring or donate sperm.

I cannot understand why we're not doing this. Children do not have a choice in their genes, or in their being born in the first place. It is obvious that we should give them the best genetic setups humanity has available.

Don't you agree??

>>4622003
>>4622003
If we did this, we would have no Nietzsche, Hemingway, Ellison, Timothy McVeigh, Joseph Conrad, (probably) Beethoven and Mozart (autism), Cantor, John Nash.
So, yeah, like, don't be so naive. And stuff.

OP is probably mad because he is retarded despite having "good genes hurr durr".
Such naïveté. The best possible gene to get rid of would be naïveté, but even then it is necessary to some degree.

>>4622159
>implying that no similarly creative people have and would have existed
>implying Timothy McVeigh was a net benefactor for humanity
>implying the shitty philosophy and art these people created was worth even one lifetime of suffering for some non-consenting child

>>4622173
Perhaps the greatest downfall for an overly pseudo-analytical mind is an under-appreciation for art, literature -- indeed life. The amount of genius in Mozart's and Beethoven's music cannot even be summarized in a book, so I'm not going to do it here. In regards to Nietzsche, I bet he would think so. "Nietzsche believes that human strength and wisdom is elevated in direct proportion to the depths of human suffering and the overcoming of suffering." It wouldn't be surprising to anyone if the great existential philosophers all had predispositions to depression. Anguish and genius oftentimes go hand in hand.

>>4622173
>Not appreciating Beethoven and Mozart
...and you expect us to believe you're intelligent?

>people who aspire to study mechanical engineering, have never kissed a girl, are 100lbs overweight, think pixies and elves are their friends and have autism believe in gene selection

You really surprise me sometimes /sci/

>>4622183
>>4622182
The utterly ironic truth here is that none of you would ever agree to suffer even one minute of agony, PERSONALLY, to save the complete work of all these individuals.

Be honest to yourself. You know that this is true.

>>4622186

>ironic

That word doesn't mean what you think it means.

Even if you had your little dream world where you weren't fat and stupid, there would still be people at the bottom. Even if we made it so only the absolute best survived or were born in the first place, there would still be a definite order in society.

I'd recommend reading "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin but I think it's a bit above your level.

>>4622194
I don't care about inequality. I care about suffering, and a lot of pointless suffering is correlated with genetics.

Obviously you don't give a shit, you mask your callousness with pseudo-intellectualism and - ironically - insults. And obviously, you would NEVER personally suffer for any of the symbolic status items you pretend to cherish so much. You know you're safe behind your little computer screen in your basement, ready to click to the next episode of My Little Pony as soon as the world gets too rough FOR YOU.

Lots of people who know they're carriers for some known severe genetic disease already screen their embryos for that disease. So we're kind of already doing #1.

#2 and #3 are pretty dubious ideas. We don't fully understand the effects of most alleles, and frequently a undesirable trait is linked to a desirable one. Depression and intelligence, for example. #3 seems like a stupid idea since physical pain is a useful response to the world.

>>4622202
>#3 seems like a stupid idea since physical pain is a useful response to the world.
Tell this to the people who suffered in the Brazen bull or on the rack. There is nothing useful about involuntary pain. Pain could be a voluntary signal - or simply less intense - and its uses would be fully covered. There is not enough pleasure in an entire lifetime to compensate for even one minute of the worst possible pain. Evolution doesn't care about your quality of life. "Useful" in evolution means something completely different than "useful" means for humans who want the good life.

>>4622207

Wouldn't this mean that people would have to be tortured even more brutally and for a longer period of time in order to achieve the same effect?

I'm sure sadists are loving this idea.

>>4622198
I laughed hard at this. I've never seen a person more owned on 4chan in my entire life lol. Fuck that was funny.

>>4622210
People were usually tortured to the full extend of their physical ability to feel suffering. Torture would become much less useful if someone could simply choose not to suffer from it. The game-theoretic uses of the threat would vanish.

Embryo selection obviously requires IVF, so you'd be condemning a lot of couples to remainign childless.

Genetic counselling plays a role in current intervention, however, some groups will probably find your criteria for selection to be a sign of discrimnation against those living with the conditions you seek to eliminate.

Eugenics, which is essentially what you are suggesting, albeit by the proverbial "back door", isn't a popular concept as it implies that individuals with the traits you are selecting against don't possess other valuable means to contribute to society.

Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Edison, Bell, Newton, Da Vinci. You'd happily remove these men from the gene pool?

"Everyone tries to make his life a work of art. We want love to last and we know that it does not last; even if, by some miracle, it were to last a whole lifetime, it would still be incomplete. Perhaps, in this insatiable need for perpetuation, we should better understand human suffering, if we knew that it was eternal. It appears that great minds are, sometimes, less horrified by suffering than by the fact that it does not endure. In default of inexhaustible happiness, eternal suffering would at least give us a destiny. But we do not even have that consolation, and our worst agonies come to an end one day. One morning, after many dark nights of despair, an irrepressible longing to live will announce to us the fact that all is finished and that suffering has no more meaning than happiness.”

>>4622228
>Eugenics, which is essentially what you are suggesting, albeit by the proverbial "back door", isn't a popular concept as it implies that individuals with the traits you are selecting against don't possess other valuable means to contribute to society.
I know this is used often but I don't understand why. That's like saying "We must ban vaccination as it implies individuals with infectious diseases
don't possess other valuable means to contribute to society." I have never heard anyone seriously suggest that, and I think it would be met with utter disbelief by everyone who would hear it. At the same time, it is used against genetic quality control, as if there was some magical category difference between the two.

>Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Edison, Bell, Newton, Da Vinci. You'd happily remove these men from the gene pool?
You make two assumptions here: 1) All these genius people had genetic defects and 2) if they hadn't they wouldn't have been geniuses. I suspect this is simply scientifically false, but even if it isn't, the question remains: Why should you have the right to make children suffer without consent?

>>4622263
Because... I don't know.
I guess you're right. I mean, we could just get black people. They never spawn great scientists or anything

>>4622263
Oh god, more of the 'chilluns argument.
Listen, you ignorant fuck, every single thing a child goes through is suffering. The first thing a child does out of the womb is cry. It's birthed into the unknown, to them synonymous with pain. Learning to walk is pain, learning to talk is pain, learning to think is pain, every fucking thing is pain. How the fuck is this the center of your argument? Putting a child in a stroller and pinching its arm are both equally painful when they're your first pains.

>>4622263
Vaccination doesn't kill the people being vaccinated, though.

Eugenics has a bad rep because even in cases when it's started with good intentions, it's pretty quickly turned into a "hey we can exterminate the undesirables now!". And the definition of undesirable starts getting really broad and has more to do with who's in power this week than with the benefit of the people who are alive.

>>4622280
>Learning to walk is pain, learning to talk is pain, learning to think is pain, every fucking thing is pain.
If this were actually true, then childbirth should simply be forbidden completely, and nothing of value would be lost. You assume there is no difference whatsoever between a life that is born with "healthy" genes and a life that is born with "unhealthy" genes (by this, I mean allele variants that stochastically correlate with diagnosable ailments of significant severity, or with a higher-than-average pain sensitivity). This is scientifically implausible.

>>4622275
Stupid racism obviously can't replace a scientific counterargument. The best geneticists on the planet aren't racists.

>>4622299
>Vaccination doesn't kill the people being vaccinated, though.
Neither does gene selection, with the exception of embryo selection, and even then only if you consider an embryo on that stage a person, which is ill-advised.

And I didn't suggest involuntary or non-voluntary euthanasia. It is implausible that we are not mentally capable to make that distinction in our value judgments.

>>4622263

Its hardly a matter of dispute that Bell was deaf and Newton suffered from epilepsy. Please feel free to debate whether or not Hawking has ALS. Seriously?

You say it's cruel to bring children into the world, with what you percieve as disadvantages, and you are suggesting it is somehow morally justifiable to kill them instead? Interesting.

The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people living with genetic diseases would still rather have lived than have been terminated. You think that it's unfair for them to suffer, I propose that it is preferable to oblivion.

I'm not against the idea of reducing the impact of genetic disease, absolultely the contrary, but your arbitrary mechanism leaves much to be desired.

>>4622300
>>4622300
You're honestly laughable naive.
>"You assume there is no difference whatsoever between a life that is born with "healthy" genes and a life that is born with "unhealthy" genes... which is scientifically implausible."
Looks like *someone* hasn't taken an elementary philosophy class. In fact, I don't even think you understood what I said, because you didn't even respond to what I said. Pain is relative, and 100% necessary for the development of a human being. My comment was relating to the fact that pleasure and pain are relative, and pain is necessary. You seem to want everybody trapped in a Matrix tube and fed dopamine, because according to your logic the meaning of life is pleasure. This is highly typical pseudo-analytical thinking of someone with no background in philosophy. Please read some existentialism. There is no unified meaning to life, mister.
If you are trying to argue that a consistently happy person is better than a bipolar or depressed or OCD personality, you are first going to have to delve into the meaning of happiness, pain, and life. In the meantime, I'll wait.

>>4622313
>Its hardly a matter of dispute that Bell was deaf and Newton suffered from epilepsy. Please feel free to debate whether or not Hawking has ALS. Seriously?
You have implied that all genial people are genial because of such genetic ailments, I made your assumptions explicit and told you why I think they are implausible, you did not respond to that. I take this as a concession on your part. Your strategy to point to some genial people who ALSO have genetic illnesses is ridiculous because it in no way implies that in a world with gene selection, the number of genial people would be reduced, let alone to zero.

>You say it's cruel to bring children into the world, with what you percieve as disadvantages, and you are suggesting it is somehow morally justifiable to kill them instead? Interesting.
The only interesting thing about this is your deliberate willingness to misrepresent other people's position, where instead you should use the principle of charity to facilitate a rational discourse. I have not even hinted that I think killing children is a legitimate course of action. What does gene selection have to do with killing children?

It remains a fact, however, that coming into existence is involuntary and a non-consensual imposition. If we decide to bring more people into the world, we have a responsibility to facilitate their well-being instead of pretending there are no differences.

>>4622326
>Please read some existentialism.
Gtfo my /sci/. If THIS is your argument why we shouldn't care if children suffer more than necessary, I have nothing else to say to you.

Genetic engineering is the future. Eugenics is stone age, babby's first genetics.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6040/348.abstract

And no, combining the two won't work. It is not additive. By the time eugenics produces even a slight result, genetic engineering will be mature technology that can produces results in one generation. You won't prevent the "undesirables" from mating and science will once again lay an outdated philosophy to rest.

>Pain could be a voluntary signal - or simply less intense - and its uses would be fully covered

Oh it's you. Can you adopt a trip, because at this point you might as well be a tripfag.

You suggest this in every eugenics/genetics topic and it's fucking stupid.

No no wait, when you suggested that we go around the planet and genetically modify all animals to feel less pain THAT is fucking stupid.

>>4622354
This will be my last post, because you refuse to argue any solid points whatsofuckingever.
>"If THIS is your argument why we shouldn't care if children suffer more than necessary..."
Well, mister, I EXPLAINED my argument and you IGNORED it; by all estimations because you have no idea what you are espousing. Given I am arguing against you, and you think my argument is "why we shouldn't care if children suffer more than necessary", YOUR argument must be --in it's purest form-- that **children should not suffer more than necessary**. Now, here are that parts that you will conveniently ignore: Everything the western world does in rearing a child is more than necessary. If you want the bare minimum of suffering for a child, you would teach it an english and nothing else. You would teach it no science, because humanity can stay perfectly fine forever being motherfucking animals. That's what you want, right? Because it is for the children? You are some sort of Holden Fucking Caufield, you know that? You just want to catch all the fucking little kiddies in your logico-positivist pseudo-imperialist net before the fall of the cliff of imagination and into real fucking life. Again, I will restate my argument:
If you are trying to argue that a consistently happy person is better than a bipolar or depressed or OCD personality, you are first going to have to delve into the meaning of happiness, pain, and life. I want to know that you are using a computer that doesn't have those rare earth minerals that are found in Africa and that have caused hundreds of thousands of African children to die. I want to know you make your own clothes, because 95% of American clothing is processed with child labor. You BETTER not have a Mac, you better not do drugs, et cetera.

>>4622397
>If you are trying to argue that a consistently happy person is better than a bipolar or depressed or OCD personality, you are first going to have to delve into the meaning of happiness, pain, and life.
Why? There is no deep meaning to any of these things. Why would you think there is?
Pain is unpleasant.
Happiness is pleasant.
Life is given, irregardless of what we do.

>>4622368
>You suggest this in every eugenics/genetics topic and it's fucking stupid.
I have suggested it before and like before, no one here has given an ACTUAL REASON why it is "fucking stupid". I just cannot believe that you think you can simply write this without making an actual case.

By the way, if you want pain, if it is inconsequential to you, why don't you go to the kitchen, take a knife, and slowly skin yourself? You are well within your rights to do so, and surely you wouldn't mind?

The problem I have with people like you is that you want to do it to non-consenting others. This is why I, sincerely with all my heart, hate this fucking species of violent apes, and yes, that includes you personally.

>>4622408
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzpL_5CI0WQ
The Immanuel Kant Song. Please.
Let us first divide cognition into rational analysis
and sensory perception (which Descartes considered valueless).
Now reason gives us concepts which are true but tautological;
sensation gives us images whose content is phenomenal.

Whatever greets our senses must exist in space and time
for else it would be nowhere and nowhen and therefore slime;
the space and time we presuppose before we sense reality
must have innate subjective transcendental ideality.

Thus space and time
are forms of our perception
whereby sensation’s synthesized in orderly array;
the same must hold
for rational conception:
in everything we think, the laws of logic must hold sway.

But a problem here arises with respect to natural science:
while empirical in method, on pure thought it lays reliance.
Although for Newton’s findings we to Newton give the glory
Newton never could have found them if they weren’t known a priori.

We know that nature governed is by principles immutable
but how we come to know this is inherently inscrutable;
that thought requires logic is a standpoint unassailable
but for objects of our senses explanations aren’t available.

>>4622207

Pain is so important because it becomes the first priority for your body to get away from by being so agonizing.

>>4622417

This is a very reasonable civil liberties angle.

Let us also not forget that by inducing an unnecessary selective pressure on the population, we aren't "beating" evolution, we are "beating" ourselves up. Genetic variation is important, and letting evolution work on its own is meaningful. Decisions we make affect our genetic pool plenty, but not directly. By deliberately making huge swaths of the gene-pool disappear, we'd limit genetic variation and become less sustainable as a species.

>>4623224
I don't think that fixing the worst genetic diseases and shifting the allele frequencies for depression, schizophrenia, high pain sensitivity etc. would cause a big loss of genetic diversity. You obviously wouldn't want a clone population, but what's wrong with weeding out clear defects?

Let us not forget people cannot defend themselves against being born with a certain genetic setup. It is an imposition caused by other people.

>>4623224
A selective pressure against certain genetic disorders does not in general reduce biodiversity in a harmful way. The population is not at risk of going extinct due to low numbers, and other genes are not at significant risk of frequency loss because reproduction attempts will continue, giving each OTHER gene not responsible for the disease the same change to spread through the population it had before.

disappointed so far /sci/. gene expression is affected by the environment, especially in cases of mental illnesses. belief in eugenics is pseudo-scientific ignorance and is comparable to the belief in racial superiority, phrenology, or any other later-disproven science. But hey, heil hitler away

>>4623639
>gene expression is affected by the environment
Affected yes, fully determined no. Your objection implies that there is no effect of genes on mental illness or quality of life, that it's all aquired expression. This is not the case, however, and even expression itself is modulated by genes!