Poll of the Day > Would you ever support a eugenics movement in the u.s.?

(+) Yeah! (+)

....you were very low i.q. etc. you were severely discouraged or forbidden to have kids.
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Tesla was a huge proponent of eugenics. He also supposedly predicted the SJW movement 80 years before it actually happened.
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Tesla was? I never heard of that. Doesn't like his grandson run tesla now? What exactly was tesla's views back then?
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UT1999 posted...

Tesla was? I never heard of that. Doesn't like his grandson run tesla now? What exactly was tesla's views back then?

He thought that people who were "unfit" for breading should be sterilized (I.E. castrated).

https://www.pbs.org/tesla/res/res_art11.html

The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit. The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct, Several European countries and a number of states of the American Union sterilize the criminal and the insane. This is not sufficient. The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny. A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal.

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A voluntary or incentivized one, maybe.

I could never support an involuntary one.
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PMarth2002 posted...

A voluntary or incentivized one, maybe.

P much this.

Like, if we wanna tell give dumb people money not to have kids or something, I could probably live with that.
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A eunuch movement? No thank you.

I'm more for a more generalized no child laws to be honest with a set of tests/classes you must pass before you even qualify to possibly have children, which is then decided on a lottery like bases. You can then sell your chance to have children (only ever eligable for one though), to someone else who is on the list (passed the classes) though....probably for quite alot.

Could lead to mostly only the very wealthy having children, which is bad, but whatever...it'll control the world population.
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Many would agree raising a child is a bigger responsibility than driving a car. Yet, you need a license to drive a car but not one to raise a child.
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wolfy42 posted...

I'm more for a more generalized no child laws to be honest with a set of tests/classes you must pass before you even qualify to possibly have children, which is then decided on a lottery like bases. You can then sell your chance to have children (only ever eligable for one though), to someone else who is on the list (passed the classes) though....probably for quite alot.

Could lead to mostly only the very wealthy having children, which is bad, but whatever...it'll control the world population.

If there will be limited placement for kids make it a meritocracy as to who gets them, not a lottery.

Lotteries are for people too weak to make a hard claim as to one person being more deserving than another.
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Well, depends on what kinda 'eugenics'...if it's racially/ethnic 'eugenics', then no.

But really, who knows what will become of anyone's child (rich, poor, genetic DNA history, etc)? I mean, how many so-called 'Rich' kids go on to become felonious Drug/Sexual Abusers; while on the other hand how many so-called 'Poor' kids rise up from the projects/trailer parks to become multi-millionaires?

Actually, there was a film out awhile back (10 Years Ago) called 'Gattaca' was about this very subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca

Very good film, check it out.

VeeVees posted...

Many would agree raising a child is a bigger responsibility than driving a car. Yet, you need a license to drive a car but not one to raise a child.

Not to 'raise', but to sire one...and the gov't do have Child Support/Child Protection Services to take any kid away if not being taken cared for properly.

wolfy42 posted...

I'm more for a more generalized no child laws to be honest with a set of tests/classes you must pass before you even qualify to possibly have children, which is then decided on a lottery like bases. You can then sell your chance to have children (only ever eligable for one though), to someone else who is on the list (passed the classes) though....probably for quite alot.

Could lead to mostly only the very wealthy having children, which is bad, but whatever...it'll control the world population.

The population will control itself. Birth rates are slowly decreasing among first world countries. The UN estimates that the world population will stop growing just short of 10 billion.
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Considering it's a barbaric practice associated with the worst regimes in history, no.

UT1999 posted...

Tesla was? I never heard of that. Doesn't like his grandson run tesla now? What exactly was tesla's views back then?

Considering that Tesla never married nor was reputed to have children (and lamented the fact he never made time for a relationship), it would be a little hard for his grandson to run Tesla. That's excluding the fact that Tesla was born in the mid-1800s.

Telsa, Inc (formerly Tesla Motors) has no connection to any company run by Nikola Tesla. It was founded by a British South African whereas Tesla was a Serb who immigrated to the US.

As for his views, eugenics was a popular theory among the intellectual elite in those days and didn't have the stigma it does today after Adolf Hitler used it to justify genocide.
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Mario_VS_DK posted...

wolfy42 posted...

I'm more for a more generalized no child laws to be honest with a set of tests/classes you must pass before you even qualify to possibly have children, which is then decided on a lottery like bases. You can then sell your chance to have children (only ever eligable for one though), to someone else who is on the list (passed the classes) though....probably for quite alot.

Could lead to mostly only the very wealthy having children, which is bad, but whatever...it'll control the world population.

The population will control itself. Birth rates are slowly decreasing among first world countries. The UN estimates that the world population will stop growing just short of 10 billion.

10 billion is WAY too many.

7 billion is way to many for a sustained period (more then a few hundred years).

Waiting until the planet can not support the human population has the very likely effect of making humans much like locusts.

If you wait till you run low on resources, you take the chance of those huge number of humans using up everything that is left, so the planet can either not sustain life anymore at all (it's possibly, just hard), or at least can not sustain life outside of the ocean for a very long time.

Control the population and with our current technology every human being could live like a king, every child would be cherished and well raised, and there would be plenty of resources for us to continue to improve with, colonize other planets etc. No wars, as no need for fighting over resources, and each individual human would probably continue to live longer and longer as technology improved, possibly to the eventually point where we could clone duplicate bodies etc and basically live forever.

That is certainly not going to happen if we keep moving towards 10 billion + humans though. I don't believe in killing huge numbers of people, but I do think we should not have more then 2 billion or so people on this planet, and eventually only 1 billion sustained (1 child born for every person alive, kept at a constant total population after that).
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Mario_VS_DK posted...

The population will control itself.

If people still get accidentally knocked up in the western world, that means people CANT control themselves.

Mario_VS_DK posted...

Birth rates are slowly decreasing among first world countries.

Its okay, we need to keep inflating the economy 24/7 so we are importing people with high birth rates to replace the declining populations from those countries.

Mario_VS_DK posted...

The UN estimates that the world population will stop growing just short of 10 billion.

Until we figure out how to make more food to transport for free to developing countries like how we got into this overpopulation mess in the first place!

If you grow it, they will breed.
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As far as a system based on merit, you then need to have someone determine what counts as merit. I wouldn't discount the idea all together, but I would probably still have a lottery be the end result. Once the population was stable (1 child for each person alive) a merit system makes alot of sense, since in theory each person could be responsible for having 1 child (so 2 per couple, or you could have a child with 2 different people).

Until such a point, the number of children born would need to be very small to reduce the population as quickly as possible (unless you have some kind of mass death event). If only 1 in 1000 people can have kids, then a lottery would be the only way to really make that work.

To radically reduce our population as quickly as possible without killing anyone, the best/easiest solution would be for 1 child per 100 people currently alive, for the next 100 years or so. Even so, we would continue to see a population over 5 billion until well after 2120. I do not know if this planet can sustain that.
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wolfy42 posted...

As far as a system based on merit, you then need to have someone determine what counts as merit. I wouldn't discount the idea all together, but I would probably still have a lottery be the end result. Once the population was stable (1 child for each person alive) a merit system makes alot of sense, since in theory each person could be responsible for having 1 child (so 2 per couple, or you could have a child with 2 different people).

Until such a point, the number of children born would need to be very small to reduce the population as quickly as possible (unless you have some kind of mass death event). If only 1 in 1000 people can have kids, then a lottery would be the only way to really make that work.

To radically reduce our population as quickly as possible without killing anyone, the best/easiest solution would be for 1 child per 100 people currently alive, for the next 100 years or so. Even so, we would continue to see a population over 5 billion until well after 2120. I do not know if this planet can sustain that.

If everybody only had 2 kids (more than enough people one person to replace each person) the population would stabilize.

We don't want that though because our current Keynesian economics wouldn't like that very much.
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Birth rates are going down, so is sex drive in many parts of the world, but...as I stated above, that is not going to do squat in the short term. We are nowhere near balancing out births with death, in fact, due to many having children at older ages (especially men), while the % ratio is down, the total number is significantly up.

Projections exist for our current rate to 10 bill, and that is an insane amount of people to have on this planet. I know, people have said if Texas was as population dense as Japan everyone could fit in texas, but the truth is, we have way to many humans and are consuming a ton of resources that are not sustainable at our current population level over 40 years.

In another 10 years it's going to be even worse, and by the time our current children are 40...either technology will have advanced drastically or the world will be in serious trouble.
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wolfy42 posted...

Projections exist for our current rate to 10 bill, and that is an insane amount of people to have on this planet. I know, people have said if Texas was as population dense as Japan everyone could fit in texas, but the truth is, we have way to many humans and are consuming a ton of resources that are not sustainable at our current population level over 40 years.

In another 10 years it's going to be even worse, and by the time our current children are 40...either technology will have advanced drastically or the world will be in serious trouble.

Simple solution.

Stop feeding people who can't feed themselves.

This will literally cut population in half over a decade or two, and it will largely not affect developed countries.
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bulbinking posted...

wolfy42 posted...

Projections exist for our current rate to 10 bill, and that is an insane amount of people to have on this planet. I know, people have said if Texas was as population dense as Japan everyone could fit in texas, but the truth is, we have way to many humans and are consuming a ton of resources that are not sustainable at our current population level over 40 years.

In another 10 years it's going to be even worse, and by the time our current children are 40...either technology will have advanced drastically or the world will be in serious trouble.

Simple solution.

Stop feeding people who can't feed themselves.

This will literally cut population in half over a decade or two, and it will largely not affect developed countries.

Starving people in the billions are going to destroy things fast unless you stop them, so....then you have to shoot billions of starving people, guard all sources of food (and other valuables) etc. It's not a simple solution at all.
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wolfy42 posted...

bulbinking posted...

wolfy42 posted...

Projections exist for our current rate to 10 bill, and that is an insane amount of people to have on this planet. I know, people have said if Texas was as population dense as Japan everyone could fit in texas, but the truth is, we have way to many humans and are consuming a ton of resources that are not sustainable at our current population level over 40 years.

In another 10 years it's going to be even worse, and by the time our current children are 40...either technology will have advanced drastically or the world will be in serious trouble.

Simple solution.

Stop feeding people who can't feed themselves.

This will literally cut population in half over a decade or two, and it will largely not affect developed countries.

Starving people in the billions are going to destroy things fast unless you stop them, so....then you have to shoot billions of starving people, guard all sources of food (and other valuables) etc. It's not a simple solution at all.

Its not an EASY solution, but it is a simple solution.

If people cant feed their own populations thats natures form a population control. We messed up the system by artificially inflating populations through charity. So while it might be "our" faults for blowing up the populations of developing countries past sustainability without outside resources, that doesn't mean having things go back to the way they did before we started shipping out almost half the food we produce would be a terrible thing either.

Let population groups sustain themselves, and I guarantee you nature will maintain the balance.

Live and LET DIE, not live to save that person life.
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wolfy42 posted...

10 billion is WAY too many.

7 billion is way to many for a sustained period (more then a few hundred years).

Keep in mind that once it reaches its max -- assuming that's the max -- it should gradually shrink over time before normalizing at a lower number. Plus, given leaps in technology, we *could* someday sustain a population five times that size.

wolfy42 posted...

If you wait till you run low on resources, you take the chance of those huge number of humans using up everything that is left, so the planet can either not sustain life anymore at all (it's possibly, just hard), or at least can not sustain life outside of the ocean for a very long time.

Most resources can be renewed and there are a lot natural power sources. In general, virtually every problem with the planet *could* eventually be reversed if humans invested in enough R&D.

wolfy42 posted...

Projections exist for our current rate to 10 bill, and that is an insane amount of people to have on this planet. I know, people have said if Texas was as population dense as Japan everyone could fit in texas, but the truth is, we have way to many humans and are consuming a ton of resources that are not sustainable at our current population level over 40 years.

Source for that projection? Because no experts have ever claimed it and, if they did, they'd probably be laughed out of their professions. More importantly, *in general* our ability to sustain a large population is ever-increasing.
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Smarkil posted...

PMarth2002 posted...

A voluntary or incentivized one, maybe.

P much this.

Like, if we wanna tell give dumb people money not to have kids or something, I could probably live with that.

Yep, I would never support the government banning people from having kids, that's fascist as fuck.
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Many easy to use resources (oil/coal even wood for that matter) are being used up quickly, and take very long periods of time to replenish (wood not so much, but depends on what happens to the areas it grew in the past).

If you mine/drill etc away the easy resources to use now, if we have some form of event that causes us not to be able to use other sources of power (solar/nuclear etc), it could make it very hard to restart in the future. Same to a lesser extent with metals etc.

It's also why it's so important to get into space and to other planets now, so we can use their resources, because we may not have what we need to do it in the future.

As far as a source, here is one just for coal...showing how long it would take to replenish our current supply. Oil is just as bad, but even harder to collect after we get it from the easiest sources already.

https://fossil.energy.gov/education/energylessons/coal/gen_howformed.html
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I say we start making giant space colonies and leave the earth to repair itself while the new environmental conditions in space will evolve us to awaken psychic like powers in our brains, allowing us to communicate with each others souls so we might understand one another perfectly and bring about the end to misunderstandings and war as we know it!

These "newtypes" will then guide us into a new century where humanity can spread unshackled by the forces of gravity, with only our imaginations to limit us, and utopia will be achieved!

Seig Zeon!
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bulbinking posted...

I say we start making giant space colonies and leave the earth to repair itself while the new environmental conditions in space will evolve us to awaken psychic like powers in our brains, allowing us to communicate with each others souls so we might understand one another perfectly and bring about the end to misunderstandings and war as we know it!

These "newtypes" will then guide us into a new century where humanity can spread unshackled by the forces of gravity, with only our imaginations to limit us, and utopia will be achieved!

Seig Zeon!

Wut
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Meh, seems unnecessary with genetic engineering around the corner, considering how long eugenics programs take to have impact.
We're not too far (couple hundred years?) from being able to manipulate the DNA of a fetus. At that point it's barely relevant who's making the kids, since humans can slowly select for the kinds of people we want more of without interfering with child-bearing rights.

Only real issue is who you leave in charge of it, because as with all other things we can't reasonably trust a human to do a good job without abusing it.
Maybe we'll just genetically craft our own Philosopher King to sort it out. :>
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XlaxJynx007 posted...

bulbinking posted...

I say we start making giant space colonies and leave the earth to repair itself while the new environmental conditions in space will evolve us to awaken psychic like powers in our brains, allowing us to communicate with each others souls so we might understand one another perfectly and bring about the end to misunderstandings and war as we know it!

These "newtypes" will then guide us into a new century where humanity can spread unshackled by the forces of gravity, with only our imaginations to limit us, and utopia will be achieved!

Seig Zeon!

Wut

Its Gundam.
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VeeVees posted...

Many would agree raising a child is a bigger responsibility than driving a car. Yet, you need a license to drive a car but not one to raise a child.

You need a license to drive a car, but everybody says needing an ID in order to vote is racist somehow.
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Metal_Mario99 posted...

VeeVees posted...

Many would agree raising a child is a bigger responsibility than driving a car. Yet, you need a license to drive a car but not one to raise a child.

You need a license to drive a car, but everybody says needing an ID in order to vote is racist somehow.

Nobody understands the law anymore.

You can drive whatever the F you want to on PRIVATE PROPERTY, you only need a license to operate a motor vehicle on publicly regulated roads.
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bulbinking posted...

Metal_Mario99 posted...

VeeVees posted...

Many would agree raising a child is a bigger responsibility than driving a car. Yet, you need a license to drive a car but not one to raise a child.

You need a license to drive a car, but everybody says needing an ID in order to vote is racist somehow.

Nobody understands the law anymore.

You can drive whatever the F you want to on PRIVATE PROPERTY, you only need a license to operate a motor vehicle on publicly regulated roads.

Aw, isn't that cute, pretending like you didn't know exactly what I meant.
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bulbinking posted...

Metal_Mario99 posted...

VeeVees posted...

Many would agree raising a child is a bigger responsibility than driving a car. Yet, you need a license to drive a car but not one to raise a child.

You need a license to drive a car, but everybody says needing an ID in order to vote is racist somehow.

Nobody understands the law anymore.

You can drive whatever the F you want to on PRIVATE PROPERTY, you only need a license to operate a motor vehicle on publicly regulated roads.

So why don't people need a license to unleash their shit children on the general public?
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Never

wolfy42 posted...

I'm more for a more generalized no child laws to be honest with a set of tests/classes you must pass before you even qualify to possibly have children

When I suggest this people call me a racist because they automatically assume the tests will be biased towards whites.
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Many people drive without licenses all together and honestly it's probably cheaper over all.

Why?

IF you don't get pulled over you save a ton.....whatever your insurance payment would be a month and registration fees per year. That is generally at least $50 a month + 150$ a year or so...basically 750$ a year total.

What if you do get pulled over?

Well, the ticket is usually $250....so you could actually get pulled over 3 times a year and break even. Thing is, they might impound your car, which could bump that cost as well.

In the last 30 years I got pulled over twice.

If you bought cheap $1000 cars, the loss would be minimum if they took it away, and you would still come out almost even (especially since in theory you could still sell it in the impound lot, and include the fees to remove it as part of the cost). You wouldn't get it all back, but could probably get about half.

If you got half back, and only got pulled over once a year, you would break even with everyone else....and that is if you get pulled over every year. So drive carefully. Other problem is getting tags on your car that are not expired...that could make it FAR more likely for you to get pulled over.
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Some people are clearly unfit to have children.
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