Gene Eugenics

[BerenTebogo]

again, increased iq increases the likelihood of dissatisfaction, all of the "smart" people that claim to respect scientific evidence seem to ignore evidence when it contradicts how they view themselves

So, you're saying I'm not happy with myself? I mean, we all know I'm desperately angry with about 99% of the rest of the world, but I'm fucking amazing.

Statistics be damned. I'm a boss.

[Byrthnoth]

Using mandatory genetic screening to tell if a baby will have a disease and give the parents the option to fix it/abort is a good thing. No more Huntington's.

Designer babies are stupid. If your are so superficial that you would edit the DNA to get your kid specific traits, then just go to a sperm or egg bank. Their genetic makeup will not represent you and your partner's anyway, may as well avoid directly altering the DNA and giving your kids cancer.

[Eugene]

Trust me, it completely and totally sucks to actually have. If I was going to have a kid and I was told, "Well, your child's going to have Asperger's, but we have something to prevent that," I'd tell them to splice whatever genes it took and not look back.

I lived with a kid with asperger syndrome for two years. Aside from the occasional incident he was nothing more than a quirky if slightly wild, but relatively normal kid. Obviously I can't speak for what was going on inside his head but he seemed to fit in pretty well.

I read a book about the recession and the causes of it and one of the guys who made bank off the recession had asperger's. He was only able to find the solution in the craziness because his condition allowed him to focus on the solution. Some of the most famous artists in history may have had adhd.

I'm not saying all disorders are a great time, but there are spectrums as to how they affect you, and if channeled properly sometimes the abnormal can turn into something special.

[Byrthnoth]

Characterizing most personality disorders as disorders is something of a misnomer. Some things really have no upside, but many persistent traits exists and are perpetuated because they offer a genetic advantage. This does not apply to diseases and disorders that occur past the age of reproduction.

[Max™]

There is nothing that someone with mild autism can do, which someone without autism is incapable of.

Perhaps ignoring advertisements, or being blind to social cues can be an advantage in some situations, but that can be trained/taught/practiced/deliberately done. Having the ability to interact fully in a modern social environment is a much greater benefit than automatically filtering certain types of input.

A social disorder would NOT be one which would increase reproductive success, though, so logically one would reason that any individuals who stood out as having been successful with said disorder, are most likely the type of people who would have been successful without it. Barring the few cases where someone chose to try to overcome adversity or whatever the fuck you want to call it.

[Byrthnoth]

I find the turn this discussion has taken rather silly. It's goofy to discuss the possibility that people could edit their child's DNA and fix a mental illness, considering the correlation between most mental illnesses and genetics are weak at best. You can quote me ~50% monozygotic schizophrenia numbers, but I can quote you 20% numbers right back. If two people with the exact same DNA only have a 50% chance of being schizophrenic (pretty obvious), then what DNA are you really changing? It's not like you're switching the "Crazy/Not Crazy" switch to "Not Crazy." It's a stupid thing to talk about and yall should feel bad.

Anyway...

There is nothing that someone with mild autism can do, which someone without autism is incapable of.

Perhaps ignoring advertisements, or being blind to social cues can be an advantage in some situations, but that can be trained/taught/practiced/deliberately done. Having the ability to interact fully in a modern social environment is a much greater benefit than automatically filtering certain types of input.

A social disorder would NOT be one which would increase reproductive success, though, so logically one would reason that any individuals who stood out as having been successful with said disorder, are most likely the type of people who would have been successful without it. Barring the few cases where someone chose to try to overcome adversity or whatever the fuck you want to call it.

Schizophrenia occurs at ~1% throughout all cultures it has been studied in. It is hypothesized to be sort of a "society crash" prevention mechanism. In large societies, there's a chance that the entire society will be destroyed simultaneously by any number of causes (drought, famine, plague, etc). Therefore, it makes sense to have a few wackos off in the woods predicting doom and gloom. After the doom and gloom occurs, maybe they don't seem so crazy and get some tail from the few female survivors. Society rebuilds. Could make the same argument about people with more mild forms of Autism.

[Eugene]

Well its a genetic component. And its a large part. If theres an average of 1% incidence rate of a mental condition, and you bump it up to a 50% incidence rate if you have an identical twin with the disorder, that's a pretty substantial increase. Not the be all end all, but it plays a significant roll. If you can eliminate the environmental/experiential cause the disease doen't express itself. If you can eliminate the genetic cause the disease doesn't express itself. only if both are present does it present.

That being said you're right in saying that people who just come in here and say i'll genetically enhance my child's intelligence don't really understand either the genetic contributions, nor the real life enviro, social, and experiential factors that go into developing any individual person.

Then again this is a thread about eugenics, and a thread in which people don't understand the crucial nastiness of the word. The article that this thread is based off is laughable at best, some interpretation of some possible path for the discourse between the gay community and the catholic community.

Using vague phrases such as "with evidence building that homosexuality has biological roots and with advances in the treatment of babies in utero" on serves to confuse the reader, not clarify any arguable position. Of course its biological, if anyone argues that the effect of lust in a human is anything but biological would be delineating two fundamental parts of the human that necessarily go together, the physiological and the the mental.

Can someone argue in the christian sense that being gay is outside what is natural to the christian soul? I don't know, I'm not a christian theologian. But i do know that sexuality is necessarily biological because mental states are necessarily in part physiological, as is physiology is necessarily part mental.

Don't read this stuff to understand the current state of any particular stance. This person is using terms without understand their meaning, biological and eugenics not withheld, and making generalizations that don't make sense. While the topic he discusses may be ultimately interesting, that doesnt mean anything he has to say about them is relevant or correct.

[Byrthnoth]

Well, what I mean is....

Maybe Schizophrenics have this magical Gene F mutation. Lets make it a strong mutation, so 50% of them have it. Furthermore, lets say the people with it experience more of the positive symptoms of Schizophrenia.

Easy call, right? Lets un-mutate the shit out of it.


But wait! Who are the other 50% of people that have that gene mutation? Oh wow, turns out many of them are comedians. In fact, 90% of the top-100 comedians in the country have this gene mutation. Something about the way that gene distorts reality makes those people really successful comedians.


I'd stick to things we understand pretty well, or things with strong (IE 100%) genetic correlates before I'd go fucking around in the murky waters of psychological illnesses.

[Stumblingdrunk]

So, you're saying I'm not happy with myself? I mean, we all know I'm desperately angry with about 99% of the rest of the world, but I'm fucking amazing.

Statistics be damned. I'm a boss.

no, i was not saying dissatisfied with themselves