Eugenics

Originally posted by Eladar
What do you plan to do with those who are not kind and rational and who might by your estimation start a war?

Brianize them if I can (see my previous post where I define "brainizing" ) so that they become all kind and rational.
I think this plan of mine would probably only work well if the majority of humans are persuaded to agree to be brainized else this could become rather problematic.
Of course, there is the option of making brainising merely optional rather than compulsory and let it be up to individual choice and that could do at least some good and I think that is the least that should be done. But that would then fall rather short of stopping all warfare which would be a pity but at least that would avoid the problem of this causing a war to stop wars!

Originally posted by humy
If we can control our own brain anatomy, then I suggest that there should be an international law making it legally compulsory for everyone to have their brains subtly rewired to make every one (including myself in the unlikely event of me still being around ) have;

(1) guaranteed kindness and compassion and never naturally want to harm people in general.

The problem with this, is if you start with the leaders, they will be too nice and compassionate to force it on the remaining populace. Then some selfish people will take advantage of all the nice and compassionate people. The reason people are the way they are is a result of evolution and game theory. If too many people are too nice, then selfish people take over. If people are too selfish then everyone looses. So a balance evolves.
There has to be some checks against the selfish ones in your system or it wont work.

Originally posted by twhitehead
The problem with this, is if you start with the leaders, they will be too nice and compassionate to force it on the remaining populace. Then some selfish people will take advantage of all the nice and compassionate people. The reason people are the way they are is a result of evolution and game theory. If too many people are too nice, then selfish people ...[text shortened]... e evolves.
There has to be some checks against the selfish ones in your system or it wont work.

Perhaps the only way for my system to work then is to arrange for everyone, with no exceptions, whether they want it or not, to be all simultaneously brainized, thus become permanently kind and rational at the same time so that there wouldn't be any selfish people left to take advantage. Obviously, I think making such an arrangement would be highly problematic to say the least. One of the absolute minimum requirements before this would even be possible would be that either all the governments be controlled by a single global government or at least all governments being in general good agreement with each other else at least one government would resist making this impossible.

Originally posted by humy
Perhaps the only way for my system to work then is to arrange for everyone, with no exceptions, whether they want it or not, to be all simultaneously brainized, thus become permanently kind and rational at the same time so that there wouldn't be any selfish people left to take advantage. Obviously, I think making such an arrangement would be highly problematic ...[text shortened]... ood agreement with each other else at least one government would resist making this impossible.

What you are talking about, changing everyone by force, is the nightmare
worst case eugenics is bad look at the Nazis scenario.

There is no way this happens without a war which my side will fight to the
death to win.

You do not get to force genetic manipulation on people. Period.

The ends do not justify the means.

And I don't like your ends either.

Originally posted by googlefudge
What you are talking about, changing everyone by force, is the nightmare
worst case eugenics is bad look at the Nazis scenario.

There is no way this happens without a war which my side will fight to the
death to win.

You do not get to force genetic manipulation on people. Period.

The ends do not justify the means.

And I don't like your ends either.

worst case eugenics is bad look at the Nazis scenario.

Oh come off it, we aren't talking concentration camps and gas chambers here. Actually, it should be done precisely to stop something like that happening again!!!! and the objective would be to help and save every individual as well as save the whole of humanity. Remember, Hitler and the Nazis were DELUDED to the extreme (belief in the 'master race' etc ) and what I propose would stop people like them being deluded and doing terrible things like that yet again! I think I should also point out that with everyone being compassionate and free of delusions, there would be no more racism! No more racism plus compassion plus no more delusions equals no more Nazism or near-Nazism. In fact, I would guess that the people that would be most against what I propose would be the Christian near-Nazis!

The ends do not justify the means.

I don't believe that to be necessarily true. It rather depends on the cost-to-benefit ratio and exactly what is proposed.
Although, I would agree that it might not be worth having a war over this even if it stops all future wars but that just depends on just how terrible such a war to end all future wars is compared with the future wars it would prevent, which admittedly is very difficult to estimate.

And I don't like your ends either.

I find that strange. Wouldn't you want everyone to have guaranteed kindness, compassion and, without in anyway changing or reducing human emotions, for their belief-forming process be totally logical and thus guaranteed to have no delusions? These changes would mean the permanent end of both warfare and world poverty.
And I say this without double standards: Regardless of whether this is done to everyone else, I want this be done to me! -because I want to be an even better person!

Originally posted by humy
Perhaps the only way for my system to work then is to arrange for everyone, with no exceptions, whether they want it or not, to be all simultaneously brainized, thus become permanently kind and rational at the same time so that there wouldn't be any selfish people left to take advantage.

Of course this cannot happen because the type of people required to make it happen would not be the type of people who share your goals.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Of course this cannot happen because the type of people required to make it happen would not be the type of people who share your goals.

I really fear you just might be right. I see no evidence that politician in general care a f*** about the future of humanity or even ever think about such a thing with any real intelligence. If only people like me and the real thinking people, the scientists and intellectuals, were in control -they just might share my goals and thus it just might happen.

Originally posted by humy
I really fear you just might be right. I see no evidence that politician in general care a f*** about the future of humanity or even ever think about such a thing with any real intelligence. If only people like me and the real thinking people, the scientists and intellectuals, were in control -they just might share my goals and thus it just might happen.

It is not just that. Forcing people to undergo what you suggest is immoral to some and those people might kill you if you tried to force it on them.

Remember Star Wars and how Darth Vader commanded the clones? How would you convince me that you didn't want to be like Darth Vader and your true goal was to convert me into a loyal Stormtrooper to serve your evil goal of an imperial empire?

How would you convince all people your goals were well intentioned? How would you get a well known conspiracy theorist like Alex Jones to trust you? I suspect he would fight you until his last breath if he could. Are you going to shoot those that resist with tranquilizer darts and strap them down? When Alex Jones calls you an evil lunatic on his radio show don't you think you would have a lot of people willing to kill you before you could sedate them by force?

At that point you might really need some people modified to be storm troopers to carry out your goal. Then you become like the very people you don't want in this world. Your goal is realistically self defeating. You cannot force goodness without resorting to evil. I would never trust you because of that. I would kill you if others don't first because at that point I would have to be a fool to believe you.

Be honest. Would you trust another person with the same goal as you?

just thought up a compromise for my idea. Here is my new proposed scheme:

For most people, being brainized to be both have guaranteed kindness and be guaranteed free of delusions, this is merely optional.
But, if you are a political candidate or politician or leader in any country, then, according to international law, you must be brainized.
Any acting politician that isn't brainized is illegal and must either be immediately be brainized or resign or face removal by force and then prosecution by international law enforcement.

If you want to become a political candidate, you must prove that you intend to put the interests of humanity above your own interests and political agendas by agreeing to be brainized first if you haven't already been so. Nobody would force you to be a political candidate and you must just accept that you must be brainized if you make that career choice and, if you don't like that, tough! That would simply mean you just cannot be a politician and that's that.

The advantage of this compromise would be it would be much less likely to start a war than if everyone had to be brainized by law because, with this compromise, the vast majority of people, more than 99% of them, would not face being forced to be brainized by this scheme and not even most politicians would face being forced providing those that are not prepared to choose to be brainized generally accept that they must resign. And, although many voters would not want to be brainized by force, they probably wouldn't mind so much if their politicians had to be brainized by law. And voters may very often want all their politicians to be brainized (I certainly would want this! ) to ensure they don't put their own interests and political agendas above those of the voters!

But, I admit this compromise may not guarantee it not causing a war because there are an awful lot of religious nuts out there that would want their politicians to also be religious nuts and they would quickly find out that couldn’t happen if those politicians are all brainized so to be free of delusions.
Still, could this still work without it causing a war? Anyone?

Originally posted by humy
just thought up a compromise for my idea. Here is my new proposed scheme:

For most people, being brainized to be both have guaranteed kindness and be guaranteed free of delusions, this is merely optional.
But, if you are a political candidate or politician or leader in any country, then, according to international law, you must be brainized.
Any acting po ...[text shortened]... free of delusions.
Still, could this still work without it causing a war? Anyone?

Who would be doing the (brainizing) genetic modifications? Government? A privately owned genetic engineering corporation? The UN? Doctor Zhivago?

How do we know they can be trusted?

Originally posted by Metal Brain
Who would be doing the (brainizing) genetic modifications? Government? A privately owned genetic engineering corporation? The UN? Doctor Zhivago?

How do we know they can be trusted?

How about a team of scientists/intellectuals from across the would from every country of origin that have already volunteered to be brainized themselves to have guaranteed kindness, compassion and rationality. That way we CAN be certain that we can trust them because they have been brainized to be trustworthy and not put their own interests above others.

Originally posted by humy
How about a team of scientists/intellectuals from across the would from every country of origin that have already volunteered to be brainized themselves to have guaranteed kindness, compassion and rationality. That way we CAN be certain that we can trust them because they have been brainized to be trustworthy and not put their own interests above others.

That might work if it can be done some day. We are a long way from that though.

The main Problem with Eugenics is that no man can tell what unintended consequences any Action on genes have.

while it is sometimes clear what consequences some defects in genomics do have, eugenics came generally under the suspicion to be the science to kill off unwanted (probable handicapped) babies. As has been done by the Nazis.

Originally posted by Ponderable
The main Problem with Eugenics is that no man can tell what unintended consequences any Action on genes have.

while it is sometimes clear what consequences some defects in genomics do have, eugenics came generally under the suspicion to be the science to kill off unwanted (probable handicapped) babies. As has been done by the Nazis.

The main Problem with Eugenics is that no man can tell what unintended consequences any Action on genes have.

Firstly, genetic engineering other than through selective breeding is not necessarily what Eugenics is about.

Secondly, it is simply not true that “ no man can tell what unintended consequences any Action on genes have” because there are often rational ways to scientifically determine and rationally and reliably predict a change made to a gene.
For example, if a minority of people have a gene that gives them some advantage and many of them have lived to old age without known harmful effects from that gene, then it would be unlikely that merely giving other people that gene by inserting it in exactly the same part of the genome would have “unintended consequences” that “no man can tell".

while it is sometimes clear what consequences some defects in genomics do have, eugenics came generally under the suspicion to be the science to kill off unwanted (probable handicapped) babies. As has been done by the Nazis.

have you noticed none of us in this thread are proposing to kill off anybody?
trying to genetically engineer everyone to be, for example, be kind, which is exactly what I have been proposing in this thread!, cannot even compare to what the Nazis did. And, if those Nazis were still alive today, they would hate what I propose because it is about eliminating evils such as Nazism.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Evolution is the wrong word.

We wouldn't be 'controlling our evolution'.

We would be replacing evolution with intelligent self-design.

Evolution by 'Natural' selection would no longer apply.

Otherwise interesting topic.

evolution by natural means no longer applies already. we have basically stopped evolving. we have no predators to defend against, we have no obstacles to overcome.

genetic manipulation will be the only thing that could move us forward as a species.

the question is if it will lead to eugenics or not.