You kind of explained why genocide couldn't be justified by this program. You say "when you start sorting people statistically" and then go on to say that race is genetic. The program wouldn't initially be to remove undesirable genetics from the gene pool (though this would no doubt be a beneficial side effect). It's not really about removing the genes for idiocy. it's about reducing the number of children had by those least equipped to provide for them and most likely to produce offspring that will be a burden. It's impossible that race could eventually be criteria for qualification unless, like people are doing here, The aims and goals of the program are misrepresented. And if the only reason for opposing it is because maybe someone might at some point misinterpret the goals of the program then that is a slippery slope fallacy and not really an argument against the program it's self.
Race is genetic. Let's not mince words. You're talking about selecting who should and should not breed, not reducing breeding voluntarily, across the board. It's selective, and you're sorting people by traits. Oh, not initially. Ok look, this is evil. Pure evil in my opinion, based on my value system. Eugenics is man's attempt to monkey with natural selection. Now it will be a political, national, racial, religious, intellectually football. We won't be allowing nature to take it's course, we'll be implementing an agenda that may be counter to nature. It's like one of those doomsday scenarios where people breed to a certain point genetically, and then realize that they did not breed in a provision for a certain environmental or crisis situation, and the species perishes. Man is a stupid creature. When he starts thinking he is more powerful than nature, than the natural order of things, is when trouble ensues. Not to mention, that sorting who lives and dies, whose bloodline has value and whose should be ended is, I dunno, I really don't have words to express how wrong it is. You're talking about playing God with the species. The government can barely do anything competently, and you want them to influence the future of the species by selectively trending breeding habits and eventually managing the gene pool. They can't even manage a war in a backwater desert country like Afghanistan, and you want them to play God. Like I said, I have no words to explain how wrong I feel this is. This is pretty weird, because you're a fan of socialism, but now you want to breed out the so-called free riders that socialism needs as a reason to exist. What I was talking about earlier, in having opinions based on a bedrock of principle, so that the conclusions, even if I disagree with them, can be traced back to a fundamental position derived at by some form of logic... Every government program is a slippery slope. Government does not get smaller. It does not decrease spending. It does not lay off employees. It does not avoid wars. When you set the precedent that government has a role in something, that role grows until government controls it absolutely. It can be innocuous, or it can be pervasive. Government doesn't say one day, "ok, that's the limit of our influence!" or "here peasants and peons, you can have this responsibility back". This isn't my opinion, this is fact. Proven time, and time and time again.
No, That is what you are talking about. I have made it perfectly clear what i am talking about on numerous occasions. I specifically made it clear that this would be entirely voluntary and based only on who is least able to raise children according to their intellectual and financial situations, Or more specifically the strain their reproduction puts on society. And don't get me wrong, Those of average intelligence on an average income would certainly not qualify. Neither would those just below average. The only people who would qualify are the destitute, Those in absolute poverty and those whose intelligence makes it impossible for them to raise a child properly. We wouldn't be selecting people based on their genes. The program would no doubt remove some undesirable genes as a byproduct, But people wouldn't qualify for the program based on their genes. Our best chance at surviving can only come from having a population largely consisting of intellectuals and a only a minimum amount of unproductive people putting unnecessary strain on the rest of us. What i am a fan of is having a collective purse that pays for what we all need. I am for people getting what they need when they need it. But someone can't be a socialist without being against free riders because if we only had free riders socialism wouldn't be possible. that is a problem with government, Not with the program.
It's not voluntary. You are going to use the state and it's power to tax, to incentivize it. Voluntary participation doesn't require incentives or coercion. Well, first of all, I don't believe that society has an obligation to take care of everyone. I believe individuals do have a personal moral obligation to charity. Your plan is to judge people based upon wealth and so-called "intelligence" to sort out the breeders from the non-breeders. Who determines this? What are the thresholds? How many Einsteins and Michaelangelos will not be born because we try to pre-empt evolution and natural selection? There are potential costs to this, it is not all upside. The consequences of snuffing out an important genetic trait that may coincide with something you consider inferior could be very threatening to our long term survival. If your society allows for upward mobility, why should the destitute have to be killed? Many of the world's greatest men have come from poor or humble beginnings, misdiagnosed with disorders or limited intelligence. Your system fails to recognize the human spirit and survival instinct. You would terminate blood lines by cirumstances, not by genes. Oh gee, I feel a lot better now. Nonsense. I do not believe this. Who will cook the burgers? Shovel the manure? Pick up the garbage? Paint toenails for a living? There should be no strain because the social safety net is a farce. You put chains on yourself, and then propose killing the jailer, rather than removing the chains. It's irrational. That's socialism. You want to take from some, to give to others. If everyone contributed equally then everyone could buy their own stuff without a collective purse. Hey, I'm for praying for rain and collecting my weekly pocket money from the money tree too. But that's not reality. Goods and services cost resources to acquire, bring to market and distibute. People can't have what they need unless they create it, unless they are able to invest the energy or capital to make it happen. What we need does not fall from the sky. Yeah, Marx ran into this problem. Which is why he came up with the "socialist man", this superman who would act irrationally and counter to human behavior, in order for his system to work. Basically, he constructed this equation for socialism, and in order to get it to solve, he had to create a variable, and he assigned it the necessary value for it to solve, even if the variable was completely arbitrary and false. You want everyone to have what they need (however that will be determined, as Gordon Brown stuffs his face on 6 and 8 course meals while lecturing the peons that they need to trim their food consumption and make sacrifices), but no one should free ride. Well, if everyone is working, then you don't need to provide everything for everyone for every need. That's like saying, that's a problem with the car, not the destination. What is your vehicle if government is not it? How do you plan to coercively collect the taxes to pay for this, then create an infrastructure not only for deployment of the offer and money, but to provide and verify the sterilizations? Not to mention how you will screen people, to determine who your targets for self-sterilization with benefits are? Social engineering is something that I oppose, and if you were to try and impose such a system on me, even if I was not a target of the system, I would fight you tooth and nail with my every last breath. You're talking about the few, exterminating a many, for the advantage of the few. I cannot think of a better example of tyranny and evil right now.
yes it is. would it matter? Would your opposition to be be quenched if the right group were implemented to determine correct thresholds? It's not really an argument against the program it's self or the philosophy behind it. We aren't pre-empting evolution, How many time do i have to tell you acceptance into the program will at no point be based on genetics. We aren't removing genes, it's not genocide. How many Einstein's and Michelangelo's are lost because not not every egg and every sperm result in a baby? How many great minds are to never come to fruition because we don't have breeding camps where random women are forcefully impregnated? It's a fatuous point. we can't encourage people to have babies on the off chance that some of them may turn into great thinkers. who is being killed again? Is your entire argument resting on your intentional misreprisentation of what i am proposing? People would be incentivised to terminate their own blood lines. The same people who do it now. People who do these jobs wont be eligible for the program. they are productive and have some modicum of intelligence. The program would only be for the absolute bottom class. Those who not only can't find employment, But if they were employed lack the intellect to retain it. Those who continuously reproduce as though it's a recreational activity. Those whoes only contribution is more babies born into poverty to moronic parents. Nobody is being exterminated.
How is it? it's no more is the "next logical step" as extermination of Africans is the next logical step to providing birth control education.
Your reasoning is that these people children will be a mirror of their parents and no use to society, so you like to stop their reproduction which will solve the problem in future. Why wait so long and not solve the problem by exterminating them now?
You obviously haven't read a word of what i said. Re-read the first post. The same reason why we shouldn't exterminate Africans even though we are giving contraception education to the poorest ones who produce the most babies. Are you for giving poverty stricken Africans birth control education? if you are, Then why wait so long and not solve the problem by exterminating them now?
It's not voluntary, but you will forcibly collect taxes to incentivize it. No one is being exterminated, just encouraged to terminate their own blood line. I think that is enough confusion in your own position that we should all step back, take a deep breath and mull this over some more. I argue against the philosophy of it. My issue isn't who runs it, but the Pandora's Box of allowing one group of people to decide who should and should not breed. The potential for abuse is enormous, not to mention that I don't think anyone, no matter how smart they are, has a right to limit or coerce someone to forfeit a fundamental, crucial human right. Your fundamental premise seems to be, 1) We need a system where everyone is subsidized based on need. 2) Some people need too much subsidy so it is better to pay them off and prevent them from breeding. 3) Only people who don't need to be subsidized are worthwhile in a society. It's circular. Why not just stop subsidizing people, and then if they have kids, they have to support them? Why create a socialist system that you recognize has flaws, and then legislate out the flaws, but keep socialism, even if you have no customers for it? Sounds like you do not understand how a free market works. Let me guess, you support a minimum wage level, right? You do realize that minimum wages keep people with low skill levels, low intelligence and handicaps out of the workforce? It's intentionally done to create a condition that requires a social safety net, which you now want to cut people out of? So first, if you really want to be rational and reasonable, you should cut out the minimum wage and welfare, to determine who can make it when the heat is on. Of course, without a welfare state, then you won't have to worry about whether they breed or not, because there is no system for them to tax the resources of, or free ride upon. I didn't think it was possible, but you like people even less than me. Of course, I get frustrated, that people do not live up to their potential, but I still believe in the species. You on the other hand, seem to have very little faith in the species, in nature, your preferred governmental system, or your own ability to survive without cutting away those below you. Very troubling. You have a lot of potential, but I think you lack any sort of moral or philosophical underpinnings. You're strictly a utilitarian with your own self-interest as your primary cause. I don't want to keep arguing. I think I understand your position clearly, and I hope you understand mine. But we're coming at this from two completely different value systems, and I think that is our problem, not whether or not this can work, can be made to work, or should work, but that we are on opposite sides for even seeing a need for it.
If we should stop reproduction depending on their social statue, wealth and intelligence then why shouldn't we fix the problem at once by exterminating them? If somebody is poor and needs couple of 1000 for survival, isn't your "reward" a way to force them to it? Are you alcoholic, need a drink, we give you 100 dollars that you can buy whiskey with if you let us sterilize you.
The only confusion is in your ability to understand what i am proposing. Nobody will be forced to do anything and nothing will be mandatory, I haven't even said how the incentive money will be collected, So to save you going off topic and ranting about taxes, Let's assume it's donated by people, Not that it matters. Should people also not provide contraception education to those too poor to care for children? Some people are better off not reproducing, This isn't rocket science, Once they are identified giving them a cash incentive it no more morally objectionable than teaching them how to put on a condom. it only seems circular because your strawman was designed to create a circular argument and then accredit me with making it, With the obvious goal of enabling you to say "look, it's circular". You seem to be under the impression that a socialist thinks people are entitled to something for nothing. Sort out that misconception and the rest should make sense. No i very much do NOT support a minimum wage level. It tends to make employers pay as little as they legally can instead of as much as the individual is worth.
That logical leap only makes sense if you concede that the next logical step to providing contraception advice to Africans is to exterminate them all. Do you concede that? You are just trying to turn it into something you feel equipped to counter. The next logical step to encouraging low birth rates among certain people is most definitely not the extermination of a class. And anyone who thinks it is it intentionally misinterpreting it to create a straw man argument for them to heroically pull down.
Providing information and access to contraception is far different than paying people to be 'sterilized' There are so many flaws in your logic here I honestly don't believe it's worth debating as I know it will never happen, the majority of those so called genetically inferior for being 'unintelligent' are intelligent enough to see how bogus this is. Makes me wonder if you should give up your ability for reproducing
That is so beneficial for the society that I won't mind pay some extra tax for "reward" to see it happen.
Am i really having to point out that this is in no way based on genetics again? at no point would someones genetics be a factor in determining if they qualify for the program. But hey, don't let honest dialogue get in the way of your strawman arguments. Don't worry, Not being able to read wouldn't automatically qualify you for the program. Though it might be worth penciling you in. How is it different then? The contraception advice is designed to prevent those less suited and less able to raise a child not reproduce, And my program has exactly the same goal. People, In both cases, Chose to participate. They chose to wear a condom of their own free will, and in my program they chose to become sterilized.
I read the first post & was initially shocked at the suggestion of a cash incentives for sterilisation. Then I read more of the thread & thought “well it is voluntaryâ€, free choice etc blah, blah, blah….. Then I immediately returned to my first position, because the concept is simply EVIL, it would involve taking advantage of the most poorest & educationally subnormal people in this country (or other countries), & the implications of offering this “program†are not worth thinking about in regard to these people nor society as an whole. What would the IQ range be before someone’s reproduction could be brought 69? What is the income level £12,000 per year? If this ever happened then the government would need to be overthrown by force, it is a long slippery slope once a government starts to “play god†with it’s citizens in terms of genetics. This sounds like some Hitler idea
I think that $15,000 is way too much. Speaking as a poor person, I volunteer to do it for the free surgery and some of that great hospital Jello. Stox, can you please sign me up?
It wouldn't be based on genetics toopac. It would be based on 1) the rate at which they produce children 2) their productivity 3) their ability to raise children. It's no different than incentivising people to wear condoms. We are giving those less able to raise children an incentive to stop making them.