Good Genes: An Argument for Eugenics

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but they were all "the men behind the curtain" spinning the wheels that made that big fiery monster [hatred] scream and shout and incite hatred in the people. didn't matter what they looked like to folk.

I've been thinking about exactly this, and I wonder if eugenics as practiced in the past, such as the European upper level nobility, results in accentuation of BOTH positive and negative characteristics.

My dad was very interested in European heraldry and noble bloodlines, and towards the end of his life he actually met a few mid-level nobles whose families had been forced into exile after WW1. They tended to be extremely intelligent, but also to have severe physical ailments that got progressively worse over time to the point that a lot of them died young, in their 50s or 60s. We're talking about families who had interbred in isolation for over a millenium to the point that their blood and gene makeups had evolved into a separate subclass from commoners, a subclass that could be detected with modern gene testing.

So, any culture that engaged in eugenics would over time see people who had exaggerated expression of characteristics that would fall in both "good" and "bad" camps. If you had a culture that engaged in selective breeding, which is what I really think Ann means when she says "eugenics", eventually people would have exaggerated expression of the positive qualities that were intended, but also of qualities that were deemed unimportant/negative.

For example, European nobility in the Middle Ages had to be very smart in order to rule effectively. BUT they did not need to do much physical labor. So, now you have a group of people who are very intellectually gifted but physically weak. OTOH, it has been noted that many Black Americans, those who were brought here as slaves and bred for 200 years for slave labor, have qualities that would make for good slaves-great physical strength and stamina in order to do extremely difficult menial labor, and low intelligence so they would not be able to revolt or run away.

I am not trying to "bash" anybody, I am simply pointing out examples of how selective breeding can be used to create positive alongside of negative outcomes.

It is true that eugenics when practiced with a small randomly chosen subset of people, such as fundamentalist Mormons, eventually leads to generally unpleasant outcomes. However, when we are not talking of eugenics but selective breeding, where the people allowed to breed have both positive and negative qualities that are considered desirable, that eventually the desired qualities will be expressed in an exaggerated fashion.

Whenever there was tumult, and the desire for social change, some of these aristocrats retreated into themselves, and were rendered impotent in the sense of being able to govern others.

Karftie did you see the article I shared a but earlier in this thread? Its a fantastic (short article) example of a Spanish royal family who were wiped out by inbreeding

Are you talking about the Hapsburgs (of Spain, and the Austrian Empire)?

Yeah, they ended up being a quite a group of specimens. Like the inbred hillbilly kid who plays the banjo in Deliverance.

All of the Royal Families of Europe had gotten rather inbred by the 20th Century. Thats one reason that they had hereditary diseases like hemophilia.

Thanks for the article. Very illustrative.

I just don't like the concept of eugenics for many reasons.

I think any eugenics will lead to genocide, if you tell most people disabled are bad for society, just plague pulling them down, the next logical step after preventing disabled from being born is to remove the current plague and relieve society of said burden.

Eugenics adopted by the majority will only breed hatred of disabled people and seeing them as sub human. Just as it did in the past. We must not fail to learn from our past or we will repeat it.

It was one of the first families I looked at when studying the ethics of genetics. I find it really interesting how th crosslinks had such an effect on their genome and development of conditions

I've often thought there was something wrong with the upper class British.

Wouldn't the knowledge of this potential pitfall help to avoid it?

It's not avoidable because you would constantly need to outsource new genetic material.

If you used it on the human population there would be no outsource available.

It works if you use subsets of populations but not in whole populations

Do you think there will ever come a point when technology and science allow us to create synthetic genes; or should I take this to Writing & Art?

Let's hope not.

Theoretically, if this were possible, the State or Kingdom, or whatever would be able to select the people it wanted to create. They could literally engineer the population for maximum positiveness (however they would define that.) I think I do have the makings of a good sc/fi novel.

Yep....it's very similar to "Brave New World."

I'll have to read that. I've read 1984 and some stuff by Vonnegut. It reminds me of a silly movie from the '90s too, Gattaca.

It's by Alduous Huxley. A great work. Written in the 1930s.

You should also read the original "Utopia," written by St. Thomas More circa 1520.