I don’t think eugenics is obviously bad. For example, what if we were to start sterilizing criminals, as another punishment in our current regimen of (community service, prison time, fines, imprisonment, capital punishment)? Seems like a pretty obvious win to me.
I also think it’s possible that if more people realize how large the genetic contribution to intelligence is, we’ll see more research in to its genetic basis and how we can genetically engineer future humans to be smarter… a very soft and friendly kind of singularity.
For example, what if we were to start sterilizing criminals, as another punishment in our current regimen of (community service, prison time, fines, imprisonment, capital punishment)? Seems like a pretty obvious win to me.
One major issue that I see with this is that in our legal system (by which I mean the American system in particular, although this is true of others to varying extents,) where arrest and conviction and degree of punishment are subject to discretion by the officials charged with enforcement, they tend to vary tremendously with factors other than likelihood or severity of guilt. So while the intent might be to gradually filter people with criminal inclinations from the gene pool, the real effect is unlikely to be an evenhanded application of that process.
Hm. Well, if we identify specific genes associated with criminality, then the law could be more objective: commit a felony and if you have a criminal gene, you get sterilization in addition to whatever your punishment would have been.
With genes it is complicated. Sometimes one gene encodes one trait. But often dozen genes cooperate on one trait, and one gene contributes to dozen traits. And most often, we don’t know exactly, either because our knowledge is poor, or the terittory is very complicated.
So if there would be a political pressure for “criminal gene” elimination, it could easily translate to a law of elimination some specific gene XYZ123, which according to one (low p-value, never replicated) study increases criminality by 1% (although only in presence of genes ABC987 and MN45, and only if given individual has a diabetes and was born in Sagittarius constellation) and also increases creativity by 2% (in presence of gene PQR654, and if the individual’s mother drank wine daily during pregnancy). For the lack of better candidates, this gene would be declared The Criminal Gene, and the 15% of people who have it would be sterilized when they commit a felony (and 5% of them would be exonerated later because some mistake during the trial would be discovered).
In absence of the reliable science (which means: until we are able to engineer it genetically), the “objective” laws would be guesses, based mostly on political pressure.
Also, would you like to break this taboo and allow your opponents to use sterilization to achieve their goals too? (Imagine that one day feminists would get enough power, and decide that the only way to get rid of the evil patriarchy forever is to sterilize all the white able hetero cis males. If you protest, you are the first to go to sterilization.) Sometimes it is good to have taboos.
However, I had an argument with Viliam saying, that people have experience from the past, that searching genetic causes of personality traits, if it resulted into policies, always led to actions, which were ranging from somewhat morally uncomfortable to downright horrible. I could not recollect any single positive example from the past. Has anybody heard of any ?
The first example is closer to specification. We at least know how sterilisation work, we do not need to make a new discovery, so even if the example is not from the past, it is somewhat predictable.
As for my personal reaction to Your both examples, they give me shudders. Right now I am not capable to support this emotion by rational reasoning. I could come up with objections, but would stumble a lot in the process. Probably we can call it aesthetic preference for now. It is possible, other people would shudder too. It is not something uplifting enough to counter the Hitler precedens, for the propaganda purposes outside the Lesswrong culture.
I don’t think eugenics is obviously bad. For example, what if we were to start sterilizing criminals, as another punishment in our current regimen of (community service, prison time, fines, imprisonment, capital punishment)? Seems like a pretty obvious win to me.
I also think it’s possible that if more people realize how large the genetic contribution to intelligence is, we’ll see more research in to its genetic basis and how we can genetically engineer future humans to be smarter… a very soft and friendly kind of singularity.
One major issue that I see with this is that in our legal system (by which I mean the American system in particular, although this is true of others to varying extents,) where arrest and conviction and degree of punishment are subject to discretion by the officials charged with enforcement, they tend to vary tremendously with factors other than likelihood or severity of guilt. So while the intent might be to gradually filter people with criminal inclinations from the gene pool, the real effect is unlikely to be an evenhanded application of that process.
Hm. Well, if we identify specific genes associated with criminality, then the law could be more objective: commit a felony and if you have a criminal gene, you get sterilization in addition to whatever your punishment would have been.
With genes it is complicated. Sometimes one gene encodes one trait. But often dozen genes cooperate on one trait, and one gene contributes to dozen traits. And most often, we don’t know exactly, either because our knowledge is poor, or the terittory is very complicated.
So if there would be a political pressure for “criminal gene” elimination, it could easily translate to a law of elimination some specific gene XYZ123, which according to one (low p-value, never replicated) study increases criminality by 1% (although only in presence of genes ABC987 and MN45, and only if given individual has a diabetes and was born in Sagittarius constellation) and also increases creativity by 2% (in presence of gene PQR654, and if the individual’s mother drank wine daily during pregnancy). For the lack of better candidates, this gene would be declared The Criminal Gene, and the 15% of people who have it would be sterilized when they commit a felony (and 5% of them would be exonerated later because some mistake during the trial would be discovered).
In absence of the reliable science (which means: until we are able to engineer it genetically), the “objective” laws would be guesses, based mostly on political pressure.
Also, would you like to break this taboo and allow your opponents to use sterilization to achieve their goals too? (Imagine that one day feminists would get enough power, and decide that the only way to get rid of the evil patriarchy forever is to sterilize all the white able hetero cis males. If you protest, you are the first to go to sterilization.) Sometimes it is good to have taboos.
Thanks for writing.
However, I had an argument with Viliam saying, that people have experience from the past, that searching genetic causes of personality traits, if it resulted into policies, always led to actions, which were ranging from somewhat morally uncomfortable to downright horrible. I could not recollect any single positive example from the past. Has anybody heard of any ?
The first example is closer to specification. We at least know how sterilisation work, we do not need to make a new discovery, so even if the example is not from the past, it is somewhat predictable.
As for my personal reaction to Your both examples, they give me shudders. Right now I am not capable to support this emotion by rational reasoning. I could come up with objections, but would stumble a lot in the process. Probably we can call it aesthetic preference for now. It is possible, other people would shudder too. It is not something uplifting enough to counter the Hitler precedens, for the propaganda purposes outside the Lesswrong culture.