It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum
Topics => Science, Technology, & Medicine => Topic started by: Weisshaupt on August 17, 2012, 09:00:47 AM
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Gee, I wonder what "unethical personality traits" he is targeting? (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9480372/Genetically-engineering-ethical-babies-is-a-moral-obligation-says-Oxford-professor.html)
The expert in practical ethics said that we should actively give parents the choice to screen out personality flaws in their children as it meant they were then less likely to "harm themselves and others"...."He said that we already routinely screen embryos and foetuses for conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Down’s syndrome and couples can test embryos for inherited bowel and breast cancer genes.
Rational design is just a natural extension of this, he said.
He said that unlike the eugenics movements, which fell out of favour when it was adopted by the Nazis, the system would be voluntary and allow parents to choose the characteristics of their children.
"We’re routinely screening embryos and foetuses for conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Down’s syndrome, and there’s little public outcry," he said.
"What’s more, few people protested at the decisions in the mid- 2000s to allow couples to test embryos for inherited bowel and breast cancer genes, and this pushes us a lot close to creating designer humans."
"Whether we like it or not, the future of humanity is in our hands now. Rather than fearing genetics, we should embrace it. We can do better than chance."
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..."Whether we like it or not, the future of humanity is in our hands now. Rather than fearing genetics, we should embrace it. We can do better than chance."
Or, put another way, "We are gods."
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..."Whether we like it or not, the future of humanity is in our hands now. Rather than fearing genetics, we should embrace it. We can do better than chance."
Or, put another way, "We are gods."
I'm pickin' up those vibes, too.
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Yeah, devine they are not. What is their manifesto named? "On the road to Eloi and Morlock"?
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"So where genetic selection aims to bring out a trait that clearly benefits an individual and society, we should allow parents the choice.
"To do otherwise is to consign those who come after us to the ball and chain of our squeamishness and irrationality.
"Indeed, when it comes to screening out personality flaws, such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence, you could argue that people have a moral obligation to select ethically better children.
He's an "expert in practical ethics"? I think that word, "ethics", does not mean what he thinks it means, especially when he advocates parents have a MORAL OBLIGATION to abort the "wrong" kind of child.
This guy needs another kind of job where he can feel useful, instead of pushing his "skills" on the "squeamish and irrational".
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"So where genetic selection aims to bring out a trait that clearly benefits an individual and society, we should allow parents the choice.
"To do otherwise is to consign those who come after us to the ball and chain of our squeamishness and irrationality.
"Indeed, when it comes to screening out personality flaws, such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence, you could argue that people have a moral obligation to select ethically better children.
He's an "expert in practical ethics"? I think that word, "ethics", does not mean what he thinks it means, especially when he advocates parents have a MORAL OBLIGATION to abort the "wrong" kind of child.
This guy needs another kind of job where he can feel useful, instead of pushing his "skills" on the "squeamish and irrational".
Yeah its funny how all these folks claiming to be "experts in ethics" seem to always think the course likely to enhance their own careers, position, power and prestige is invariably pronounced to be the "ethical" one
The modifier "practical" gives it away doesn't it. In my experience being "practical" usually means sacrificing ethics to achieve a personal goal.
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Hitler & Stalin found many practices practical too, I wonder if he even knows that?
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Oh, see, "the expert" wants this offered to parents as voluntary! So, that's different!
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Yeah, voluntary only is a means to condition the populace so when it becomes mandatory the cries of dissent will be less and more easily snuffed out. They think all of fools when only many are. Like all true beleivers they will keep pushing and pushing...we who know the horrors this would lead us into need to push back HARDER!
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This guy needs another kind of job where he can feel useful, instead of pushing his "skills" on the "squeamish and irrational".
Yeah, instead of pushing his skills how about pushing up daisies?
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Yeah, voluntary only is a means to condition the populace so when it becomes mandatory the cries of dissent will be less and more easily snuffed out. They think all of fools when only many are. Like all true beleivers they will keep pushing and pushing...we who know the horrors this would lead us into need to push back HARDER!
Social Security was first conceived of as a voluntary program.
However, in this case I don't think they would have to make it mandatory. The lower classes would be screaming genetic manipulation of children is aright that must be covered by the taxpayer. The society pictured in Gattica is our future if we let this start. We will become a society of De-gene-erates, vs the engineered, because no parent is going to want their child born disadvantaged. Then, once its normal practice, the elites can start guiding the genome. You see those independent traits conservatives have-- they are anti-social. "We took the liberty of eliminating those embryos with pre-determined undesirable characteristics." Do you ask what those are or just trust the doctor?
Gattaca Visit to the local geneticist (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP1cCjBkWZU#)
What makes Gattica so chilling is that its entirely plausible. Of course, ti seems like a lot f the scariest Sci Fi is coming to pass. Its like 1984, Animal Farm, Brave New World, Solylent Green, Logan's Run, and terminator all rolled into one.
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Either way it progresses the end result will be a self-appointed aristocracy of optimal genetic people, so master race and a caste society. If not the upper caste you're a serf by degree, and the undesirable get the crematorium.
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Roger Kimball at PJ Media has a perfect description (http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2012/08/17/ripley%E2%80%99s-believe-it-or-not/) of this sort of thing: "I’ve long known that abstract benevolence, a specialty of liberals, was eerily compatible with practical indifference or even cruelty."
Is that not the perfect summation of modern liberalism? They place such value on the abstract, the intentions, the ideals, that they are completely indifferent to the long train of wrecked lives left in their wake.
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A small price to pay in their diseased minds to bring about the "perfect" society.
But I agree this should scare the scat out of anyone possessing any sense whatsoever.
I for one have zero tolerance to see how evil their cruelty can go. Basically I just want them to go!
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More on GM of humans...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/exclusive-scientists-accuse-government-of-dishonesty-over-gm-babies-in-its-regulation-of-new-ivf-technique-9631807.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/exclusive-scientists-accuse-government-of-dishonesty-over-gm-babies-in-its-regulation-of-new-ivf-technique-9631807.html)
...this kind of stuff gives me the Willies...it is a matter of when not if something goes horribly horribly wrong.