Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

[Firewind]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

There's more stuff that has developed for people interested in it.

Woolwich Attack Victim Named: Lee Rigby Of Royal Regiment Of Fusiliers
Woolwich Machete Attack: Eyewitness Reveals Two 'Crazed' Men 'Hacking, Chopping' At Victim (GRAPHIC PICTURES)
BBC News - Woolwich murder: The suspected attackers
BBC News - Woolwich attack: Lee Rigby named as victim
BBC News - Woolwich attack and response in pictures

What is depressing is that the response from certain people is to immediately start firebombing mosques as though that is a sane and rational response to anything.

[Taskmage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

I think a majority of people would agree that some people just shouldn't reproduce, but the minute you start definite what exactly qualifies one to reproduce you run into a lot of trouble.

[Armando]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

I think a majority of people would agree that some people just shouldn't reproduce, but the minute you start definite what exactly qualifies one to reproduce you run into a lot of trouble.

There's already rules for deciding whether Child Protective Services should take a child away from their parents. Could just apply the same rules. If CPS would take a hypothetical child from you why would you be allowed to create one?

[DakAttack]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Vasectomy for all men. If you pass the examination, reverse it. Your reversal fails? Adopt.

HashtagWin

In reality, I do support eugenics. Horrible things have been done in its name, but it, itself, isn't inherently evil. I believe it will be necessary in the future, however difficult it will be to implement. I always envisioned some way to shut down reproduction without preventing sex altogether, and allowing some temporary cure or reversal when a person becomes licensed. Of course, there's dozens of ways this could go wrong. If there's a shortage for the cure, then we'll be SOL.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Agreed, there's tremendous potential for abuse and things simply going horribly wrong, but the basic principle is sound.

I remain somewhat conflicted though. I can see the necessity of it for the long term benefit of the species, but if someone tried to actually implement it I'd likely oppose it quite fiercely on the grounds of "get the hell away from my junk".

[Taskmage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

There's already rules for deciding whether Child Protective Services should take a child away from their parents. Could just apply the same rules. If CPS would take a hypothetical child from you why would you be allowed to create one?

Aren't those rules based on the way the child is treated, thus difficult to apply in the absence of a child? I really don't know. I've heard stories of CPS taking kids away for damn near anything, but generally behavior displayed by the parent towards the child.

Plus, I bet if you can think of anyone in particular who shouldn't have been allowed to breed, they probably haven't had their kids taken away by CPS, so clearly that standard is failing in practice.

- - - Updated - - -

On the subject of vasectomies, there is a new version of the procedure that's become popular in India that is chemical in nature and easily reversible. I'd link it, but pictures of scrotums. Google RISUG if you want to know more. Afaik, it is not FDA approved in the USA.

Honestly, if it was cheap and easily available, you wouldn't even have to make it mandatory. Give teenagers the option of having sex however they want without the risk of wrecking their lives with an unplanned pregnancy and I bet 99% of people would jump on that.

[Armando]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Aren't those rules based on the way the child is treated, thus difficult to apply in the absence of a child? I really don't know.

Some of them, probably, but I assume some must be based on external factors. Some people are too poor to reasonably support a child. I imagine if you're an alcoholic or not in a stable relationship, that's an issue. But more importantly...

Plus, I bet if you can think of anyone in particular who shouldn't have been allowed to breed, they probably haven't had their kids taken away by CPS, so clearly that standard is failing in practice.

Even if only the most unstable or irresponsible people are filtered out and getting a license to breed is super easy, making it an opt-in thing is still a major step up. Accidents happen and there's many societal pressures involved in the abortion issue that'll drive people to keep a baby they don't want.

I read about RISUG last year and I'm cautiously optimistic. Sounds too good to be true but hopefully it'll turn out to be safe.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Why do the most interesting philosophical discussions always happen while I'm at work?

[cidbahamut]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

"Official Bored at Work Thread"

[Firewind]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

I'm all for encouraging people to be responsible in the way they procreate and anyone that is against contraceptives being freely available to anyone and everyone is an idiot in my opinion. You need only look at Africa to see how much a ban on contraception fucks things up for everyone.

But enforced vasectomies and sterilisation? No matter how good or noble you think the cause may be, that is something I'm not at all comfortable with pushing on anyone. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for sitting people in a room and showing them exactly what happens if you're dumb enough to not put someone on the end of it but well... I don't want to invoke Godwin's Law here but when you start getting into the subject of who does or does not have a right to reproduce it is difficult not to.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

"Official Bored at Work Thread"

I can only check the forum from my phone while I'm at work, so it doesn't really help!

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

I've always thought that eugenics was a good idea in theory (and that I was probably a less-than-stellar person for thinking so), and I'm quite frankly surprised how many people on here cautiously agree, regardless of political affiliation.

Of course, in practice it's a whole other can of worms. The theory is that people who fail to meet an arbitrary set of qualifications do not need to be procreating, but which person or organization has any right to arbitrate what those qualifications are? Even just simple "baseline intelligence" is anything but that to measure, and would undoubtedly provoke a libertarian outcry. There was a point in time where certain parts of the US had an educational requirement to vote, for basically the sole implicit purpose of keeping recently freed (and unschooled) slaves effectively disenfranchised (while implementing a grandfather clause for everyone else, of course). In the wrong (or even any) hands, eugenics can easily become a tool to keep any group the hypothetical arbiter dislikes effectively disenfranchised from new life. I know that "slippery slope" arguments are a fallacy, but I can't help but worry about the logistics here. Devil's in the details, after all.

It's worth mentioning that, for sheer evolutionary purposes, our knowledge of modern medicine vastly outpaces any benefit we could strain from eugenics, even before we get to what it could (ethically) cost. This is, of course, assuming that we stay away from doing anything patently dumb like inbreeding, which we seem to fortunately enforce legally and socially well enough to keep it from being a widespread problem.

So, until we can find some objective set of qualifications to procreate that cause the populace more good than potential harm, much like TM and FW say we need to make it more and more effortless for the masses to willingly stop themselves from having uncalled for progeny.

[Etra]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

We also have these dipshits to deal with:

[Taskmage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Of course, in practice it's a whole other can of worms. The theory is that people who fail to meet an arbitrary set of qualifications do not need to be procreating, but which person or organization has any right to arbitrate what those qualifications are? Even just simple "baseline intelligence" is anything but that to measure, and would undoubtedly provoke a libertarian outcry. There was a point in time where certain parts of the US had an educational requirement to vote, for basically the sole implicit purpose of keeping recently freed (and unschooled) slaves effectively disenfranchised (while implementing a grandfather clause for everyone else, of course). In the wrong (or even any) hands, eugenics can easily become a tool to keep any group the hypothetical arbiter dislikes effectively disenfranchised from new life.

Even in the rightest hands we could find, I can't imagine a standard we could use, whether academic, socioeconomic, or psychological, that wouldn't have innate racial and cultural bias.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

It's worth mentioning that, for sheer evolutionary purposes, our knowledge of modern medicine vastly outpaces any benefit we could strain from eugenics

We still don't have a cure for stupid.