This is becoming more and more important as our capacity to prevent harm to future generations increases. We can not only screen for diseases with genetic components, we also have the ability to remove them from DNA. There is a moratorium on use of this, but it won't last forever.
Our ability to have a conversation about this topic will be a crucial determinant of how much harm our children and grandchildren experience.
"Our ability to have a conversation about this": Therein lies the rub. In our hyper-'liberal', hyper-virtue-signalling, hyper-thought-policed 21st c West, people who want any kind of real conversation outside of the Overton Window will never get a hearing in the mainstream; so they end up talking to each other. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/
The main issue with eugenics is access and support for people who can't afford the necessary medical interventions. A good essay on the matter is "It’s 2059, and the Rich Kids Are Still Winning" by Ted Chiang (https://archive.ph/cPaMI). It's great to advocate for better healthcare but most arguments for eugenic interventions do not properly address the socio-economic and political system in which such policies are enacted and so fall far short of what would be needed to make the technology of genetic engineering a net positive for individuals and society.
I agree, it's an argument in favor of free healthcare (dental or otherwise) for all which is a socio-economic problem: "Our goal should be to ensure that every individual has the opportunity to reach his or her full potential, no matter the circumstances of birth. That course of action would be just as beneficial to humanity as pursuing genetic cognitive enhancements, and it would do a much better job of fulfilling our ethical obligations."
You're right, but not right enough. Life is more suffering than not, as Mr. Buddha and the Stoics, and The Poor can arrest to, and there's no way to guaranteed any individual a quality of life worth living, much less to account for the externalities to others of we could, so we shouldn't do it. Anti-natalism is the ethical choice for individuals. At the larger scale, the only way to eliminate suffering (the primary moral imperative) is to eliminate nature, and that means virtualizing or eliminating everything.
True, but I don’t like this analogy because the social outcomes of the two situations are not comparable. Some people being able to afford root canals while others cannot is unlikely to lead to a two-tiered society, whereas only the Uber rich being able to ensure their babies are top notch is. They already have the advantage of better nutrition, medical care, and a healthier environment to raise their children. Add eugenics tech into the mix and It’s getting very Brave New World.
Ah yes, the use of state coercion to prevent harm to others is an "abomination".
Yes, people who create children that are a drain on society are indirectly harming others. Society should not allow that to happen. Keep in mind that doesn't require killing anyone. All it requires is the state limiting reproduction.
How does "preventing brother-sister marriage" have anything to do with eugenics or preventing to harm to others? People can can children outside of wedlock. And anyone who supports same-sex marriage (I don't know if you do or not) or the modern view of marriage already believes that family formation and reproduction has nothing to do with marriage, but rather that it's only about love. On the modern view, what the state should prevent (if anything) is male-female sibling sex when both siblings are capable of reproducing.
Great post! You took the idea and flew with it to the very end. Its great to see posts that take ordinary beliefs and dig in deep enough to help us understand the underlying ideas that it represents. The question however is whether government should be allowed to make these decisions or if these decisions should be only made on an individual level.
Government represents the people and it shouldn't start going the other direction, with people living life for the government. There are certain sacrifices that people need to make to be part of a functioning society, but there should be limits on how far the government is allowed to make or force decisions on the individual.
Also when it comes to such decisions being made on an individual level, eugenics is not the correct term for it. The ideal member of the society for the government, is different from what an ideal partner is for me, an ideal child is for me, ideal sibling is for me, etc. Biases vary between individuals, and its a form of sexual selection, based not simply on what is the "fittest", but rather someone who is familiar, respecting of our needs, compatible with our behaviors, etc.
Nevertheless, great post, and I hope to see more of the same!
Many people are ok with the government using nudges- for example posting calorie counts or putting pictures of blackened lungs on cigarette cases. The implication is that all people have a desire to be healthy. Let’s say someone came in for drug treatment. They probably don’t plan to have a family while they are trying to get off drugs. So why not a similar nudge - offering a free reversible form of birth control. This, to me, seems no different than a doctor with the national health service offering you information on smoking cessation.
The problem here (and the one that eugenics faced historically) is the question of what is considered "good" or "bad". Genetical mutations that are considered "bad" is based on our biases of what that means. There are so many different selection criteria here to follow and which one do you consider the most important?
Is it good to be a good son, a good citizen, a good husband, a good worker, etc? What is good varies with time period as well - like how others stated about autism. It is an incorrect assumption to make that we all want the same things, and it is an even poorer assumption to make that nature selects for the same things. What are your thoughts on that?
I think for a person with right/libertarian leanings, there's an analogy to be made to "communism". Both "communism" and "eugenics" refer to 19th/20th century social movements. The analogy is actually very tight, I think. Both social movements became very fashionable among a broad swath of intellectual types, were influential in academia, had a theory of social development inspired by novel scientific ideas, and were directly and indirectly responsible for heinous crimes on both small and large scales.
Someone could support the 40-hour workweek, want seats for union reps on company boards, and believe in government taking a role in industrial policy. It would not be correct to tell that person "you're probably a communist" (although leftists do say stuff like this all the time).
This article is well written. There is a fundamental flaw, however in the principal argument. The author claims a myriad of examples to be “eugenics”, when in fact it is a by product of a different intention. The fact that I want my children to be healthy and not have a genetic disability, doesn’t make the opposite true: that I am then a eugenicist that is trying to mitigate the disability. In fact, that likely never crosses my mind. Perhaps a better example is the one about future parents not abusing alcohol or drugs during pregnancy. It’s a good thing for someone not to use drugs and abuse alcohol in general. We hold this as a moral good, because we want this person and other human beings to flourish. The fact that a person who eats healthy and doesn’t abuse drugs has a healthy baby is a by-product of the person flourishing. In other words, eugenics isn’t the end in mind, but a potential consequence of good choices.
You may not have genetics in mind when you think of human flourishing, but genetics has you in mind.
You’re right that promoting health does not necessarily entail promoting eugenics, but I think you’re missing the thrust of the article here: that one
of the strongest mechanisms for promoting human flourishing is the selection of “healthy” genes over “unhealthy” genes. Avoiding drugs, exercising, staying healthy and general human flourishing are signals for reproductive fitness.
We may not have that intention in our heads, but the principle belies our actions, beliefs, and taboos. For instance, humans have been universally repulsed by incest for much longer than we’ve known about genetics. We don’t need to rationalize it, because selection does the job for us, and instills a disgust of incest into us.
And perhaps taboo and healthy habits were as far as we could go before the age of reproductive technology, but now we have to come face to face with the eugenic intent behind our instincts, as the principles selection has instilled in us become motivating forces for how we use reproductive technologies. So I agree with the author; we have to own up to our eugenicist tendencies, and recognize that they are synonymous with our desire to promote collective human flourishing.
There are still many debates to be had regarding how these technologies will bump against our cultural, ethical, and religious values, but let’s at least be transparent about why so many people want to use these tools to promote human flourishing: because natural selection makes eugenicists out of all of us.
Yes, the state has realized this long ago. Since it wasn't popular anymore (eugenics), today we now have covert eugenic policies. Since there are significant amounts of people who are arguably low on the percentage-wise chance of labour participation because a lack of cognition as well as age-related decline, now we get MAID in Canada.
Covert and coercive measures have already been taken (medical experimentation) for the last three or more decades, whether people acknowledge it or not. There is a reason why more resources (income growth) occurs at the top percentile of the populations, why more women are encouraged to head into tertiary education, why all governments around the world are increasingly interested in your genomic data.
The primary aim is to increase the average aggregate utility of humans. Humans take an inordinate amount of time to mate, learn, tend to be forgetful, are not that interested in the future, etc. These qualities while sufficient for present-day civilization, are insufficient for advanced civilizations which require more cooperation in the long-term, and also require more cognition.
All government policies can be followed under two umbrellas;
1. The consolidation of all resources for total technological, behavioural and social control for the purpose of development of human civilization (enforced austerity through energy-limiting policies, behavioral conditioning of alternate diets, alternate lifestyles, concentrated cities)
2. The reduction of the population with lower-bound utility in the face of higher technological development (diets, hormones, medical experimentation, zoning, geographical stratification policies like China based on class).
If most humans agreed and stayed on the course to maintaining high average economic utility in the past, then I'd argue most governments would not have to go through the implementation of loopholes in legal frameworks for coercive measures which are arguably morally indefensible.
Most elites realize this and want to understand what is the pathway from A (origin of birth, genomic data, environmental influence) to B (productive, useful and obedient citizens)
The demographics and capabilities of a population determines the level of development of a country, a nation, and a civilization.
Anti-social qualities like poisoning your food or toothpaste or using substitutions that are damaging to human health out of personal gain is just one of the many attributes that are undesirable (see China). How to create a population that is industrious (like wartime Germany), civilized (like Japan), intelligent and respectful, achievement-oriented (like some parts of Asia), moderately collectivist and creative (like certain Anglo-people, particularly liberals with high openness scores) and easily controllable (usually intelligentsia). Any king, emperor, or leader worth his salt would pursue similar ambitions for a more prosperous future. Eventually though, if humans do become immortal and our moral equivalence is equated to some complex combination of stable personality, meta-thought formation subroutines or the like, the definitions would change to what is valuable.
I'd say that increasing the productive milk output of cows to an extent that such their health has declined or certain dogs bred to have certain desirable sociable attributes would be seemingly morally repugnant if applied to humans, but yet if one maintains the ability to change the base foundations of mind and inclinations then it also just as possible to make one be disinclined to like such things, and for us to require different energy sources just as other animals only need to eat plants, while we require certain amino acids from proteins from animals.
I do not think one can maintain a civilization based on perpetual deception forever, and that truth should be one of the pinnacle values of human existence, Yet there seems to a desire to create a two-tier class caste society of people, unfortunately. I rather take the pro-natalist stance of wealthy and intelligent people reproducing augmented people than have a lower-tier version of controllable humans. Extra-uterine bodies and AI babies are probably a century away now or so.
"I do not think one can maintain a civilization based on perpetual deception forever, and that truth should be one of the pinnacle values of human existence, Yet there seems to a desire to create a two-tier class caste society of people..."
I submit you are conflating two different concepts, given your introductory story: "Eugenics" and "consanguinity." This conflation ultimately derails your thesis.
Hey, just found your Substack! I’m a long term follower of the evolutionary psychology perspective on the human condition, so I’m interested to follow along.
You want to hear something weird? When I was partway through this essay on eugenics, the thought occurred to me, “she’s using a Motte and Bailey argument to say that we are all eugenicists.” So I was intrigued to see you further along use the exact inverted formulation. Your Motte is the (practically) universally accepted ‘siblings shouldn’t procreate.’ The Bailey is then ‘so there are lots of other cases where we also might consider preventing genetically transmitted abnormalities.’
I’m sort of on alert to Motte and Bailey from seeing the critical thinking folks list it as a logical fallacy. They usually qualify it as an “informal” fallacy, which I think is because what it really is argumentation by analogy. And many arguments by analogy depend closely on the details. Take the example of ‘aversion to sibling procreation makes you a eugenicist.’ On evolutionary psychology grounds most everyone would ‘feel’ like sibling incest is in some essential way not analogous to issues like probability of transmitting Huntington’s chorea, etc. Which is why the European court was stumped on the question.
I'm curious why you chose to have a child with an autistic person given this, when the risk is even higher than with schizophrenia - one autistic parent means 80% chance if the child is a boy, 33% chance if the child is a girl. As your child is a girl, there's an epistatic effect, but her children will be at increased risk even if she doesn't present.
Unfortunately the diagnostic categories of autism have been collapsed. There is a huge difference between a person who is nonverbal and a person who has some trouble reading facial expressions. The latter used to be called Asperger’s and this category contains many of the smartest and most productive people in the world. I don’t know where you got your data from but I would be happy if my child was similarly on the spectrum as my husband. Unlikely, because I’m very far from being on the spectrum and no one in my family is on the spectrum.
This was roughly my belief before having children. Unfortunately in retrospect that was hubris. In reality, it's extraordinarily unlikely anyone will have a child *exactly* as autisitic as they are, and I shouldn't have risked it. Both my husband and I are high IQ, my husband is an academic like yours, and neither of us suspected were on the broader autism phenotype until it was too late. I also didn't know that the genes for IQ and autism overlap until it was too late.
I have a 10 year old who has a high IQ but unfortunately is nonetheless severely disabled by his autism. After getting rejected from several autism specialist schools for being too difficult, the LA has placed him in a £30,000/yr independent school for troubled kids that uses restraint techniques. We don't have the heart to send him there.
In my social circles there are so, so many parents who are smart and a bit geeky or nerdy who've ended up in my position. I think this is a blind spot of the rationalist community. It's hard to both celebrate nerdiness and also grok that a segment of the next generation will suffer for it.
Eek, you have made me a bit nervous here - both my partner and I are potentially a bit autistic also. You speak as though you would have done something differently had you known, but what could you have done? Rejected your partner in favour of a football player?
"Older men and women are more likely than young ones to have a child with autism, according to multiple studies published in the past decade. Especially when it comes to fathers, this parental-age effect is one of the most consistent findings in the epidemiology of autism.
The link between a mother’s age and autism is more complex: Women seem to be at increased odds of having a child with autism both when they are much older and much younger than average, according to some studies."
Old parents (55!) plus at least one autistic parent, I wouldn't be so sure. As far as government nudges go, preventing the elderly from reproducing is by far *one* of the most important. The increased chances of autism are concerning, with some studies showing as high as 75-400% increased chance of the elderly having autistic children compared to the general population. Not to mention the myriad of other pathologies that are more likely.
"The latter used to be called Asperger’s and this category contains many of the smartest and most productive people in the world."
They're also four to ten times more likely to commit suicide when compared to the general population, depending on the study. Considerably more likely to develop anxiety, depression, self-harming behaviors, remain unemployed, I could go on. Autism is without a doubt, *not* a sign of genetic fitness.
It is true that autistic people are more likely to have anxiety, be depressed, commit suicide, etc, but you still acknowledged that many aspies are among the smartest and most productive people in the world.
This is why nobody in first world countries likes eugenics, they're afraid of a Reproduction Board picking who gets to have kids. Not like that power will ever be abused.
That is one reason, but [the main reason is that the Nazis made it look bad and mixed it with pseudo-science](https://zerocontradictions.net/FAQs/eugenics-FAQs#nazis-were-dysgenicists). You have to recall that eugenics used to have *a lot* of public support in the early 1900s. So much so, that countries like the United States even passed eugenics laws in some jurisdictions.
Even if eugenic population control is compulsory, the obligations imposed on everybody won't be any different from forcing people to pay their taxes. It's the cost of living in a society. There are fair and reasonable ways to enforce eugenics, and it will certainly yield better results if plenty of reasonable safeguards are implemented.
Interesting. I wonder if it is possible (or will be) to determine whether a child in the womb has autism, and to what degree. Some people may chose to terminate rather than risk a non-verbal individual, and some may even prefer to abort a child with Asperger’s, given the social difficulties they may encounter. Does that prospect bother you? What if such practices were to become enforced policy?
I wonder if this is why intellectual power couples are so rare and smart people are so rarely seen as being successful in love--some evolutionary instinct that prevents autism genes from accumulating.
Eugenics can only really be a government program, enacted by law and enforced by police. Perhaps the best way to prevent eugenics would be never to give government regulators the power to create such programs.
But, historically, the people who hypocritically opposed eugenics were the leftists who favored making government powerful enough to do eugenics.
Minimal, limited governments would not have the power to institute genetics, so people opposed to eugenics should oppose powerful government.
mmm, no, as Dr Fleischman notes at length, for example, religious communities at risk of inbreeding can promote 'eugenics' principles to mitigate that risk. And 'social' enforcement can be as strong historically as legal/governmental.
You have made an excellent case for legalizing and destigmatizing (non-abusive) sibling incest. I find myself quite persuaded on anti-eugenicist grounds.
The word eugenics is a problem because people understand it simultaneously to refer to "a desire to improve people by genetic changes" and to mean something inherently evil.
This is becoming more and more important as our capacity to prevent harm to future generations increases. We can not only screen for diseases with genetic components, we also have the ability to remove them from DNA. There is a moratorium on use of this, but it won't last forever.
Our ability to have a conversation about this topic will be a crucial determinant of how much harm our children and grandchildren experience.
"Our ability to have a conversation about this": Therein lies the rub. In our hyper-'liberal', hyper-virtue-signalling, hyper-thought-policed 21st c West, people who want any kind of real conversation outside of the Overton Window will never get a hearing in the mainstream; so they end up talking to each other. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/
Because the right never wields 'eugenics' as a cudgel against, say, abortion. Oh, wait.....
Tangential, but I would love it if you wrote a post about being an egg donor.
The main issue with eugenics is access and support for people who can't afford the necessary medical interventions. A good essay on the matter is "It’s 2059, and the Rich Kids Are Still Winning" by Ted Chiang (https://archive.ph/cPaMI). It's great to advocate for better healthcare but most arguments for eugenic interventions do not properly address the socio-economic and political system in which such policies are enacted and so fall far short of what would be needed to make the technology of genetic engineering a net positive for individuals and society.
That some people don’t have money to get a root canal is not an argument against dentistry.
I agree, it's an argument in favor of free healthcare (dental or otherwise) for all which is a socio-economic problem: "Our goal should be to ensure that every individual has the opportunity to reach his or her full potential, no matter the circumstances of birth. That course of action would be just as beneficial to humanity as pursuing genetic cognitive enhancements, and it would do a much better job of fulfilling our ethical obligations."
You're right, but not right enough. Life is more suffering than not, as Mr. Buddha and the Stoics, and The Poor can arrest to, and there's no way to guaranteed any individual a quality of life worth living, much less to account for the externalities to others of we could, so we shouldn't do it. Anti-natalism is the ethical choice for individuals. At the larger scale, the only way to eliminate suffering (the primary moral imperative) is to eliminate nature, and that means virtualizing or eliminating everything.
True, but I don’t like this analogy because the social outcomes of the two situations are not comparable. Some people being able to afford root canals while others cannot is unlikely to lead to a two-tiered society, whereas only the Uber rich being able to ensure their babies are top notch is. They already have the advantage of better nutrition, medical care, and a healthier environment to raise their children. Add eugenics tech into the mix and It’s getting very Brave New World.
I like to say that violent eugenics is an abomination but non-violent eugenics is a moral imperative.
Ah yes, the use of state coercion to prevent harm to others is an "abomination".
Yes, people who create children that are a drain on society are indirectly harming others. Society should not allow that to happen. Keep in mind that doesn't require killing anyone. All it requires is the state limiting reproduction.
How does "preventing brother-sister marriage" have anything to do with eugenics or preventing to harm to others? People can can children outside of wedlock. And anyone who supports same-sex marriage (I don't know if you do or not) or the modern view of marriage already believes that family formation and reproduction has nothing to do with marriage, but rather that it's only about love. On the modern view, what the state should prevent (if anything) is male-female sibling sex when both siblings are capable of reproducing.
Great post! You took the idea and flew with it to the very end. Its great to see posts that take ordinary beliefs and dig in deep enough to help us understand the underlying ideas that it represents. The question however is whether government should be allowed to make these decisions or if these decisions should be only made on an individual level.
Government represents the people and it shouldn't start going the other direction, with people living life for the government. There are certain sacrifices that people need to make to be part of a functioning society, but there should be limits on how far the government is allowed to make or force decisions on the individual.
Also when it comes to such decisions being made on an individual level, eugenics is not the correct term for it. The ideal member of the society for the government, is different from what an ideal partner is for me, an ideal child is for me, ideal sibling is for me, etc. Biases vary between individuals, and its a form of sexual selection, based not simply on what is the "fittest", but rather someone who is familiar, respecting of our needs, compatible with our behaviors, etc.
Nevertheless, great post, and I hope to see more of the same!
Many people are ok with the government using nudges- for example posting calorie counts or putting pictures of blackened lungs on cigarette cases. The implication is that all people have a desire to be healthy. Let’s say someone came in for drug treatment. They probably don’t plan to have a family while they are trying to get off drugs. So why not a similar nudge - offering a free reversible form of birth control. This, to me, seems no different than a doctor with the national health service offering you information on smoking cessation.
The problem here (and the one that eugenics faced historically) is the question of what is considered "good" or "bad". Genetical mutations that are considered "bad" is based on our biases of what that means. There are so many different selection criteria here to follow and which one do you consider the most important?
Is it good to be a good son, a good citizen, a good husband, a good worker, etc? What is good varies with time period as well - like how others stated about autism. It is an incorrect assumption to make that we all want the same things, and it is an even poorer assumption to make that nature selects for the same things. What are your thoughts on that?
I think for a person with right/libertarian leanings, there's an analogy to be made to "communism". Both "communism" and "eugenics" refer to 19th/20th century social movements. The analogy is actually very tight, I think. Both social movements became very fashionable among a broad swath of intellectual types, were influential in academia, had a theory of social development inspired by novel scientific ideas, and were directly and indirectly responsible for heinous crimes on both small and large scales.
Someone could support the 40-hour workweek, want seats for union reps on company boards, and believe in government taking a role in industrial policy. It would not be correct to tell that person "you're probably a communist" (although leftists do say stuff like this all the time).
This article is well written. There is a fundamental flaw, however in the principal argument. The author claims a myriad of examples to be “eugenics”, when in fact it is a by product of a different intention. The fact that I want my children to be healthy and not have a genetic disability, doesn’t make the opposite true: that I am then a eugenicist that is trying to mitigate the disability. In fact, that likely never crosses my mind. Perhaps a better example is the one about future parents not abusing alcohol or drugs during pregnancy. It’s a good thing for someone not to use drugs and abuse alcohol in general. We hold this as a moral good, because we want this person and other human beings to flourish. The fact that a person who eats healthy and doesn’t abuse drugs has a healthy baby is a by-product of the person flourishing. In other words, eugenics isn’t the end in mind, but a potential consequence of good choices.
You may not have genetics in mind when you think of human flourishing, but genetics has you in mind.
You’re right that promoting health does not necessarily entail promoting eugenics, but I think you’re missing the thrust of the article here: that one
of the strongest mechanisms for promoting human flourishing is the selection of “healthy” genes over “unhealthy” genes. Avoiding drugs, exercising, staying healthy and general human flourishing are signals for reproductive fitness.
We may not have that intention in our heads, but the principle belies our actions, beliefs, and taboos. For instance, humans have been universally repulsed by incest for much longer than we’ve known about genetics. We don’t need to rationalize it, because selection does the job for us, and instills a disgust of incest into us.
And perhaps taboo and healthy habits were as far as we could go before the age of reproductive technology, but now we have to come face to face with the eugenic intent behind our instincts, as the principles selection has instilled in us become motivating forces for how we use reproductive technologies. So I agree with the author; we have to own up to our eugenicist tendencies, and recognize that they are synonymous with our desire to promote collective human flourishing.
There are still many debates to be had regarding how these technologies will bump against our cultural, ethical, and religious values, but let’s at least be transparent about why so many people want to use these tools to promote human flourishing: because natural selection makes eugenicists out of all of us.
Yes, the state has realized this long ago. Since it wasn't popular anymore (eugenics), today we now have covert eugenic policies. Since there are significant amounts of people who are arguably low on the percentage-wise chance of labour participation because a lack of cognition as well as age-related decline, now we get MAID in Canada.
Covert and coercive measures have already been taken (medical experimentation) for the last three or more decades, whether people acknowledge it or not. There is a reason why more resources (income growth) occurs at the top percentile of the populations, why more women are encouraged to head into tertiary education, why all governments around the world are increasingly interested in your genomic data.
The primary aim is to increase the average aggregate utility of humans. Humans take an inordinate amount of time to mate, learn, tend to be forgetful, are not that interested in the future, etc. These qualities while sufficient for present-day civilization, are insufficient for advanced civilizations which require more cooperation in the long-term, and also require more cognition.
All government policies can be followed under two umbrellas;
1. The consolidation of all resources for total technological, behavioural and social control for the purpose of development of human civilization (enforced austerity through energy-limiting policies, behavioral conditioning of alternate diets, alternate lifestyles, concentrated cities)
2. The reduction of the population with lower-bound utility in the face of higher technological development (diets, hormones, medical experimentation, zoning, geographical stratification policies like China based on class).
If most humans agreed and stayed on the course to maintaining high average economic utility in the past, then I'd argue most governments would not have to go through the implementation of loopholes in legal frameworks for coercive measures which are arguably morally indefensible.
https://bailiwicknews.substack.com/p/american-domestic-bioterrorism-program
Most elites realize this and want to understand what is the pathway from A (origin of birth, genomic data, environmental influence) to B (productive, useful and obedient citizens)
https://youtu.be/KBBzcO-gyfU?t=50
The demographics and capabilities of a population determines the level of development of a country, a nation, and a civilization.
Anti-social qualities like poisoning your food or toothpaste or using substitutions that are damaging to human health out of personal gain is just one of the many attributes that are undesirable (see China). How to create a population that is industrious (like wartime Germany), civilized (like Japan), intelligent and respectful, achievement-oriented (like some parts of Asia), moderately collectivist and creative (like certain Anglo-people, particularly liberals with high openness scores) and easily controllable (usually intelligentsia). Any king, emperor, or leader worth his salt would pursue similar ambitions for a more prosperous future. Eventually though, if humans do become immortal and our moral equivalence is equated to some complex combination of stable personality, meta-thought formation subroutines or the like, the definitions would change to what is valuable.
I'd say that increasing the productive milk output of cows to an extent that such their health has declined or certain dogs bred to have certain desirable sociable attributes would be seemingly morally repugnant if applied to humans, but yet if one maintains the ability to change the base foundations of mind and inclinations then it also just as possible to make one be disinclined to like such things, and for us to require different energy sources just as other animals only need to eat plants, while we require certain amino acids from proteins from animals.
I do not think one can maintain a civilization based on perpetual deception forever, and that truth should be one of the pinnacle values of human existence, Yet there seems to a desire to create a two-tier class caste society of people, unfortunately. I rather take the pro-natalist stance of wealthy and intelligent people reproducing augmented people than have a lower-tier version of controllable humans. Extra-uterine bodies and AI babies are probably a century away now or so.
Great comment.
"I do not think one can maintain a civilization based on perpetual deception forever, and that truth should be one of the pinnacle values of human existence, Yet there seems to a desire to create a two-tier class caste society of people..."
Spot on, tragically.
VHEMT
I submit you are conflating two different concepts, given your introductory story: "Eugenics" and "consanguinity." This conflation ultimately derails your thesis.
Hey, just found your Substack! I’m a long term follower of the evolutionary psychology perspective on the human condition, so I’m interested to follow along.
You want to hear something weird? When I was partway through this essay on eugenics, the thought occurred to me, “she’s using a Motte and Bailey argument to say that we are all eugenicists.” So I was intrigued to see you further along use the exact inverted formulation. Your Motte is the (practically) universally accepted ‘siblings shouldn’t procreate.’ The Bailey is then ‘so there are lots of other cases where we also might consider preventing genetically transmitted abnormalities.’
I’m sort of on alert to Motte and Bailey from seeing the critical thinking folks list it as a logical fallacy. They usually qualify it as an “informal” fallacy, which I think is because what it really is argumentation by analogy. And many arguments by analogy depend closely on the details. Take the example of ‘aversion to sibling procreation makes you a eugenicist.’ On evolutionary psychology grounds most everyone would ‘feel’ like sibling incest is in some essential way not analogous to issues like probability of transmitting Huntington’s chorea, etc. Which is why the European court was stumped on the question.
I'm curious why you chose to have a child with an autistic person given this, when the risk is even higher than with schizophrenia - one autistic parent means 80% chance if the child is a boy, 33% chance if the child is a girl. As your child is a girl, there's an epistatic effect, but her children will be at increased risk even if she doesn't present.
Unfortunately the diagnostic categories of autism have been collapsed. There is a huge difference between a person who is nonverbal and a person who has some trouble reading facial expressions. The latter used to be called Asperger’s and this category contains many of the smartest and most productive people in the world. I don’t know where you got your data from but I would be happy if my child was similarly on the spectrum as my husband. Unlikely, because I’m very far from being on the spectrum and no one in my family is on the spectrum.
This was roughly my belief before having children. Unfortunately in retrospect that was hubris. In reality, it's extraordinarily unlikely anyone will have a child *exactly* as autisitic as they are, and I shouldn't have risked it. Both my husband and I are high IQ, my husband is an academic like yours, and neither of us suspected were on the broader autism phenotype until it was too late. I also didn't know that the genes for IQ and autism overlap until it was too late.
I have a 10 year old who has a high IQ but unfortunately is nonetheless severely disabled by his autism. After getting rejected from several autism specialist schools for being too difficult, the LA has placed him in a £30,000/yr independent school for troubled kids that uses restraint techniques. We don't have the heart to send him there.
In my social circles there are so, so many parents who are smart and a bit geeky or nerdy who've ended up in my position. I think this is a blind spot of the rationalist community. It's hard to both celebrate nerdiness and also grok that a segment of the next generation will suffer for it.
Eek, you have made me a bit nervous here - both my partner and I are potentially a bit autistic also. You speak as though you would have done something differently had you known, but what could you have done? Rejected your partner in favour of a football player?
“broad autism phenotype” is very commonly identified in one or both parents of non-verbal autistic children.
"Older men and women are more likely than young ones to have a child with autism, according to multiple studies published in the past decade. Especially when it comes to fathers, this parental-age effect is one of the most consistent findings in the epidemiology of autism.
The link between a mother’s age and autism is more complex: Women seem to be at increased odds of having a child with autism both when they are much older and much younger than average, according to some studies."
Old parents (55!) plus at least one autistic parent, I wouldn't be so sure. As far as government nudges go, preventing the elderly from reproducing is by far *one* of the most important. The increased chances of autism are concerning, with some studies showing as high as 75-400% increased chance of the elderly having autistic children compared to the general population. Not to mention the myriad of other pathologies that are more likely.
"The latter used to be called Asperger’s and this category contains many of the smartest and most productive people in the world."
They're also four to ten times more likely to commit suicide when compared to the general population, depending on the study. Considerably more likely to develop anxiety, depression, self-harming behaviors, remain unemployed, I could go on. Autism is without a doubt, *not* a sign of genetic fitness.
It is true that autistic people are more likely to have anxiety, be depressed, commit suicide, etc, but you still acknowledged that many aspies are among the smartest and most productive people in the world.
Under the system of eugenics that I have proposed, nobody would be forbidden from having kids as long as they meet the following requirements: https://zerocontradictions.net/FAQs/eugenics-FAQs#reproduction-license-reqs
This is why nobody in first world countries likes eugenics, they're afraid of a Reproduction Board picking who gets to have kids. Not like that power will ever be abused.
That is one reason, but [the main reason is that the Nazis made it look bad and mixed it with pseudo-science](https://zerocontradictions.net/FAQs/eugenics-FAQs#nazis-were-dysgenicists). You have to recall that eugenics used to have *a lot* of public support in the early 1900s. So much so, that countries like the United States even passed eugenics laws in some jurisdictions.
Anyway, [your criticism that eugenics would be tyrannical](https://zerocontradictions.net/FAQs/eugenics-FAQs#not-authoritarian) does not refute how eugenics will be necessary in order for humanity to have a sustainable future. [Dysgenics is rapidly rising in the modern world](https://zerocontradictions.net/FAQs/eugenics-FAQs#evidence-of-increasing-dysgenics), and everybody will be paying the consequences if we don't do something about it.
Even if eugenic population control is compulsory, the obligations imposed on everybody won't be any different from forcing people to pay their taxes. It's the cost of living in a society. There are fair and reasonable ways to enforce eugenics, and it will certainly yield better results if plenty of reasonable safeguards are implemented.
Interesting. I wonder if it is possible (or will be) to determine whether a child in the womb has autism, and to what degree. Some people may chose to terminate rather than risk a non-verbal individual, and some may even prefer to abort a child with Asperger’s, given the social difficulties they may encounter. Does that prospect bother you? What if such practices were to become enforced policy?
I wonder if this is why intellectual power couples are so rare and smart people are so rarely seen as being successful in love--some evolutionary instinct that prevents autism genes from accumulating.
Eugenics can only really be a government program, enacted by law and enforced by police. Perhaps the best way to prevent eugenics would be never to give government regulators the power to create such programs.
But, historically, the people who hypocritically opposed eugenics were the leftists who favored making government powerful enough to do eugenics.
Minimal, limited governments would not have the power to institute genetics, so people opposed to eugenics should oppose powerful government.
mmm, no, as Dr Fleischman notes at length, for example, religious communities at risk of inbreeding can promote 'eugenics' principles to mitigate that risk. And 'social' enforcement can be as strong historically as legal/governmental.
mmm, no. Religious communities cannot legally use force against people. Governments can and do. It's a whole different ballgame.
When you come back to actual American reality, LMK.
Excellent post, D. Sometimes wish my mother (or hers…) would have considered points like those you raise. If only you wrote this 25+years ago lol!
You have made an excellent case for legalizing and destigmatizing (non-abusive) sibling incest. I find myself quite persuaded on anti-eugenicist grounds.
The word eugenics is a problem because people understand it simultaneously to refer to "a desire to improve people by genetic changes" and to mean something inherently evil.
And I like your approach of just embracing it.