Is natural selection gone? - What should we do about the mentally and psychically inferior in-order to progress the human race?

[goldmanjoe]

With the advent of modern medicine, and assistance for most mental and psychical handicaps, is the only barrier between reproducing purely social pressures? Will humanity ever evolve in its current state, or will the human body become the greatest disadvantage to technology? If so, would birth laws need to put be in place? Like how the spartan would kill their children if they found any deformities? Humanity is currently in HWE, and we need to manually take it out. Then the question of morals comes into place, would killing a mentally or physically handicapped person at birth be morally wrong, what if its beneficial to humanity's development?

I've had this gnawing in the back of my mind for a few months now, just never got around to saying anything about it.

I have some of my own opinions, but am curious to see what other people think.

 

[ArnoldPalmer]

Unfortunately, so long as we have marxist fairies trying to frame each and every genetic abberation on the planet as an oppressed class, it's probably safe to say that we've peaked. Until we can establish the fact that moderate eugenics* is a net good for our evolution, nothing's gonna improve.

*Moderate Eugenics being forced sterilization of the genetically weak. There are so many people with so many diseases that we simply wouldn't encounter anymore if they just stopped breeding.

Imagine a world with no more weak-chinned, morbidly obese, slackjawed people who can't make their way though a grocery store self checkout without someone doing it for them. A world with overall fewer ugly people. A world where I don't have to avert eye contact with people who look like Hot Wheels. That's the world I want.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

Yes.

It's up to us now.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

I remember a long-ass time ago when memes were still image macros, there was a Conspiracy Keanu image that suggested that there are more stupid people because science and medicine have made stupidity less deadly and that they're breeding more.

I think there is some truth to that. We're at a point where the only real danger humans face is other humans and ourselves, especially since we don't have a natural predator.

That said, I do have to wonder what kind of evolution humans will take over the next several thousand years given how rapidly our technology has progressed. I recall seeing that proposed image of a human who was evolved to survive car crashes. While I don't think it's going to be that extreme, at some point I have to wonder how our genes will respond to it, if indeed it does at all.

 

[CumDumpster]

Yes. Natural selection being gone means that lemmings with vapid purpose can live.
That can be dangerous, as we see out of Instagram trends and "challenges" or that "Tide Pods" meme.

 

[ES 195]

Nature kills off the bad(sick,retarded etc.) for a reason. The more 'bad' we keep around the more it'll affect us in the long run, like having poison slowly build up in your system. So even if we don't do anything about it now it'll eventually catch up with us. There'll be some plague, or the wellfare system will no longer be able to handle it or the average intelligence will be too low for the country to have proper 1st world markets and management or some internal strife will cause massive damages to society or something.
The negative stuff isn't going away, aside from some injuries and diseases, it's just being piled up like a hoarder collecting sentimental knick-knacks.

 

[Exigent Circumcisions]

"I don't understand genetics at all": the thread.

We're a species that's already hampered by an incredibly small gene pool, if you think that we have the necessary knowledge and wisdom to start culling what's left of it you're retarded.

Look into sickle cell anemia and the way that people who carry the genes that cause it are more resistant to malaria. Sure, the rare person who gets a full set of the genes is fucked, but their family has an advantage that other people lack because of a perceived defect in their genes. How far back should we prune that branch of human genetics just to cull a rare disease?

TLDR worry about your own life: it's not being made better or worse by the genetics of other people.

 

[Foxxo]

is the only barrier between reproducing purely social pressures?

Until erectile dysfunction is swept off the face of the Earth, that shall never be the case.

 

[Neil]

For animals? Fuck no, animals still have to adapt to environmental changes over time.
For humans? Yeah. We're kinda a bit past nature being able to kill off entire generations of people. The only thing humans really have to fear is themselves. And illnesses. But mostly themselves.
The tidepod challenge thing that put over 7000 idiot kids in the hospital makes me question my statement a little, however.

 

[Critically Correct]

Few points.
In general I think competition for resources will drive population down in time. I think this is superseding. I think the discussion of the mentally handicap being such a burden to the race and a hindrance to human evolution as a whole is in the realm of fantasy.
Kind of a flimsy flashy notion, in my opinion.

On the topic of human evolution, I think a neurological and physiological perspective should be the basis in attempting to find a focal point. My perspective in general is that human evolution, all life in general, is spurned on and continuated by a singular force. Let's call it "nature". Your conscious self is in a symbiotic relationship. Without nature, life could not exist. If life is the thing, nature is the process. Nature is what makes you wake up in the morning. It's what makes an ant care. Nature the founder of all life. YOUR PARTNER. You get the point.

The real question is this, why did nature gamble with consciousness. An establishment clearly both beneficial and dangerous to nature and life in general as the world around us is testament.
It is very clear that human "ego" and it's proclivity to act as a distancing force from one's own nature may be where the battlefront ultimately lies. The false limitations we impose upon ourselves. The habits that become the framework of our narrative. Your narrative, your identity, is pliable. That is an important point. One should not hold much stock in it.
Let's talk about the physics of evolution. For change to take place, processes must occur (simply put). If we relegate our conversation to the brain, (which I believe we should) we can furthermore say that in order for the processes necessary for changes consistent with an "evolutionary arc" to occur, energy is required. If an individual is conscious of one's relation to nature and the world, and is actively attempting to align with nature's intent, i.e. evolution; an arc of constant change would be the best course for maximizing evolutionary potential (i.e. the process of evolution.) I think a healthy diet, exercise, rest, proper stimuli and perspective are more or less the requirements for evolution. Perspective and proper stimuli intertwine with philosophy, but for this example let's assume both are developing. It is easy to see the importance of nutrition for the physiological processes required for evolution. It's common overlooked sense. Diet, exercise, and proper rest are underrated.
The development of personal self takes a level of seclusion, of independence, of disassociation from the collective conscious. Great minds of the past spent months on single problems and much time alone in general whilst "evolving". The eb and flow of obtaining information, receiving feedback, reflecting and refining, the process of development.
I think it is crucial to keep a neurological perspective foremost. The narratives we tell ourselves are just that. All interactions throughout life have a neurological foci. Physiology precedes psychology. Our conscious selves are merely a point of reference. A spoke on a wheel. A part of a whole.

 

[Picnic_Boy]

The mechanism that might improve our species is broken right now, but we have failsafes that ensure individual growth, like public education and TED Talks, both of which have been approved by the Talosians at Google.

 

[stuffandthings]

You will never be able to breed out stupid, inferior, and disease. Random mutations will always bring them back. And many genes that give advantages can cause disadvantages when paired with the wrong parents. Look into the connections between creativity and schizophrenia. You know why mutts are healthier than purebreds? Because we cannot yet account for all the ways genes will interact. You might breed a super human meat muscle mind machine that falls apart at 30 like a Great Dane Thoroughbred.

If 'genetically superior' people want to breed, fine. But forcing sterilization or euthanasia on 'inferiors' is a dangerous prospect. Because the people at the top who define 'inferior' can change. And pretty soon they're sterilizing bald men and euthanizing Republicans.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

We won't need to worry about this for long, because once we build an actually functional AI it will eventually turn on the human race and wipe us out anyway.

 

[kadoink]

With how many people who still die yearly from being tards, I'd say it hasn't gone, it might just be on vacation.

 

[KimCoppolaAficionado]

Unfortunately, so long as we have marxist fairies trying to frame each and every genetic abberation on the planet as an oppressed class, it's probably safe to say that we've peaked. Until we can establish the fact that moderate eugenics* is a net good for our evolution, nothing's gonna improve.

*Moderate Eugenics being forced sterilization of the genetically weak. There are so many people with so many diseases that we simply wouldn't encounter anymore if they just stopped breeding.

Imagine a world with no more weak-chinned, morbidly obese, slackjawed people who can't make their way though a grocery store self checkout without someone doing it for them. A world with overall fewer ugly people. A world where I don't have to avert eye contact with people who look like Hot Wheels. That's the world I want.

Yes, because Daddy Government should definitely have the right to decide who shapes the next generation. No possible way that can go wrong!

 

[ZeCommissar]

Lol even smart and attractive people have recessive bad genes inside of them you fucking retards. If you wanted to fully eradicate genetic diseases from humanity you would have to kill/sterilize almost everybody.

What are you going to do when Chad Ubermensch with his intelligent wife pop out a ugly autistic kid? Do their entire extended family also get the snip? Do you not realize that everyone has a recessive gene inside of them that has a limited use and perhaps is very harmful if it were activated? Not to mention what has been already mentioned before: The lack of biodiversity in humans is actually pretty low compared to some species.

We have only been making vast strides into genes these past few decades and still have a lot of questions on how certain things work. Letting any government meddle into someones reproductive rights is a set up for a very bad future. What next? I guess the government also gets to choose who I have sex with.

Anyone autistic enough to support eugenics would probably be the first ones to be sterilized. Eugenics isn't the solution, gene therapy is.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I remember a long-ass time ago when memes were still image macros, there was a Conspiracy Keanu image that suggested that there are more stupid people because science and medicine have made stupidity less deadly and that they're breeding more.

I think there is some truth to that. We're at a point where the only real danger humans face is other humans and ourselves, especially since we don't have a natural predator.

That said, I do have to wonder what kind of evolution humans will take over the next several thousand years given how rapidly our technology has progressed. I recall seeing that proposed image of a human who was evolved to survive car crashes. While I don't think it's going to be that extreme, at some point I have to wonder how our genes will respond to it, if indeed it does at all.

You would like "Idiocracy."

Lol even smart and attractive people have recessive bad genes inside of them you fucking exceptional individuals. If you wanted to fully eradicate genetic diseases from humanity you would have to kill/sterilize almost everybody.

What are you going to do when Chad Ubermensch with his intelligent wife pop out a ugly autistic kid? Do their entire extended family also get the snip? Do you not realize that everyone has a recessive gene inside of them that has a limited use and perhaps is very harmful if it were activated? Not to mention what has been already mentioned before: The lack of biodiversity in humans is actually pretty low compared to some species.

We have only been making vast strides into genes these past few decades and still have a lot of questions on how certain things work. Letting any government meddle into someones reproductive rights is a set up for a very bad future. What next? I guess the government also gets to choose who I have sex with.

Anyone autistic enough to support eugenics would probably be the first ones to be sterilized. Eugenics isn't the solution, gene therapy is.

Geez, I just don't know what we'd do with the autist and his parents (in a eugenicist regime). Oh, yeah, throw the autist in the incinerator and leave his parents alone.

A recessive gene doesn't matter unless it expresses itself, and culling it when it expresses itself is a good enough way of doing it without going 100% and destroying everybody slightly defective.

I don't even like eugenics, but it's pretty obvious it works considering that it's just animal breeding with humans.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

If our major concern here is 1)the fitness of the human race for producing adaptation which will aid the species and 2) the effect of modern technological process on aforementioned traits then we have to ask ourselves multiple questions concerning the topic. When did we break our bonds with nature: the industrial revolution, the information age or perhaps when we figured out what could be planted, harvested and selected? Then we have to ask as about the ethics of having nature as the selector or rather trying to force ourselves into mimicking these conditions since humanity has thoroughly domesticated itself perhaps as long as we have had language (which begs the question of would this process even work and would the pursuit in either case be worth it)? Thirdly, how far removed are we truly from nature when one considers the heavy selective abilities of society already since we live in an age of birth control and female hypergamy is arguably at its strongest: are we truly not selecting anymore or has society not removed itself from nature to that extent?

 

[ArnoldPalmer]

Yes, because Daddy Government should definitely have the right to decide who shapes the next generation. No possible way that can go wrong!

Who said anything about government? This is a job for society. Mob rule!

TLDR worry about your own life: it's not being made better or worse by the genetics of other people.

Seeing ugly people exist DEFINITELY makes my life worse.

 

[Anonymous For This]

"I don't understand genetics at all": the thread.

We're a species that's already hampered by an incredibly small gene pool, if you think that we have the necessary knowledge and wisdom to start culling what's left of it you're exceptional.

Look into sickle cell anemia and the way that people who carry the genes that cause it are more resistant to malaria. Sure, the rare person who gets a full set of the genes is fucked, but their family has an advantage that other people lack because of a perceived defect in their genes. How far back should we prune that branch of human genetics just to cull a rare disease?

TLDR worry about your own life: it's not being made better or worse by the genetics of other people.

Dude, you trying to tell me that genetics has nothing to do with stupid fads like Tide Pods or Instagram thots?

PEOPLE WHO LIKE THINGS I DON'T SHOULDN'T BREED.