Looking at the agree votes it seems that most many people think a different word should be substituted for eugenics. I pointed out the problems with this in the piece, that eugenics already has a definition that both encompasses Nazi atrocities and things that most people agree with. And other words, like reprogenetics, liberal eugenics and procreative beneficence haven’t caught on. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that many reasonable people decide to phase out ‘eugenic’ and instead use a word like epilogenics (like @aella suggests here.) How would that work rhetorically?
EA Bioethicist: Depression costs a huge number of QUALYs so I suggest the government subsidizes polygenic screening of embryos for depression for people who have suffered from depression and who are going through IVF.
Critic: That’s eugenics.
EA Bioethicist: Yes, technically it is. But we don’t use that word anymore. It’s actually “epilogenics” because people have free choice.
Critic: The fact that it also qualifies as a word you just made up doesn’t stop it from being eugenics.
This is a toy example but what if we freely used the word eugenics to describe all the things that it describes rather than putting a new label on just those things we agree with (without getting into the fact that it’s difficult to draw a bright line between coercive and non coercive interventions)?
EA bioethicist says the same thing about depression screening as above
Critic: That’s eugenics.
EA Bioethicist: Yes. But eugenics also encompasses many things you probably endorse, like genetic counseling for people with debilitating genetic diseases and laws against close relatives having children etc. So, “that’s eugenics” isn’t, by itself, an argument against my position.
Trying to hold onto the word “eugenics” seems to indicate an unrealistically optimistic belief in people’s capacity to tolerate semantics. Letting go is a matter of will, not reason.
E.g., I pity the leftist who thinks they can, in every conversation with a non-comrade, explain the difference between the theory of a classless society, the history of ostensibly communist regimes committing omnicide, and the hitherto unrealised practice of “real communism” (outside of a few scores of 20th-century Israeli villages and towns). To avoid the reverse problem when discussing “communist” regimes, I refer to “authoritarian regimes with command economies”. And I’m convinced it’s almost always better to go with “Social Democracy”.
Who cares if no other word has caught on yet. Marketing is a great and powerful force (one EAs seem only dimly to understand). Use more words if you have to. The key point is that “it’s a good idea to avoid tying yourself to words where the most common use is associated with mass murder.” [1]
Turning to the example. I’d pray to Hedone that most EAs can read the room well enough to avoid making such arguments while we still have nuclear wars to stop, pandemics to prevent, diseases to cure, global poverty to stamp out, and many cheap and largely uncontroversial treatments for depression and everyday sadness we’ve yet to scale. But assuming they did make that argument, I think the response to “That’s eugenics” should be something like:
“No, eugenics is associated with stripping a group of people of their right to reproduce. I’m discussing supporting families to make choices about their children’s health. Screening is already supported for many debilitating health conditions because of the suffering they produce, I’m saying that we should provide that same support when the conditions that produce the suffering are mental rather than physical.”
But maybe a takeaway here is: “don’t feed the trolls”?
Note: One response is, “we can’t give up on every word once it’s tainted by associated with some unseemly set of disreputes.” And that’s fair. For instance, I’m fine being associated with “Happiness Science” because the most common use is associated with social science into self-reported wellbeing,not a genocide-denying Japanese cult. The point is that choice of association depends on what most people associate the word with. Language will always be more bottom-up than top-down and seems much closer to a rowdy democracy than a sober technocracy.
Looking at the agree votes it seems that
mostmany people think a different word should be substituted for eugenics. I pointed out the problems with this in the piece, that eugenics already has a definition that both encompasses Nazi atrocities and things that most people agree with. And other words, like reprogenetics, liberal eugenics and procreative beneficence haven’t caught on. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that many reasonable people decide to phase out ‘eugenic’ and instead use a word like epilogenics (like @aella suggests here.) How would that work rhetorically?EA Bioethicist: Depression costs a huge number of QUALYs so I suggest the government subsidizes polygenic screening of embryos for depression for people who have suffered from depression and who are going through IVF.
Critic: That’s eugenics.
EA Bioethicist: Yes, technically it is. But we don’t use that word anymore. It’s actually “epilogenics” because people have free choice.
Critic: The fact that it also qualifies as a word you just made up doesn’t stop it from being eugenics.
This is a toy example but what if we freely used the word eugenics to describe all the things that it describes rather than putting a new label on just those things we agree with (without getting into the fact that it’s difficult to draw a bright line between coercive and non coercive interventions)?
EA bioethicist says the same thing about depression screening as above
Critic: That’s eugenics.
EA Bioethicist: Yes. But eugenics also encompasses many things you probably endorse, like genetic counseling for people with debilitating genetic diseases and laws against close relatives having children etc. So, “that’s eugenics” isn’t, by itself, an argument against my position.
Trying to hold onto the word “eugenics” seems to indicate an unrealistically optimistic belief in people’s capacity to tolerate semantics. Letting go is a matter of will, not reason.
E.g., I pity the leftist who thinks they can, in every conversation with a non-comrade, explain the difference between the theory of a classless society, the history of ostensibly communist regimes committing omnicide, and the hitherto unrealised practice of “real communism” (outside of a few scores of 20th-century Israeli villages and towns). To avoid the reverse problem when discussing “communist” regimes, I refer to “authoritarian regimes with command economies”. And I’m convinced it’s almost always better to go with “Social Democracy”.
Who cares if no other word has caught on yet. Marketing is a great and powerful force (one EAs seem only dimly to understand). Use more words if you have to. The key point is that “it’s a good idea to avoid tying yourself to words where the most common use is associated with mass murder.” [1]
Turning to the example. I’d pray to Hedone that most EAs can read the room well enough to avoid making such arguments while we still have nuclear wars to stop, pandemics to prevent, diseases to cure, global poverty to stamp out, and many cheap and largely uncontroversial treatments for depression and everyday sadness we’ve yet to scale. But assuming they did make that argument, I think the response to “That’s eugenics” should be something like:
“No, eugenics is associated with stripping a group of people of their right to reproduce. I’m discussing supporting families to make choices about their children’s health. Screening is already supported for many debilitating health conditions because of the suffering they produce, I’m saying that we should provide that same support when the conditions that produce the suffering are mental rather than physical.”
But maybe a takeaway here is: “don’t feed the trolls”?
Note: One response is, “we can’t give up on every word once it’s tainted by associated with some unseemly set of disreputes.” And that’s fair. For instance, I’m fine being associated with “Happiness Science” because the most common use is associated with social science into self-reported wellbeing, not a genocide-denying Japanese cult. The point is that choice of association depends on what most people associate the word with. Language will always be more bottom-up than top-down and seems much closer to a rowdy democracy than a sober technocracy.
Ah, you made the same point I did, but better :-)