I’m inclined to write defenses of views in the latter paragraph:
My read (I admit I skimmed) is that Scott doesn’t opine because he is uncertain whether there is a large scale reproduction-influencing program that would be a good idea in a world without GE on the horizon, not that he has a hidden opinion about reproduction programs we ought to be doing despite the possibility of GE.
I don’t think the mere presence of a “dysgenic” discussion in a Bostrom paper merits criticism. Part of his self-assigned career path is to address all of the X-risks. This includes exceedingly implausible phenomena such as demon-summoning, because it’s probably a good idea for one smart human to have allocated a week to that disaster scenario. I don’t think dysgenic X-risks are obviously less plausible than demon-summoning, so I think it’s a good idea someone wrote about it a little.
The article on this forum originated as a response to Torres’ hyperbolic rhetoric, and primarily defends things that society is already doing such as forbidding incest.
Singer’s argument, if I remember correctly, does not involve eugenics at all. It involves the amount of enjoyment occurring in a profoundly disabled child vs a non-disabled child, and the effects on the parents, but not the effect on a gene pool. I believe the original actually indicated severe disabilities that are by their nature unlikely to be passed on (due to lethality, infertility, incompatibility with intercourse, or incompatibility with consent), so the only impact would be to add a sibling to the gene pool who might be a carrier for the disability.
I’m inclined to write defenses of views in the latter paragraph:
My read (I admit I skimmed) is that Scott doesn’t opine because he is uncertain whether there is a large scale reproduction-influencing program that would be a good idea in a world without GE on the horizon, not that he has a hidden opinion about reproduction programs we ought to be doing despite the possibility of GE.
I don’t think the mere presence of a “dysgenic” discussion in a Bostrom paper merits criticism. Part of his self-assigned career path is to address all of the X-risks. This includes exceedingly implausible phenomena such as demon-summoning, because it’s probably a good idea for one smart human to have allocated a week to that disaster scenario. I don’t think dysgenic X-risks are obviously less plausible than demon-summoning, so I think it’s a good idea someone wrote about it a little.
The article on this forum originated as a response to Torres’ hyperbolic rhetoric, and primarily defends things that society is already doing such as forbidding incest.
Singer’s argument, if I remember correctly, does not involve eugenics at all. It involves the amount of enjoyment occurring in a profoundly disabled child vs a non-disabled child, and the effects on the parents, but not the effect on a gene pool. I believe the original actually indicated severe disabilities that are by their nature unlikely to be passed on (due to lethality, infertility, incompatibility with intercourse, or incompatibility with consent), so the only impact would be to add a sibling to the gene pool who might be a carrier for the disability.