Much of this argument could be short-circuited by pulling apart what Scott means by âeugenicsâ - itâs clear from the context (missing from the OPâs post) that heâs referring to liberal eugenics, which argues that parents should have the right to have some sort of genetic choice over their offspring (and has almost nothing in common with the coercive âeugenicsâ to which the OP refers).
Liberal eugenics is already widespread, in a sense. Take embryo selection, where parents choose which embryo to bring to term depending on its genetic qualities. Weâve had chorionic villus sampling to check an embryo for Down syndrome for decades; itâs commonplace.
Just dropping the word âeugenicsâ again and again with no clarification or context is very misleading.
While I think itâs important to understand what Scott means when Scott says eugenics, I think:
a. Iâm not certain clarifying that you mean âliberal eugenicsâ will actually pacify the critics, depending on why they think eugenics is wrong,
b. if thereâs really two kinds of thing called âeugenicsâ, and one of them has a long history of being practiced by horrible, racist people coercively to further their horrible, racist views, and the other one is just fine, I think Scott is reckless in using the word here. Iâve never heard of âliberal eugenicsâ before reading this post. I donât think itâs unreasonable of me to hear âeugenicsâ and think âoh, you mean that racist, coercive thingâ.
I donât think Scott is racist or a white supremacist but based on stuff like this I donât get very surprised when I find people who do.
My response to (b): the word is probably beyond rehabilitation now, but I also think that people ought to be able to have discussions about bioethics without having to clarify their terms every ten seconds. I actually think it is unreasonable of someone to skim someoneâs post on something, see a word that looks objectionable, and cast aspersions over their whole worldview as a result.
Reminds me of when I saw a recipe which called for palm sugar. The comments were full of people who were outraged at the inclusion of such an exploitative, unsustainable ingredient. Of course, they were actually thinking of palm oil (palm sugar production is largely sustainable) but had just pattern-matched âpalmâ as âthat bad food thingâ.
Much of this argument could be short-circuited by pulling apart what Scott means by âeugenicsâ - itâs clear from the context (missing from the OPâs post) that heâs referring to liberal eugenics, which argues that parents should have the right to have some sort of genetic choice over their offspring (and has almost nothing in common with the coercive âeugenicsâ to which the OP refers).
Liberal eugenics is already widespread, in a sense. Take embryo selection, where parents choose which embryo to bring to term depending on its genetic qualities. Weâve had chorionic villus sampling to check an embryo for Down syndrome for decades; itâs commonplace.
Just dropping the word âeugenicsâ again and again with no clarification or context is very misleading.
While I think itâs important to understand what Scott means when Scott says eugenics, I think:
a. Iâm not certain clarifying that you mean âliberal eugenicsâ will actually pacify the critics, depending on why they think eugenics is wrong,
b. if thereâs really two kinds of thing called âeugenicsâ, and one of them has a long history of being practiced by horrible, racist people coercively to further their horrible, racist views, and the other one is just fine, I think Scott is reckless in using the word here. Iâve never heard of âliberal eugenicsâ before reading this post. I donât think itâs unreasonable of me to hear âeugenicsâ and think âoh, you mean that racist, coercive thingâ.
I donât think Scott is racist or a white supremacist but based on stuff like this I donât get very surprised when I find people who do.
My response to (b): the word is probably beyond rehabilitation now, but I also think that people ought to be able to have discussions about bioethics without having to clarify their terms every ten seconds. I actually think it is unreasonable of someone to skim someoneâs post on something, see a word that looks objectionable, and cast aspersions over their whole worldview as a result.
Reminds me of when I saw a recipe which called for palm sugar. The comments were full of people who were outraged at the inclusion of such an exploitative, unsustainable ingredient. Of course, they were actually thinking of palm oil (palm sugar production is largely sustainable) but had just pattern-matched âpalmâ as âthat bad food thingâ.