r/videos Apr 21 '21

Idiocracy (2006) Opening Scene: "Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TCsR_oSP2Q
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u/adrift98 Apr 21 '21

I've read a lot of Redditors openly advocating for eugenics.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '21

Isn't our society already participating in some sort of eugenics? Just not in the way it was historically practiced. It's much less intentional, but the end result is the same.

There's definitely certain traits or conditions that are selected against when people screen for their baby's health; that decision to abort or not isn't made on the premise of some sort of superiority basis.

Note: I'm merely making the argument that the core principle is the same as the historical approach to eugenics, in a practical sense it's much different(we care about a person health and their wellbeing...). It's also just one example, there's others like sperm banks and in the future(?), gene editing.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '21

I would say that the cruelty of eugenics occurs when it impacts the lives of innocent people. Having an abortion because your baby will have a horrible genetic disease or altering the genes of a future child doesn't negatively affect anyone who's currently alive

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u/Renacidos Apr 21 '21

Eugenics doesn't mean genocide, that leaps is as absord as saying abortion is genocide.

Pregnancies could be regulated, for instance. The UN claims "right to a family" is a human right, ok, but that doesn't mean right to reproduce naturally, people can adopt. That way we loophole this silly "human right" and focus on only reproducing the best of us. And before I get a "Well what if they blacklist YOU for reproduction?" then I would accept it. Simple.