Agreed, my mom was born functionally blind, and sheās comfortable with the way things are because itās made her who she is. Even having a bit of sight hasnāt motivated her to āimproveā it beyond the convenience factor. Thereās nothing āwrongā with her.
This also leads her to interesting viewpoints on other topics. Many medical systems screen the genetic markers of fetuses for things like down syndrome. The ethical questions about terminations aside, when I ask her or other ādifferently abledā people about screening fetuses for things like they themselves have and then changing the properties that cause their difference so that when the fetus is born it lives without that difference, she and others have pretty much universally said āno, we should leave them as is.ā
I donāt know if the inception of this viewpoint is caused primarily by their life experiences, or if itās some āgodās planā bullshit, but it seems pretty prevalent. I personally would think it would be good to provide a baby with every evolutionary advantage we can, and allow them to choose abilities they do not want later in life, but that doesnāt seem to be the general consensus.
Not criticising anyone here, but there is a plethora of psychological factors at play there.
In a nutshell, the pattern of folks you described are the people who fought their entire lives to be accepted as whom they are, and to be viewed as normal people. As just different, but not deffective.
That is perfectly understandable. As a herd animal humans try to be accepted by others. We have been programmed for that. (and Iām not saying we should not treat people differently either). And we also shun away displays of pitty, for that saps away our own strenght.
Nowā¦ Imagine I grew up blind or deaf. I struggled my whole life to be accepted as I am and to be viewed as an equal. Last thing I want is to be seen as a broken toy who deserves pitty (pretty understandable, right?)
But thenā¦ If I accept we should change the fetuses, then I am also accepting that I do have a defect which should have been corrected.
And that unwinds my entire existence.
So itās just natural that I would go against that.
[RANT]
I find it baffling how there is a humongous gap between both conceptsā¦ yet people actually find acceptable to apply Reducto ad Absurdum to topics like that.
And a whole evolutionary step becomes blocked because people are afraid of something actually unrelated!
(not saying you did that. you did not!)
Same feeling when I hear someone saying we should not cure Aging ābecause of overpopulationāā¦ ffs! To informed ears it is as uncoherent as hearing āWe should not have a bath because tomorrow weāll get dirty anywayā!
[/RANT]
Yeah thatās pretty much what Iāve come to. Itās a minor inconvenience at most and so Iāve never really just like absolutely needed to see colours. I normally donāt even play games or use my devices with a colour filter because it looks odd to me. I may eventually get some when Iām out of uni and making big boy money. But as for now that money could go to new implants that I would arguably enjoy more
Color blindness can also be an advantage in very specific cases, as I found out when I learned gunsmithing: one of my classmate was colorblind. Not sure which case of color blindness he had exactly, but he couldnāt tell blue things from other colors iirc.
Youād think thatās a problem for a gunsmith, because one of the things we learned was how to blue gun parts with heat. Believe me, it takes quite a lot of skill and a good eye to consistently produce the same beautiful deep prussian blue with a flame.
Well, surprisingly, he was amazingly good at it: while he couldnāt tell something was blue, he could tell subtle differences in blue hues apart 10 times better than us normal-sighted students. He told us he just āfeltā that that dark patch was ārightā and stopped applying heat exactly at the right moment, each time, every time. That was quite something to watch. But he could never tell by himself if the result was good, and he certainly couldnāt enjoy it, frustratingly
Blue is my favorite colour for the fact that it is one of the few colours that I almost always see properly (to my knowledge) but honestly I got to a point where I will confidently say what colour something is even if I donāt actually know it and seldom do I get it right. But it is a fun little game I like to play.
I can imagine it was, Iād probably be just as amazed
Lol, alright. I guess humans have an elevated status over animals, and while weāre fine with somatic modifications we draw the line at germline cells.
Iād say inherently there is nothing wrong with it but youād get a lot around here pertaining to āgodās planā as Satur9 said. (Not saying around here as in the forum but the southern U.S.
Yeah, okay - that is a reason I do not get at all, but I can respect it. (as long as it doesnāt lead to stupid laws that affect other, non-religious peopleā¦)
I personally donāt either, there are a few kids from my hometown who basically suffered their entire lives from their disabilities (various causes) and personally I donāt know if Iād ever want to be alive under such circumstances. On the other hand there are a few that are great kids an some now adults who Iām sure are loving life but, I think thereās a limit to the āgodās planā argument. i.e. it was godās plan that your child almost drown as a baby and have to go through expensive intense surgery their entire life only to live to 11? I could never.
Me neither, but I think thatās totally impossible to know at all.
And I think there are a great lot of people with various disabilities who
totally.
But I just think, being healthy is better than not being healthy.
People with any disabilities are as āvaluableā or whatever than any other people, that should be obvious - but if a genetic disease can be avoided, I think it should be.
First you start by curing (or worse, culling) fetuses with Down syndrome - sounds reasonable enough. Then maybe you move on to those with muscular dystrophy (who doesnāt want that). Then maybe lesser diseases, because why not after all. Then maybe color blindness since weāre at it. Then left-handedness - who needs those pesky lefties eh? Then maybe black people - after all, white people are know to have a better quality of life overallā¦
The real problem is, itās not the government or some nefarious ārace purityā agency that will mandate it: itās the parents in an honest effort to secure a better future for their offspring.
And once that particular stone begins to roll, then the insurance companies will jump onboard, making living as a ālesserā human more expensive and more difficult, creating ghettos, etc etc.
I suggest you watch this movie to glimpse at the end result.
EDIT: Also, Stephen Hawking is proof enough that depriving humanity of its disabled brethren is stupid.
EDIT 2: I said I wouldnāt bite and Iām biting. Iām out of here
Avoiding genetic defects has 0 to do with eugenics.
But just because an Eugenic implementing society would also utilise the same technique, people start seeing connections where there are none.
That is a line of thought that should never be used to invalidate something.
To warn and prepare, yes. But to invalidateā¦ for that to be āwhat is wrong withāā¦ now that is where danger lies.
Least our progress becomes absolutely halted!
So many things are slippery slopes! Most of our Scientific progress comes from research in fields where there are risks of misuse. So if we let that risk be the reason to stop evolvingā¦ then we might as well start marching backwards.
I knowā¦
I just might not like mankind enough, so I view it mostly from aā¦ kinda darwinist point of view. We all agree that genetic diseases are not something nice. To say someone should suffer from it, just to keep some ādiversityā or not to disturb āgodās planā sounds cruel to me. Thatās why I think it would be a good idea to get some genetic testing before planning to reproduceā¦
(I actually learned a lot about breeding dogs, and seeing how much effort serious breeders put into keeping their dogs healthy and all that, and than seeing that every human is simply allowed to reproduce, no matter how unsafe the outcome will beā¦ kinda baffled me.)
Of course, itās dangerous if it is no longer limited to diseasesā¦
But should that be a reason not to do it? Like, of course opiates are dangerous drugs, but they saved a lot of people from unbearable painā¦ (well, terrible comparison, but I think you get what I meanā¦ hope soā¦ )
edit: Eyeux just pointed that out in a much better way than I did
It kinda has, if you take āeugenicsā by the very word of it - most people see it today as making ādesigner babysā and such, but thatās not what it was aboutā¦ it was just misused so many timesā¦
Eugenics is not the act of manipulating the resulting breed between 2 individuals.
Eugenics is when we apply selective breeding (or genetic manipulation, etcā¦) in order to cause change to a whole population. And even then, it must be intentional.
Even if an entire population happens to "spontaneously* stop mating with Gingers, and as a result the genes that make you ginger end up excluded from our gene poolā¦ that would not have been eugenics.
Now, if a government issues a law (or a council reaches an agreement) which makes people aim to consciously stop mating with gingers, in an effort to cull out those genesā¦
Now that is Eugenic.
And thatās where I say that Eugenics has 0 to do with Genetic manipulation.
And doing so, to prevent diseases, might not be such a bad thingā¦
Or maybe at least some kind of voluntary genetic testing, before a couple decides to get childrenā¦
(Because itās really hard to keep people from getting children by lawā¦^^)
Iām honest, I will never have children (for I do not want to ), but I would surely get myself and my man tested beforeā¦
