>do you think it would be good if it were possible that parents use genetic engineering to protect their baby from harmful genetic diseases?

That's not Eugenics! Though it walks a thin line if you start considering any variation to be a "disease". Should we get rid of all forms of neurodivergence? Is dark skin a disease?

>Eugenics: the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable.

Eugenics is specifically about breading a race of people. It's about eliminating "undesirable traits" (historically: being black or jewish or gay or any other variation of the human condition that isn't straight and white). It necessarily implies an authority who defines what is or isn't "desirable" for other people (the "race").

The fact that you and Nick Bostrom and aparently every other person on this sub can't be bothered to understand the not so subtle difference between curing diseases and breading a fucking UBERMENCH indicates to me the dire need for such a conversation instead of letting the mods shut it down.

Oh I won't even waste my time with you fruit cake

Ectolife pods are around the corner anyway

Post-human doesn't imply eugenics. Why are all of these comments on crack? It's not complicated.

Eugenics is about breeding a "superior" race and the eradication of "undesirable traits".

It necessarily implies an authority defining what traits are desirable for a large group of people (the "race" in question).

Post-humanism doesn't imply any of that shit. It goes beyond breeding and race and the need to eradicate any specific trait.

If I wan't a tail with a jewish vagina on the end of it, it's none of anyone's fucking business. I don't need to be apart of your "race".

The fact that this distinction is lost on you is telling of why this debate needs to happen in this community. You guys don't even understand WHAT eugenics is and yet, you're a proponent? WTF?

do you think it would be good if it were possible that parents use genetic engineering to protect their baby from harmful genetic diseases?

No it's not, dipshit. Eugenics is about breading a super-race free of "undesirable traits". It necessarily implies a group of people defining what they desire for another group of people (the "race").

Transhumanism implies no such authority. If I want eight arms, seven vaginas, thirteen penises, and my mother's Jewish teeth, I don't have to have someone else telling me that's undesirable.

You are the one who needs to think about what words mean.

The size of a natural organic brain absolutely has strong correlation with its capabilities. There are structures in the brain which activate more with certain tasks. A very large portion of the brain is dedicated to controlling the body, to vision, and to problem solving.

Brain plasticity allows the parts of the brain to map to different tasks, but we lose plasticity as we age.

Being able to integrate more brain material by necessity means being able to manipulate that plasticity, and means we'd be able to integrate other body parts into the nervous system.

Perhaps there could be a more efficient way to make a brain, or a way to make brains faster, but as it stands now, more brain space would mean more processing power. The reason people don't have bigger brains is likely because the challenges of birth. Humans already have massive heads, babies heads couldn't be much bigger, and evolution doesn't work in a way that lends itself to the massive structural changes we'd need to solve that.

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This is Facebook comment section tier lunacy. Get this pseud shit off our comfy politically neutral sub and go back to futurology with the rest of the unhinged panicky doomers

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Transhumanism is eugenics OP, think about that shit. Yes, people will have the freedom to make their skin darker or lighter, who gives a flying fuck about the real world when you live in the other “real worlds” that fullfill your personal utopia vision. Forget about it, it’s not worth running in circles in your mind.

Is there a sub about the singularity that doesn't "lean" fascist?

>If we have the technology to make our children healthier at birth then we have an obligation to do that.

Eugenics isn't the same as medicine. What the actual fuck?

>Eugenics: the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable.

We don't need to bread an Ubermench to cure diseases.

Tell us how you really feel.

If you didn't realize this sub is highly political with a clear leaning, you haven't been paying any attention at all.

Ya seem to misunderstood something here. See the size of the brain doesn't necessarily define it's capabilities, it's like the comparison Between computers which once took an entire room's worth of size but can now fit in the palm of ur hands.

On the other hand I'm not even totally sure how and what would "adding" extra neurons with our own would result in.

What's wrong with improving humanity? We don't live in Nazi Germany. If we have the technology to make our children healthier at birth then we have an obligation to do that.

Did you even read twilight?

It doesn't pertain to the singularity. This sub is for discussing the singularity.

People loose their careers all the time because they say something or said something twenty years ago in a private email that they're not suppose to say. Pretty sure there's subreddits for those things but it has no effect on the singularity.

Also nowhere in the link you posted does Nick Bostrom say he is in support of Eugenics. He says he's in support of parents having options to "enhance" their own children.

Denial

It literally can already write very large books this is nothing new

For the record, the Transhumanist movement in general is friendly to eugenics; it’s not surprising that Nick Bostrom would be sympathetic to it.

You won't let this go, will you?

I'm so tired of this chicken-little bullshit that a bunch of "intellectual dark web" assholes go on about the "freedom of speech in academia" as though its so hard to communicate science without using racial slurs.

Elon Musk said he bought Twitter because he's sooooo concerned about the importance of "freedom of speech" to the future of society. Ha!!! He then prompltly un-banned a bunch of Neo Nazis like Richard Spensor while banning a bunch of people critical of him. It's all bull shit. We've been through this. Karl Popper already famously solved the "paradox of tolerance". Bigots have absolutely NOTHING to bring to the "marketplace of ideas". We already fought a world war over the information hazard that is Fascism! We don't need to mull these ideas over more. Their "absence" (bah!) in scientific or political discourse certainly is NOT among the biggest challenges facing humanity. It's way smaller than the rising prevalence of FASCISM ITSELF!

This idiocy NEEDS TO END. People working in genetic medicine ABSOLUTELY SHOULD be aware of the very thin line they walk between medicine and eugenics and ABSOLUTELY SHOULD be careful in how they communicate their ideas. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, MR. BOSTROM?!

Who's worried about the free speech of minorities or children born in cancer villages who have no chance of ever get to voice their perspectives in the halls of academia.

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