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4·4 days agoShout-out to when Rick Perry wanted to abolish the department of energy, not knowing it’s responsible for maintaining our nations nuclear weapons, international treaty monitoring for nukes, and nuclear waste management and cleanup.
Texas man think government energy bad. Must abolish.
What do you mean by intelligence? General intelligence has never been scientifically proven to exist. So in that sense: I don’t believe in intelligence, either.
That’s a hell of a bomb to drop when we’re waist deep in the discussion, and quite frankly not a can of worms I have the time to open, so I’m just going to peace out. Thank you for the civil discussion, have a good day!
I refuse to believe thatstupidity is a thing, let alone can be inherited via nature or nurture!
Apologies, I was using “stupidity” as shorthand for “lack of intelligence”. Are we in agreement that intelligence is inherited as a mixture of nature and nurture? What I say next does depend on agreement here.
So remember when you said
Not everything inheritaple is based on genes. If two people who love playing the violin get children,I’ll guaranteeyou that their offspring will know one thing or two about violins.
Let’s say Priddy sterilized someone, they met a partner who also loved playing violin, and they adopted a kid. The sterilization would do nothing to prevent the kid from knowing a thing or two about the violin. Do we agree? Do you see what I mean about sterilization not preventing the inheritance of non-biological traits?
Now swap out “love for the violin” with “deprioritizing education”, and you have the seeds for Idiocracy. This works with or without involving eugenics, so you’re choosing to look at the movie through the lens of eugenics.
And again: the movie implies heavily that stupidity is inheritable, just like the historical example. Be it via nature or nurture.
My original point was that Idiocracy is an eugencist movie by implying that stupidity is inherited.
Every definition of eugenics that I’ve seen only discusses inheriting by nature. You have yet to provide a definition that explicitly captures inheriting by nurture as well. The movie does discuss inheritance of stupidity, but is ambiguous about it being nature or nurture. Therefore, the so far uncontested societal definition of eugenics, which focuses just on nature, is only one way to look at how stupidity was inherited. There is the equally valid lens of looking at it through the inheritance of stupidity via nurture.
Choosing to claim that this is movie about eugenics necessitates you either ignoring that stupidity can be inherited via nurture (via deprioritizing of education, etc ), or by applying your own definition of eugenics in order to also include nurture. A definition that you have thusfar been unable to provide authoritative sources agreeing with you on, and that disagrees with the societal definition.
… sterilization would prevent the passing of genes by that individual by mechanism of no longer having kids. Biologically inherited traits are, by definition, determined by genes. These are facts. You can try to hand waive this away and say “who knows our current understanding of this may change in the future”, but that then leaves us with “our current understanding of science informs us that your source did not discuss eugenics outside of the scope of biologically inherited traits”
That legal case is once again, about sterilization, which is eugenics by way of preventing traits from being inherited biologically. I’m beginning to think you don’t understand what I mean when I ask for a source discussing eugenics outside the scope of biologically inherited traits.
Do you remember how you brought go that if two parents play violin, their kid probably will too? Would it be eugenics to prevent that kid from playing violin? Unless you believe coco to be a movie about the perils of eugenics, the answer should be no. Substitute passing down “a love for playing violin” with “not prioritizing education” and that explains Idiocracy, without eugenics.
You are choosing to explain the outcome of Idiocracy with eugenics and you’re choosing to ignore equally valid alternatives.
I’ve asked multiple times for sources discussing eugenics outside of the scope of biologically inherited traits.
Haven’t you already given examples with sterilization of indigenous people?
Sterilization is 100% in the realm of biologically inherited traits, as it prevents the passing on of genes, so no, that is not what I’m asking for.
You can genocide people through eugenics, true, but taking kids away is genocide without eugenics as defined by all authoritative sources that I’ve seen, none of which have been contested.
I’ll ask for a 4th(?) time, are you able to share sources that discuss eugenics outside of the scope of biologically inherited traits?
If not, then my take away is that you have a personal definition of eugenics that is not shared by society, and your opinions about the role of eugenics in this movie should be considered appropriately.
Ah, so the idea is that candidates for the position are not yet locked in, therefore comparison between party candidates is not valid. I can get behind that.
However in the current environment I don’t see many other paths forward. I think the best alternative I’ve seen was an article floating al franken. My guess is the original commenters worry is that without viable alternatives, it will likely become a Biden vs trump election, and by then we’ve provided ourselves with enough negativity against Biden to encourage a trump victory. I’d like to see more positive qualities of alternatives be brought up, instead of negatives about the current most likely nominee.
The meme is about Jimmy Carter running as a candidate for election… The conversation is clearly about an election in which we are comparing candidates for an election.
This isn’t “Joe Biden makes a goddamn awful margarita.”, in which “Well putin makes a worse one” would be a whataboutism, this is “Joe Biden is too old to run as a candidate in the election”. And in an election, you compare candidates, which is not a logical fallacy.
Can you go into detail? What’s the criticism that you think is being deflected?EDIT: nah, I’m just going to stick with my initial assertion. Comparing two candidates for a position is not a logical fallacy. Do you agree?
I’ve asked multiple times for sources discussing eugenics outside of the scope of biologically inherited traits.
If the historical context you’re describing does not fall under that request, it’s not relevant because we’d circle back around to eugenics necessitating biologically inherited traits. If the historical context you’re describing does fall under that request, I’m all ears.
Similar to how I understand your example of taking away native American children to fall under genocide and not eugenics, I suspect there’s a misunderstanding in the definition of eugenics.
We’re in agreement on that - I was stating earlier that there are social aspects that can be “inherited”, for example, the nurture segment of intelligence.
However at the end of the day, every definition I’ve seen for eugenics focuses on the biological inherited traits, and none mention these socially/culturally inherited ones. Intelligence is impacted by both biologically inherited traits as well as socially inherited traits, which is why I’m proposing that eugenics, which I’ve not seen defined to cover socially inherited traits, is only a potential driver. In the absence of the movie explicitly calling out the lack of an “intelligence gene”, failing social nets not preventing socially/culturally inherited stupidity is an equally valid reason.
Can you share a source that discusses eugenics without the context of biologically inherited traits? I did a search for “eugenics native American children” and all of the hits discuss forced sterilization, which reinforces my belief that mechanics do matter because eugenics does rely on genes.
When discussing taking away the children of native Americans, I believe that falls under genocide, instead of eugenics. Also bad, but different bad.
To get the conversation started, here’s the definition of eugenics provided by a few common sources:
Comparing two candidates for a position is not a logical fallacy.
Using whataboutism to deflect from the criticisms of one is.
Again, criticism was acknowledged.
The core narrative of (negative) eugenics is “if the wrong people reproduce too much, we have a problem”.
Reproduce, meaning procreate/have kids?
This clarification matters because if it’s just about giving birth to kids, it fundamentally is about genes. The justification is whatever quality the eugenicist is hoping to encourage. The underlying mechanism, once again, is genes.
Here’s a question that might further the discussion. Is it considered eugenics to control who gets to adopt babies? If it’s not eugenics, then why does choosing who can have babies through procreation fall under the umbrella of eugenics? What’s the difference between these scenarios?
It would be very helpful if you could share a source that discusses eugenics in the absence of passing on biologically inherited traits. The vast majority of definitions that I’ve seen focuses on this supposed passing on of biological inheritance of traits.
Whataboutism only applies as a logical fallacy when used to avoid defense of the original accusation.
There is no avoidance here, they fully agree that Biden is old etc. etc.
Whataboutism does not apply.
Sure, however there are traits passed down through generations that don’t utilize genes. As an example, let’s look at intergenerational wealth. Is that a form of eugenics? I would argue no - there are no biological traits being selected for, which afaik is the scope of eugenics. Instead I would propose that these are inherited environmental traits, which are more in the scope of public policy.
Let’s then talk about intelligence. AFAIK, intelligence is a mixture of nature and nurture - genes and environmental impacts. What this means is when you claim the movie is about eugenics, you are choosing to ignore the environmental aspect, and instead focusing on the genetic aspect of intelligence. If we bring this back to inherited social traits, it is just as likely that it is the inherited environmental traits that resulted in the dumbing down depicted in the movie. The dumb example fella did not prioritize education, so why would his offspring?
Yes, goddammit. The idea is older than the discovery of genes. 🙄
Incorrect theories about hereditary effects have fueled eugenics, however the undiscovered underlying mechanism would still be genes.
My understanding is that the eugenics still necessitates genes being passed down, but I am no eugenics scholar and would cede to definitions that are contrary.
Yup, when I first joined I wanted to join lemmy.ml because “oh I like machine learning”.
Those were the days…
There’s modern louvre versions that look good.