https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/153586 ... grow-wellWhen you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you
don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not
doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or
less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have
problems with our friends or family, we blame the other
person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will
grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive
effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason
and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no
reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you
understand, and you show that you understand, you can
love, and the situation will change
It has evolved into the discussion below. I hope PZ will join us, and of course others are encouraged to share their wisdom and thoughts
Response to PZ547
All good. Thanks for your well thought out response.Didn't see your replies, Kiwi Dave. Sorry
Not agreed. Nurture accounts for a great deal. I really am going to have to dig up for some studies, but for now I want to get to the rest of your reply.There can only be one Captain. He might have First Mates, navigators, etc. But there can only be one captain, agreed? Therefore, genes are the captain.
KD wrote:
How do you feel about the west propping up countries like Ethiopia with food and aid when they have famines? I think the country of Ethiopia now has a staggering population of 88 million
PZ responded:
I think those are worthy ideas.As an individual, if there on the spot facing widespread famine and suffering, I'd give them whatever food I had. As a world leader, taking an overview, I'd offer them sterilization and I'd feed only those who accepted to be sterilized. The reality is, we don't need any more people on the planet. And we certainly don't need the current unrestricted, mindless breeding. The vast majority of us are here because people had sex. They were not planning on reproducing. I'd like to see licences to breed and only if the potential breeders could stump up at least $250,000 each, to be put in trust for the support of the child in the event of divorce/separation -- and only if both potential parents passed psychological and physical assessment (ongoing throughout the child's life until it reached majority) would their application for a licence to breed be considered
KD wrote:
I have some sympathy for Darwinism, but wonder where we draw the line of just letting the babe die at birth. I have had some experience with Downs Syndrome people. They appear to love and enjoy living as much as you or I do. You want to deny them life?
PZ responded:
I have no issue with sterilizing the mentally disabled or incapacitated or retarded. But that is not what you said above. You said you would kill such people, such as Downs Syndrome, at birth. I disagree with this murder.In the 1970s, the geniuses decided the mentally disabled/retarded should be permitted to breed. Prior to that, the mentally disabled were sterilized. A documentary from that era showed two individuals, male & female who'd until recently lived in an institution. The female had become pregnant. The couple were provided taxpayer funded accommodation, 2 bedroom, in the outside world. It was explained to viewers that a team of carers would take care of the parents and their child -- around the clock, in shifts. The parents couldn't boil an egg. The female was Downs syndrome and can't remember her husband's disability but both were incapable of functioning independently. They were like a pair of four year olds. A chirpy voice said there was no reason to believe their child would suffer mental impairment. Taxpayers would provide carers for the child until it was 16 or so and would need to continue caring for the parents on permanent basis.
Most of us have known families who had/have as a member a Down's sydrome child or adult. Fine when the child is young and the parents are healthy & energetic. Ever seen those families when their child is middle aged and the parents are elderly and exhausted? The parents force themselves through in their 70s and 80s. They cannot afford to be seen to be failing health wise or mentally, or their child will be placed in an institution where .. as the parents know .. they will very probably be physically, sexually and emotionally abused. There are few angels in care facilities.
It has nothing to do with how I feel personally with regard to Downs or other afflicted people. I've made good friends with Downs people to the point a poor, stooped grey haired father turned up at my place of work early in the morning apologising because his Downs syndrome daughter, in her mid 40s, insisted she be able to show me her birthday present first thing. She came roaring across the car park, present in hand, bellowing hello to me with her poor old dad in tow. You could have picked him in one hand, he was so aged and weak. [bold]But he and his wife loved their daughter fiercely and were terrified of dying or breaking a bone which would result in her being put in an institution.[/bold] When I lived in the country as a kid, every second farming family seemed to have a Downs syndrome or other disabled member. The parents looked haunted -- 'Who will take care of him/her when I'm gone?'
Yet you would murder their child?
How’s about we let the parents choose, rather than making that choice for them?Back in the age of common sense, doctors and nurses deliberately did not smack disabled and other afflicted newborns to life. They put them to one side, where they soon expired naturally. The mothers were told the child was gone, and told they could have more, so chin up. It was for the best. A disabled child places an enormous toll on parents, the family's other children, society, etc. Marriages collapse under the strain, leaving one parent alone, and possibly with other children to provide for. All that potential wasted. Gifted men, women and their children are sacrificed on the altar of the disabled child. Houses have to be sold and another one bought, to better accomodate the disabled child. Jobs and careers are lost due to the need to be close to a hospital, to have time to take the disabled child back and forth.
Sure, when it's happening to someone else and we generously spare a smile for the parents patiently pushing their disabled child around, we can claim to be indignant about sparing society of the disabled. It's called virtue signalling. But spare a thought for the exhausted parent up at four in the morning, changing the nappy and bedding of a 45 year old man for the sixth time that day. It's a stupid waste of the parents life
KD wrote:
Humans are not hair dryers or refrigerators. Hence human breeding is not the equivalent of “mass production”. And what makes you think the “faulty human” has a next life? And where do you draw the line, again. You’ve already eliminated Down’s Syndrome. Hair lips? Schizophrenia? You are on a very slippery slope here PZ
PZ replied:
I disagree with none of that.I'm a supporter of eugenics and have said so many times. A farmer does not breed from the halt and lame. A farmer does not save seed from bad crops and plant them. What's the definition of stupidity? It is, boiled down, someone who does the same thing repeatedly, expecting a different result. I'm not editing or proof reading any of this, so don't get to involved in analysing it in depth, ok
In the natural world, let's say a herd of zebra, they don't carry their lame and diseased members around. Those that can't keep up are left behind for predators. The natural world employs eugenics. Only emotion-ridden, guilt-ridden, religiously bullied into believing all life is sacred humans, breed from the unfit
I take it by not “carry[ing]…lame and diseased members around” you are against social welfare nets, largely used in Western countries?
PZ wrote:
Again, I disagree with none of that, but with a different twist. Fuck “humanity”, I’m in it for my own and my own tribe. We are overpopulated. Western countries – and I am of the West – have superior political systems. Asians may have average higher IQs, but the West produces more geniuses. As for the blacks, they are the stupidest. If I’m going to “fight for food and half a cup of slime”, I will do it for my tribe.Doesn't matter if I'm on a slippery slope. Humanity is close to perching on the edge of a cliff. You have access to water, to food, to internet. Can you adapt to a life of fighting for scraps of food and half a cup of slime? But you figure, no doubt, that it won't reach tipping point in your lifetime, so you'll be fine. Do you have kids, grandkids, great grandkids? Will they be fine living like rats? How much longer before we start thinking smart -- do we wait until it's too late?
and when a ship is sinking or a plane losing height, what do they do? They jettison everything to save their skins. When the chips are down, humans suddenly gain perspective about who and what is important. Why wait until the last minute?
Refer image here: http://chartsbin.com/view/39457
"Race" is a good indicator of intelligence.
PZ wrote:
Do you have children? Grandchildren? You look at the macro, and totally over look the micro – the joys of life, the emotions, the human mess that makes us all unique and special. You overlook love.Human breeding is very much a case of mass production. Go up six miles and look down. What do you see? You'll see babies popping out like hot cross buns coming out of the bakery oven.
[bold]I mentioned the biological imperative, which for those who don't know, is Nature's edict that we replace ourselves before we depart life. We don't even know why it's such a big deal. Dandelions and cockroaches do the same. Humans are far from unique in that. Everything replacing itself mindlessly -- billions of humans, trillions of cockroaches all mass virtue producing. Then struggling to raise the offspring to a point of independent life. And making a of it ! All that human potential unrealised because Time, Energy and Resources are devoted to the young. After that, Life/Nature has no need for the parent. And we hide from that reality. We lie about it. We say it was worth it. When in many cases it was not. But we build our reason for living on the belief that we've done something noble by perpetuating the species[/bold]
Brumbies are beautiful animals, as are kangaroos, dingos, etc. We cull them. We cull healthy camels and donkeys and turn them into pet food. Humans are practical and rutheless about all apart from themselves. Nature programmed us to become infatuated with our own young, no matter how faulty, yes faulty, they might be. Zebras don't make that mistake and therefore maintain the health and welfare of the herd
PZ wrote:
Link please.You're being facetious when you list hair-lips, obviously. As to schizophrenia ... it's a problem. Ten and more years ago in the UK, it was conceded by the authorities that at least one person a week was murdered by a schizophrenic.
You’ve just murdered Virginia Woolf, Kurt Cobain and Winston Churchill.I don't believe that's a fair trade -- a schizophrenic is released from an institution, trusted with taking their medication, thus freedom for them and death (often brutal) for a random, functioning victim. If a person suffering a mental or other disability cannot function and is a danger to society, then yes, they have to go
PZ replied:Kiwi Dave says: Who says God helps he who will help himself? I’m not versed in scriptures and see it as man written toss, be it Buddist or Muslim, or any other religion.
Can you flesh out a little more what you mean by, “removing all obstacles to that potential”?
We will continue to fight each other like tribes fighting over a waterhole. As population increases and resources are finite, fighting will increase. You cannot erase the tribal nature of human beings.I just said it. Can't remember why. I'll have to think a moment
Ok, I'll have a stab. [bold]Here we are, still fighting each other, warring, destroying, etc. It's been going on since before recorded history
surely we can do better?[/bold] And if we can't, what's the point of our existence? If we were observed from above, the observer would be correct in believing we're limited, self limiting and too stupid to progress -- a dead end. So - a lost cause
India, China and Africa are bursting at the seams and now pose a threat to the rest of the world -- we're talking in broad strokes here. They have lost control of their populations. They still live in poverty and misery, hand to mouth. Humans of undoubted talent and worth spend their lives in a daily struggle for food and water
What do those of us in more favourable circumstances do to alleviate all that misery and waste? We send supplies to them. But they, and we, continue breeding. There are only so many you can fit into a Volkswagon
With a drastically reduced population and by breeding from the best we could halt the mess. Instead of a human population of hairy, smelly, disease-ridden creatures, we could -- if we'd focused on quality rather than quantity -- have engineered (via removal of the lizard-brain) disease-free, highly intelligent humans or hybrids --- even a robot society. A society where violence and destruction were unknown. Those superior beings would have repaired the environment and natural world. They would tread lightly on the planet. They would seriously curtail their breeding as in 'one in means one out'. No more waste of resources. Responsible inhabitants whose energies were devoted to the sciences, art, inner life and the cosmos. Yes, a futuristic society compared to which, our current societies would seem like the earliest cave-men
PZ wrote:
See above.[bold]It's the lizard-brain which is responsible for our territoriality, our violent responses, our predatory behaviours etc.[/bold] If we can't lose or tame it, we're destined to stay as we are until we utterly destroy ourselves and this planet
I disagree with your premise on our ‘breeding habits’. See above.We took a wrong turn somewhere down the line but it's probably true to say we had no option. We are what we are, driven by atavistic genes which predispose us baring of teeth and claws any time we feel threatened. We're a warlike species programmed to survive, to compete, to conquer. It's why we enjoy competition and why we invest in political 'teams' and idiotic tv dance shows which are really symbolic wars. Even our breeding habits are wars -- make more of us to overpower them, more of us will be able to beat them. And even though we know what it's doing to us and even when we limit our own breeding, they didn't get the memo and so are continuing to breed us all into our ultimate self destruction
