WI: Eugenics remained still active and popular

Eugenics is an outdated scientific principle which states only people with good genes can only breed and pass on the good genes to improve the genetic quality of humanity. Early concepts begin in the 400 BCE as Plato proposed it and the Spartans practiced it.

Francis Galton, a relative of Charles Darwin, defined the idea after reading his relatives theories on evolution. Eugenics slowly became an academic discipline at several universities and colleges in the United Kingdom and the United States. Eugenic policies became the mainstay of governments and received funding from several sources.

However, by the end of World War 2, eugenics became strongly associated with the horrors of Nazi Germany. Because of it, governments slowly phased it out to disassociate from the horrors of Nazi Germany.

What if the idea of eugenics remained popular and running? What would happen if eugenics programs still remained active and spread around the world?
 

kernals12

Banned
I don't see how Eugenics could survive changing social attitudes w/r/t the people who were targeted by it.
 
I doubt that eugenics can survive to this day. It would be proven scientically totally bullshit so there wouldn't be much of idea continue that. And whilst WW2 fastened end of eugenics it didn't stop that totally. Sweden continued that to 1970's. Eugenics anyway was going out in some point.
 
I would say all of the terminate pregnancy when you detect a birth defect or Down’s syndrome thoroughly qualifies as modern eugenics.

I mean something like 90% of Down’s syndrome fetuses are aborted.

There’s also a LOT of designer type requirements for someone to be a sperm or ova donor, including stuff like SAT scores, IQ, athletic ability, family medical history and the like. Longer term, there are going to be genetically engineered wunderkids of one kind or another.

You also see a fair bit of social pressure for people with health problems to decide it’d be better to adopt than have a kid with the risk of some health problems. Stuff like family history’s of Huntington’s Chorea or Tay-Sachs Disease, that’s understandable, but there’s even pressure on more “normal” but kind of sickly or frail folks.
 
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As a kid with cp in the 70’s I remember parents being “encouraged” to keep an eye on their daughters to make sure they weren’t too sexual. Even as a child, I saw that as eugenic stereotyping.
 
I would say all of the terminate pregnancy when you detect a birth defect or Down’s syndrome thoroughly qualifies as modern eugenics.

I mean something like 90% of Down’s syndrome fetuses are aborted.

There’s also a LOT of designer type requirements for someone to be a sperm or ova donor, including stuff like SAT scores, IQ, athletic ability, family medical history and the like. Longer term, there are going to be genetically engineered wunderkids of one kind or another.

You also see a fair bit of social pressure for people with health problems to decide it’d be better to adopt than have a kid with the risk of some health problems. Stuff like family history’s of Huntington’s Chorea or Tay-Sachs Disease, that’s understandable, but there’s even pressure on more “normal” but kind of sickly or frail folks.

Abortion can be pretty similar to eugenics if you look at the bigger picture. Considering Roe v. Wade is linked to a decline in crime (because potential criminals were never born), that doesn't seem too different to eugenics programs targeted against the lower classes, other than the fact that it was voluntary on the part of the mother.

Voluntary programs would be the only way eugenics continues today, not mass sterilizations or euthanasia. The government would pay people with good genes money to have more children with each other and probably even have a dating service to match these people up.

I doubt that eugenics can survive to this day. It would be proven scientically totally bullshit so there wouldn't be much of idea continue that. And whilst WW2 fastened end of eugenics it didn't stop that totally. Sweden continued that to 1970's. Eugenics anyway was going out in some point.

The basic principle of eugenics is plenty scientific, since we have a much firmer clue of how genetics and heredity work than we did when eugenics was popular (which is ironic).
 
Voluntary programs would be the only way eugenics continues today, not mass sterilizations or euthanasia. The government would pay people with good genes money to have more children with each other and probably even have a dating service to match these people up.

There could be change in societal views where families would be encouraged to get preselected sperm from governmental institute when getting a child. Fathers who would agree of using this sperm would be seen as good dads as they want only best for their children. I am not sure how societies would get in to this state but it would need less individualistic approach to life and more focus on the community.
 
There could be change in societal views where families would be encouraged to get preselected sperm from governmental institute when getting a child. Fathers who would agree of using this sperm would be seen as good dads as they want only best for their children. I am not sure how societies would get in to this state but it would need less individualistic approach to life and more focus on the community.

I think that would only fly amongst certain groups of people (like I could see a successful Japanese/Chinese businessman marrying an heiress but using sperm from some chosen "elite" individual instead of his own). It won't catch on in the general populace, and would be protested by religious groups. Might be seriously proposed by China (if it got crazier after Mao) or North Korea or any similar society. I could imagine some official in Ceausescu's Romania might think that was a good idea. But key word is "proposed"--best they'd get is giving incentives or benefits to couples who accept. Too hard to implement it on a wide scale and too controversial.
 
With the advent of genitic testing the definition of "good" genes would change from pseudoscience to real science.
Could cause serious Social upheaval in a society based on good genes when all of a sudden a poor person could have bought Superior genes one of the self-styled elite.
 
Well, regardless of one’s view of abortion and the personhood or nonpersonhood of a fetus, it’s functionally identical to culling or sterilization once born.

Ergo, I’d say eugenics is alive and well, maybe to a far degree than ever before.
 
Caravels of Portugal wrote:
Eugenics is an outdated scientific principle which states only people with good genes can only breed and pass on the good genes to improve the genetic quality of humanity. Early concepts begin in the 400 BCE as Plato proposed it and the Spartans practiced it.

Francis Galton, a relative of Charles Darwin, defined the idea after reading his relatives theories on evolution. Eugenics slowly became an academic discipline at several universities and colleges in the United Kingdom and the United States. Eugenic policies became the mainstay of governments and received funding from several sources.

However, by the end of World War 2, eugenics became strongly associated with the horrors of Nazi Germany. Because of it, governments slowly phased it out to disassociate from the horrors of Nazi Germany.

What if the idea of eugenics remained popular and running? What would happen if eugenics programs still remained active and spread around the world?

Well things probably go pretty normally until the early 90s when one product of these practices known as Khan Noonien Singh rises to power eventually controlling more than a quarter of the Earth from Asia through the Middle East. Shortly thereafter several other Eugenically enhanced humans seize power in over 40 nations simultaneously only to fall to fighting themselves as the scientists that created them forgot that “Superior ability breeds superior ambition” resulting in the 90s being known as the “Eugenics Wars” and massive causalities until the “Supermen” were overthrown and destroyed. Upside is we get to Star Trek out of it, so there’s that…

More seriously Eugenics as defined is:
Eugenics, the selection of desired heritable characteristics in order to improve future generations, typically in reference to humans.”
(https://www.britannica.com/science/eugenics-genetics)

THE problems with actually putting it into use was knowledge of actual rather than inferred “human genetics”, how that relates to “heritable characteristics” and actual knowledge of genetics on the microscopic and cellular scale. We had “evidence” of the successful, (and mind you unsuccessful as well) nature and “practice” of breeding plants and animals so it was assumed that it could be done with people as well. Arguably logical and sound but the main issue was that in addition to a lack of clear ‘traits’ that were suggested to breed FOR (note the article above shows that some of the ‘traits’ selected for were “men of distinction” and “women of wealth”) as well as a general lack of understanding of how genetics did or did not play a part in the traits being desired. (It’s quite easy to end up with a blonde haired, blue eyed moron after all)

And the actual premise is questionable since in fact “evolution” does not have any ‘end-goal’ nor is ‘perfection’ a part of or consideration in the process. Which to be honest is a still a major misunderstanding of the whole theory and process. But it DOES fit nicely into the idea that some people are ‘better’ than others and weeding out the ‘lesser’ people and there inborn ‘lesser traits’ would therefore “improve” the better people. The fact that doesn’t’ necessarily work and can be seen to have issues even in plants and animals was of course totally lost on the majority of people who supported human eugenics. Which meant that as practiced “eugenics” was simply a means to support racial, class and other discrimination's with a veneer of “science” while claiming to be for the ‘betterment’ of humanity as a whole.

When you don’t even know what “race” actually is nor how human genetics and such actually work and use political, prejudicial and social basis for determining ‘traits’ and factors you want passed on to future generations then the entire process is going to be unworkable and flawed. And it very much was.

Now an actual “positive” though fictional “eugenics” plan was created by Robert Heinlein in the “Howard Families” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_families,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah's_Children) which using the known “science” of the time (19th Century) plausibly “bred” for longer life span. But the question even then is not only “what” you are breeding for, (long-life, intelligence, lack of certain inheritable flaws or disease factors are plausible) since some can be passed on but some are less clearly able directly to do so. And time is an issue since any ‘breeding” program doesn’t see results for (obviously) generations at best.

But the biggest “flaw” in the concept of Eugenics is simply that it implies and requires not only the enforcement of “breeding” of the “right” people but similarly requires that the “wrong” people not be allowed to breed. Which in and of itself implies either a fantastically good ‘incentive’ or more likely a horrifying amount of direct control over the lives of the individuals involved. Thus eugenics as a whole until the advent of advanced genetic manipulation was and is a very powerful and easy to abuse “tool” in social and individual control more than anything that could plausible be used for “bettering” mankind. And despite some arguably “noble” intentions from some small number of proponents “eugenics” is best and deservedly known as an excuse and means to assert total and full control over the life of people and society.

Even so as noted in the above Britannica article “Eugenics” is still very much a ‘thing’ but arguably less intrusive by society and more an individual decision. The main problem with ‘keeping’ eugenics is simply that it is far too easy to abuse and takes far longer (generations) than most people are capable of waiting to produce results. Couple that with the amount of social and individual control required to make it even marginally viable without early 21at Century genetic manipulation techniques and your only option is to ensure it never develops a ‘general’ following from the start but only a select and careful portion of the population who can avoid the obvious and dangerous dead-ends and wrong assumptions.

Randy
 
Depending on your definition of eugenics, If you get a pod which results in earlier foundations being set for genetic engenering you can probably get early genetic engineering (immunotherapy, designer babies, etc.) to come into existence sometime between 1980s and 2020 (transhumanism may help if it grew to be large enough to socially acceptable, you probably can't get them to grow fast enough to be in power but perhaps it could get to a similar league of the US libertarian party) (also killing the public perception that GMOs are bad could go a long way)
 
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