Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Descan]

Look, I'm all for bettering humanity through science, but eugenics just doesn't work. The only way to do it ethically is to make it voluntary, and it just doesn't work if it's only voluntary. Plus, any changes would take so many generations to be worth the effort that by the time it's done, any other technique to enhance humans will have jumped leagues ahead. :V

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Fortunately, eugenics supporters of that variety can generally be defeated easily by demonstrating that eugenics is both not viable and not effective.

[Max White]

I love eugenics! Every time I get a pack of M&Ms I take two out and press them together until one breaks, then eat its smashed chocolate corpse. Then I pull out another contender and make it face the current champion, and keep going until I have found the strongest M&M in the pack to add to my collection... Still trying to figure out how I am going to make them breed though.

Still, all good fun. You could say even euphoric!

[FearfulJesuit]

^ MFW m'ladies are fucked over by JERK legislators instead of nice guys like me.

And now we should return to the topic lest this cocktail of outrage and flippancy get the better of us. Maybe.

[lue]

There are pro-forced abortion people out there- see any eugenics circlejerk on Reddit. My favorite was a dude on /r/atheism who thought theists should be forced to have abortions. Luckily, they're in the minority.

(My personal problem with the abortion debate is that any position you choose can basically be followed to an unacceptable conclusion. The problems with hard pro-life positions are well-known, so I'll just throw out: If abortions aren't murder, then why do we prosecute people who knowingly kill pregnant women for two deaths? The principle seems to be that a fetus is a person if the mother wants it to be a person, which is practicable and all, except that it doesn't stand up to scrutiny at all and makes no philosophical sense whatsoever (and for that matter, what's the difference between a fetus and a newborn? Where's the line?). I've even seen some people claim that although abortion is murder, it should still be allowed by law (?). The takeaway I've drawn is that when we have a problem, we want an unambiguous solution that is ethical, practical and egalitarian. For abortion, such a solution very likely does not exist.)

I think the idea in that "two murders" case is that the murderer forcibly took away a potential life, which is a little bit different, at least, from the mother choosing to do so to a non-viable fetus only. (I draw the line where a baby has a very good chance to survive beyond the womb.) Though maybe the law could introduce a "Weeping Angel charge" against people who take away all the potential in that life-to-be.

But yeah, we like definitive answers, and arresting the growth of a clump of cells is hard to reconcile with our usually higher-level thought processes. Hell, we have enough trouble figuring out if viruses qualify as life, much less figuring when a human-to-be is human enough to make killing it wrong.

[Max White]

But seriously, where do you draw the line for 'potential for life'? Wouldn't masturbation count as genocide?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If you listen to the Religious Right, Monty Python, or The Onion, yes.

[Max White]

The three masters of satire can't all be wrong!

[Darvi]

But today is stranger still: The House passed the budget deal today, and no politicians were killed in the making of this deal.

I mentioned that thirty posts earlier and people only notice now?

Guess I shoulda said "this is how congress saved Christmas", but that's giving congress way too much credit.

[misko27]

But today is stranger still: The House passed the budget deal today, and no politicians were killed in the making of this deal.

I mentioned that thirty posts earlier and people only notice now?

Guess I shoulda said "this is how congress saved Christmas", but that's giving congress way too much credit.

Puns make the News son, it's just how life works.


I never hear the opposite insane opinion: "Since sentience is not proven to exist in babies, and sentience is the only differentiating factor between animals and humans, killing babies should be considered ok, or perhaps on par with killing a monkey. The law is speciesist otherwise, excluding more intelligent primates in favor of the spawn of Humans." That would be a more interesting debate in my opinion. Hey, if an animal rights group is trying to give monkeys rights someone should have the opposite opinion and be trying to take them from babies. It's only fair.

[Chaoswizkid]

The problem with abortion is that it can't be argued logically. There are logical aspects of it, such as if there is efficient care, does it harm the mother, etc. etc. But whether or not it is to be allowed is not a logical decision. It really matters on what people, individually, feel is best.

I think the best solution (or a better solution) to it is put it to a popular vote poll similar to elections and have legislation pressured to adapt to popular opinion. If the majority of the people in the country thinks that it's ethically wrong to have abortions, then that's what we'll have to go by as a country. It doesn't work on the state level because it's seen as something on ethical levels concerning the death of an individual. I think the only reason why executions are allowed at all is because popular opinion is really muddled on it. It might be due to where I live, but I haven't heard anyone be really upset at Texas for having it. With abortion, there's going to be stronger opposition or support. At least from what I can tell at this point.

But yeah, since it's something purely ethical, I really think it has to come to a poll. Maybe annually or biannually for a while until it's like an every 5 years or longer thing to see how volatile public opinion is.

'swhy I don't support either side. You want to value the life of an unborn child more than the potentially ruined life of the mother? Your choice. You want to value the life of the mother over the life of the child? Up to you. I can't throw facts at either side, other than the tangential bullshit that's brought up for both positions.
The only time where I'd be approving is when the child's birth will result in his or her death or cause the death of both the child and the mother. When the child's birth would allow it to live but kill the mother... I'm hesitant, but I'd say that abortion would probably be the better option.

[Darvi]

Sentience is impossible to prove in anything.

*solipsistic omnicidal maniac*

[mastahcheese]

I never hear the opposite insane opinion: "Since sentience is not proven to exist in babies, and sentience is the only differentiating factor between animals and humans, killing babies should be considered ok, or perhaps on par with killing a monkey. The law is speciesist otherwise, excluding more intelligent primates in favor of the spawn of Humans." That would be a more interesting debate in my opinion.

It would certainly be interesting to hear that one out.

Personally, I'm pro-choice, and I think about from the viewpoint of the "child".
If it's not considered living, then you can't "kill" it.
If it is considered living, then does that really make a difference? By the Religious perspective (the most people opposing it), the kid's soul is "saved" unless you still believe that shoving a person's face in water is a prerequisite, which sounds pretty narrow-minded to me.

[kaijyuu]

I've always thought religion would be much better suited to support pro-choice arguments because they can claim the "soul" (or whatever) enters the body at any arbitrary point. It's much harder from a secular humanism perspective to pin down when the kid becomes existent enough to deserve human rights.

[Descan]

I don't like abortions, but statistically, anti-abortion laws don't drive down abortion rates, just drive them underground and into un-safe conditions.

The only things that lower abortion rates are things like contraceptives, comprehensive sex education, that kind of thing. You know, the stuff you find in progressive regions which have pro-choice laws.

So even if your stance was "Abortion is wrong because murder!" you should -still- be pro-choice, because a) making abortion illegal won't affect the rates, and b) safe and clean abortions means the mothers life won't be in danger. If you're as responsible (by allowing abortions) for the baby dying, then you're just as responsible (by disallowing abortions) for the mother being in danger and possibly dying as well.