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Even though people are living longer, is their (our) quality of life less? Would anybody rather revert to the sciences of 50 years ago? Is the per capita cost to support the aged and sick and disabled higher or lower now than 50 years ago?
It might be a matter of gaining $69 of science utility but losing $5 of costs to maintain those who are living longer?
I agree but with reservation. China actually put a financial penalty on any family which chose to have more than one child...they did it years ago. Ironically it worked so well that about ten years ago they changed the rules again.
Problem is, China didn't just put a financial penalty on extra children. There was a lot of fallout over the one child law, including the government performing forcible abortions, female fetuses commonly being aborted simply for gender control, and infant girls being abandoned or murdered because the parents wanted a boy.
Regulation of breeding is fine in concept, much like socialism is fine in concept. But the truth is that they're both very touchy things to implement correctly; and easily abused.
What do you suggest we do with the mentally impaired and the infirm? Should we have a age limit in place like no medical care for those over 65?
Or should we eliminate any person below a certain IQ level?
Have you ever considered we as a species have evolved beyond the point where natural selection applies to us. I believe we now have to evolve morally. Unfortunately I don't think we're doing so well. Maybe our next evolutionary step is how we deal with these issues facing mankind.
Again...I'm stating facts. I doubt that modern mankind will do much of anything to hinder his ultimate demise. They don't have the stomach for it. I believe that overpopulation will get us if global warming doesn't. We're like a virus just beginning to show up in the universe. We don't have enough sense or the will to do decisive things.
What do you suggest we do with the mentally impaired and the infirm? Should we have a age limit in place like no medical care for those over 65?
Or should we eliminate any person below a certain IQ level?
Have you ever considered we as a species have evolved beyond the point where natural selection applies to us. I believe we now have to evolve morally. Unfortunately I don't think we're doing so well. Maybe our next evolutionary step is how we deal with these issues facing mankind.
I was watching a documentary on NOVA the other night about the origins of mankind, and our evolutionary journey. The documentary speculated as to which aspects affected our natural selection process, why we survived and more primitive versions of man didn't, ect, ect...
I got to thinking afterwards about what factors affect our evolution in modern times. I realized all of the factors that made our ancestors smarter, faster, and stronger, ect. no longer apply to us in modern times.
We don't have to be particularly smart, cunning, strong, or fast to find our next meal anymore. Anyone with a buck in their pocket can go down to Mickey D's and get something to eat.
Practically anyone without a terminal illness will survive long enough to reproduce and pass their genes on to the next generation. This makes me think that the biggest contributors to the next generation's gene pool are the ones who are having the most children.
If you want to know what type of people are having the most children, just watch an episode of "Maury". There was a guy on there the other day who had at least 14 children (I say "at least" because those were only the ones they knew about).
They actually made a movie about this "De-evolution" called "Idiocracy".
I think that humans have deffinately stopped evolving (in the traditional sense), and have pobably started to move backwards.
Until a few hundred years ago the weak died and only the strong and cunning survived. Now with sophisticated diagnostic systems, continuous research discovering new medicines, infant heart surgery, thousands of ways to keep the infirm alive long enough to reproduce there's no telling what mankind will finally evolve into.
The mentally impaired used to be locked away and now many idiots marry and reproduce. It seems that we learned nothing from the eskimos who used to place those who could not fend for themselves on the edge of a thawing piece of ice and let them drift away and freeze to death.
Now medical science believes it should continue to keep people ninety years old alive with any kind of dramatic procedure while incarcerating those who offer assisted suicide. Besides the weak surviving long enough to reproduce the elderly will finally bankrupt the world's economy by living 50 years beyond their period of usefullness.
Evolution is alive and well.
Are you a Nazi???
Life is mysterious, a life that is cared deeply about is very precious to that mother, father, family, etc.
I think, sometimes, that things have gotten a little strange. I guess the biggest one for me is some pro-life groups and some groups of handicapped people who don't want DNA engineering to eliminate genes that may cause, or have been proven to cause, retardation, dwarfish, deafness, etc. If I had a child and a safe and affordable procedure to correct the abnormality existed, I'd definitely want it for my child, born or not yet born. On the other hand, if I had a child with Down's Syndrome or another handicap, and that person could lead a fulfilling, functional life, that would be fine.
I'm not an anti-abortionist. If I was able to have children still, and in the early months of pregnancy, the fetus looked, detected as very deformed, I'd have an abortion (I know I'll get bashed for that) but if my child was born with a defect undetected, it would be fine.
I don't know of any normal people who mate with moderately to severely retarded/deformed people, unless they are doing something very sick and wrong, involving rape.
Personally, I think anti-aging medicine is on the horizon, and I think the aging population will be not only longer lived, but healthier and younger in terms of body functionality. I'm in much better condition at my age than either of my parents were, and I hope to live long enough to have medicine or treatments available to greatly slow down aging. Older people in health are every bit as able to do what the young folks do, including work at a career,if a little slower, and often are more willing to take the time to reflect on problems and be diligent about finding solutions.
You want to toss away so many valuable souls that are loved by their families and friends.
I'm surprised the theists are not jumping on this and and showing how Atheist darwinism can lead to soulless eugenic elimination of the 'unfit'.
Given that evolution is a ruthless weeder out of the less competitive, we have long been able to play another game than the one with the rules of natural selection.
If we start eliminating the ones we personally feel are not worth keeping alive, we are abandoning the only rule that gives any basis for a moral code that is anything other than 'me first and stuff everyone else'. In which case I would rather have the moral compass.
I'm surprised the theists are not jumping on this and and showing how Atheist darwinism can lead to soulless eugenic elimination of the 'unfit'.
Given that evolution is a ruthless weeder out of the less competitive, we have long been able to play another game than the one with the rules of natural selection.
If we start eliminating the ones we personally feel are not worth keeping alive, we are abandoning the only rule that gives any basis for a moral code that is anything other than 'me first and stuff everyone else'. In which case I would rather have the moral compass.
I used to believe the Chinese were idiots. Maybe some of the American brainwashing worked on me. Since they began to address their population problem and loan money to the United States it's beginning to look like they will be the next world leader...the next super power.
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