OT: Earth is a finite space

[Christopher M]

By eugenics I just meant selective population/reproductive control; sorry for the confusion.

I didn't mean to suggest that anyone was for or against eugenics, or that anyone was or wasn't practicing it, so much as just to lay down the strong argument for it.

I agree, as you noted, that there are both ways in which eugenics is part-and-parcel of our society, and ways in which we do the exact opposite.

It's certainly, at least, a complicated issue.

call me elitest but I'm all for improving the human genome

On the other side of the issue, the powerful argument is: by what standards is "improving the human genome" an imperative which trumps people's own reproductive freedom. And, moreover, who is it that decides what "improvement" is?

Here we get beyond biological theory and into political theory; as politics would be required for any implementation (one way or the other) of the biological/sociological theory.

And we also get directly at what is, imho, perhaps the primary problem of politics, and the lynchpin of various political models: the tradeoff between individual freedom and models of collective improvement (again, where determining the definition of "improvement" is a crucial problem).

Does individual freedom get curtailed in the goal for collective improvement? Or does collective improvement get curtailed for the goal of individual freedom? In either case, how is it decided what constitutes improvement?