YYG eugenics stuff to respond to

With respect to Vlad's point that direct alteration of our DNA is not a great idea (at this point) because most genes do multiple things, and changing one gene has consequences for multiple systems and regulatory processes, I think he's right. We don't know everything about every gene yet, and if we attempted to directly alter our DNA, it would largely have to be through trial and error which would give rise to countless fetuses with deformities, and probably as many viable children who only manifest anatomical deformity later in life. This is unethical.

Your rationale that we should allow ourselves to do these things because children already die from deformities and mothers already die from birthing healthy babies is extremely callous. The goal is to prevent these things, not to facilitate more such things to take place. By way of counter example, people die from organ failure already, so should we allow ourselves to harvest vital organs from healthy people, (or non-vital organs without consent)? No. And I realize it's not a perfect parallel to your scenario, but the point is that you cannot permit yourself to produce suffering and death on the justification that suffering and death already exists.

Your argument that these practices are not immoral because it is the choice of the parents as to whether they participate is also callous. Once they give birth to a child, a third person enters the scenario, and this person had no say in his or her participation. The consequences of a deformity would then be thrust on the shoulders of this third person who had no say in whether or not he/she wished to participate, and this is a burden that neither of the parents can thrust onto the child. You yourself said in your video that you would not wish for anyone to live a life of pain, which necessitates that you not shirk your responsibility by deferring to the choice of the parents.

You assert that there isn't a single genetic error that we as human can make that nature itself can't make on its own. You are failing to consider scenarios such as the insertion of genetics from other organisms, or the removal of large tracts of inactive DNA in one generation, to name only two. These are things that naturally would not happen.

I understand that by your own admission you were drunk during the filming of your video, but please assure me, if you have any intention in entering any kind of health care field, that you'll pay attention during your bioethics course(s), and if you curriculum has no bioethics component, that you'll go out of your way to take a course like that.

Your abdication to utilitarian reasoning needs special attention. Consider the textbook example of a rioting mob that demands the death of a man accused of having murdered someone else. You as the sheriff know he is innocent, but if you do not execute him the mob will burn and destroy a whole neighbourhood and kill dozens or hundreds more. If you took the purely utilitarian route you would have to kill an innocent man to spare the lives of others. This is why a hard-lined utilitarian outlook is dangerous. There is so much to learn about ethics and bioethics. With your interest in morality and ethics (not the same thing), I think you'll enjoy learning about these things.


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Nobody is perfect. That's what makes us human! If we were all perfect, or "born the best", in this case, what fun would life be? We always try to win, not lose. But sometimes you'll lose!

We always try to be better than everyone else, but we're not any better than we were before. no one can be the absolute best. We can think we are, but it's not gonna help us be any better than if we just sat on the couch and watched TV all day.


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The thing is... I see words like "progress" and "better" and "perfect" being thrown around a lot... the problem is, these words are completely subjective. You're definition of "better" for example, is entirely based your world view, which is inherently, simply Western ideology. "Progress" is irrelevant, meaning nothing in itself. It has only come to mean something in our modern culture. Sure, some things can be "better" than others, but this requires an objective. If my objective is to kill an animal, I will say that a gun is "better" to than a stone in regard to fulfilling my goal. And so building a "better" gun would be considered "progress", correct? But what about "better" for the human race? Let us use eugenics for the betterment of humanity! For progress! That sounds great and all, but what is the objective here? For humanity to eventually become "perfect"? Problem is, the definition "perfect" is entirely subjective. There. That's my two cents =)