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Comment by yholio | Hacker News Reader

> Instead he advocates the use of such scores when choosing between candidates for a job.

What a ridiculous and offensive suggestion, widespread genetic discrimination. You don't have to be a scientist to understand why that's bad. Even if (or precisely if) some skills and proclivities are mostly inherited, that should not prevent people that managed to overcome their native shortcomings to find a fair place in society according to their actual, developed skills.

We already know for a fact that males are more aggressive, females have lower orientation skills and Asian kids are less agitated. The genetic markers are so strong there you can read them on the person's face, yet, discrimination on any of those gender or race characteristics should be repulsive to anyone.

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Not saying you're wrong at all

But in sports they measure things related to genetics all the time - ie in the NBA they measure height, wingspan, standing reach, etc.

People understand that just because someone has good measureables doesn't mean they'll be a good player, but it certainly helps gauge potential.

This.

Eugenics is all fun and games until they come after you and your family.

It's not only ethically wrong and offensive, it may actually be factually wrong also. How much of a person--and their suitability for some role--is genetic predisposition, and how much is their nurture and experiences?

Furthermore, if you did identify the "ideal" person for that role, then you'd want more of them: so you'd want clone factories, eg Kamino.

No, we have genetic diversity for a reason.

Genetic Diversity is rather an outcome of a fact that mixing genes helped us evolve (mutations - vs diseases, environment changes etc)

Now or rather soon, when human species will be able to takr control over evolution process, genetic diversity will make no sense because you will be highly immune to anything and environment will be no different.

I know its hard to admit even now some families are highly superior to other when it comes to genes inheritage, but thats how it is.

Some may say that Eugenics sucks because for example it would not allow mentally ill people reproduce and they have such ppl in family, but overall majority of population has no such issues and mby they would like to have those genes out of the genes pool. All depends on how you look at that, collective vs single entity etc.

Just because you have a bad gene doesn't make you a bad/inferior person so yeah when humans take control over their source code they may put some genes on sleep.

You also forget that there are always trade offs. You can't be "perfect" because there is no such thing.

Back to real world, we all pay taxes and live in this world so I believe we should demand and receive equal opportunities.

> receive equal opportunities

I think the article explains pretty well why that is not possible.

And goverment cannot do anything to change that - ppl are just too different. Its like teaching someone how to play violin - if you dont have the talent you will have to learn 10 times as long for 20% efficiency.

Sooner or later most countries will have to tackle this issue and im sure more successful ppl (with better genes) wont be willing to wait for others just to simulate "equal opportunity".

> a bad gene doesn't make you a bad/inferior person

In fact, we don't always understand the interplay between, say Asbergers and savant skills, or schizophrenia and intense creativity. We might need to live with some of these to retain the whole spectrum of humanity.

My personal feeling, no facts here, is we should look at low hanging fruit that we all agree is isolated and can bring no benefits, such as Tay Sachs or Huntingtons. Those will not be missed and we well gain experience with the harder problem of evaluating the harder choices.

But I want to know predispositions of a candidate before election. I don't want to elect a liar.

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