When you say 'we could do some eugenics' do you mean the kind of top down, centrally planned by absurd edict shit that we saw from central Europe in the early 20th century that was influenced by North American culture that lingered well into the mid 20th century?[0]
Or do you mean the kind of self empowered eugenics of the late 20th century where women found themselves with newfound means to decide their reproduce destiny for themselves?
What are your thoughts on the burgeoning 21st century development where currently upperclass people are finding themselves in the economically viable position to select and potentially modify embryos for implantation?
How do you think that we as a society should bridge the gap between where we are now with eugenics and where we could be, and how does that tie into where you think we could go as a species either interplanetary or beyond?
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provincial_Training_School
Mostly in Europe and North America, and territories culturally-influenced by them, largely as a side-effect of historical events 80 years ago.
Other parts of the world have different opinions on the matter.
Vulnerable monocultures; hyper-optimisation for a specific trait (or many breeds each optimised for a different trait); morphology significantly different to the wild form, with fashion preferences leading to fundamental health issues that can only be fixed by altering the fashion (GSD hip dysplasia, pug squashed noses).
People who have to buy RoundUp from Monsanto to keep breathing or to have kids etc.
There is no limit to how bad this could go.
And like pretty much any knowledge or technique, it will be developed and used, and so the only ways to head off the horror outcome is a combination of arbitrary legal declarations to just make some things illegal or at least pointless (not profitable), and open source, putting the same powers in the hands of individuals.
I can't recall the title of an Australian gov't commissioned paper on the subject but this was ultimately the conclusion.
The paper also pointed out that domestic attempts to regulate these acts would ultimately be futile because people were already traveling abroad (specifically Italy) to seek out reproductive/eugenic services that were not legal in Australia.
Unfortunately, it lingers well into the 21st one too.
Bug eugenics foundations went through few rounds of rebrandings, and are still there influencing politics.
The other thing that fascinates me is navel oranges. They're delicious, but they're sterile and come with defects (the navel). We're perfectly happy to deal with those defects because the benefits outweigh it. I wonder what defects come from radiation resistant supermen.
It seems to me that human potential can be better realised in many ways, and eugenics is the way with probably the worst return on investment.
For a start, we could try giving as many kids as possible in the world a decent crack at doing something important. Obviously this is very difficult and complicated. But then so is eugenics.
It's totally feasible to see 10 point average IQ increases within a couple of generations if we actually did this systematically.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30394933.
If you're uncomfortable with people several hundred years ago making decisions about your genetics, why should people several hundred years from now be comfortable with you making decisions about theirs?
[0] https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/eugenics-is-a-great-idea
Similarly, I do not want the government to have certain powers. But I would happily award myself these powers if I were in charge, to be honest. I would never campaign for that, of course.
This brings me to my argument against eugenics: I think in the current world, it would have horrible effects. It would increase inequality, and create suffering. But that is not a neccessity. In another society, some elements of eugenics could be useful (to be clear: I'm not talking about deciding who can procreate and not, but for example preventing heritable diseases). The thing is, we can't agree on what this better society would look like. I of course believe that would be when I was in charge, but you'd probably disagree :-).
Genetic engineering of offspring is a very different postulate to eugenics though - eugenics is trying to control people's reproductive choice towards an outcome desired by an external party, whereas genetic engineering would be parents trying to get desirable traits for their offspring.
Technically I already did this when I had my first child: me and my wife got genetically tested for possible hereditary overlaps, as well as got as many screenings as were available when the child was developing.
If those tests had shown risk factors, we would have picked IVF or other options to specifically knock out those traits from being passed on. If the technology to select a bunch of genes in my child that favored intelligence, or lower risks of lifestyle disease were available, you bet I would've paid a fair amount of money to get that done too.
Where by "we" I mean the plutocrats who make decisions about how each of us lives now, the Peter Thiels, the Vladimir Putins, the Xis, the Bill Gateses, the Kochs, the Morgans, the Stanleys, the Goldmans and the Sachses.
Seems we could accomplish the same thing or better with science and genetic engineering.
While likely still restricted to the rich - at least at first - it doesn't have the oppression side to it.
But that thought experiment can go too far too. like elites giving themselves more and creating an even more lopsided world.