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Comment by jl6 | Hacker News Reader

I thought it was pretty clear.

eugenics =/= unethical eugenics

Ok, but how is that relevant to the discussion about restricting data to prevent unethical eugenics?

Because it’s incredibly difficult a priori to restrict only research that could lead to unethical eugenics without restricting that which could lead to ethically sound, widely beneficial eugenics or even unrelated advances.

You can (for example) ban research on things might lead to the development of novel poisons. But that ban is almost sure to prevent the development of some new cancer treatments.

What “positive eugenics” do you imagine coming out of research on the genetics of intelligence?

I mean one that would generally benefit mankind as a whole?

Anything that increases the health outcomes of humans in the long-run would be broadly beneficial and could stem from research that's initially targeted at understanding the role genetics plays in intelligence. That could be breakthroughs in early childhood (or lifelong) nutritional support, eradication of diseases, creating lower susceptibility to some forms of cancer or heart disease, improvements in pedagogy, improvements in general intelligence, lower susceptibility to cognitive decline.

Research is not laboring to progressively color in a pre-defined picture, where you can just tell research scientists "don't color in the naughty bits".

How is gene linked to intelligence related to "eradication of diseases, creating lower susceptibility to some forms of cancer or heart disease"?

The genes that impact those things aren't being restricted?

Do you have a list of all the genes and all the things that they impact, even slightly, alone and in combinations? That list in itself would seem to be extraordinarily valuable, perhaps even Nobel Prize winning.

We don't know what unrelated items or generally applicable patterns we might find when we go looking into basic research.

As a concrete example, it’s completely plausible that understanding the genetic basis of cognitive ability could inform treatment of dementia.

that’s like saying “good murder is different than bad murder” — adding an adjective doesn’t actually change what it is, nor the morality around it

Well if I come in the middle of the night at your house with a gun, you killing me is different than me killing you.

"Eugenics" actually just means attempting to improve the genome our children will have. This does not need to involve forced sterilisation or indeed the government at all.

E.g. giving all parents free genetic screening and genome correction for their fetuses if they wish it would be eugenics.

"Murder" itself contains a moral judgment and is actually banned.

Some forms of eugenics are routinely practised in the West already. For example, pretty much every IVF clinic out there will recommend patients to scrap embryos that are proven to be aneuploid. (So either not viable, or, in some cases, viable but with Down syndrome.) This is accepted everywhere I know and is considered a part of your reproductive rights.

How is this not "good eugenics"? How would you frame it as unethical?

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