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Comment by memonkey | Hacker News Reader

I am slightly reminded of Gattaca, the story of which is that certain people are discriminated based on their DNA. Society is built, in general, excluding certain people due to their disabilities. Whether or not a blind person can find meaning or enjoy life has road blocks but is not impossible. Science can provide technologies to potentially improve people's lives -- cochlear implants for those with hearing loss, for example. There are ongoing philosophical discussions of whether or not these technologies and scientific discoveries are actually harming or helping those with these disabilities and the broader discussion of 'normalizing' society at large (I don't want to use the term eugenics).

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There are arguments about various "conditions" being diseases or not, Down Syndrome really isn't one of them.

Recognizing that certain mutations very blatantly reduce a person's quality of life and making it possible to revert those mutations does not require treating the people who have not had those mutations reverted as lesser.

Thinking of them as lesser leads to a society that prefers to drag each other down instead of lifting each other up.

I don't know about this argument because they seem a lot happier than I am.

That's not to say that it's unreasonable to value intelligence over happiness, but framing it as quality of life seems off.

I had a uncle with Down syndrome. He was the sweetest and funniest person, we remember him every day more than 10 years after he passed away. Down syndrome carries a lot of physical health problems like heart or lung diseases which make their life very painful. He suffered from lung problems since he was 18 until he passed away at 49, living in a lot of pain and being a big burden to my mum and my grandma, who took care of him. Still, it's true, he never lost his smile and love her sister and mother back as much as it's possible, giving all of us who lived with him a lot of joy.

I am very conflicted with these kind of issues, but I think I am of the opinion that it's better to prevent this suffering, but once they're already here we should make their life as easier as possible.

I chose to call it quality of life because I don't think that simply being happy is enough to have quality of life, but I don't agree that it's about valuing intelligence over happiness.

It's a condition they, and their family, have to live with their entire life. You can't really be permanently sad about a condition you have literally been born with and can't expect to change.

Meanwhile, there are conditions that significantly decrease quality of life even though one's intelligence is unaffected. I think the factor is better described as choice. There are a large number of things a person with Downs just does not have the choice to do differently.

I know that I'm in the small minority of people that read Flowers for Algernon and didn't think the ending was a sad one. His life was interrupted with some brief magic and resolved into what it was always meant to be.

People have gotten emotional with me about my take on that, and that's just fiction. I guess my point is I don't think there is a clear morality play here. This is more like a trolley problem where you have to decide for yourself how much control you're comfortable with.

That’s still eugenics, though. Except this time it’s not pseudoscience.

Until a certain Austrian painter decided to practice eugenics in a uniquely negative way, the term was value neutral.

The motor bus was hailed as a eugenic invention because it helped prevent inbreeding in small villages, for instance.

This is incorrect in that the term was not neutral before WW2 nor was Nazi Germany Eugenics really unique. Taking these claims one at a time:

>the term was value neutral.

By the late 1930s the academic community had largely moved on from eugenics, the catholic church denounced it 1930 with their Casti Connubii, the Eugenics Office Records closing in 1935 and finally Laughlin retiring in 1939. (The leading Eugenicist)In 1930s being a Eugenics was viewed much like homeopathy is viewed today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casti_connubii - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States

>Until a certain Austrian painter decided to practice eugenics in a uniquely negative way,

Eugenics in the united states saw the rise of the "Moron Laws" and mass sterilization of marginalized communities in the US. In fact, Nazi Germany's Eugenics policies were largely inspired by US Eugenic legislation and actively promoted by US Eugenicist. (Particularly California) Heck mass sterilization programs in the US didn't even die with WW2 continuing into mid 1970s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics - https://alexwellerstein.com/publications/wellerstein_stateso...

I'm troubled by this thread because the vibe I'm getting is Eugenics was only bad because the science wasn't there yet and the Nazi's did it, this time will be different. No, the aspect which made eugenics dangerous were inherently political and every bit as relevant today than they were a hundred years ago. (Who decides which traits should be "edited" out? What traits should be "edited" in? What policies should be legislated? Who is primarily impacted by these policies? How much agency do the people impacted by these policy have in the situation?)

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