Why China will become the World Power

[Scientific Method]

Interesting article: http://www.amren.com/0111issue/0111issue.htm#article1

I strongly recommend reading the whole article, it is something you definitely don't want to miss, but here is an interesting quote:

Prof. Lynn is convinced, however, that an Asian country—most likely China—will soon institute a mandatory ES program for its population, and that the resulting improvement in its gene pool will tip the international balance of power decisively in its favor. Attitudes in China radically differ from those in the West. Chinese law already requires sterilization of mental retardates and those with genetic illnesses. Prenatal testing of fetuses is mandatory, and defectives must be aborted. No one with mental illness, venereal disease, or hepatitis may marry.

In the mid-1990s, a poll-taker asked Chinese and Western doctors the following question: Should there be mandatory sterilization for a single, blind woman on public welfare who has already had three children by three different men, all of whom are absent from the household? Only five percent of Western doctors but 82 percent of Chinese doctors said “yes.”

Now that socialism is discredited, Prof. Lynn thinks the Chinese will fill the ideological void with eugenics. He predicts it will become the first, full-fledged eugenic state: all 12-year-old girls will be fitted with contraceptives, only approved couples will be permitted to have children, and ES will be used for all births. Psychopathy and genetic diseases will be eliminated, and IQ will stabilize at the theoretical maximum of about 200 in six or seven generations. Licensing parents will seem just as reasonable as licensing drivers.

Prof. Lynn predicts that in the short run, China’s rulers will clone themselves. In most cases this will mean talent and ability are passed on to the next generation, and it will make it easier for the oligarchs to pass on power to people they can trust—their own twins.

Prof. Lynn’s best guess at a timetable is that ES will be perfected and in obligatory use in China within ten years. Twenty years later there will be the first generation of ES adults, and 20 years after that, half the working population will have come from selected embryos. In 50 years, therefore, China will be the world’s most formidable power.

 

[jackle]

...Chinese law already requires sterilization of mental retardates and those with genetic illnesses. Prenatal testing of fetuses is mandatory, and defectives must be aborted. No one with mental illness, venereal disease, or hepatitis may marry...

I think this information is wrong. Some people out in the country don't go to hospital to have children, so I am sure they could not enforce prenatal testing. I personally know a married man with mental illness.

The main difference in China is the one child policy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_child_policy

I haven't heard anything about the rest. I'd be very interested in any links from a source I recognise.

 

[Aquamarine]

Lets assume that's eugenetics is desirable. Why have a slow and uncertain selective breeding program? Much better to do genetic engineering. This will immediately and certainly change the genes coding intelligence (or those affecting diseases, longevity, beauty, happiness or personality). Furthermore, there is no need for the state to force this. People spend a large part of their life and work in order to provide for their children and most will probably willingly pay vast amounts so that their children can be happy and compete with their peers. The only thing preventing this is cost and lack of knowledge regarding what to change. Both problems will probably rapidly diminish as science and technology grows. 50 years ago there was no knowledge of DNA and very little knowledge of how the cell works. Today we have DNA mapped and already have the ability to create new species. What can we do in 50 more years?

 

[hitssquad]

Command-and-control genetic engineering vs free-market eugenics

Lets assume that's eugenetics

Eugenics.

is desirable. Why have ... slow and uncertain selective breeding...?

We have been using slow and uncertain selective breeding for the same reason we have been using slow and uncertain economic selection. See your own posts regarding capitalism and the free market vs. centralized economic command-and-control.

 

[Aquamarine]

We have been using slow and uncertain selective breeding for the same reason we have been using slow and uncertain economic selection. See your own posts regarding capitalism and the free market vs. centralized economic command-and-control.

This is of course an extremely important point. For example, it is probably impossible to know what the best personality might be in a future and very different society. Or eliminating sickle-cell genes might seem like a good idea but less so if Malaria becomes resistant to all medications.

But the future is not totally impossible to predict. Genetic diseases that are cause great disability can be eliminated with very little risk. Similarly with crippling depressions. And if there is a general g factor, then changing genes that only affects this would probably always be beneficial.

Raising intelligence through selective breeding and genetic engineering have the same goal. The only difference is that genetic engineering can do it much quicker and with no need for a fascist police state.

 

[hitssquad]

Back to Galton for ideas on fascism-free eugenics

Raising intelligence through selective breeding and genetic engineering have the same goal. The only difference is that genetic engineering can do it much quicker and with no need for a fascist police state.

Does selective breeding require a fascist police state?
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=158758&postcount=124


--
It ought not to be difficult to arouse in the inhabitants a just pride in their own civic worthiness, analogous to the pride which a soldier feels in the good reputation of his regiment or a lad in that of his school. By this means a strong local eugenic opinion might easily be formed. It would be silently assisted by local object lessons, in which the benefits derived through following eugenic rules and the bad effects of disregarding them were plainly to be discerned.

The power of social opinion is apt to be underrated rather then overrated. Like the atmosphere which we breathe and in which we move, social opinion operates powerfully without our being conscious of its weight.
--
Francis Galton. Essays in Eugenics. Local Associations for Promoting Eugenics. p107.

 

[Aquamarine]

Does selective breeding require a fascist police state?
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=158758&postcount=124


--
It ought not to be difficult to arouse in the inhabitants a just pride in their own civic worthiness, analogous to the pride which a soldier feels in the good reputation of his regiment or a lad in that of his school. By this means a strong local eugenic opinion might easily be formed. It would be silently assisted by local object lessons, in which the benefits derived through following eugenic rules and the bad effects of disregarding them were plainly to be discerned.

The power of social opinion is apt to be underrated rather then overrated. Like the atmosphere which we breathe and in which we move, social opinion operates powerfully without our being conscious of its weight.
--
Francis Galton. Essays in Eugenics. Local Associations for Promoting Eugenics. p107.

The drive to procreate is one of the strongest humans have. And human altruism is quite limited. I see it as extremely unlikely that many people would voluntarily abstain from having children. Furthermore, the least intelligent would be least affected by such intellectual arguments. I see no alternative to a fascist police state that uses forces to prevent many people from having children.

Another argument against selective breeding is that it involves much more central planning by the state than genetic engineering in a free market.