my views on eugenics are actually not what anybody would think without asking me - or, at least, not unless you're actually paying attention, which of course you're not.

try it.

stop.

tell me: what do i think about eugenics?

type it out.

done?

k.

no peeking.

i just need to waste a few more lines.

almost there...

k.

i actually don't think that the premise of bettering the human genome ought to be objectionable. you really shouldn't oppose the idea. but, eugenicists have historically supported methods that do not lead to positive outcomes at all. what you should be criticizing here is not eugenics, but poor science - which has been broadly condemned by actual scientists from the start.

i often argue that the best argument against racism is history, and it usually goes over everybody's heads, because both self-described racists and militant anti-racists tend to reject the same history, for different reasons. they would both reject white slavery by non-whites, for instance. racists would claim it's impossible because it overturns their hierarchy; non-racists would claim it's impossible because.....because it overturns their hierarchy. but, it is historical fact. and, the correct reading of history is that the historical fact of everybody enslaving everybody else demonstrates that nobody maintains superiority for very long. foucauldians should be careful with their arguments, as if it were actually true that white people have enslaved everybody else since the beginning of time then the empirical deduction would be that white people are, in fact, superior - as demonstrated by their total historical dominance. you can't just wave away evidence with an axiom. it isn't true, though. and, the evidence that demonstrates this is what the anti-racist ought to truly seek to advance their view of equality with evidence, rather than declarative ideology.

i can think of two empirical examples of eugenics at work through natural selection.

the first is the extreme selective pressure on jews through the centuries to escape all manners of oppression. and, we should all see that the jews are an intellectually superior race; that is clear from evidence. only the most intelligent managed to survive. this selection acted as a bottleneck.

the second is the british isles, which demonstrates the opposite effect of superiority through increased variation. for, britain has always been one of the most diverse places in the world, with settlers coming from every which way. while this created chaos in the dark ages, it led to a clearly superior society from the renaissance onwards. white supremacists should be more specific, for it is truly the brits, and not the backwards germans or russians, that invented the modern world - and not through insularity but through absorption. it is well understood by geneticists that a healthy genome should seek to maximize variation.

so, a eugenicist should look at these examples and draw two conclusions. the first is that the way to improve the genome is to promote policies that maximize variation, by introducing as much genetic diversity as possible. a eugenicist should seek to cross-breed humans for increased vigour and to generate new mutations, not to insulate and stagnate a genome. the second is that selective pressures will strengthen, rather than weaken, a group and that attempts to cleanse a population of a certain ethnicity are almost certain to backfire.