Ethics?
Pages
| Author | Topic: Ethics? |
|---|---|
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 4942
|
written Monday, October 11 2004 08:19
Profile
t m's devote: I have pondered this question too. As Thuryl pointed out, children could not fend for themselves if just provided food, water, and shelter, the necessities. I have concluded that everyone is conditioned, from the instant you are something in your mother's womb, you are condidioned. By her vibes, and the food she eats, the things she consumes, you are influenced. Obviously things like media and enviornment influence you. There is no such thing as an unconditioned being. The only way we can free ourselves from conditioning, for a short time, is to be mindful of our surroundings, perceiving them for what they are, not letting our minds interfere. Don't you all agree? -------------------- Wham Bam Shizam Posts: 247 | Registered: Monday, September 6 2004 07:00 |
|
Agent
Member # 2210
|
written Monday, October 11 2004 08:25
Profile
Morgan I am not going to back off the intelligence thing. I used Catholics and Islam as examples not because they were specific to what was being said. I do believe in most cases which I've run into when people talk about people having too many kids, they are referring to having too many kids which are not like them. A statement like all people should have not more than three children under any circumstances regardless of who they are would have eliminated my picking up on bias. This is the real world. If you cannot function socially or emotionally in every day life it doesn't matter how intelligent you are. Testing for psychopathic, schizophrenic, or depressive tendencies will make more of a difference in the world ultimately than testing for intelligence. I am not saying genetic testing is bad. I am stating what is happening. I think it is a good thing. But only a good thing when it is used to benefit the whole population not specific groups over others. Genetic elitism is gross. Raising the quality of the gene pool in an egalitarian way-- by offering genetic screening for diseases on a free basis would be a tremendous boon. I am ambivalent about sex testing in genetics. I do not think choosing certain traits like sex is ethical. However, the ultimate result of having less people in China and India might benefit them. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 1249
|
written Monday, October 11 2004 08:36
Profile
Homepage
quote:In fact, my comment was supposed to be a trap, in a way, to see if there are people here who equate evolution with becoming better... I think it's highly doubtful that we could ever determine how natural selection works (if it even does, which I doubt) in present societies. History provides nasty examples of the application of the evolution theory. For example, the intelligence of women and black people was considered to be lower than white males and this was explained largely with evolution. Afterwards, it's been pointed out that intelligence tests (they were used also to prove the aforementioned results) are not objective. Like *i said, an important question is: what is intelligence? Posts: 259 | Registered: Saturday, June 1 2002 07:00 |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 4942
|
written Monday, October 11 2004 08:37
Profile
I wholeheartedly agree with coffe, eggs, hashbrowns and toast and Morgan regarding intelligence.(I may not be picking up on what they intended but the previous post made me think.) However, I hear my mathteacher say over and over that the big employers are looking for people with social skills, not entirely brains. Though I think it is good to have social skills, you can't be stupid. I think that my teacher's statement, in a way, conveying the effort of the system to turn us all into brainless zombies without freethinking minds or opinions. At least in the US anyway. Though I am not trying to disregard people with people skills and low IQs, I am instisting that people skills are not enough. I know tons of people who are brilliant, creative, funny and have people skills, but can't pass the stupid standardized tests. That is a whole other deal. The system is trying to throw us all into little tiny boxes with labels on them... *sigh* ok, I'll stop soon. I guess, in conclusion, social skills are vital to a person's personality and existance. I also believe people with social skills should have opinions, and at least a tad bit of intelligence. -------------------- Wham Bam Shizam Posts: 247 | Registered: Monday, September 6 2004 07:00 |
|
Shaper
Member # 22
|
written Monday, October 11 2004 09:10
Profile
quote:I don't quite get your meaning in that sentence, but I'm guessing that you're saying that you don't approve of banning people from having more than one child. If so, what would you do in a situation such as there is in China? If China did not enact their one child policy, soon enough they would have had millions of people dying of famine, simply due to overpopulation. Which would you say is the lesser evil? People having fewer children, or famine? quote:That wasn't my problem with your post. My problem was you, quite unjustly, accusing someone of racism without any proof whatsoever. quote:Sure it does. Some of the greatest minds in history have been socially retarded. If you are going to screen diseases using genetics, why not select a predisposition to intelligence as a trait (providing you had the scientific capacity)? Surely you would consider it better to be intelligent than to be stupid. Posts: 2862 | Registered: Tuesday, October 2 2001 07:00 |
|
...b10010b...
Member # 869
|
written Monday, October 11 2004 14:12
Profile
Homepage
quote:At this point, if we weren't going that way by choice already, I'd support a mandatory one-child policy in most developed nations. In the long term, I suspect a sustainable global population will be something significantly less than 1 billion. Personally, I'm not planning to have children at all. By the way, in the interests of full disclosure, I am a cautious supporter of some forms of what you'd probably call eugenics, but I'm not a racist. Genetically, there's no such thing as distinct races within humanity; there's more genetic difference between any two breeds of dog or cat than between any two humans of different "races". [ Monday, October 11, 2004 14:15: Message edited by: Prince Albert in a Can ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
|
Shaper
Member # 22
|
written Monday, October 11 2004 21:28
Profile
The problem with a one child policy in some countries is that it leads to a small young workforce that has to support a large elderly population. Posts: 2862 | Registered: Tuesday, October 2 2001 07:00 |
|
...b10010b...
Member # 869
|
written Monday, October 11 2004 21:51
Profile
Homepage
An aging population is a problem we're going to have to deal with eventually; continued population growth isn't indefinitely sustainable. It's not the end of the world if people have to keep working into their 60s or even their 70s. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
|
Agent
Member # 2210
|
written Tuesday, October 12 2004 01:21
Profile
In every major industrialized country there is negative population growth-- less than 2.1 children per adult. The only reason this does not happen in the United States is because of immigration and a higher rate of immigrant births initially. Immigration should be much more selectively based on marketable skills in the developing world. In India rising economic well being caused the birth rate to go from 6.3 kids per family to 3.4 kids per family. The reason behind this is not Orwellian one child per family laws. 1) If you make every child go to a classroom, especially with college, they become an economic burden on families, it costs to have children when they are not laboring in the fields, making rugs, or doing piecework in factories. 2) If you have readily available birth control, it makes people less likely to have kids. 3) If you convince people they need to consume lots of crap like the majority of us Spiderwebbers do, it becomes economically unfeasible to have large numbers of kids. Before Orwellian laws are introduced change the economics of having too many kids. 1) Force education, 2) Make birth control readily available, 3) Tell people they have a right to a higher standard of living. -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
|
...b10010b...
Member # 869
|
written Tuesday, October 12 2004 02:05
Profile
Homepage
As I tried to say, I'm not in favour of coercive one-child laws in developed countries because people in those countries are already having fewer children. I'm not in favour of coercive one-child policies in the very poorest countries of the world either, because they'd be disastrous. The reason the population of developed countries with low birth rates isn't actually decreasing yet isn't entirely immigration; it's also the fact that the baby boomers haven't started dying off yet. Once they do, we can expect to see a drop in the population of many developed countries, particularly in Europe. The thing about birth control is that even when it's available, it's frequently not used. Of 98 married, HIV-positive men supplied with free condoms in one Ugandan study, none of them reported having used any of them. Why not? Because they had to have children. People living in absolute poverty, where it takes all the work they can do just to stay alive, have children because they're going to need children to support them when they're older. Mandatory education is problematic for similar reasons; parents don't want those children taken away when they could be working on the family farm. It's also hard to educate everyone when there aren't enough schools and teachers to go around. Enormous work needs to be put into the infrastructure of many poor countries before the average person living in one can reasonably hope to escape from poverty. Telling someone in such a situation that they have a right to a better standard of living seems like a bad joke. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
|
Infiltrator
Member # 4256
|
written Tuesday, October 12 2004 14:47
Profile
For the current population rate of the world to continue it is highly nesacary that room to expand be found. this kind of room is extremly limited. Most options require large amounts of technology and even more money. But the options that I have seen widely discussed have been the space/mars junk-which would take over a thousand years with hypothetical technology to make mars habitable (I mean w/o air tanks and such) and the ocean- which also has severe problems. If no viable way to decrease rate of growth occurs then it would seem like the population would probably ossilate between a max that is somewhat larger than todays population and a min that could be significantly smaller (The aformentioned 1 billion). And now that I have spouted of loads of unsubstantiated data..... Posts: 564 | Registered: Wednesday, April 14 2004 07:00 |
|
Warrior
Member # 4987
|
written Tuesday, October 12 2004 14:54
Profile
Homepage
Instead of typing out a 3 paragraph response to look smart, I will shorten it into a 2 sentence remark. Moral systems are devised to keep a population under control. The main part of "Do what you will, so long as it hurts none", stems from an innate human selfishness, if it doesn't bother them, they don't care, regardless of country or religion... Posts: 60 | Registered: Sunday, September 19 2004 07:00 |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 4942
|
written Tuesday, October 12 2004 15:12
Profile
quote:Though in the case of the 10 Commandments, and various other "moral codes" (Hammurabi's Code) morals are devised to keep people under control, not all moral codes stuff a population. Personal moral codes don't do that. I totally concur with your opionion on Libertarian views. I was talking to a Libertarian friend, and debated him on his opionion regarding his "Do what you will, so long as it hurts none" philosophy. Using the Socratic Method :cool: I eventually cornered him into saying that smart people who took responsibility for their actions would put the people who bother other people to justice. I pointed out that the smart people were not only forming government (he was relating Libertarianism to a form of anarchy) but certain groups, the strongest and smartest, would create dictatorship, rendering the "anarchist" state of the country, city whatever, useless. By the way, what do you all think about the whole libertarian thing? -------------------- Wham Bam Shizam Posts: 247 | Registered: Monday, September 6 2004 07:00 |
|
...b10010b...
Member # 869
|
written Wednesday, October 13 2004 00:04
Profile
Homepage
The fundamental moral imperative of libertarianism is impossible to follow. It's impossible to take any significant action that doesn't somehow harm someone. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |