Maybe beyond the scope of the article, but eugenics as practiced in America and elsewhere (sterilization of certain classes of criminals and mentally ill) seemed eminently sensible as a matter of policy and morally defensible.
I dont think a case has been made for why this would have necessarily lead to anything approaching genocide.
Moreover, I fail to see the dangers of voluntary negative eugenics: paying people to get sterilized. https://childfreebc.com/ is good if legit.
Its an exaggeration to say that all policy problems are insoluble short of improving the genetic stock; but its not a major leap.
Among most common forms of motivation for violence is Low Iq/low performing groups attacking higher performing groups.
The most common form of modern parasitism is Low Iq groups consuming public resources and securing sinecures. They are aided by the most smartest and verbally adept members of their group, and members of higher IQ groups who are corrupted or driven by an erroneous morality.
And yes, as we get a larger third world population (especially africans, and the case still hasnt been made for why an untenably large number will not come to the US), this parasitism problem will only grow, and consume a larger amount of public resources, diverting energy and time away from technological advancement.
There is an ethical imperative to implement policy solutions that effectively address 1. Low IQ violence and 2. low Iq parasitism, the twin evils of the modern age (Gribble isnt a serious issue unless you are on facebook or have a prole family and need to go to thanksgiving dinner).
Failing to implement some form of eugenics is a grievous moral failing. Failing to avert the endless suffering of members of future generations
Thanks for the correction. I think the ideology of eugenics historically led to genocide -- the methods themselves were less important. I guess I need to explain why we won't get billions of Africans before I refute the rest.
"Both Marx and Churchill believed that Jews were responsible for the evils of capitalism or communism, and therefore, they both believed in the existence of a βJewish Question.β However, neither Marx nor Churchill believed that Jews should be sexually segregated from gentiles, prevented from interbreeding to avoid βblood poisoning,β or deported or expelled from any country. It was only because Hitler was a eugenicist that he took things to that level. Without eugenics, the Holocaust could not have happened."
This is just flatly wrong. Churchill was just as much of a eugenicist as Hitler by any reasonable standard. Your whole argument falls apart and you are pwned. Some further points.
1) My argument was that eugenics, a programme of improving a population by intervening in reproductive choices, is conceptually distinct from exterminating an enemy population with no goal of improving it, and that, even in the Third Reich, there was enough recognition of this that these two projects were kept intuitionally separate. Your argument is that they are both still eugenics. Let us say you are correct (though see below), this is an example of the archetypal leftist argument '[Good thing] is bad because it constitutes [bad word]' correctly identified by Scott Alexander as the worst argument in the world. Perhaps you see this as a form of success where you achieve your goal of being a genuine leftist, but I think it is a dip from your usual high standards.
2) It is not exactly incorrect to call Wilhelm Marr a eugenicist, but it is imprecise, since eugenics as an ideology had not yet crystallized or been given a name. The more precise term would be 'race (pseudo)scientist' and, phrased correctly, your argument is that the Holocaust would not have happened had the concept of biological race not been discovered. And this is certainly true, but what of it? Biological race is a real thing. The Holocaust would not have happened had the internal combustion engine not been invented either.
3) You refer twice to Israeli Jews who want to practice eugenics on Arabs. If this is directed at me, it is a plain misstatement of my position. I believe it is urgent to practice eugenics on Israeli Jews because Israel's geopolitical predicament is sufficiently dire that it simply cannot afford the burden of dumb rightoids who demand Israel constantly does dumb things. Of course, I would also be delighted if someone would practice eugenics in the Arab community, which would greatly benefit from having fewer low-IQ criminals, but this is not so urgent, and would need buy-in from the leaders of the Arab community. My vision for Israel-Palestinian peace is that elites on both sides stop mobilising rightoid morons to fight each other, but instead unite to practice eugenics.
4) The sterilization of Ethiopian women happened with women who already had multiple children and had repeatedly demonstrated their inability or unwillingness to use contraception provided for them. Its goal wasn't even eugenic (though it had this outcome) but to limit the number of feral children living in cupboards. It's just a straightforwardly good thing, and opponents of it are enemies of civilization, worse than Alex Jones.
5) Eugenics, as Steve Sailer correctly states, was an engineering project. If a bridge is built using crank science, or by insane criminals, it will fall down, same with eugenics. My view is that sanity and knowledge are good, crankishness and ignorance are bad.
6) The argument that eugenics is dangerous is correct in the sense that all state functions are dangerous. If a state has an economic policy, then it can print money and create hyperinflation, if it has a health policy it can do lockdowns, if it has a police force it can arrest and torture political dissidents. There is force in the libertarian argument that these tools are all too dangerous to be wielded by anyone, but not so much force that we are libertarians. Your argument amounts to an 'isolated demand for libertarian rigour' and is not persuasive.
7) Your strongest argument is that Davenport, Grant, and Stoddard also had objectionable views. However, even leaving aside the element of cherry-picking involved, I don't find the quotations all that shocking. To some extent my differences with them amount to subjective value judgments, and to some extent they are about matters of science because I live in 2024 and know more than them. I think we would be able to hammer things out. In general, I think the more science you know, the less tempting exterminationist eugenics looks. I used to hold ejectionist views about Arabs in the land of Israel, and learning more about bell curves and genetics helped moderate my position. I think, in general, people who leave White Nationalism and analogous rightoid ideologies know a lot more about race science than those who stay in it.
0. I agree that Churchill was a eugenicist. I agree with you that not all eugenicists supported the Holocaust. My argument is that all Nazis are eugenicists, and therefore you can't have Naziism with eugenics. This is something that wasn't a binary association prior to WWII, but after WWII, you can't ignore this. Call it "retroactive causality" if you want, but this is how mythology and religion works. That's how I'm dealing with this issue, as it exists in culture de facto.
2. I simply use Marr as the earliest possible example, not the only example. The earliest example is going to be the most ambiguous as ideas develop or evolve through pseudomorphic stages, and only in the latest stage do they become most coherent.
3. I don't think you want to sterilize all non-Jews within the Levant, but I do think that idea has currency among extreme Zionists (they might prefer extermination or expulsion to sterilization, and to be clear, I think this is worse than eugenics). The quote you are referring to is "An Israeli Jew who advocates for the forced sterilization of Arabs is not a Nazi." I don't believe you disagree with me on this point. My point was to explain that I'm not equating Naziism with eugenics, even though I think eugenics was a necessary element in Naziism. I posted a recent note further exploring this issue: https://substack.com/@deepleft/note/c-71070262
4. My point is that Israel is the closest "western" state to eugenics. Whether or not the sterilization of these women was TECHNICALLY eugenics in its "intentions" wasn't the focus of my point.
5. I agree that there are better and worse forms of eugenics. I differentiate between better and worse forms in this article in four different sections labeled "positive, negative, voluntary, privatized."
6. My argument isn't a libertarian one, but has to do with protecting the civic religion. I am making an authoritarian argument.
7. The idea that I cherrypicked the three most popular eugenicists of all time is an unsubstantiated assertion. I'd like to see a substantive counter-argument using evidence. If you'd like to convince me, offer a slate of alternative celebrity eugenicists, describe their views on Jews to me, and explain why you think they were more popular and influential.
0. Your argument was "Both Marx and Churchill believed that Jews were responsible for the evils of capitalism or communism, and therefore, they both believed in the existence of a βJewish Question.β However, neither Marx nor Churchill believed that Jews should be sexually segregated from gentiles, prevented from interbreeding to avoid βblood poisoning,β or deported or expelled from any country. It was only because Hitler was a eugenicist that he took things to that level. Without eugenics, the Holocaust could not have happened."
This argument is wrong. The difference between Churchill and Hitler is that Hitler was a depraved Rightoid and Churchill wasn't.
3) I have never heard a single Israeli Rightoid suggest using eugenics to solve the Arab problem and, in as much as I have heard them discuss eugenics at all, they are hysterically opposed.
4) It is, and this is a good thing.
7) My main argument wasn't the cherry-picking, but that I don't think their ideas were very unreasonable, and that they would likely change some of them anyway in response to modern evidence.
Churchill was undoubtably right-wing, calling him a moderate centrist is either a very funny joke or an abuse of good faith. You are not distinguishing between "necessary" and "sufficient." I am saying that eugenic ideology was necessary for the Holocaust -- I am not saying that it was sufficient.
He was slightly left of center in 1910, slightly right of center in 1930, and significantly right of center in 1950, but what he never was was a Rightoid.
Correct, they were given contraceptive injections of Depo Provera, which has to be re-administered every 3 months, and told it was a vaccine or something. Not only did the women concerned already have children, many went on to have more children. And it was a few clinics doing this, and they were stopped when it got out.
What happened is Haaretz etc. showed their bad side and wrote a bunch of hysterical articles about it, and these were picked up sites like Electronic Intifada Unz Review who re-wrote the story to be even more hysterical. 50-50 which of these sources DLA got it from. The Haaretz article linked to is paywalled, so probably he didn't read it. It's OK, we've all done it.
I would say that the Nazi racial antipathy towards Jews is only secondarily inspired by eugenics. The Jews were in some capacities dysgenic, but the Nazis did not internally deny that they also had eugenic traits (or else, they could not have survived this long). It was simply that the Jews in Germany and the rest of the west were politically opposed to the White gentiles. Either way, the Holocaust was a response to Jewish behavior (particularly a fear of Jewish partisan activity and ghetto uprisings, along with the issue of poor harvests) and not a response to the need to avoid Jewish genes from entering the gene pool. The Germans had already solved that problem with the Nuremburg Laws.
Hitler explicitly expressed anxiety over the fact that the deportation and massacres of Jews could lead to a eugenic process, that Jews would come out of it a more superior race than they had been coming into it, because the issue here is the diametric opposition between the Aryans and the Jews. Goebbels writes well afterthe beginning βOperation Reinhardβ that Hitler does not want to deport the Jews to Siberia, because he believes this will make them tough. He wants to deport them to Africa, because he believes it will bring them into a state of decadenceβ¦
The Jews had always been disproportionately involved in radical political movements and on the Eastern Front they were facing occupation from a country with state-enforced antisemitism.
βI have already criticized the first group quite thoroughly in my attacks on race realism. Describing some people as inferior, and others as superior, favors stagnation and caste systems like that of India, not a dynamic and expansive frontier like America.β
This may be the root of many of the things I disagree with in your writing. I think America was once a frontier, when there was actually land to settle. But that frontier was closed more than a century ago. The only open land is on mars or the moon, the only places where frontier politics might make any sense. But America is no frontier now.
I think the dangers of voluntary eugenics are much less than the dangers of coercive eugenics. For example, the father of NFL wideout Amon Ra St. Brown and two other unusually-named and very athletic boys chose his German wife in part because she was tall and physically robust. In a sense we could call this eugenics, but who cares? Itβs not as if enough people are going to enact this that it will be a social problem. (They also had unusual nurture: serious weight training from age seven, demand for academic excellence, and mom only talked to the boys in German and French, which made them multilingual.) Very few men are going to seek out Valkyries for breeding.
I suppose we can imagine a billionaire eccentric paying people to have babies or get sterilized, but itβs hard to imagine that having any real impact.
By advocating for the decrease in the worlds population via feminism and reproductive tech you are advocating not for global population decrease but rather population decrease localized to the developed world only.
I agree with footnote #8 about Nietzsche. In 2015, Robert C. Holub published a flawed but necessary book titled "Nietzsche's Jewish Problem" which tackles this very question.
Some writers such as Karl Schlecta, Richard Roos, and especially Walter Kaufmann have tried to sanitize Nietzsche by blaming his sister for his appropriation by people such as Alfred Rosenberg and Alfred Baeumler. There are several problems with this. One, Nazi theorists took inspiration only from what Nietzsche publicly wrote. Secondly, Elisabeth FΓΆrster-Nietzsche, in her biography, clearly states Nietzsche's cosmopolitan and anti-anti-Semitic views. She did edit things to portray herself in a positive light, but the only thing related to Jews here was a letter Nietzsche may or may not have sent to his mom, blaming the association with anti-Semites for his low book sales. Elisabeth FΓΆrster-Nietzsche, while always on the illiberal right, backed away from and disavowed anti-Semitism in old age.
With Nietzsche, he falls into both your "mystical" and "soft-deconstruction" categories. He wanted a eugenically-bred European elite with Jews merged into it. He admired the Old Testament will to dominate and saw this in Jewish tenacity, transnationality, influence, self-possession, cunning, endurance, and addressing setbacks squarely. On the other hand, as is well-known, he doesn't like manipulativeness, priestliness, putting on a face for an audience, intellectualism, rooting for the underdog, etc.
Nietzsche felt anti-Semites are resentful grugs, like feminists, nationalists, socialists, anarchists, nihilists, and other forces he regarded as democratizing. Nietzsche opposed anti-Semites not because he was philo-Semitic, but because he felt anti-Semites adhered to an unhealthy moralism. The anti-Semites of his time were the equivalent of Q-tards and unhinged Alex Jones-style conspiracy loons. He remarks in passages that a German who thinks he is better than a Jew just because he is a German belongs in βa comedyβ if not an βinsane asylum.β
My main criticism of Holub's book is that he overinterprets biographical facts as instances of career advancement, reputation management, and calculated manipulation. I'm more willing to give Nietzsche the benefit of the doubt, especially in light of his severe health problems.
i thought nietzsche hated anti semites because their hatred was more class based and economic than moral, or am i misinterpreting your words bc i feel like it lol
Leaving personal beliefs and a few doubtfull assertions aside, I reckon this article is directionally correct. Its a fact that anti-technological sentiment is on the rise, Degrowth is an easy example of this. As Christianity continuasly sheds influence, almost all of this sentiment will eventually be emanating from the Left, which is a problem. Between the Gribble-RW and Greta-LW, we end up in a tough spot collectively.
Marginal eugenics, does appear to be the most viable way. It wont take off in Europe period, so I will only focus on the US. Its not a secret people's stated and revealed preferences can diverge immensly, its specially true of "white liberals". Further more, non-whites are even less hesitant about the whole affair (specially so the quickly ascendent Asians). All there is to it is getting a foot in the door.
The first PGS baby has already been born, and hopefully soon other aspects such as IVG and beyound will also be available. If this comes to pass, the chance for normalization will be substantial. Clinics will pop up mostly on liberal states and eventual powerfull lobbies within the left-establishment will side with it: women, indian-americans, lgbt, etc. Negative polarization via the Gribble-right will only further exarcebate this. "Marginal eugenics" can be repackaged as an extension of reproductive rights, an effective replacement of cram-schools or another aspect of oppeneness to "progress", perhaps invoking trans stuff or whatever.
As America does it, it will cascade in a self-reinforcing loop around the Globe. First in East-Asia, then Europe, and eventually most of the developed world. In Europe, Brussels will be impotent, eventually people will fly to Ukraine to get their baby, as many already do for surrogacy. In the case of Asia, I wouldnt be surprised if the CCP supressed it, but the mere thought of "Chinese Ubermensch" would get a good portion of the american Right flying of the handle, after that even red states would buckle and "marginal eugenics" will be just another normal procedure.
Another positive it would have would be the discrediting of the anti-tech portion of the Left (far more consequential then the impotent counterpart on the right). Degrowthers will already be hard-pressed by issues involving de-industrialization, competition with China and so on. This would further strenghten the anti-degrowther coalition within intra-leftist politics. The indirect consequences for all the other things you mention to care about, would thus come about much more quickly the direct generational benifits of eugenics as such.
PGS only seems to offer modest gains in screening out obvious genetic diseases, which do not appear to be the primary way in which populations suffer from ill breeding. The technology seems like the recent treatment for cystic fibrosis - absolutely a massive improvement for the marginal cases it helps, but hardly revolutionary on a large scale
Is increasing the iq of a population that productive?Status is a zero sum game,some people end up unable to find jobs and mates.Would you like those people ti be illiterate 80 iq anti vaxxers or Ted kazcinsky?Increasing the Iq of elites selectively could be another alternative,then inequality would increase and a violent revolution becomes more likely.Euginics is a double edge sword,if you worry about the dangers of race realism you should approach eugenics with the same suspiciousness
Not really. Latin America is better then Africa, Southern Europe is better then Latin America, Northern Europe is better then Southern Europe, etc. Raising mean inteligent clearly contributes to better outcomes over all and there is no reason to stop at IQ. Lower psychopathy, less cancer, less addiction, its a bio singularity.
Relative status is indeed a zero-sum game, but a society with some degree of social egalitarianism can give everyone at least a modicum of dignity and status. In an aristocratic society, for example, servants might have to bow when an aristocrat enters a room. But in our society, when Warren Buffet goes into a steakhouse, he probably expects the staff to be polite, but they donβt have to bow or grovel.
If it turns out that, say, small amounts of certain pollutants are causing global reduction in IQ, I have to think that reducing those pollutants would be on balance a good thing.
Currently reading. Caught this error: βIt is not my position that all forms of eugenics lead necessarily to eugenics.β
Maybe beyond the scope of the article, but eugenics as practiced in America and elsewhere (sterilization of certain classes of criminals and mentally ill) seemed eminently sensible as a matter of policy and morally defensible.
I dont think a case has been made for why this would have necessarily lead to anything approaching genocide.
Moreover, I fail to see the dangers of voluntary negative eugenics: paying people to get sterilized. https://childfreebc.com/ is good if legit.
Its an exaggeration to say that all policy problems are insoluble short of improving the genetic stock; but its not a major leap.
Among most common forms of motivation for violence is Low Iq/low performing groups attacking higher performing groups.
The most common form of modern parasitism is Low Iq groups consuming public resources and securing sinecures. They are aided by the most smartest and verbally adept members of their group, and members of higher IQ groups who are corrupted or driven by an erroneous morality.
And yes, as we get a larger third world population (especially africans, and the case still hasnt been made for why an untenably large number will not come to the US), this parasitism problem will only grow, and consume a larger amount of public resources, diverting energy and time away from technological advancement.
There is an ethical imperative to implement policy solutions that effectively address 1. Low IQ violence and 2. low Iq parasitism, the twin evils of the modern age (Gribble isnt a serious issue unless you are on facebook or have a prole family and need to go to thanksgiving dinner).
Failing to implement some form of eugenics is a grievous moral failing. Failing to avert the endless suffering of members of future generations
Thanks for the correction. I think the ideology of eugenics historically led to genocide -- the methods themselves were less important. I guess I need to explain why we won't get billions of Africans before I refute the rest.
I appreciate the clarification of your views in the end. Your pronouns are not "eugenicist" indeed
"Both Marx and Churchill believed that Jews were responsible for the evils of capitalism or communism, and therefore, they both believed in the existence of a βJewish Question.β However, neither Marx nor Churchill believed that Jews should be sexually segregated from gentiles, prevented from interbreeding to avoid βblood poisoning,β or deported or expelled from any country. It was only because Hitler was a eugenicist that he took things to that level. Without eugenics, the Holocaust could not have happened."
This is just flatly wrong. Churchill was just as much of a eugenicist as Hitler by any reasonable standard. Your whole argument falls apart and you are pwned. Some further points.
1) My argument was that eugenics, a programme of improving a population by intervening in reproductive choices, is conceptually distinct from exterminating an enemy population with no goal of improving it, and that, even in the Third Reich, there was enough recognition of this that these two projects were kept intuitionally separate. Your argument is that they are both still eugenics. Let us say you are correct (though see below), this is an example of the archetypal leftist argument '[Good thing] is bad because it constitutes [bad word]' correctly identified by Scott Alexander as the worst argument in the world. Perhaps you see this as a form of success where you achieve your goal of being a genuine leftist, but I think it is a dip from your usual high standards.
2) It is not exactly incorrect to call Wilhelm Marr a eugenicist, but it is imprecise, since eugenics as an ideology had not yet crystallized or been given a name. The more precise term would be 'race (pseudo)scientist' and, phrased correctly, your argument is that the Holocaust would not have happened had the concept of biological race not been discovered. And this is certainly true, but what of it? Biological race is a real thing. The Holocaust would not have happened had the internal combustion engine not been invented either.
3) You refer twice to Israeli Jews who want to practice eugenics on Arabs. If this is directed at me, it is a plain misstatement of my position. I believe it is urgent to practice eugenics on Israeli Jews because Israel's geopolitical predicament is sufficiently dire that it simply cannot afford the burden of dumb rightoids who demand Israel constantly does dumb things. Of course, I would also be delighted if someone would practice eugenics in the Arab community, which would greatly benefit from having fewer low-IQ criminals, but this is not so urgent, and would need buy-in from the leaders of the Arab community. My vision for Israel-Palestinian peace is that elites on both sides stop mobilising rightoid morons to fight each other, but instead unite to practice eugenics.
4) The sterilization of Ethiopian women happened with women who already had multiple children and had repeatedly demonstrated their inability or unwillingness to use contraception provided for them. Its goal wasn't even eugenic (though it had this outcome) but to limit the number of feral children living in cupboards. It's just a straightforwardly good thing, and opponents of it are enemies of civilization, worse than Alex Jones.
5) Eugenics, as Steve Sailer correctly states, was an engineering project. If a bridge is built using crank science, or by insane criminals, it will fall down, same with eugenics. My view is that sanity and knowledge are good, crankishness and ignorance are bad.
6) The argument that eugenics is dangerous is correct in the sense that all state functions are dangerous. If a state has an economic policy, then it can print money and create hyperinflation, if it has a health policy it can do lockdowns, if it has a police force it can arrest and torture political dissidents. There is force in the libertarian argument that these tools are all too dangerous to be wielded by anyone, but not so much force that we are libertarians. Your argument amounts to an 'isolated demand for libertarian rigour' and is not persuasive.
7) Your strongest argument is that Davenport, Grant, and Stoddard also had objectionable views. However, even leaving aside the element of cherry-picking involved, I don't find the quotations all that shocking. To some extent my differences with them amount to subjective value judgments, and to some extent they are about matters of science because I live in 2024 and know more than them. I think we would be able to hammer things out. In general, I think the more science you know, the less tempting exterminationist eugenics looks. I used to hold ejectionist views about Arabs in the land of Israel, and learning more about bell curves and genetics helped moderate my position. I think, in general, people who leave White Nationalism and analogous rightoid ideologies know a lot more about race science than those who stay in it.
0. I agree that Churchill was a eugenicist. I agree with you that not all eugenicists supported the Holocaust. My argument is that all Nazis are eugenicists, and therefore you can't have Naziism with eugenics. This is something that wasn't a binary association prior to WWII, but after WWII, you can't ignore this. Call it "retroactive causality" if you want, but this is how mythology and religion works. That's how I'm dealing with this issue, as it exists in culture de facto.
2. I simply use Marr as the earliest possible example, not the only example. The earliest example is going to be the most ambiguous as ideas develop or evolve through pseudomorphic stages, and only in the latest stage do they become most coherent.
3. I don't think you want to sterilize all non-Jews within the Levant, but I do think that idea has currency among extreme Zionists (they might prefer extermination or expulsion to sterilization, and to be clear, I think this is worse than eugenics). The quote you are referring to is "An Israeli Jew who advocates for the forced sterilization of Arabs is not a Nazi." I don't believe you disagree with me on this point. My point was to explain that I'm not equating Naziism with eugenics, even though I think eugenics was a necessary element in Naziism. I posted a recent note further exploring this issue: https://substack.com/@deepleft/note/c-71070262
4. My point is that Israel is the closest "western" state to eugenics. Whether or not the sterilization of these women was TECHNICALLY eugenics in its "intentions" wasn't the focus of my point.
5. I agree that there are better and worse forms of eugenics. I differentiate between better and worse forms in this article in four different sections labeled "positive, negative, voluntary, privatized."
6. My argument isn't a libertarian one, but has to do with protecting the civic religion. I am making an authoritarian argument.
7. The idea that I cherrypicked the three most popular eugenicists of all time is an unsubstantiated assertion. I'd like to see a substantive counter-argument using evidence. If you'd like to convince me, offer a slate of alternative celebrity eugenicists, describe their views on Jews to me, and explain why you think they were more popular and influential.
0. Your argument was "Both Marx and Churchill believed that Jews were responsible for the evils of capitalism or communism, and therefore, they both believed in the existence of a βJewish Question.β However, neither Marx nor Churchill believed that Jews should be sexually segregated from gentiles, prevented from interbreeding to avoid βblood poisoning,β or deported or expelled from any country. It was only because Hitler was a eugenicist that he took things to that level. Without eugenics, the Holocaust could not have happened."
This argument is wrong. The difference between Churchill and Hitler is that Hitler was a depraved Rightoid and Churchill wasn't.
3) I have never heard a single Israeli Rightoid suggest using eugenics to solve the Arab problem and, in as much as I have heard them discuss eugenics at all, they are hysterically opposed.
4) It is, and this is a good thing.
7) My main argument wasn't the cherry-picking, but that I don't think their ideas were very unreasonable, and that they would likely change some of them anyway in response to modern evidence.
Churchill was undoubtably right-wing, calling him a moderate centrist is either a very funny joke or an abuse of good faith. You are not distinguishing between "necessary" and "sufficient." I am saying that eugenic ideology was necessary for the Holocaust -- I am not saying that it was sufficient.
He was slightly left of center in 1910, slightly right of center in 1930, and significantly right of center in 1950, but what he never was was a Rightoid.
Was the case of the Ethiopian women even [permanent] sterilization? My recollection was that it was something that lasted a few months.
Correct, they were given contraceptive injections of Depo Provera, which has to be re-administered every 3 months, and told it was a vaccine or something. Not only did the women concerned already have children, many went on to have more children. And it was a few clinics doing this, and they were stopped when it got out.
What happened is Haaretz etc. showed their bad side and wrote a bunch of hysterical articles about it, and these were picked up sites like Electronic Intifada Unz Review who re-wrote the story to be even more hysterical. 50-50 which of these sources DLA got it from. The Haaretz article linked to is paywalled, so probably he didn't read it. It's OK, we've all done it.
I would say that the Nazi racial antipathy towards Jews is only secondarily inspired by eugenics. The Jews were in some capacities dysgenic, but the Nazis did not internally deny that they also had eugenic traits (or else, they could not have survived this long). It was simply that the Jews in Germany and the rest of the west were politically opposed to the White gentiles. Either way, the Holocaust was a response to Jewish behavior (particularly a fear of Jewish partisan activity and ghetto uprisings, along with the issue of poor harvests) and not a response to the need to avoid Jewish genes from entering the gene pool. The Germans had already solved that problem with the Nuremburg Laws.
Hitler explicitly expressed anxiety over the fact that the deportation and massacres of Jews could lead to a eugenic process, that Jews would come out of it a more superior race than they had been coming into it, because the issue here is the diametric opposition between the Aryans and the Jews. Goebbels writes well afterthe beginning βOperation Reinhardβ that Hitler does not want to deport the Jews to Siberia, because he believes this will make them tough. He wants to deport them to Africa, because he believes it will bring them into a state of decadenceβ¦
Yes the Nazis were very scared of the Jewish partisans of the Budapest suburbs.
The Jews had always been disproportionately involved in radical political movements and on the Eastern Front they were facing occupation from a country with state-enforced antisemitism.
βI have already criticized the first group quite thoroughly in my attacks on race realism. Describing some people as inferior, and others as superior, favors stagnation and caste systems like that of India, not a dynamic and expansive frontier like America.β
This may be the root of many of the things I disagree with in your writing. I think America was once a frontier, when there was actually land to settle. But that frontier was closed more than a century ago. The only open land is on mars or the moon, the only places where frontier politics might make any sense. But America is no frontier now.
I think the dangers of voluntary eugenics are much less than the dangers of coercive eugenics. For example, the father of NFL wideout Amon Ra St. Brown and two other unusually-named and very athletic boys chose his German wife in part because she was tall and physically robust. In a sense we could call this eugenics, but who cares? Itβs not as if enough people are going to enact this that it will be a social problem. (They also had unusual nurture: serious weight training from age seven, demand for academic excellence, and mom only talked to the boys in German and French, which made them multilingual.) Very few men are going to seek out Valkyries for breeding.
I suppose we can imagine a billionaire eccentric paying people to have babies or get sterilized, but itβs hard to imagine that having any real impact.
By advocating for the decrease in the worlds population via feminism and reproductive tech you are advocating not for global population decrease but rather population decrease localized to the developed world only.
I agree with footnote #8 about Nietzsche. In 2015, Robert C. Holub published a flawed but necessary book titled "Nietzsche's Jewish Problem" which tackles this very question.
Some writers such as Karl Schlecta, Richard Roos, and especially Walter Kaufmann have tried to sanitize Nietzsche by blaming his sister for his appropriation by people such as Alfred Rosenberg and Alfred Baeumler. There are several problems with this. One, Nazi theorists took inspiration only from what Nietzsche publicly wrote. Secondly, Elisabeth FΓΆrster-Nietzsche, in her biography, clearly states Nietzsche's cosmopolitan and anti-anti-Semitic views. She did edit things to portray herself in a positive light, but the only thing related to Jews here was a letter Nietzsche may or may not have sent to his mom, blaming the association with anti-Semites for his low book sales. Elisabeth FΓΆrster-Nietzsche, while always on the illiberal right, backed away from and disavowed anti-Semitism in old age.
With Nietzsche, he falls into both your "mystical" and "soft-deconstruction" categories. He wanted a eugenically-bred European elite with Jews merged into it. He admired the Old Testament will to dominate and saw this in Jewish tenacity, transnationality, influence, self-possession, cunning, endurance, and addressing setbacks squarely. On the other hand, as is well-known, he doesn't like manipulativeness, priestliness, putting on a face for an audience, intellectualism, rooting for the underdog, etc.
Nietzsche felt anti-Semites are resentful grugs, like feminists, nationalists, socialists, anarchists, nihilists, and other forces he regarded as democratizing. Nietzsche opposed anti-Semites not because he was philo-Semitic, but because he felt anti-Semites adhered to an unhealthy moralism. The anti-Semites of his time were the equivalent of Q-tards and unhinged Alex Jones-style conspiracy loons. He remarks in passages that a German who thinks he is better than a Jew just because he is a German belongs in βa comedyβ if not an βinsane asylum.β
My main criticism of Holub's book is that he overinterprets biographical facts as instances of career advancement, reputation management, and calculated manipulation. I'm more willing to give Nietzsche the benefit of the doubt, especially in light of his severe health problems.
i thought nietzsche hated anti semites because their hatred was more class based and economic than moral, or am i misinterpreting your words bc i feel like it lol
Leaving personal beliefs and a few doubtfull assertions aside, I reckon this article is directionally correct. Its a fact that anti-technological sentiment is on the rise, Degrowth is an easy example of this. As Christianity continuasly sheds influence, almost all of this sentiment will eventually be emanating from the Left, which is a problem. Between the Gribble-RW and Greta-LW, we end up in a tough spot collectively.
Marginal eugenics, does appear to be the most viable way. It wont take off in Europe period, so I will only focus on the US. Its not a secret people's stated and revealed preferences can diverge immensly, its specially true of "white liberals". Further more, non-whites are even less hesitant about the whole affair (specially so the quickly ascendent Asians). All there is to it is getting a foot in the door.
The first PGS baby has already been born, and hopefully soon other aspects such as IVG and beyound will also be available. If this comes to pass, the chance for normalization will be substantial. Clinics will pop up mostly on liberal states and eventual powerfull lobbies within the left-establishment will side with it: women, indian-americans, lgbt, etc. Negative polarization via the Gribble-right will only further exarcebate this. "Marginal eugenics" can be repackaged as an extension of reproductive rights, an effective replacement of cram-schools or another aspect of oppeneness to "progress", perhaps invoking trans stuff or whatever.
As America does it, it will cascade in a self-reinforcing loop around the Globe. First in East-Asia, then Europe, and eventually most of the developed world. In Europe, Brussels will be impotent, eventually people will fly to Ukraine to get their baby, as many already do for surrogacy. In the case of Asia, I wouldnt be surprised if the CCP supressed it, but the mere thought of "Chinese Ubermensch" would get a good portion of the american Right flying of the handle, after that even red states would buckle and "marginal eugenics" will be just another normal procedure.
Another positive it would have would be the discrediting of the anti-tech portion of the Left (far more consequential then the impotent counterpart on the right). Degrowthers will already be hard-pressed by issues involving de-industrialization, competition with China and so on. This would further strenghten the anti-degrowther coalition within intra-leftist politics. The indirect consequences for all the other things you mention to care about, would thus come about much more quickly the direct generational benifits of eugenics as such.
PGS only seems to offer modest gains in screening out obvious genetic diseases, which do not appear to be the primary way in which populations suffer from ill breeding. The technology seems like the recent treatment for cystic fibrosis - absolutely a massive improvement for the marginal cases it helps, but hardly revolutionary on a large scale
Cystic fibrosis screaning is not recent and the possible gains from PGS are not marginal. I encourage you to look up Gwern's work on this.
Is increasing the iq of a population that productive?Status is a zero sum game,some people end up unable to find jobs and mates.Would you like those people ti be illiterate 80 iq anti vaxxers or Ted kazcinsky?Increasing the Iq of elites selectively could be another alternative,then inequality would increase and a violent revolution becomes more likely.Euginics is a double edge sword,if you worry about the dangers of race realism you should approach eugenics with the same suspiciousness
Not really. Latin America is better then Africa, Southern Europe is better then Latin America, Northern Europe is better then Southern Europe, etc. Raising mean inteligent clearly contributes to better outcomes over all and there is no reason to stop at IQ. Lower psychopathy, less cancer, less addiction, its a bio singularity.
Relative status is indeed a zero-sum game, but a society with some degree of social egalitarianism can give everyone at least a modicum of dignity and status. In an aristocratic society, for example, servants might have to bow when an aristocrat enters a room. But in our society, when Warren Buffet goes into a steakhouse, he probably expects the staff to be polite, but they donβt have to bow or grovel.
If it turns out that, say, small amounts of certain pollutants are causing global reduction in IQ, I have to think that reducing those pollutants would be on balance a good thing.
Not serious concerns. Read my comment above
Revolutions need elites or elite aspirants