Eugenics is good, change my mind

Author: Alec

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@disgusted
Maybe its because I'm just an ignorant, stupid, superstitious savage
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@blamonkey
Looking at DNA variants of nearly a quarter-of-a-million people, researchers concluded that only 7% of the difference in intelligence between people can be attributed to DNA (1)

While there are other sources of intelligence as what the researchers confirmed, a lot of intelligence is how well you are raised.  Rich people tend to raise their kids better because they have the time for it.  Poor people don't have the time or the money to reproduce and to effectively raise their kids to the same level on average.  Therefore, kid making and raising should be up to competent people.  They don't have to be super rich, but they should have a good job, and I would say about the top 85 percent of the US population would be fit to have kids.

The poverty rate fluctuates from anywhere between 11 and 15% in the US, suggesting that some people are able to leave poverty and care for themselves (2)
That's only 4 percent of the population.

I'm curious as to how you would define either.
Poor would be anyone who doesn't pay the reproduction matience tax, around $14000 per year.  Stupid would be anyone with an IQ below 85 (around 1/6 Americans).  

Under your plan, we would be eliminating potential workers in the US, limiting GDP and economic growth even if they have the skills to pull themselves out of poverty and simply fall into some hard times.
The poor people would leave behind a void that would help prompt the competent to reproduce.  A lot of people don't reproduce to slow down overpopulation.  Once the population falls in the short term, immigration and the competent reproducing would lead to a stronger America.  It's not like the population drops all at once either because it takes poor people a long time to get replaced by competent parents that take care of children better due to their economic advantage.

Let's talk about economic growth and GDP. If consumption is about 70% of our GDP, (which it is, (4)) then what would happen if we eliminate a good portion of the consumer base? The entire economy would collapse. 

They wouldn't be eliminated all at once and once the competent realize this, they would reproduce more, causing the competent to spend more then what they are currently doing.  Since Eugenics would apply to about 1/6 Americans and the average American is an adult for a little over 50 years, then that means every year, about .3 percent of the US population dies before reproduction, ideally with painkillers.  The competent parents fill the void, they reproduce more and it basically causes the poor to get replaced by the rich, leading to a wealthier and more peaceful society.

I mean, if we don't even understand what some of the genes do, what would the result of restricting certain people from passing on possibly important genetic information? Or are you claiming that there are no "good genes" that poor people possess?

Poor people probably have good genes, but on average, their genes are less productive to society then the competent people.

If you want to improve the quality of life of the US, how about pushing economic and educational policy? 
There is some of this policy that I support, like requiring all people above the age of 12 to invest at least 1 share of stock in the company of their choice.  If they are poor, they can buy penny stocks.  If they don't know how, the government can show them how.  This creates jobs.  I used to support more funding for schools, but not sure if there is a significant correlation between how educated someone is and their GDP.  China is very educated.  Doesn't mean that they are rich on a per person basis.  

You mention a bunch of social programs, but I don't know what those are.  I don't support or am against things that I don't know too much about.


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Why do you think you are?
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@Alec
While there are other sources of intelligence as what the researchers confirmed, a lot of intelligence is how well you are raised.  Rich people tend to raise their kids better because they have the time for it... I would say about the top 85 percent of the US population would be fit to have kids.
If people don't have money to help their children get through college, then yes, those children will grow up to have less money (1). So, instead of implementing/supporting programs to help them find jobs (i.e. vocational rehabilitation,) we should sterilize them? The Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, using 5,000 subjects, found that services provided by rehab were significant predictors of future job outcomes (2). If we can get people working, why does it matter? Not everyone will be a CEO, some are going to have to be the grunt workers until they work their way up to cushy desk jobs. Again, we cannot guarantee that in the next 50 years that robots can replace all of our workers. We need people in the workforce.


That's only 4 percent of the population.
4% of the US population is 13 million people. That is a lot of people who are going to have their sterility taken away for no reason. This is especially true if they make enough to live on, but cannot pay the hefty $14,000 per year. There are middle class families that are unable to pay that much without dipping into credit. 


The poor people would leave behind a void that would help prompt the competent to reproduce.  A lot of people don't reproduce to slow down overpopulation...
How would there be an incentive to reproduce? Just because a lot of people aren't having kids does not mean I will have kids. Also, poor parents not being able to raise successful kids is a failure of the state not giving enough support to them. There is a severe amount of mismatch in college admissions that prevent qualified, yet poor, students from attending. Georgetown University, in their study, concluded that at least 86,000 students who receive Pell grants per year are capable of attending selective universities, and can't because of the price-tag of an education (3). This pattern could be explained by the unequal distribution of student aid and scholarships toward richer families (4, 5).


They wouldn't be eliminated all at once and once the competent realize this, they would reproduce more, causing the competent to spend more then what they are currently doing.  Since Eugenics would apply to about 1/6 Americans and the average American is an adult for a little over 50 years, then that means every year, about .3 percent of the US population dies before reproduction, ideally with painkillers.  The competent parents fill the void, they reproduce more and it basically causes the poor to get replaced by the rich, leading to a wealthier and more peaceful society.

Even if they were not eliminated all at once, having 1/6th of Americans not reproducing eliminates an entire consumer base in the future. Again, people's decision to have kids is a personal one. It is not influenced by others having or not having kids. Unless you literally want to force people to reproduce, you aren't getting results. 


Poor people probably have good genes, but on average, their genes are less productive to society then the competent people.
Except, their genes are barely a factor in determining intelligence or financial success. If you are only eliminating the bottom 15% of people in the US through this process, then who is to say that others won't sink to the bottom of income earners? I mean, is there really that much difference between someone living in the 16th percentile and someone living in the 15th percentile?

There is some of this policy that I support, like requiring all people above the age of 12 to invest at least 1 share of stock in the company of their choice.  If they are poor, they can buy penny stocks.  If they don't know how, the government can show them how.  This creates jobs.  I used to support more funding for schools, but not sure if there is a significant correlation between how educated someone is and their GDP.  China is very educated.  Doesn't mean that they are rich on a per person basis.  

You mention a bunch of social programs, but I don't know what those are.  I don't support or am against things that I don't know too much about.

Education is highly correlated with income per my previous evidence. I can post studies proving this link.

I don't know why you think that 12 year-olds should use their parents money to prop up businesses, especially when the market is volatile and sensitive to internal and external shocks. 

Also, I wouldn't be so sure that the windfall from extra investment from preteens would do much to boost employment. After receiving a previous windfall from the recent tax cut, businesses did little else but line their pockets (6).

The other programs (the Earned-Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit,) are policy levers that boost employment and decrease poverty by significant levels since their inclusion in the tax code. There is a plethora of papers from the National Bureau of Economic Research showcasing the impact of the EITC in particular (7, 8).

Sources

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@blamonkey
So, instead of implementing/supporting programs to help them find jobs (i.e. vocational rehabilitation,) we should sterilize them?
They can get training for an approved job of their choice (one that pays at least $60,000 per year) that either they pay for or the government pays for with a low interest loan(.5% adjusted for inflation) that the poor people pay back once they get an approved job.  Some people just aren't willing to work and they make welfare a lifestyle.  Some people just don't have the skills to get such jobs and they often pass this on to their kids, not nesesarally genetically, but kids tend to emulate their parent's example.

If we can get people working, why does it matter?
Because some jobs don't pay enough to get a person off of welfare.  Raising the minimum wage would be bad for businesses since they have up to tens of thousands of employees to pay every day.  They probably couldn't afford a significant minimum wage increase.

Not everyone will be a CEO, some are going to have to be the grunt workers until they work their way up to cushy desk jobs. 
Many don't ever due this because they lack the skill and/or ambition to do this.

That is a lot of people who are going to have their sterility taken away for no reason.
It would be to make room for the rich.  More rich people, more businesses and more jobs, leading to reduced unemployment for those who just can't find a job.

This is especially true if they make enough to live on, but cannot pay the hefty $14,000 per year. There are middle class families that are unable to pay that much without dipping into credit. 
Middle class families can pay for the $14000 reproduction matience fee and would probably want to since people value this part of them.

How would there be an incentive to reproduce?
A lot of people don't reproduce to help slow overpopulation.  If population falls, then the rich would have more incentive to reproduce to fill the void that the poor left behind.

Also, poor parents not being able to raise successful kids is a failure of the state not giving enough support to them.
It's not the state's fault the poor parents have low paying jobs.  The US has invested about $15 trillion into the war on poverty only to have the poverty rate stagnate around 1969 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty#/media/File:Number_in_Poverty_and_Poverty_Rate_1959_to_2011._United_States..PNG).  Clearly, something other then throwing money at the problem needs to be done to fix poverty.  Social programs have produced no positive results in the long term.  I propose getting the poor, incompetent people not reproducing anymore so the poverty rate falls.



This pattern could be explained by the unequal distribution of student aid and scholarships toward richer families (4, 5).
Poor people tend to get more scholarships on the basis of wealth then rich people, although richer people have an easier time paying for college because they have more money and they might get more in aid due to other factors, like sports or academics.  Your fifth cite showed that the guy earned his scholarship.
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@blamonkey
Part 2.  Sorry about the formatting.  I did copy and paste.

If you are only eliminating the bottom 15% of people in the US through this process, then who is to say that others won't sink to the bottom of income earners?


Others would sink because the standards got much higher.  However, it's only over a course of a generation.  If your in the 16th percentile you won't be castrated, but (assuming no social mobility) your kids probably would unless you could train them to be more productive in the workforce.

Education is highly correlated with income per my previous evidence. I can post studies proving this link.
To an extent, your right.  However, in the US, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/US_states_by_GDP_per_capita_%28nominal%29.PNG shows the GDP per capita of states and https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/sw252021.png shows how much the average teacher makes.  There are some urban areas, like the North East, that have both a high GDP per capita and a high teacher salary.  However, there are areas like Wyoming that don't have the best education system that are pretty rich.  Lowly educated Maryland out performs Highly educated Delaware in GDP per capita, out of the four corner states, Colorado is the richest, but not the most educated.  I just don't see the correlation.

I don't know why you think that 12 year-olds should use their parents money to prop up businesses
The 12 year old should use their own money to invest.  It's what I did when I was 13 and my only regret was I didn't do it when I was younger.  If every 12 year old did it and saw the benefits of the stock market, they would want to invest more, causing the stock market to go up due to increased demand.  

especially when the market is volatile and sensitive to internal and external shocks. 
Stocks go up, stocks go down.  In the long term, they go up.  Teens and 12 year olds would be encouraged to diversify their investments and/or to invest in mutual funds so if one stock fails, they have backup.

After receiving a previous windfall from the recent tax cut, businesses did little else but line their pockets (6).
I don't know if this means that the businesses just kept the money or invested it elsewhere.  Investing is them still holding on to the money, just in the form of a stock.  If the latter is true, then they would have picked profitable companies to invest in, and these companies would have used the money to expand their businesses, creating jobs and providing America with a new product or service that then gets traded for more money for the business and the process snowballs.

There is a plethora of papers from the National Bureau of Economic Research showcasing the impact of the EITC in particular (7, 8).
Source 7 states:

Third, while a small EITC (up to $428 in 2007) isavailable to the childless, to receive a significant EITC, a family has tohave resident children. The maximum credit for a family with one childwas $2,853 in 2007
2853-428=2425.  It takes more then $2425 to raise a child for a year.  That's less then $7 a day.  What ETIC does is it encourages poor families to have kids they can't afford even with ETIC in place for them.

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@Alec
You've never had children, have you ever had sex? Your lack of life experience and lack of life knowledge shows up in neon lights in everything you write.
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@disgusted

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@Snoopy
OG the almost great in 100,000BC was fond of eating raw pig's trotters and that is even more meaningful than your post.
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@Alec
"If we get rid of all the poor, stupid people(no genocide, but we merely don't allow them to reproduce) then it decreases our population and that population would get replaced by affluent, intelligent people.  This would be better for society."


The wealthy cannot resist without the labour of the poor. Also, the way you conflate intelligence to class is a little alarming to say the least.
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@Uther-Penguin
The wealthy cannot resist without the labour of the poor. 
They would merely resort to automation and would hire smarter people to build machines that do the work for the poor people.  This gives them about 50 years to automate and would allow smarter people to do better jobs.

Also, the way you conflate intelligence to class is a little alarming to say the least.
Rich people tend to be smarter then poor people.
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@Alec
Rich people tend to be smarter then poor people.
This exposes exactly how ignorant you are.


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Others would sink because the standards got much higher.  However, it's only over a course of a generation.  If your in the 16th percentile you won't be castrated, but (assuming no social mobility) your kids probably would unless you could train them to be more productive in the workforce.


So, this isn't a one time thing? Every so often we will decide the future of 15% of Americans simply because they aren't producing enough in the economy? This would definitely eliminate a large portion of consumers in the future if we are doing it numerous times. This doesn't answer my question though. If anything, you made an argument against the very system you are proposing. If there is little difference between those in the 15th and 16th percentile, then the 15% threshold is arbitrary. 

In addition, what would happen in an instance of government or market failure? In the event of an economic recession on par with the 2008 housing crisis, we would see plenty of people fall into poverty for no reason of their own. If the goal of this program is to promote the spread of "good genes," whatever those are, couldn't perfectly good workers be affected despite their purportedly superior intellect and genes?

As a side note, I already have shown why there is no superior genes or intellect that rich people have. Poor people can still qualify for great schools, but are not able to pay the hefty tuition. Since scholarships are heavily skewed toward richer families, it leaves them with no choice but to accept a low-paying job or go into a less prestigious college and pay off student loans for the rest of their life.

To an extent, your right.  However, in the US, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/US_states_by_GDP_per_capita_%28nominal%29.PNG shows the GDP per capita of states and https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/sw252021.png shows how much the average teacher makes.  There are some urban areas, like the North East, that have both a high GDP per capita and a high teacher salary.  However, there are areas like Wyoming that don't have the best education system that are pretty rich.
The per capita GDP of a state is a rough indicator of economic prowess at best. At worst, it is a misleading figure. Wyoming actually has a low GDP per capita when compared to the rest of the country (1). GDP only measures what is produced in an economy. It does not measure the quality of life of a citizenry. Other factors besides employment increase GDP including. During natural disasters, GDP could rise due to government purchases of cleanup material from private sources. Despite shedding a net 15,000 jobs, NAFTA increased the GDP of the US by about .5% (2). Hell, even automation could increase GDP at the cost of entire sectors of the market.

The evidence I provided had to do with the individual earnings of people who graduated high-school and went to college. 

The 12 year old should use their own money to invest.
A 12-year old is not allowed to work. They could work under the counter, although I doubt that with studies, extracurricular activities etc. that they would have the time to do that. So yes, they would be gambling with their parent's money. Also, it is kind of weird that we disallow tweens to work, vote, or gamble, and yet we allow them to invest in businesses that could fail.

Businesses might benefit from more investment. But that is a big "if". They already have the option of depreciation write-offs, low-interest loans from the Small Business Administration, and a plethora of other tax write-offs depending on who they employ. Yet, SBA data suggests that 30% of businesses in their first year being open flop (3).

Stocks go up, stocks go down.  In the long term, they go up. Teens and 12 year olds would be encouraged to diversify their investments and/or to invest in mutual funds so if one stock fails, they have backup.

In the long term, we all die. If I invested a good portion of my money into stocks and lost it all because the businesses I invested in failed, it would be no comfort to me to know that in the long term stocks go up. In the long term, markets can fix itself too. Nevertheless, we invest in Social Security and an abundance of programs to keep people healthy and decrease poverty. Not all of them work, but it is clear that we shouldn't focus entirely on increasing investment. 

Also, let it be known that high-frequency trading done via computers and complex algorithms are also competing with less-than-knowledgeable 12 year-olds. I am sure that some tweens and teens can beat these complex algorithms with some of their own, but genuine work experience trounces luck on any day. 

I don't know if this means that the businesses just kept the money or invested it elsewhere.

They didn't increase wages or jobs. 

"Despite the surge in after-tax profits, dividend payments increased by a trivial 0.3%, with most of the extra cash just sitting on corporate balance sheets,” said Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics."

Pretty clear to me.

2853-428=2425.  It takes more then $2425 to raise a child for a year.  That's less then $7 a day.  What ETIC does is it encourages poor families to have kids they can't afford even with ETIC in place for them.
This is why I am in favor of raising it. Also, to apply for the program, you need to have a job. So, any additional income from the job could help you raise the child. The EITC, (not ETIC, by the way,) still decreased poverty. In 2016, over 3 million children were lifted out of poverty from the EITC alone (4).


I will work on part 1 soon.