Genetic manipulation and making men peaceful

[Asta Kask]

How to make peaceful mice. (http://njc.rockefeller.edu/PDF_BN08/Stowers02.pdf)

By mutating a single receptor in mice, so it doesn't work, the male mice ceased their male-to-male aggression. That's interesting. A single receptor is knocked out and behavior drastically changes [1]. This probably won't work on humans, because this is an olfactory cues and they are not as important for humans as they are for mice. But suppose we had something which we were relatively certain would work. Males are responsible for something like 90% of all violence in society - even cutting that in half would make a huge difference.

Should we do it? Do we have the right to manipulate the genome of people? Does the method make a difference? If it was a method of raising kids, that had to be applied from an early age, would that be more acceptable? Why?

A separate question - should we try to eradicate (intra-species) aggression? Maybe it's necessary for some of the things we prize? In Star Trek: TOS, The Enemy Within discusses this.

Kirk is split in two halves, one "good" and one "evil", in a transporter accident. The "evil" side runs amok, almost raping Yeoman Rand. The "good" side becomes indecisive and loses, in Spock's words "the power of command. He finds it more and more difficult to decide what action to take and to give the orders. The conclusion is that there are ugly parts of humanity which are nevertheless essential to us.

So what do you think?

[1] The male mice also turned bisexual, but I don't feel like that is a problem.

[Sylthia]

How to make peaceful bisexuals. (http://njc.rockefeller.edu/PDF_BN08/Stowers02.pdf) From mice.

By mutating a single receptor in mice, so it doesn't work, the male mice ceased their male-to-male aggression. That's interesting. A single receptor is knocked out and behavior drastically changes [1]. This probably won't work on humans, because this is an olfactory cues and they are not as important for humans as they are for mice. But suppose we had something which we were relatively certain would work. Males are responsible for something like 90% of all violence in society - even cutting that in half would make a huge difference.

Should we do it? Do we have the right to manipulate the genome of people? Does the method make a difference? If it was a method of raising kids, that had to be applied from an early age, would that be more acceptable? Why?

A separate question - should we try to eradicate (intra-species) aggression? Maybe it's necessary for some of the things we prize? In Star Trek: TOS, The Enemy Within discusses this.

Kirk is split in two halves, one "good" and one "evil", in a transporter accident. The "evil" side runs amok, almost raping Yeoman Rand. The "good" side becomes indecisive and loses, in Spock's words "the power of command. He finds it more and more difficult to decide what action to take and to give the orders. The conclusion is that there are ugly parts of humanity which are nevertheless essential to us.

So what do you think?

[1] The male mice also turned bisexual, but I don't feel like that is a problem.

I feel that something like the Star Trek episode might happen in this case. I find this sort of "treatment" would be akin to a lobotomy.

Males may tend more towards violence, but that is not grounds for neutering half the population. One could argue using it as a punishment, but that could be interpreted as cruel and unusual.

If someone wanted to do this voluntarily, they could, but I'm not sure what other sort of effects it might have.

[Deepbluediver]

This seems like sort of a serious topic for "friendly banter", but oh well. :smallwink:

First, let me ask what it is, exactly, that we are eliminating- is it making someone incapable of physically injuring another person? It it decreasing the desire for aggressive conflict? Is it removing the capacity to do any harm whatsoever? (If you're smart, you can use emotional or financial manipulation to do horrible things to people, something humans are far better at than mice).

It's a very complicated question, and I certainly wouldn't approve it for any kind of large-scale distribution without knowing exactly how it affected people....which bring us into the ethics of human testing. If it where possible to apply only to specific people, say, for example, violent criminals with a tendency to be repeat offenders, then I'd be more inclined to give it a go.

If it's a genetic treatment that has to be done prior to birth, then it basically seems like saying "all men are the same, and we're going to meddle around with embryos of people who haven't done anything wrong, just based on the chance they might act out of line in future". Especially since MOST men aren't violent, and it's only a small group that is abnormally violent.

Also, how does this affect situations involving self-defense? Or law-enforcement? The military? Since you brought it up, OP, there are plenty of fantasy and sci-fi stories where some race takes pride in their glorious, peaceful, utopia, but then end up needing a more barbaric, war-like race to come and save them from another enemy since they've lost all capacity to defend themselves.


Personally, I'm very reluctant to do anything that messes around with what makes us human. Yes, we are imperfect. We've been imperfect for the entire history, and yet we've accomplished great things (also terrible things some times) but we've kept moving forward, kept improving. I'm not sure where we're headed, but I think that unless your supposed cure is confirmed as 100% all-benefit and no-drawbacks (aka basically magic-science) then I think the risk is to great, no matter what the reward that it promises.

[Asta Kask]

First, let me ask what it is, exactly, that we are eliminating- is it making someone incapable of physically injuring another person? It it decreasing the desire for aggressive conflict? Is it removing the capacity to do any harm whatsoever? (If you're smart, you can use emotional or financial manipulation to do horrible things to people, something humans are far better at than mice).

I don't know how realistic this is, but decreasing the desire for aggressive conflict. What likely happened with the mice was that they lost the ability to tell if someone was male. No males, no male-to-male aggression. That wouldn't work with humans.

[Steward]

Yeah, I agree that wouldn't be too much help with humans. It ignores male-female violence (and female-female violence of course).

Even abstracting a bit, it's not like we can realistically foresee any other kind of problems that may arise with messing with the genome like this. What happens if the same "part" that causes aggression is also involved in behaviors that we don't want to eradicate, such as protectiveness, or creativity? Will it ever be possible even in theory to go in and just "zap" a single personality trait or behavior without affecting anything else? Even with the mice, their sexuality was affected too (which makes sense because of the way they neutralized aggression, but still).


I'm not sure where we're headed, but I think that unless your supposed cure is confirmed as 100% all-benefit and no-drawbacks (aka basically magic-science) then I think the risk is to great, no matter what the reward that it promises.


That's kind of where I'm at too. I don't mind some drawbacks but if the drawbacks are basically unknown then it seems like a huge risk.

[Spiryt]

Eh, I think that someone had ideas like that before.

Called it 'eugenics' I think.

Then people, generally, realized that idea was horrible and cruel.

I honestly already feel pretty bad for those mice those guys are screwing with.

Trying to control the genome of actual living people for 'Greater Good' and general Brave New World is horrible idea.

[Aedilred]

Given that violent crime in "the west" is already in rather noteworthy (and largely unexplained) decline, I'm not sure whether it's necessary, let alone desirable.

Like Deepbluediver, I'm also deeply, deeply sceptical about messing around with humans in this sort of way. I'll hand you over to this chap:
http://sustainableman.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/DrIanMalcom.jpg

I also tried to find a relevant one of Mal Reynolds, but the internet failed me. Dammit, internet.

[Coidzor]

Should we do it? Do we have the right to manipulate the genome of people? Does the method make a difference? If it was a method of raising kids, that had to be applied from an early age, would that be more acceptable? Why?

No. To a certain extent, yes. That depends on the variety of methods available to us, but probably yes. Probably not, because deciding that sort of thing for someone by either genetic manipulation or compulsion smacks of either governmental or parental over reach.


A separate question - should we try to eradicate (intra-species) aggression? Maybe it's necessary for some of the things we prize? In Star Trek: TOS, The Enemy Within discusses this.

Not by making people "safe," via alteration, no.


[1] The male mice also turned bisexual, but I don't feel like that is a problem.

I feel it is problematic to decide a sophont's sexuality for them "for their own good."

[Asta Kask]

No. To a certain extent, yes. That depends on the variety of methods available to us, but probably yes. Probably not, because deciding that sort of thing for someone by either genetic manipulation or compulsion smacks of either governmental or parental over reach.

Deciding "what sort of thing"? I can promise you that things like aggression is precisely the kind of thing we accept that parents try to change. It's called socializing and if adults were as violent as kids we'd have a problem orders of magnitude greater than we have. Not all of that is due to socializing of course - there are also brain areas that have to develop, like the frontal cortices. But the development of those areas depends crucially on societal input. Which makes sense - aggression is a social tool and you have to learn when to use that tool, and that depends on what kind of society you live in.

[Coidzor]

Deciding "what sort of thing"? I can promise you that things like aggression is precisely the kind of thing we accept that parents try to change. It's called socializing and if adults were as violent as kids we'd have a problem orders of magnitude greater than we have. Not all of that is due to socializing of course - there are also brain areas that have to develop, like the frontal cortices. But the development of those areas depends crucially on societal input. Which makes sense - aggression is a social tool and you have to learn when to use that tool, and that depends on what kind of society you live in.

Deciding that a kid is not only going to be bisexual but also incapable of defending himself or even conceptually understanding the need to defend himself from his female peers or un-"gentled" male peers, and worse, make them far more vulnerable to sexual predation by adults.

Also, so far, despite the best, violent, tortuous, horribly unethical efforts of many people, their children can still turn out to be non-heteronormative. So anything that could with certainty decide a child's sexuality is highly suspect to me as far as ethics and what it would have to entail.

[Asta Kask]

Deciding that a kid is not only going to be bisexual but also incapable of defending himself or even conceptually understanding the need to defend himself from his female peers or un-"gentled" male peers, and worse, make them far more vulnerable to sexual predation by adults.

Also, so far, despite the best, violent, tortuous, horribly unethical efforts of many people, their children can still turn out to be non-heteronormative. So anything that could with certainty decide a child's sexuality is highly suspect to me as far as ethics and what it would have to entail.

That is not likely with humans. The reason this experiment had that effect on mice was that it made it impossible for the male mice to see who is male and who is not. The basic rule for a mouse male seems to be "try to have sex with anything mouse-shaped unless it smells like a male." It's a red herring. Forget it. I shouldn't have mentioned it.

Is genetic manipulation an allowed way to reduce violence in society?

[Frozen_Feet]

Eh, I think that someone had ideas like that before.

Called it 'eugenics' I think.

Then people, generally, realized that idea was horrible and cruel..

More like all attempts to implement the idea in practice have lost their sight of the goal and turned into murder programs.

Breeding traits into and out of a human population is very much viable. The problems are that breeding traits into a population necessarily requires segregation, while breeding them out of a population requires elimination. The former has never been attempted with sufficient scientific rigor to create useful results, while attempts to do the latter have turned into excuses to eliminate inconvenient people.

Now, selectively switching off some behaviour is a different thing. We already have drugs that do similar things, to an extent. They all have pretty nasty side-effects. For example, some medications for bipolar disorder inhibit manic and agressive behaviour, but they also kill sexual drives, which is why some patients would rather go without. Various antidepressants can cause the very same symptoms they are intended to treat. Opiates kill mental and physical pain, but they also prevent you from really doing anything. Amfetamins can make you hyper, but also run you to exhaustion. So on and so forth.

Wide-scale use of any such treatment is probably not viable. It's probably better if such treatments are targeted to people who actually need them (violent antisocials?) rather than administered indiscriminately.

[Themrys]

That is not likely with humans. The reason this experiment had that effect on mice was that it made it impossible for the male mice to see who is male and who is not. The basic rule for a mouse male seems to be "try to have sex with anything mouse-shaped unless it smells like a male." It's a red herring. Forget it. I shouldn't have mentioned it.

Is genetic manipulation an allowed way to reduce violence in society?

I am very sceptical about genetic manipulation in general. We don't really know what genes do. There might be side-effects we didn't know existed, that make a manipulation lethal, or dangerous, or whatever.

Let evolution do the work. Now that women don't have to marry anymore, the less desirable character traits of men will slowly die out. The only thing we have to do is encourage and enable women to stay away from violent men, and not carry the children of such men. Encourage women to stay single if there are no desirable men. (Disney movies. They have to change. We need happy single queens)

We need to change society and laws so that those people who have desirable character traits have more children than those with less desirable character traits.

[Aedilred]

Deciding "what sort of thing"? I can promise you that things like aggression is precisely the kind of thing we accept that parents try to change. It's called socializing and if adults were as violent as kids we'd have a problem orders of magnitude greater than we have. Not all of that is due to socializing of course - there are also brain areas that have to develop, like the frontal cortices. But the development of those areas depends crucially on societal input. Which makes sense - aggression is a social tool and you have to learn when to use that tool, and that depends on what kind of society you live in.
Your last sentence is the key one here. While aggression can have negative consequences, it is a social tool, it's not necessarily a universal evil, and there is a massive difference between teaching and conditioning children to control or restrain aggression and eliminating it altogether.



Let evolution do the work. Now that women don't have to marry anymore, the less desirable character traits of men will slowly die out.
...
We need to change society and laws so that those people who have desirable character traits have more children than those with less desirable character traits.
What about the less desirable character traits of women...? But anyway, I think even here we're perhaps coming down too heavily on the "nature" side of the "nature/nurture" debate: it seems to be that your suggestion is that we have the ability to remove this undesirable genetic input at source without resorting to direct genetic manipulation, which isn't a rejection of principle, only of process.

I also think it's worth pointing out that sexual attraction is still rather poorly-understood and it appears that at times it's precisely the characteristics which make certain individuals undesirable members of society which make them attractive short-term sexual partners, especially if you take into account age, life situation, time of the month, etc. I don't think it would necessarily actually work: you can't, or at least shouldn't, tell people what they should find attractive, and there are always going to be women who sleep with jerks, just as there are always going to be all sorts of people in the world who we consider to be wrong about all sorts of things. Who's to say that your/our/anyone's opinion on what constitutes a desirable character trait is correct?


Encourage women to stay single if there are no desirable men. (Disney movies. They have to change. We need happy single queens)
Maybe it's just that I've only seen it today, but it feels like Frozen has been relevant twice in this post.

[Karoht]

We already alter the aggression (and many other behaviors) with drugs.
How is altering the behavior on the genetic level any different?

Understand that chemical dependancy to control a behavior has it's risks just as much as genetic manipulation would. Chemical dependancy runs the risk of organ damage due to prolonged exposure to a substance, in addition to any other side effects it may have. Also, what happens when someone's supply of that substance runs out?

If you want a Star Trek example for that, look no further than the Jem Hadar from DS9.
A hyperbolized example, but there it is for sake of argument.

IMO/My Two Coppers:
I'm all for trying to control behaviors the natural way, in that we teach people coping mechanisms and they have to control themselves and their actions. On the other hand there are those who don't have that level of control, sometimes due to issues of brain chemistry or severe personal traumas. Mental Disorders are often both physical and mental in cause. I'm sure there are plenty of people who suffer from disorders who would like nothing more than to go and get one procedure completed (that they consent to where possible) and not suffer from the disorder, or at the very least not suffer from as severely. On the other hand, some patients might prefer drugs (or any natural treatments), and some might prefer to try and wrestle with the problem on their own.

Maybe I'm more open to the idea, but I see a similar example in glasses VS laser eye surgery. I can use a constant treatment method, might be more affordable, but will likely be an inconvenience for the rest of my life. Or I can do a one time procedure, might be less affordable, but once it's done it's over and done with.


In the event that I misinterpreted what the OP wanted to discuss, such as the forced genetic therapy to reduce a negative behavior, my reply is pretty brief. If someone doesn't consent to it, no. If they consent to it, fine. Leave it to an individual basis, not a decision to be undertaken or made un masse.

[Aedilred]

In the event that I misinterpreted what the OP wanted to discuss, such as the forced genetic therapy to reduce a negative behavior, my reply is pretty brief. If someone doesn't consent to it, no. If they consent to it, fine. Leave it to an individual basis, not a decision to be undertaken or made un masse.
My understanding was that it was an induced genetic mutation which by necessity would have to take place before birth; consent would therefore be impossible.

[Karoht]

My understanding was that it was an induced genetic mutation which by necessity would have to take place before birth; consent would therefore be impossible.Parental consent would still be completely necessary then.

INB4-"We put the stuff in the water/atmosphere" or other such nonsense.

In the scale of something like Star Trek, or other interplanetary/interstellar sci-fi, this is the kind of thing that a civilized people would probably take exceptional offense to, especially if it's forced on them. Like, interstellar war type offense. Especially if they are an aggressive species in the first place.

[nedz]

I also tried to find a relevant one of Mal Reynolds, but the internet failed me. Dammit, internet.
This clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD64pIsVNIY&feature=player_detailpage) maybe, well the beginning.

Basically the main problem with this sort of thing is called unintended consequences, which is why it's a bad idea.

[Coidzor]

We already alter the aggression (and many other behaviors) with drugs.
How is altering the behavior on the genetic level any different?

Consent. Scope. Potential for reversibility if it starts killing someone.


Understand that chemical dependancy to control a behavior has it's risks just as much as genetic manipulation would. Chemical dependancy runs the risk of organ damage due to prolonged exposure to a substance, in addition to any other side effects it may have. Also, what happens when someone's supply of that substance runs out?

If someone needs to be medicated to keep them from being violent, they're an outlier rather than a reason why we should geld the entire populace.

Now if you were talking about, say, eliminating Tay-Sachs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay%E2%80%93Sachs_disease) or some other genetic disorder, or making children less likely to develop diabetes or heart disease by fiddling with their genes/epigenetics, that'd be different.

Like the difference between heart surgery and grafting a laser cannon into one's chest.


Parental consent would still be completely necessary then.

INB4-"We put the stuff in the water/atmosphere" or other such nonsense.

In the scale of something like Star Trek, or other interplanetary/interstellar sci-fi, this is the kind of thing that a civilized people would probably take exceptional offense to, especially if it's forced on them. Like, interstellar war type offense. Especially if they are an aggressive species in the first place.

In order for it to be meaningful it'd have to be ubiquitous if not compulsory, and with something like "make everyone docile" compulsory just seems more plausible, since if we advanced as a society to the point where it wouldn't have to be forced we wouldn't really have any apparent need for it.

[Deepbluediver]

Consent. Scope. Potential for reversibility if it starts killing someone.
Also, we generally only medicate people once we've established if they that they have a problem. Not every man takes anti-depressants or blood-pressure medication and the like.

People might say that "yeah, violence is the problem we are trying to prevent" except that tackling it this way is going to far. You aren't addressing violence any more because not every man is violent- you've moved on to "being male is the problem".

[Karoht]

Consent. Scope. Potential for reversibility if it starts killing someone.Drugs are pretty hard to reverse, depending on the drug. Some you can stop. Some you have to gradually pull back from. Withdrawl symptoms, forcing detox is quite damaging, chelation still requires a few waivers signed... see where I'm going with this?
Genetics (I'm imagining) would be a flick of a switch, activating or deactivating a gene or two.
How hard can it be? <---Obvious tongue in cheek is obvious


If someone needs to be medicated to keep them from being violent, they're an outlier rather than a reason why we should geld the entire populace.Which begs the question, why geld the entire populace if these people are outliers and not the norm? Your point is entirely valid. A few bad apples are not a reason to mentally/emotionally hamstring a planet or two just to prevent some violence.


Now if you were talking about, say, eliminating Tay-Sachs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay%E2%80%93Sachs_disease) or some other genetic disorder, or making children less likely to develop diabetes or heart disease by fiddling with their genes/epigenetics, that'd be different.A bit of a different topic that. You're talking about removing a disease rather than treating a behavior. Not entirely equal for a comparison. Still, point made.


In order for it to be meaningful it'd have to be ubiquitous if not compulsory, and with something like "make everyone docile" compulsory just seems more plausible, since if we advanced as a society to the point where it wouldn't have to be forced we wouldn't really have any apparent need for it.Well, good luck making it compulsory in the current society we live in. But agreed, it seems largely unnecessary, apart from those who perhaps have committed violent crimes. Want out of jail early? Accept this genetic procedure to drastically reduce your propensity towards violent crime. It's got a use, but still very niche mostly.
If it applies to other behavioral issues, there could be patients willing to opt-in. IE-Depression.

[Grinner]

Sounds an awful lot like lobotomization.

[Bonecrusher Doc]

While there may be some well-meaning people behind an initiative like this, other people would try to use it to have power over others. Maybe bad people who simply lust for power, but sometimes even very nice, well-meaning people decide it's good to have power over others because they think they are smarter and know what's best for them.

Now imagine a society that is part "aggressive" phenotype and part "non-aggressive" phenotype (an extreme difference, more than what is already present in different personalities in the world today). I could be wrong, but I think you'd be more likely to have war and oppression and injustice toward one or the other group in that scenario than you would in our current world. Perhaps a caste system would develop unless you somehow take the spit out of the whole population at once.

Then of course there are the unknown traits that may be influenced by multiple genes. Maybe humanity would have less bold risk-takers if we delete the aggression gene? Like in the closing credits of GATTACA. And somehow I suspect that even if you get rid of that gene, mean people will still be around and find ways to hurt others.

Anyway great story starter! I may have to dig out my Serenity RPG book. :smallcool:

[golentan]

Speaking only for myself, as the sole representative for a people for whom genetic screening and engineering were commonplace...

WHAT IS WRONG WITH HUMANS?!!!!

Seriously. Every time the topic of eugenics comes up, folks seem to go straight to industrialized murder and sterilization. And I mean both supporters and detractors, here. Skipping over all of the voluntary programs people could engage in, we're jumping feet first into murder camps as the ultimate outcome of these things, to the point that sane people avoid supporting eugenics because a bunch of loons decided murder was the best method a century ago and the discussion has stayed there ever since. This is not the only topic on which people's knee jerk reactions freak me out either.

Here's the general rule for me on things like this. You should break it down. Study it from every angle. Put it to the approval of affected parties rather than making it mandatory. And then, if you've successfully studied it and have a high confidence of a positive outcome (like, say, reducing violent behavior) with few to no drawbacks or a low risk, you should put it through a limited voluntary trial, and as the evidence comes in expand that trial.

Of course you should do this sort of thing. Humans are, excuse me for pointing it out, homicidal loons with a host of genetic disorders and terrible physical capabilities dating back to the days when there were only a couple thousand of you and you kept screwing with your cousins. It's called a population bottleneck, and it's nothing to be ashamed of (many species go through them), but it is something you guys will have to deal with one way or another. Genetic manipulation offers you a chance to not only fix these sorts of disorders, but also engineer something truly exceptional from yourselves, casting off the savagery of a billion years of savagery and survival of the psychotic in favor of intelligent and carefully planned design. You should absolutely embrace it. This very much doesn't mean murder camps, or wild abandon where people go in for the latest couple hundred gene splices just to test them out. You folks, assuming you can restrain yourselves from exploding civilization, have quite a long time ahead of you to ponder these changes and implement them in a nice, sane, voluntary and non-murdery way. Please, I beg you, don't disappoint.

[Bonecrusher Doc]

Sorry Golentan, my mind has been nourished on sci-fi and I jumped straight to the Firefly scenario.

Perhaps I should frame the question to myself more personally rather than to society as a whole.

If my significant other and I decide we want a child and the doctor says we can delete the "aggressive" gene, under what circumstances would we decide that the zygote should undergo this procedure?

Hmm... me personally, I still wouldn't do it under any circumstances that I can think of, but I can definitely appreciate your argument.

Not to derail the thread, but just taking the question a step further, what if we could eliminate psychopaths from the population through genetic screening? Voluntary, of course.

Hmm... again I am not comfortable with that.

[Themrys]

I also think it's worth pointing out that sexual attraction is still rather poorly-understood and it appears that at times it's precisely the characteristics which make certain individuals undesirable members of society which make them attractive short-term sexual partners, especially if you take into account age, life situation, time of the month, etc. I don't think it would necessarily actually work: you can't, or at least shouldn't, tell people what they should find attractive, and there are always going to be women who sleep with jerks, just as there are always going to be all sorts of people in the world who we consider to be wrong about all sorts of things. Who's to say that your/our/anyone's opinion on what constitutes a desirable character trait is correct

Short-term is the important word here: It has been found that aggressive men are preferred as sex partners, while non-aggressive men are preferred as family fathers. Contraception would solve that problem, if everyone had access to it. The fact that some women are sometimes attracted to aggressive men would not matter if no babies resulted from it.

Media already tells women what we should find attractive. And it will continue to do so. There is no such thing as neutrality in stories. If a woman marries a man in a movie, she either marries an aggressive man, or she does not.

Likewise, evolution exists, whether we want it or not. It will continue to exist, and I think it is okay to acknowledge that and use it to our advantage.

(The reason why I concentrate on undesirable men here is that men are not encouraged by media to marry aggressive, abusive, violent or otherwise undesirable women. Also, men's reproductive choices are not restricted by society in a way that makes it more likely for aggressive character traits to succeed evolution-wise.)

[Kalmageddon]

How to make peaceful mice. (http://njc.rockefeller.edu/PDF_BN08/Stowers02.pdf)


Should we do it? Do we have the right to manipulate the genome of people? Does the method make a difference? If it was a method of raising kids, that had to be applied from an early age, would that be more acceptable? Why?

The answer to your questions, in order:

Hell no.
Absolutely not.
No.
No.
Because it's brainwashing or lobotomy, depending on the method involved. If you want a better humanity you just need to start acting like it and if there is merit in it, people will follow your example, don't push your idea of "better" on others with genetic manipulation or forceful education. Let each individual choose.
Personally, I like my violent side, my aggressive instinct. I can control it and it's a useful tool to have in a variety of situations.

[Gravitron5000]

Drugs are pretty hard to reverse, depending on the drug. Some you can stop. Some you have to gradually pull back from. Withdrawl symptoms, forcing detox is quite damaging, chelation still requires a few waivers signed... see where I'm going with this?
Genetics (I'm imagining) would be a flick of a switch, activating or deactivating a gene or two.
How hard can it be? <---Obvious tongue in cheek is obvious


At our current level of understanding, the only way we can meaningfully mess with genes is by implanting genes within an ovum, so it's about as hard as reverting to a pre-fetal state. No problems there.

[golentan]

Why do people keep referencing lobotomy? :smallannoyed:

[Deepbluediver]

Why do people keep referencing lobotomy? :smallannoyed:

The OP's original idea- selectively removing only certain undesirable traits from a portion of the population, is, from a current technology standpoint, much closer to magic than to science. We have trouble comprehending it, so instead have to rely on our knowledge of attempts in the past when people have tried similar things. And for the most part, it's very rarely ended well.

Lobotomy was a procedure ostensibly used for treating mental disorders, frequently violent ones or people who had emotional-control issues. So comparing it to excising a proclivity to violence is not entirely without merit.

[golentan]

The OP's original idea- selectively removing only certain undesirable traits from a portion of the population, is, from a current technology standpoint, much closer to magic than to science. We have trouble comprehending it, so instead have to rely on our knowledge of attempts in the past when people have tried similar things. And for the most part, it's very rarely ended well.

Lobotomy was a procedure ostensibly used for treating mental disorders, frequently violent ones or people who had emotional-control issues. So comparing it to excising a proclivity to violence is not entirely without merit.

My god... A child with slightly different personality traits than its parents, clearly this is morally equivalent to amputating part of a functioning brain in such a way to limit intelligence and personality. And it's accomplished through change to a single brain chemical/receptor pair...

Oh my god, I'm on three separate medicines that do something similar! Have I been triple lobotomized?!

I don't appreciate the hyperbole, and I don't like the implication that a person with reduced tendency to commit violence is less of a person in some way or has been crippled. Not-committing-violence is, in fact, one of the key ways I try to act and by which I judge whether I like someone. I have low testosterone, and am a highly unaggressive person in part as a result of my nature (and in part from my nurture). This isn't to say I won't stand up for myself, but I won't use violence to do it, and neither thing is a handicap, neither needs to be fixed, and I fully intend to pass both traits on should I have any biological children rather than adopting. How is that so different? I like my genes, I like the effect they have on my personality, and I am willing to pass them on to a child who won't get any say in their own genetic makeup at the time of conception in part out of a hope that they would have a similar personality. How is that any different from a parent deciding to include it with gene therapy or otherwise adding it to the gamete?

[Bulldog Psion]

No. We got where we are by being apex predators (even if we're omnivorous ones rather than hypercarnivores).

The entire thing decides that a fundamental human trait -- or perhaps I should say, a trait of all lifeforms, aggression -- is useless and should be eliminated. Reducing us in the process, presumably, to a mass of docile, easily commanded, easily killed saps.

A few of the reasons I can think of not to do it:

1. Not sure if it would work anyway. Humans are mighty complex.

2. You are automatically putting whoever undergoes the process at a disadvantage to those who haven't. They will be the patsy and pushover of any punk who has normal (or abnormally high) capacity for aggression. I think, unless you could do it universally, that you would be increasing aggression rather than decreasing it by creating a caste of literally "born victims."

3. Unless you're doing it to the entire planet simultaneously, whatever nation started it would make superb prey for the others.

4. It strikes me as being dang close to mind control "for your own good." How would you like it if someone removed a person's sexual instincts totally to prevent the chance of rape? How about removing the desire to acquire things in order to prevent theft? Does anyone have the right to inflict these changes on someone else? You can achieve the same results right now by cutting the tendons in every man's arms. Does that mean we should do it?

5. Who decides that passivity is superior to having at least some aggression? It seems totally subjective to me. Some cultures -- in fact, most of them -- have prized masculine strength, aggression, initiative in some form or another. What gives the moral certainty that this probably irreversible erasure of part of human nature is beneficial, rather than another subjective judgment?

6. It's part of our nature. Remove a part of human nature, and I'm not sure if we're still entirely human. "To ask why we fight is to ask why the leaves fall. It is in their nature." It seems more like a politically based singling out of a single part of human nature and declaring it to be automatically bad in every circumstance. Attempts to abolish whole parts of human nature generally don't work out too well (can't get more specific). Actually backing it up with genetic tinkering seems like a really, really disastrous idea.

7. Governments with entire populations of docile people who don't fight back no matter what they're told to do or what's done to them, or what they see done to other people. Yeah, that seems like a good idea. Not.

8. Probably futile in the long run. This is a hard-*** world in a lot of ways. Natural selection produced aggression to begin with. I'm sure it would do it again eventually, since passivity and docility are anti-selective in many situations.

9. Consent issues. If you've got a way to retroactively inflict this fate on people, what are you going to do about the ones who refuse to have it done voluntarily? If you've already justified doing it universally to yourself, then they're obviously committing a crime just by refusing to cooperate with the vision of peace, glory, and harmony you're holding out. Depending on how angry this makes you, you can either force them to undergo it anyway, or punish them additionally, up to death if you feel justified enough.

10. A branch of consent. If not everybody agrees, and you decide they should be forced to anyway, how do you force them to? That implies you need to use aggression to cause compliance. Which means you need to keep a Praetorian Guard of normally aggressive people to force compliance. What, then, keeps this Praetorian Guard in check when the populace will lie down and take whatever's done to them? Alternately, if you make you and followers passive first, then you will no longer have the aggression to impose your will on them and the whole process will fail spectacularly, with a rapid fizzle.

11. It also has a whiff of "guilty until proven innocent."

12. I'm fairly certain that the needs of hunting and intraspecific aggression are what caused us to become sapient in the first place. I'm not sure it's a great idea to mess with the factor that propelled us into sapience, regardless of its downsides.

So yeah, my take on it is -- can't work, won't work, and probably shouldn't work or even be attempted.

[Coidzor]

Why do people keep referencing lobotomy? :smallannoyed:

Neutering of personality tends to have lobotomies brought up for comparison. And neutering entered because the context is such that it basically equates maleness with being violent and bad and undesirable/unfit for society.


Seriously. Every time the topic of eugenics comes up, folks seem to go straight to industrialized murder and sterilization.

As bad as our memories are, that particular part of our history seems to have stuck with us, against all odds.

[golentan]

Neutering of personality tends to have lobotomies brought up for comparison. And neutering entered because the context is such that it basically equates maleness with being violent and bad and undesirable/unfit for society.

As bad as our memories are, that particular part of our history seems to have stuck with us, against all odds.

I was in part referencing the fact that people went there in the first place, before even identifying the structure of DNA and with some lunatic idea of what constituted a desirable trait.

This whole conversation makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Neutering and lobotomies and... Ugh.

Good luck humies.

[Kalmageddon]

No. We got where we are by being apex predators (even if we're omnivorous ones rather than hypercarnivores).

The entire thing decides that a fundamental human trait -- or perhaps I should say, a trait of all lifeforms, aggression -- is useless and should be eliminated. Reducing us in the process, presumably, to a mass of docile, easily commanded, easily killed saps.

A few of the reasons I can think of not to do it:

1. Not sure if it would work anyway. Humans are mighty complex.

2. You are automatically putting whoever undergoes the process at a disadvantage to those who haven't. They will be the patsy and pushover of any punk who has normal (or abnormally high) capacity for aggression. I think, unless you could do it universally, that you would be increasing aggression rather than decreasing it by creating a caste of literally "born victims."

3. Unless you're doing it to the entire planet simultaneously, whatever nation started it would make superb prey for the others.

4. It strikes me as being dang close to mind control "for your own good." How would you like it if someone removed a person's sexual instincts totally to prevent the chance of rape? How about removing the desire to acquire things in order to prevent theft? Does anyone have the right to inflict these changes on someone else? You can achieve the same results right now by cutting the tendons in every man's arms. Does that mean we should do it?

5. Who decides that passivity is superior to having at least some aggression? It seems totally subjective to me. Some cultures -- in fact, most of them -- have prized masculine strength, aggression, initiative in some form or another. What gives the moral certainty that this probably irreversible erasure of part of human nature is beneficial, rather than another subjective judgment?

6. It's part of our nature. Remove a part of human nature, and I'm not sure if we're still entirely human. "To ask why we fight is to ask why the leaves fall. It is in their nature." It seems more like a politically based singling out of a single part of human nature and declaring it to be automatically bad in every circumstance. Attempts to abolish whole parts of human nature generally don't work out too well (can't get more specific). Actually backing it up with genetic tinkering seems like a really, really disastrous idea.

7. Governments with entire populations of docile people who don't fight back no matter what they're told to do or what's done to them, or what they see done to other people. Yeah, that seems like a good idea. Not.

8. Probably futile in the long run. This is a hard-*** world in a lot of ways. Natural selection produced aggression to begin with. I'm sure it would do it again eventually, since passivity and docility are anti-selective in many situations.

9. Consent issues. If you've got a way to retroactively inflict this fate on people, what are you going to do about the ones who refuse to have it done voluntarily? If you've already justified doing it universally to yourself, then they're obviously committing a crime just by refusing to cooperate with the vision of peace, glory, and harmony you're holding out. Depending on how angry this makes you, you can either force them to undergo it anyway, or punish them additionally, up to death if you feel justified enough.

10. A branch of consent. If not everybody agrees, and you decide they should be forced to anyway, how do you force them to? That implies you need to use aggression to cause compliance. Which means you need to keep a Praetorian Guard of normally aggressive people to force compliance. What, then, keeps this Praetorian Guard in check when the populace will lie down and take whatever's done to them? Alternately, if you make you and followers passive first, then you will no longer have the aggression to impose your will on them and the whole process will fail spectacularly, with a rapid fizzle.

11. It also has a whiff of "guilty until proven innocent."

12. I'm fairly certain that the needs of hunting and intraspecific aggression are what caused us to become sapient in the first place. I'm not sure it's a great idea to mess with the factor that propelled us into sapience, regardless of its downsides.

So yeah, my take on it is -- can't work, won't work, and probably shouldn't work or even be attempted.

Agreed, I'm baffled that some people need these reasons spelled out.

[Rakaydos]

The way I'm seeing the OP's article, reducing aggression is only a side effect of the treatment in mice.

The real effect is to make people truely not care what sex a person was born as, judging solely on their actions. And to me, this doesnt sound like a bad thing.
If it causes a rise in bisexuality, it's because people find partners they can care about, without limiting themselves to "their orientation"
If it causes a fall in chauvinism, it's because people cant actually tell what they're being chauvinistic about anymore.
If it brings about workplace equality, all the better.

[golentan]

Agreed, I'm baffled that some people need these reasons spelled out.

Mayhaps because all the reasons have a certain odor of either "guilt by association" or "slippery slope" rather than addressing what I see as real concerns. There are a lot of assumptions being bundled in about consent, about lack of aggression equating to passivity, about how humans got where they are, about human nature, about implementation methods, and a whole host of other topics. A lot of the questions raised seem to be begging the question (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question) rather than asking it.

[Grinner]

...There are a lot of assumptions being bundled in about consent, about lack of aggression equating to passivity, about how humans got where they are, about human nature, about implementation methods, and a whole host of other topics...

Are these not valid concerns?

[Coidzor]

Mayhaps because all the reasons have a certain odor of either "guilt by association" or "slippery slope" rather than addressing what I see as real concerns. There are a lot of assumptions being bundled in about consent, about lack of aggression equating to passivity, about how humans got where they are, about human nature, about implementation methods, and a whole host of other topics. A lot of the questions raised seem to be begging the question (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question) rather than asking it.

Because eliminating all aggression from all men, and only men, ever isn't a real concern, nor should it be.

[golentan]

Because eliminating all aggression from all men, and only men, ever isn't a real concern, nor should it be.

That wasn't the example given. The example given was "Male mice are disproportionately aggressive toward other male mice, and the switch changed that so that gender specific aggression was no longer a factor." Now, admittedly, this doesn't have a direct correlation, for example, it's not as though males are 9 times as likely to be murderers and 3 times more likely to be victims of murder... Oh... right...

The mice still engaged in limited aggression, but the gender specific aggression had been disproportionate and a controllable and repeatable phenomenon, and with the receptor no longer in play it simply wasn't. An equivalent for humans would probably look like the male violent crime offender rate and aggression levels dropping to the level of the female offender rate. Which, speaking only for myself, sounds really good, not a bit lobotomy-y at all...

Did... Did people not read the article?


Are these not valid concerns?

Are they? I was always under the impression that human dominance relied on tools, thumbs, and speech, not a willingness to kill everything that looked at them funny. As for consent, if you show me where you signed off on your parent's gametes with a complete gene scan before giving permission for your conception to occur, I'll back off that topic real quick. Lack of aggression doesn't anywhere near equal passivity, as I have numerous family members and several historical books on nonviolent resistance to point to. And yeah, feel free to shoot anyone who tries to implement a eugenics program by force, I won't lift a finger to stop you, but that's not the default way to do it.

[Grinner]

Are they?

They are.

You are mistaken.

[warty goblin]

The way I'm seeing the OP's article, reducing aggression is only a side effect of the treatment in mice.

The real effect is to make people truely not care what sex a person was born as, judging solely on their actions. And to me, this doesnt sound like a bad thing.
If it causes a rise in bisexuality, it's because people find partners they can care about, without limiting themselves to "their orientation"
If it causes a fall in chauvinism, it's because people cant actually tell what they're being chauvinistic about anymore.
If it brings about workplace equality, all the better.

Seems like kinda a bad deal in some ways for straight women though, at least those interested in a monogamous commitment from a man.

Besides which, I don't want to be bi. I have so little use for sexual desire at this (or most all) points in my life already, getting turned on by the other half of the adult population is not something that I think would do me a lick of good. Frankly I've gotten, and I suspect given, more pleasure through aggression than through romance; stickfights as kid, sparring in college, these are absolutely fueled by aggressive instincts. They're also great bonding, can be enormously fun, and are probably some of the best times of my life. That's not something I'd want taken away from me, or would choose to take away from any children I someday have.

[golentan]

They are.

You are mistaken.

It is customary to make an argument at this point.

[Grytorm]

Thinking about it. It could be an extremely depressing first generation. Any changes to aggression would probably be a massive revision of how all men interact with each other. Two generations of men estranged from each other. Fathers isolated, with no understandings of their sons.

[Grinner]

It is customary to make an argument at this point.

True, but if I wanted to write an essay on human social dynamics, I would have done so.

As it stands, my time is dwindling, and I'm working the early shift tomorrow. Perhaps after work...

Until then. :smallsmile:

[Coidzor]

Did... Did people not read the article?

The article has less to do with this than the OP and the question of whether we felt it was a good idea and if we felt we had the right to do such a thing as a universal measure.


Are they? I was always under the impression that human dominance relied on tools, thumbs, and speech, not a willingness to kill everything that looked at them funny.

What is hunting but a form of killing in order to achieve a goal?


As for consent, if you show me where you signed off on your parent's gametes with a complete gene scan before giving permission for your conception to occur, I'll back off that topic real quick.

It's a different ballgame when we decide to take it into our own hands, especially given our tech level, perception of our how tech level will progress, and track record with eugenics and branding large swaths of the population as undesirables.

Also the legitimate bioethical concerns that you give the impression of brushing off primarily because you do not believe that you are human.


And yeah, feel free to shoot anyone who tries to implement a eugenics program by force, I won't lift a finger to stop you, but that's not the default way to do it.

That sort of is the default way to do it. A voluntary eugenics program would be deviating from precedent and the norm.

[Legato Endless]

Likewise, evolution exists, whether we want it or not. It will continue to exist, and I think it is okay to acknowledge that and use it to our advantage.

Evolution is not particularly helpful beyond environmental adaption, which can just easily breed in/out traits we rather like. The average reduction in brain mass in humankind's recent history has led some to speculate whether or not our overall intelligence has diminished. I am not particularly comforted by that fact. Nor do I particularly trust the sweep of societal trends to simply adjudicate our genetic nature for the better.


Are they? I was always under the impression that human dominance relied on tools, thumbs, and speech, not a willingness to kill everything that looked at them funny…Lack of aggression doesn't anywhere near equal passivity, as I have numerous family members and several historical books on nonviolent resistance to point to.

Behavioral Neuroscience is an infant field which understands absolutely nothing about the ramifications about what you're suggesting. We don't have enough data to even begin to approach a frame of reference that isn't steeped in assumption. Considering the various claims made by evolutionary psychologists and the bizarre ill founded conclusions they make, I remain pretty reluctant to think we should even consider this within this century based solely on the fact we would have no idea what on earth we were doing, never mind any ethical dilemmas.

[Starwulf]

How to make peaceful mice. (http://njc.rockefeller.edu/PDF_BN08/Stowers02.pdf)

By mutating a single receptor in mice, so it doesn't work, the male mice ceased their male-to-male aggression. That's interesting. A single receptor is knocked out and behavior drastically changes [1]. This probably won't work on humans, because this is an olfactory cues and they are not as important for humans as they are for mice. But suppose we had something which we were relatively certain would work. Males are responsible for something like 90% of all violence in society - even cutting that in half would make a huge difference.

Should we do it? Do we have the right to manipulate the genome of people? Does the method make a difference? If it was a method of raising kids, that had to be applied from an early age, would that be more acceptable? Why?

A separate question - should we try to eradicate (intra-species) aggression? Maybe it's necessary for some of the things we prize? In Star Trek: TOS, The Enemy Within discusses this.

Kirk is split in two halves, one "good" and one "evil", in a transporter accident. The "evil" side runs amok, almost raping Yeoman Rand. The "good" side becomes indecisive and loses, in Spock's words "the power of command. He finds it more and more difficult to decide what action to take and to give the orders. The conclusion is that there are ugly parts of humanity which are nevertheless essential to us.

So what do you think?

[1] The male mice also turned bisexual, but I don't feel like that is a problem.

A: No, if we can't do it on our own, then we haven't really earned it, thus it's a false peace. It's almost akin to a dictator taking over the entire world with an overwhelming military force, and then instituting peace. It's not real, it's fake.

B: Why in the world is turning every person in the world into bisexuals not a problem? Sorry, but I would resist, violently if necessary, if someone tried to give me a shot that would turn me bisexual.


Speaking only for myself, as the sole representative for a people for whom genetic screening and engineering were commonplace...

WHAT IS WRONG WITH HUMANS?!!!!


I have to ask this, just because the way you've referenced yourself this way multiple times in the past, and at times with such seriousness I am no longer capable of telling if you believe it or not: Do you truly believe you aren't human? Like, seriously? If not, can I have your address and # so I can call the men with white coats? Not trying to be rude/mean/or anything negative here, but if you honestly believe you are not human, then it is truly time for an intervention, because that level of delusion is not healthy in any sort of way and truly needs to be addressed by licensed medical professionals, probably on a very, very long-term basis.

[golentan]

I'm too tired and irritated by this whole thing to keep having this argument, and will be taking a nice anger-nap to sooth my soul.

Please don't refer to mental health in such flippant terms. Yeah, I have memories of life as a nonhuman (and about 400 generations of human :smallyuk:), no I don't really believe them, yes I really believe them, the contradiction is wearying, and the internet is not an important enough part of my life to justify the mental energy spent trying to deny the (by volume) largest part of my defining memories when dealing with people I will never meet.

It gets worse when I see people doing or thinking things that are... well, alien to me, and I'm reminded that I'm masquerading as something that I will never be. Of course, it doesn't help that I've been changed enough by my masquerades that I wouldn't fit in back home, either.

[Pie Guy]

Before we can even start having a discussion on weeding out aggression, we have to state what exactly aggression is. Does aggression include nonviolent resistance? Only violence? Self-advocacy? We can't just pick a word and say "People are no longer this word." without first having an in-depth explanation of what we're talking about in humans.

I don't think that we need such a procedure, because I think people are mostly a result of their environment outside of a very few directly inherited characteristics. If we could single out the genes for certain horrid genetic diseases (mental or otherwise), then we could more ethically take care of that, but this is just using a backhoe to plant a rose.

[Frozen_Feet]

The reason why I concentrate on undesirable men here is that men are not encouraged by media to marry aggressive, abusive, violent or otherwise undesirable women. Also, men's reproductive choices are not restricted by society in a way that makes it more likely for aggressive character traits to succeed evolution-wise.

These are hardly universally true.

In western media, men are constantly encouraged to be the Dogged Nice Guy to women who don't actually care for their affections and/or are violent or abusive towards them. In Japanese media, the trend is even stronger. Tsundere much?

Men are also systematically taught to tolerate irresponsible and violent behaviour in women, because "you don't hit a girl" etc.

Also, in many western nations, the reproductive choices of men are far more restricted than those of women. For example, men are systematically denied any positive rights regarding abortion: if a woman gets pregnant to a man, the man does not have any legal rights to demand custody or right for the child to be born. "Her body, her choice", sound familiar?

[Starwulf]

I'm too tired and irritated by this whole thing to keep having this argument, and will be taking a nice anger-nap to sooth my soul.

Please don't refer to mental health in such flippant terms. Yeah, I have memories of life as a nonhuman (and about 400 generations of human :smallyuk:), no I don't really believe them, yes I really believe them, the contradiction is wearying, and the internet is not an important enough part of my life to justify the mental energy spent trying to deny the (by volume) largest part of my defining memories when dealing with people I will never meet.

It gets worse when I see people doing or thinking things that are... well, alien to me, and I'm reminded that I'm masquerading as something that I will never be. Of course, it doesn't help that I've been changed enough by my masquerades that I wouldn't fit in back home, either.

I was not referencing mental health in flippant terms at all. I have had a long history of depression and anxiety disorders, and multiple attempts at suicide. I 100% honestly believe that if you, or anyone, believes they are something they obviously are not(in this case, a human. If you live on this planet, I"m sorry to say that you are a human, there is no denying that in my mind), they truly should seek medical help. I sought medical help for my issues, and truly, I believe depression is a much smaller problem next to believing that you may not actually be human. Again, I'm not trying to offend, and on some level I believe you may be doing this to get a rise out of anyone who bites, but if you do really believe it, it may be time to seek counseling to help clear things up for yourself. You may find life a bit more enjoyable if you do.

[Coidzor]

Before we can even start having a discussion on weeding out aggression, we have to state what exactly aggression is. Does aggression include nonviolent resistance? Only violence? Self-advocacy? We can't just pick a word and say "People are no longer this word." without first having an in-depth explanation of what we're talking about in humans.

That too. I mean, if we were talking about solving morality as a problem for the species, just about everyone could get behind that, but then we'd tend to quibble about which perfect morality to institute in Human 3.0? 5.0? (Which version are we again? 2.5?) Then again, pragmatism has dictated setting aside morality in the past, so even that component might not be so simple.

[Asta Kask]

Agreed, I'm baffled that some people need these reasons spelled out.

Spelling out arguments can reveal new things we didn't suspect, like structural unsoundness or connections to other parts of morality. This is what a large part of philosophy is about - spelling out what seems self-evident and see if it really holds up to closer scrutiny. I find the discussion that's going on fascinating, but YMMV.

[golentan]

I was not referencing mental health in flippant terms at all. I have had a long history of depression and anxiety disorders, and multiple attempts at suicide. I 100% honestly believe that if you, or anyone, believes they are something they obviously are not(in this case, a human. If you live on this planet, I"m sorry to say that you are a human, there is no denying that in my mind), they truly should seek medical help. I sought medical help for my issues, and truly, I believe depression is a much smaller problem next to believing that you may not actually be human. Again, I'm not trying to offend, and on some level I believe you may be doing this to get a rise out of anyone who bites, but if you do really believe it, it may be time to seek counseling to help clear things up for yourself. You may find life a bit more enjoyable if you do.

I have counseling, I have medications and meditations and music and friends and a support network and it doesn't help. The medicine helps me sort things, it doesn't make it go away. Nothing has ever made it go away, and I'm tired of having to deal with jokes about nice young men in their clean white coats and people trying to convince me that it's not real or I'm making it up or that it is real. It's real to me. I know it's insane. The one thing that my conscious mind, my memories, and my therapist all agree on is that I suffer what might be charitably called stress fractures of the mind. But you know what? I don't care, anymore. I am myself. All of myself, fractures and all. It's real to me. I can't be my full self at all times, but I don't have to reject myself when there aren't consequences to it. I don't have to give up Heinrich, or my grandchildren, or Iji or Ahma. Everything I am, everything I was or maybe was not has taught me a lesson. I wouldn't give up those lessons for the world. So, at work, with my family I will be Richard, that part of me that has lived a relatively normal life. But when there aren't consequences, when being the rest of me won't get me wrongfully fired or unduly worry the people I care most about, I don't feel the need to diminish myself to the me that is socially acceptable. I can be golentan. Because while I'm self aware enough to recognize it probably isn't real, it is real to me.

The world is what you make of it.

[Starwulf]

I have counseling, I have medications and meditations and music and friends and a support network and it doesn't help. The medicine helps me sort things, it doesn't make it go away. Nothing has ever made it go away, and I'm tired of having to deal with jokes about nice young men in their clean white coats and people trying to convince me that it's not real or I'm making it up or that it is real. It's real to me. I know it's insane. The one thing that my conscious mind, my memories, and my therapist all agree on is that I suffer what might be charitably called stress fractures of the mind. But you know what? I don't care, anymore. I am myself. All of myself, fractures and all. It's real to me. I can't be my full self at all times, but I don't have to reject myself when there aren't consequences to it. I don't have to give up Heinrich, or my grandchildren, or Iji or Ahma. Everything I am, everything I was or maybe was not has taught me a lesson. I wouldn't give up those lessons for the world. So, at work, with my family I will be Richard, that part of me that has lived a relatively normal life. But when there aren't consequences, when being the rest of me won't get me wrongfully fired or unduly worry the people I care most about, I don't feel the need to diminish myself to the me that is socially acceptable. I can be golentan. Because while I'm self aware enough to recognize it probably isn't real, it is real to me.

The world is what you make of it.

Fair enough then. I'm glad you have at least tried to deal with it, I was more worried that you hadn't. I truly wish you the best of luck with your situation, and I'm glad that you are at peace with yourself, one way or another. That's always the most important thing.

Edit: Removed something, don't feel it was appropriate, even if it was possibly relevant.

[Ravens_cry]

We are a curious mesh of interrelationships and trying to 'fix' one area could have serious repercussions in other areas. There has been a lot of efforts to try and 'fix' humans, and they have all ended in tears or worse.
To put it mildly, this sounds like a Bad Idea to me.

[Themrys]

These are hardly universally true.

In western media, men are constantly encouraged to be the Dogged Nice Guy to women who don't actually care for their affections and/or are violent or abusive towards them. In Japanese media, the trend is even stronger. Tsundere much?

Men are also systematically taught to tolerate irresponsible and violent behaviour in women, because "you don't hit a girl" etc.

Also, in many western nations, the reproductive choices of men are far more restricted than those of women. For example, men are systematically denied any positive rights regarding abortion: if a woman gets pregnant to a man, the man does not have any legal rights to demand custody or right for the child to be born. "Her body, her choice", sound familiar?

The dogged nice guy is a comedy trope, not a romance trope. It is meant to portray women in general as abusive, not to portray abusive women as desirable. This is a difference.

And I am quite sure the same is true for the tsundere.

(Unless you mean the romantic comedy trope where a man stalks a woman who hates him and is violent towards him because he won't let her alone. Yes, men are encouraged to stalk women who don't care for their affections. This, however, hurts women more than it hurts men.)

However, I am in no way opposed to getting rid of all unhealthy tropes in media. It's just strange, you know, that men never complain about their portrayal in media - unless it is to whine that "we're oppressed, too!" when women complain.

Men can choose with whom to have sex. That is all the reproductive rights they need. Women's bodies are women's bodies, I hope you do not mean to question the authority a person has over their own body.

Men are not raped in large numbers by ugly, aggressive women who thus become pregnant despite being so undesirable no man would ever have chosen them as sex partner. The other way round is considered normal in many countries.

And I am quite sure that influences evolution in an unhealthy way.


@Pie Guy: The elegance of my suggestion lies in the fact that, for my approach, we don't have to find a gene that is linked to "bad" violence, only. We just have to portray the kind of person we want as desirable romantic partner in media, let people make their reproductive choices freely, and watch. And I think, most people have a clear opinion on when violence is justified and when it is not - the moral compass of most works quite okay if you force them to visualize the victim of a hypothetic act of violence as white male.

If there is a gene linked to violence against intimate partners, it will be weeded out as soon as we stop making propaganda for violent men (Twilight, I am looking at you ...), if it's not nature but nurture, the change in media portrayal will change people even faster.

We don't know everything - which is why I am of the opinion we should not act like we do. People were able to breed cauliflower and brussel sprouts and cabbage out of the same plant without knowing anything about genes. By providing an environment that encourages the kind of thing we want, and discourages the kind of thing we don't want, we can change everything, from plants to humans, to be closer to our ideal, without knowing what exactly makes them so.

[Coidzor]

However, I am in no way opposed to getting rid of all unhealthy tropes in media. It's just strange, you know, that men never complain about their portrayal in media - unless it is to whine that "we're oppressed, too!" when women complain.

Men in media don't represent all men. Women, on the other hand, represent all women.

Or something along those lines.

So basically the only people who complain are subgroup of men x or y, such as fathers because they're constantly portrayed as stupid and/or abusive for laughs in sitcoms and the like.

[Starwulf]

And I think, most people have a clear opinion on when violence is justified and when it is not - the moral compass of most works quite okay if you force them to visualize the victim of a hypothetic act of violence as white male.


That is such a large(and unfair) stereotype it's ridiculous. Hell, I was raised to be as racist as can be(I"m not, at all, they failed in that aspect), but I have just as much sympathy for those who are of a different skin color, or sexuality, as I do a person of my skin color. Really shouldn't make such broad-sweeping generalizations when you want to make a solid argument, it really undermines any point you are trying to make.

[Legato Endless]

And I am quite sure the same is true for the tsundere.



Tsundere is a romantic fixture. So is nice guy, and comedy and romance overlap pretty frequently to make the idea the trope is dominated by one a bit weird.


This, however, hurts women more than it hurts men.

I remain confused by the internet's strange fixation with oppression monopoly. As though the ranking of subjective pain and the collection of disenfranchisement tokens amounts did...something. It's never been very clear to me.




And I am quite sure that influences evolution in an unhealthy way.

It's continued existence in other species would beg to differ.





If there is a gene linked to violence against intimate partners, it will be weeded out as soon as we stop making propaganda for violent men (.

Even if we assume it were caused by something singlar, breeding other animals has taught us is there is no one for one nix and match. The foxes that were recently domesticated inherited a lot of other traits too. And the media's ability to affect human breeding is quite a leap.

[Frozen_Feet]

The dogged nice guy is a comedy trope, not a romance trope. It is meant to portray women in general as abusive, not to portray abusive women as desirable. This is a difference.

And I am quite sure the same is true for the tsundere.

Wrong. Seriously, wrong.

Especially about the Tsundere. You're completely forgetting what the "dere" part is supposed to be about. The idea is that the Tsundere is openly cold, neglectful or abusive towards a man (the "tsun" part), but within harbors warm feelings for him (the "dere" part) and, when she finally comes to terms with her feelings, will drop the cold/neglectful/abusive front and become a good girlfriend.

You have to be blind if you can't spot the parallels to women's erotic fiction, where a girl pines for a cold/neglectful/abusive man who really loves her all along.


Men can choose with whom to have sex. That is all the reproductive rights they need. Women's bodies are women's bodies, I hope you do not mean to question the authority a person has over their own body.

You are conflating sexual rights with reproductive rights. Nevermind that men also lack sexual rights in comparison to women, it is completely absurd to say a man has any reproductive rights whatsoever when he does not have any legal right to say whether his children will be born or not.

Also, yes, as a man who has gone through conscription and has duty of arms foisted on himself simply by the virtue of having been born as male, I do question the authority people have over their own bodies. Because, you know, legally my body belongs to my nation. Think of that for a moment.


Men are not raped in large numbers by ugly, aggressive women who thus become pregnant despite being so undesirable no man would ever have chosen them as sex partner. The other way round is considered normal in many countries.

This is untrue. Recent victim surveys both in USA and Finland show that men are subject to rape (and intimate partner violence in general) in equal measures to women.

More to the point, waking up with a woman you never would've had sex with when sober is a common trope in both comedy, drama and real life. Add to this the aforementioned fact that men don't have right to decide whether their children are born or not, and you end up with a situation where men routinely end up having kids with women who they would never want for a longterm relationship. Or why else do you think we have so many single mothers?

[hamishspence]

Breeding traits into and out of a human population is very much viable. The problems are that breeding traits into a population necessarily requires segregation, while breeding them out of a population requires elimination.

That's intrinsic to Selective Breeding.

It may not be intrinsic to Genetic Engineering.

A few decades down the line - I could see some people taking the view that if you can engineer a "defect" out of your reproductive cells and choose not to do it - you are violating the rights of your own offspring.

Don't know how popular such a view would be - but I could see it emerging.

There's already sci-fi novels where it's the default attitude of the population - and only the heroes are opposed to it.

[Bulldog Psion]

I'm going to steer clear of the men's vs. women's problems discussion entirely, even though I have a pretty strong position regarding it, because -- yeah.

All I'm going to say is that I think doing something to remove aggression would have a LOT of unintended consequences. Because I think that modified aggression lies beneath a lot of human traits, and changing the central aggression programming would likely gut these, too. Besides the issues I noted above.

1. Courage is very frequently a form of modified aggression. The heroic firefighter dashing into the burning building to save someone's life is triggering his or her aggressive instincts in a specific way to provide the "oomph" to do the deed. There's a reason these are called "fight or flight" situations. If the option for "fight" is cut off by some social reformer with a test tube and a big chip on their shoulder about making men "better" while refusing to think through the consequences, then the only option they've got left is "flight." And the person trapped in the building burns without assistance.

2. The just man's rage at tyranny and ability to resist it is a form of morally triggered aggression. Even passive resistance is aggression. I draw a distinction between aggression and violence; violence represents active aggression, but there's a reason we have the phrase "passive-aggressive," too, you know. Mahatma Gandhi was nonviolent, but he was most certainly highly aggressive. He took on an entire empire and refused to back down no matter what. He held his ground snarling, even if he eschewed the use of his teeth, so to speak.

3. Competitiveness is also, IMO, underpinned at least partly by aggression. You've got to accept that you're going to triumph over someone in order to win. When a lawyer argues against the case presented by another, do you mean to tell me there's no aggression at work as they tear the other person's arguments apart with hard-driving logic and biting sarcasm? Isn't there an aggressive element in playing tennis or even badminton, for gosh sakes, since you're still working to overcome the other person, even though it's in a totally friendly, nonviolent way?

4. Assertiveness has an aggressive element in it. When someone comes out with a persuasive argument for you to do something that you don't want to do, and throws in an emotional appeal on top of it, there is a little spark of aggression in your soul that gives you the strength to say "no." Say some kid is pushed to try drugs by some people they know at school. The others pull out all stops, invoking friendship, using shaming tactics, etc.. Don't you think there's a bit of the animal raising its lip and giving a warning growl to another animal shoving up against them, behind the kid's ability tell those people that they're not going to participate in drug use?

5. There are some situations where violence is an appropriate response. Most organisms, including humans, will counterattack when physical violence is being done to them. Take out aggression, and you've left a person whose only response to an attack on them is to either flee, or to cower whimpering and squirming if they can't escape, helpless in the grip of fear because they have no aggression to overcome it.

Basically, aggression comes into play anywhere that you have to fight for something, or push back against resistance, or block an intrusion into your space (physical or mental) by someone or something else. It may be reduced to an abstract, sublimated into inspiration, whatever. But there is still aggressive energy about it.

So I don't think that you can just do a block removal of aggression and expect everything about the person to stay the same except for the bits you don't like. I, personally, believe that you would end up with a person who was ruled by fear and incapacity. Who would hold marginal jobs because they didn't have the aggression to market themselves or push someone else out of the way to get the work they wanted, be totally susceptible to suggestion, go along meekly with bullying, submit more or less automatically to the dominance of others, be incapable of defending themselves from violence, have no ability to even protest against tyranny and injustice, and be incapable of even winning a goldang argument.

See? I'm being rational and civilized here, but my pushing back against your ideas and standing my philosophic ground is aggression on my part. The same is true of your standing your ground against my ideas.

If you really could purge aggression from someone's nature genetically, I believe that the unintended consequences on them would be horrible. The poor sods would end up as helpless dishrags, doomed to the role of victim, meek, quiet, fearful, easily manipulated, unable to say no.

I realize that your intentions here are noble. But I don't think they've been thoroughly thought through and their ramifications considered rationally, rather than from a standpoint of pure emotionality.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And I seriously believe that creating a person without aggression would be creating an emotional cripple whose role in human society could be best summed up by the word "prey." They would be utterly dependent on the benevolence of others, and while there are a lot of decent people, it's quite naive to think that everyone is going to equally respect the boundaries of these helpless, docile people forever.

[JustSomeGuy]

Most of this i'm not touching with two bargepoles tied together, but there is one semi-related issue it has brought to mind: Can the ability/desire to fight, in whatever form, still exist without aggression? In as much as, quiet determination or cold, calculated type of stuff - or reluctance to fight paired with absolutely going all-out to protect you and yours (the outlaw josey wales is the first example springing to mind here).

If we look at it from a psycological perspective, consider the individualised zones or arousal vs. similar theories - some people benefit most from getting really psyched up and crazy, others perform better in a more calm, focussed mental state... but how does this apply to aggresiveness in general - can you behave aggresively yet also calmly? I think so, but am open to persuasion either way.

[Frozen_Feet]

It is just as intrinsic to genetic engineering, segregation and elimination simply happen on level of invidual genes (or gene sequences) rather than complete inviduals. However, with current technology, no wide-scale project of human genetic manipulation can happen without selective breeding, so.

Speaking of which, I'm going to comment on Golentan's writing a bit:

Golentan wondered why both proponents and opponents of eugenics jump straight to industrialized murder programs as the logical conclusion. This is, however, not historically sound. Let's talk of E-Aktion (or Aktion T4, as it was later calle)d and the start of Holocaust for a bit:

E-Aktion, or the "euthanasy act for people judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination" was preceded by a law called Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses, or "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring". This law allowed for forced sterilization of mentally unsound, such as schizophrenics and epileptics. E-aktion, as noted, was sold to the German people as an euthanasy act, ie. a form of mercy killings. It was originally only meant to apply to children born after passing of the law, but was eventually expanded to adults.

The term "mercy killing" should make you stop and think. The whole selling point for E-Aktion was that these children were going to have such poor, poor lives, that they would be better off not living. This exact same justification is used as point of favor for abortion of genetically diseased children even today.

More to the point, these kinds of laws were not unique to Germany. Laws for forced sterilization of the mentally ill were in place in England, USA and Scandinavia just as well. The reason was due to rise of Darwinism and the spread of the evolution theory. Golentan wondered how we came up with such laws before knowing specifics of DNA or genetics. The reasons are simple: first, the theory of natural selection preceded knowledge of the details of how it actually worked, and second, people already knew a lot of inheritance due to their experience with breeding cattle, food plants, pets etc. Keep this in mind when you read further. (These laws also didn't go away immediately after World War 2. For example, in Sweden and Finland, forced sterilizatin of Schizophrenics continued to the 80s.)

So we didn't immediately jump to industrialized murder of innocent people. It was an incremental process, progressing one step, one law at a time. And originally, the idea was just to improve quality of life for children.

So what went wrong? Well, for first, doctors were given too much power. Children, especially mentally disabled children, couldn't really be expected to be on the ball with the idea, or what'd you think? So the task of deciding what sort of life was worth living was given to doctors.

Next, the doctors were given too much work. Originally, each patient was to be evaluated by a committee of five doctors, on a case-by-case basis. Only if majority agreed on the euthanasy being necessary, would it proceed forward. But soon, there were too many patients for the doctors to familiriaze themselves with their cases. Quite often, doctors made their decision without ever even seeing the patients!

Now, because there were so many patients, so many people to be euthanized, the staff of the project started experimenting with ways to do it faster. Because they had family and children too, you know. Daddy wants to be home after 4'o'clock and all that jazz. Hence, the development of gass chambers and the like.

At 1941, the program was temporarily put on hold due to opposition coming from the Church and other parties. At that point, over 70 000 patients had already been euthanized. However, at this point, the staff of the project had already completely bought in to the ideology behing the project. Didn't those stupid religious people see that they were only helping the kids and the people of Germany by eliminating bad influence? And hence, the euthanasies continued, they were just done covertly. It was better for Little Tim to die, he wasn't going to leave that wheelchair anyway. By end of 1941, about third of all psychiatric patients in German mental hospitals had been euthanized.

Then we get to Holocaust proper. The Holocaust was preceded by a long project of demonizing several minorities (Jews being the foremost, but Slavics etc. were also included.). The goal of those in power was to make these minorities look like vile animals to the general populace... and when they succeeded, those minorities were treated as such.

We no longer do mass murder or forced neutering of humans. But our cattle, our pets...? PETA is openly telling you to spray your cats and dogs, so they don't have unwanted offspring no-one can care off. Thousands of cows and pigs are slaughtered each day so they can end up on the plate of some human. It is considered a mercy to kill a crippled or mentally ill animals, because they are going to lead such poor lives otherwise. In Finland, organized animal rights groups started with demanding euthanasy for old horses, so they wouldn't be run to the ground or abandoned. To that end, they tried advocating eating of horse meat. And, ironically enough, Nazi Germany had some of the most progressive animal righs laws for its time.

So what to gather from this?

If you ask me, the reason why people's arguments seem "slippery-slopey" when talking of eugenics, is because we've already slid down that slope once. It all started with noble-sounding rhetoric, like "showing mercy" to the incapacitated or "not bringing unwanted kids to the world". Everything was supposed to be guided by strict professionals, evaluating each case with German efficiency.

But paper is paper and practice is practice. No matter how noble goals some system might have, if the system allows for abuse, it will be abused. Remember Murphy's law. And as can be seen from human treatment of animals, awful lot of time the human concept of "mercy" jumps from "ending pain" to "ending life", because life is the ultimate cause of pain when you look at it from the right point of view.

Just as well, the advent of genetics and the realization that we humans are not really that different from other animals has not been kind to human morality. It's because when humans are like animals, there are two opposite but equally logical conclusions you can make: either we should treat animals more like humans, or humans more like animals. And the more industrialized the world has become, the crappier it has become for animals.

[Deepbluediver]

My god... A child with slightly different personality traits than its parents, clearly this is morally equivalent to amputating part of a functioning brain in such a way to limit intelligence and personality. And it's accomplished through change to a single brain chemical/receptor pair...

Oh my god, I'm on three separate medicines that do something similar! Have I been triple lobotomized?!
You seem to be taking this rather personally; I was just trying to answer your question.

In my original response to the OP, I was mostly concerned with the possible unintended side-effects or risks. Those drugs you're on- I assume they where prescribed by a doctor and you are monitored for any negative reactions, right? It's not the kind of stuff that just gets handed out willy-nilly.

Also, you can stop taking those drugs. With current technology, we can manipulate the genetics in embryos, but once the organism is fertilized and growing, we have no way to change it back- it's a forever thing.


I don't appreciate the hyperbole
Your "triple-lobotomy" comment would seem somewhat out of place then.

There's a big difference between medicating people who have problems to help them and genetically manipulating an entire population to try and push it towards some other form or ideal.


and I don't like the implication that a person with reduced tendency to commit violence is less of a person in some way or has been crippled. Not-committing-violence is, in fact, one of the key ways I try to act and by which I judge whether I like someone. I have low testosterone, and am a highly unaggressive person in part as a result of my nature (and in part from my nurture).
Which would be, IMO, a good argument for why there is no need to implement this procedure on a large scale- for most people the beneficial effects would be minimal or even non-existent.

Likewise, I spend the majority of my time resolving issues peacefully, but there have been moments in my life when aggression has also been very useful, and so long as I don't hurt innocent people, I wouldn't want someone else to be rewiring my brain without my knowledge or consent.

[Themrys]

That's intrinsic to Selective Breeding.

It may not be intrinsic to Genetic Engineering.

A few decades down the line - I could see some people taking the view that if you can engineer a "defect" out of your reproductive cells and choose not to do it - you are violating the rights of your own offspring.

Don't know how popular such a view would be - but I could see it emerging.

There's already sci-fi novels where it's the default attitude of the population - and only the heroes are opposed to it.

I cannot imagine that there could be heroes who are opposed to any and all genetic engineering. I mean, if you have a hereditary illness that makes you feel severe pain all the time, and you can protect your children from inheriting it - would anyone really be of the opinon that it is ethically better to just give your offspring the illness if luck is not on their side?
It's not as if mass-producing babies with blond hair and blue eyes is all you can do with genetic manipulation, after all.

I am opposed to genetic engineering as it is done today, since we don't really know enough about genes, and also, plants and small animals that are manipulated this way can reproduce unhindered and get out into the world before we even know the long-term effects.
If, however, some families who have, say, an increased risk for breast cancer, would decide to cut the gene responsible for that out of their reproductive cells ... it would be risky, but not nearly as risky as adding something to the genetic code.

With regards to human behaviour, though, it is so complicated that we cannot hope to understand how genes affect it. It is too dangerous to mess around with that; we should stick to changing society in order to make nonviolent behaviour more advantageous.

Back to the original question, that link may be interesting. It's not about mice, but about baboons, so, a bit closer to humans:

http://cosimaniehaus242.tumblr.com/post/74941459365/anogoodrabblerouser-disquietingtruths

[Frozen_Feet]

Now, back to mice.

I had to thik of it for a second, but this experiment reminded me of something else. Universe 25 was that something else. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink)

Long story short: researchers went and made what could be called a rodent paradise. A neat little box, with plenty of room, food and water, and which would be cleaned properly every once in a while. They then let in a group of mice and allowed them to breed and fill the land.

At first, everything went fine. But after the population went past a certain treshold, the mice started having problems. Despite there still being plenty physical room, the social environment became too suffocating. First, males started ignoring females and started to copulate with other males. Then, some of the males isolated themselves from the rest of the community. Some males remained in their nests, only eating, sleeping and grooming themselves. Others flocked together near the water supply and remained there as a tight exclusive group.

As male interest towards females decreased, females became more aggressive and started forcefully copulating with males. Females also became increasingly neglectful of their offspring. Eventually, females lost ability to give birth to living infants alltogether.

An attempt was made to move the disoriented mice into a new, less crowded environment, to see if they'd return to normal behaviour. They couldn't. They would retain their destructive habits and die.

Universe 25 population peaked at 2,200 mice, and then began a slow slide to extinction.

So, it seems overcrowding can have similar affect on male mice than this genetic experiment. Now, mice are mice and humans are humans. But are there any parallels to such behaviour?

Let's look at Japan. Japan is one of the most tightly populated countries in the world, containing the largest metropol area in the world, Tokyo. Recently, news all over the world have talked about the phenomena knowns as "hikikomori" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori) and "herbivorous men" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbivore_men). Young generations report increasingly less desire to interact and have sex with the opposite sex. Japanese government is very nervous of these developments, seeing them as the causes for the declining birth rate.

The parallels to Universe 25 should be obvious. The parallels between herbivorous men and the non-aggressive, genetically enginereed mice are not as strong, as to my knowledge herbivorous men do not display greater tendency towards bi- or homosexuality. However, I posit the effects of men focusing more of their attention on other men would be similar to men losing interest in sex in general.

Think of it: generally, women find non-aggressive men less interesting. However, men generally don't have this tendency, and are often happy with less aggressive partners. In a case where men lose ability to distinquish between men and women, it's likely they will gravitate towards relationships with other non-aggressive men, as those are more likely to find them desireable than women.

Consequently, women will be targets of far less attention than before. To compensate, they will have to step up their game and become more aggressive, at least sexually. However, before this would happen, I speculate there would be a dramatic drop in birthrates. There would be an intermediate phase where men are disinclined to seek female partners due to their genetic modificiation, where as women would be disinclined to go hunting for men out of tradition and because they would no longer find most males attractive. Consequently, women would use their time for studying and pursuing careers, and highly educated women have less children and later than their less-educated sisters. This has been a trend in Europe and USA for a while now, and I suspect this sequence of events would magnify it to the point of societal and economical upheaval.

More, I don't think reversing the situation once it's underway would be possible, just as it was in the case with Universe 25. In Cambodia, when communists gained power there was a mass movement to return educated people from the city to work in farms. The results were a disaster. Urban people simply didn't adapt to country life and were piss-poor farmers as a result. Many died of famine. On the other hand, in most developed nations people have been moving from county to cities with no problem. What we can gather from this is that while it's easy for a country-person to adapt to citylife, the reverse is not true. So even if we turned the aggression genes back on in males, it would not remove their life experiences as non-aggressive men, and it would not undo lifestyle choices of women. We would have to start from scratch with a new population of aggressive males and fertile, uneducated women. Doesn't sound good to me.

[hamishspence]

I cannot imagine that there could be heroes who are opposed to any and all genetic engineering.

In this case the opposition was to compulsory repair of all "genetic damage" - the people in question wanted "right to choose" - even if it meant a non-zero risk of having disabled offspring.

[Frozen_Feet]

I cannot imagine that there could be heroes who are opposed to any and all genetic engineering. I mean, if you have a hereditary illness that makes you feel severe pain all the time, and you can protect your children from inheriting it - would anyone really be of the opinon that it is ethically better to just give your offspring the illness if luck is not on their side?

The reason heroes would be opposed to it can be found in the story of E-Aktion: because in the past, the alternatives to allowing your child to live with severe pain was to kill them, or to abort them before birth, or to not have them in the first place.

Those are the three most common solutions to this dilemma even today. Hopefully, genetic screening and gene treatment will become more commonplace so that we don't have to rely on abortion, euthanasia and forced sterilization in the future.

[hamishspence]

There will probably always be people who object to genetic screening though, for one reason or another.

Especially compulsory genetic screening.

[Frozen_Feet]

Sure, because they fear for their and their children's rights to live. Again, ghost of E-Aktion, the holocaust, and the various draconian laws all around the world that have doomed mentally and physically ill people to torture and death.

For a non-eugenics related viewpoint, I suggest listening to music and the story of Emilie Autumn. She has bit of an axe to grind with mental healthcare, for a depressing but good reason.

[SiuiS]

Wow, this slid down hill fast.


Are these not valid concerns?

If they are valid concerns then they can be discussed rationally, individually and without exaggeration or assumption. The objection seemed to be the leaps in logic which should be taken for granted, such as "hominids had thumbs, and then they had fire, and then the very next step was founding America". There's a couple of equations missing which need to be looked at.

[Frozen_Feet]

With regards to human behaviour, though, it is so complicated that we cannot hope to understand how genes affect it. It is too dangerous to mess around with that; we should stick to changing society in order to make nonviolent behaviour more advantageous.

Changing society is not any less dangerous than genetic manipulation. Several idealistic groups have tried to change society for the better, towards a more humane or enlightened practices. End result has usually been mass murder. Point in case, French revolution. It can be argued the values espoused by the revolutionaries were vital to cultural progression of Europe and creating democratic states as we know them, but in the interim, it first caused a Reign of Terror aimed at its own citizens, killing tens of thousands by the Quillotine, and was followed by a Pan-European war. Much of what the revolution achieved was brought down just as quickly. Wikipedia talks of how it was important to reducing religious and aristocratic privilege, but lets be real here: both religious and monarchic institutions were restored after the revolution, and new people only got to power because many of the old ones had been killed.

[hamishspence]

I can't remember the name of the novel - but I recall that there were similarities to Ben Elton's writing style, even if it wasn't him.

The theme was how the rights of the child were being used to justify these sort of policies. Something like "right of child to be born healthy, overrides various other civil rights."

[Hyena]

O brave new world, that has such people in't!

[hamishspence]

O brave new world, that has such people in't!

That novel did get mentioned earlier:



Trying to control the genome of actual living people for 'Greater Good' and general Brave New World is horrible idea.

[Coidzor]

Tsundere is a romantic fixture. So is nice guy, and comedy and romance overlap pretty frequently to make the idea the trope is dominated by one a bit weird.

Ahh, Rom-Coms. A genre that has much to answer for, apparently.

[Frozen_Feet]

To be frank, there's very rarely a direct causation between the world as portrayed by the media, and how people actually live in it.

Again, take Japan. Some of the most disturbing and sexually perverse material comes from there, but the society at large is very conservative and has considerably lower rates of violent and sexual crime than many other developed countries. It is commonplace for media protagonists to harbor attitudes and personalities that aren't accepted in the slightest in everyday life.

If anything, there's some degree of inverse correlation: most heavily regulated and lawful societies produce some of the most disturbed entertainment. A similar phenomenom exists in Germany and Great Britain. Heck, Victorian England was famous for pretty sick erotic fiction despite outwardly having very strict moral policies.

It's this lack of direct correlation which makes most people scorn at those who throw hissy-fits about media they don't like. Every sort of crime, from drug-use to murder to rape, are more prevalent in fiction than they're in real life, but in general real life has not started imitating fiction.

[Legato Endless]

In terms of violence yes, Japan is one of the safest places on earth. Sex crimes, not so much. The majority of women in their 20s to 30s in metropolitan areas have reported being assaulted, and typically frequently.Female only transportation exists specifically to combat this trend. Furthermore, the conservative attitude that still permeates society leads to a large amount of silence, shaming and general lack of responce. Japan's reported sex crime statistics are low, but they are incredibly misleading.

[Frozen_Feet]

Sure they are.

For the record, similar arguments have been made about criminal statistic of every country. Regarding every sort of crime.

EDIT: To be fair, the inverse argument is just as common - "crime hasn't really gone up, our reporting has just gotten better".

But I hope you notice there's a slight paradox in what you're saying, Legato Endless. On one hand, you are saying the pervasive conservative culture upholds an atmosphere of shame that serves to hide the problem. Yet on another, the problem is well known to the public and measures are taken on a wide scale (creation of female-only transportation) to combat it.

How can the society know about and act to prevent the problem, if it's not reported? (There's at least one valid explanation to this paradox.)

It's too bad I can't read Japanese, so I can't analyze any statistics on the matter myself. I'm forced to rely on second-hand sources.

[Legato Endless]

Sure they are.

For the record, similar arguments have been made about criminal statistic of every country. Regarding every sort of crime.



Because demographically, Japan is both populous and patriarchal? Like the other half dozen or so other nations that felt the incipient need to institute female only public transit?


EDIT: To be fair, the inverse argument is just as common - "crime hasn't really gone up, our reporting has just gotten better".

But I hope you notice there's a slight paradox in what you're saying, Legato Endless. On one hand, you are saying the pervasive conservative culture upholds an atmosphere of shame that serves to hide the problem. Yet on another, the problem is well known to the public and measures are taken on a wide scale (creation of female-only transportation) to combat it.

It's not really a paradox. There is nothing more intensely hypocritical than a society. And there is a difference between what people tacitly acknowledge and what they will wantonly purse. There's a fairly significant gap between admitting to having been assaulted and pursuing legal action. Social mores and controls have a much stronger hold on the latter than the former. So yes, the public governance can have a very good idea they have a problem, but the manifest scope of the problem is not precisely known beyond their inability to corral it's rampancy. That's part of the issue with Human trafficking in the West.

[Zrak]

Males are responsible for something like 90% of all violence in society - even cutting that in half would make a huge difference.
This seems like the sort of thing that's really hard to measure, but really easy to measure with a desired conclusion in mind. I'm dubious about any group being cleanly "responsible" for a specific percentage of "all violence in society."

[Ravens_cry]

Even if men were responsible for 90% of all physical violence, there is other kinds of violence that can still be very damaging. Someone, in group or even alone, intent on spreading rumour and slander can drive people to the point of suicide and beyond. A murder, someone is dead, finished, while a campaign of hate can leave someone living while their life is destroyed. To the pain, indeed.
I know this from my own experience because rumours spread about my own mother made us have to move. It was just too painful to live in that community any more.

[Karoht]

Seriously. Every time the topic of eugenics comes up, folks seem to go straight to industrialized murder and sterilization.
A few reasons really. For one, classical Eugenics theories are not scientific in the slightest. Modern genetics debunks the majority of them. Eugenics typically centers around a misunderstanding of how Selective Breeding actually works. Also, it should be pointed out that just because Selective Breeding CAN work on dogs and other animals to produce certain traits, doesn't mean it SHOULD be done with people. This is before I begin explaining some of the science that makes Eugenics far less viable than others might have you believe.
In fact I strongly urge you to read the wikipedia article about Eugenics, especially if you want a more scientific viewpoint to explain why people tend to give that knee-jerk reactions towards Eugenics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

As far as voluntary programs go, a genetic therapy to remove an undesireable trait isn't the worst thing in the world. If such a program were to be integrated with proper standards and protocol, as any other medical procedure we have today, I see no real reason it couldn't be a perfectly fine tool for doctors to treat a patient. Ranging from dealing with cancer all the way to lowering or removing someone's aggressive behavior.

I'm going to view this from a more sci-fi standard rather than one of modern science, gene therapy seeks to turn on or off certain genomes. It's been studied as a possible cure for cancer, because your cells basically turn off the gene responsible for destroying defective cells (cancerous cells or really any mutated cells), so if we can just turn the gene back on then the body will get rid of the cells on it's own. This is a current aim, and as I've read on the subject they're getting pretty good at it. The ability to manipulate a cell in this manner will probably happen in our lifetimes. So if they can find a gene responsible for abnormal aggression factors (or aggression at all), they can use the same technique to activate or deactivate a gene.

As such, if one were diagnosed with a problem so terrible that modern psychiatric help was utterly unable to approach it, but a (possibly experimental, possibly proven) gene therapy could, I have no doubt that there would be stacks upon stacks of forms to fill out, dangers and side effects explained, consent signed over by an appropriate party (parent or guardian or medical designate) before any doctor would even dream of administering the treatment. This is just common sense. This is how we solve these kinds of problems today, it is unlikely this will change.

The exception I could see happening, is if someone were to commit crimes and end up on a repeat (violent) offender list, there is potential for an abuse of the system at this juncture. I could see a prison system deciding that it would be more efficient to administer this form of treatment as opposed to housing a prisoner/patient for the remainder of their natural lives. Now I can't speak for the legal basis for such a treatment to be administered at the corrections level. And part of the reason why castration is not on the list for repeat sexual offenders (apart from medical, psychological, and ethical reasons I won't go into at this time) is that Judges are not doctors, the protocol for them to order the administration of a medical procedure just doesn't exist and is unlikely to. They can order an offender go for some form of evaluation, and those doing the evaluation can recommend a procedure, but this is already common place. My fear of a judge saying "Guilty, I sentence you to genetic therapy!" is quite low.

I've already stated that without proper consent (and medical protocol to even suggest such a therapy be attempted on a given patient) the whole thing is bunk to begin with, but here I'm restating it just for emphasis.

[Jaycemonde]

"Friendly Banter" is really full of a lot of **** lately; I tried not to read too much of this thread, but I made the mistake of thinking I couldn't respond to it unless I did, and I wholeheartedly regret the decision. It's disgusting. Anyway.

I feel like it's important to bring up the movie that dealt with forcibly pacifying people through scientific means as a central plot element. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_(film))

As for the concept that "males are responsible for 90% of all violence in society"? That is complete bull**** unless you can show some kind of empirical proof, bring up every single possible factor for that and explain how they all point to "men are evil."

And as for the entire somewhat pointless topic behind genetic engineering you brought up, I think there are far better uses for the field. Like helping people regrow lost limbs. Or helping people transition--you know what I'm talking about--regardless of which direction they're going in. Or, hell, let's get some horns and hooves in here. About time people got working on that.

[AtomicKitKat]

As for the concept that "males are responsible for 90% of all violence in society"? That is complete bull**** unless you can show some kind of empirical proof, bring up every single possible factor for that and explain how they all point to "men are evil."

I was pondering whether to respond to the thread myself, having read about 90% of the posts. I think about the only way that statement is true would be if one said "physical violence". Though I've seen my fair share of women who just hit guys because they know they won't hit back. It would probably be true to say as well, that women probably commit more social/psychological violence(slut-shaming, spreading vicious rumours, social ostracisation, and other forms of socio-psychological warfare) on one another than men on men or men on women.


And as for the entire somewhat pointless topic behind genetic engineering you brought up, I think there are far better uses for the field. Like helping people regrow lost limbs. Or helping people transition--you know what I'm talking about--regardless of which direction they're going in. Or, hell, let's get some horns and hooves in here. About time people got working on that.

I'd just be happy with real, live catgirls. Or Kentaurides. Or Lamias. Or Harpies. :smallwink:

[Asta Kask]

As for the concept that "males are responsible for 90% of all violence in society"? That is complete bull**** unless you can show some kind of empirical proof, bring up every single possible factor for that and explain how they all point to "men are evil."

I think that's generally accepted. If you look at homicide, for example, males are 90% of the offenders (and by that I mean "convicted for the crime"). Most of this is from drug- and gang-related homicides. Males are also three times more likely to be victims of homicide, by the way.

Now, I haven't even started on why this is, but according to the anthropologists (http://www.udel.edu/anthro/ackerman/universal_people.pdf), men are more violent than women in all studied cultures. Even if you include non-studied cultures - there aren't a lot of them left - this would at best make it a nigh-universal trait. And we know that some brain structures related to violence have a lot of testosterone receptors. These are structures that are involved in human-on-human violence. We know that androgen abuse causes aggression. How much evidence do you need?

That's not to say culture is irrelevant, however. It clearly isn't - just look at the homicide rate in Medieval times and compare them to now. But at some point we will have reached the limits of what culture could do. Should we go further? Should we tamper with biology? Does it depends on where we are, or are e.g. genetical methods categorically off the table? I think we should discuss that before we reach that point, and I like that we are discussing it here.

[Kalmageddon]

"Friendly Banter" is really full of a lot of **** lately; I tried not to read too much of this thread, but I made the mistake of thinking I couldn't respond to it unless I did, and I wholeheartedly regret the decision. It's disgusting. Anyway.

I feel like it's important to bring up the movie that dealt with forcibly pacifying people through scientific means as a central plot element. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_(film))
.

I was thinking more of this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_%28film%29), but your example is probably more pertinent. :smalltongue:

[SiuiS]

Seeing as this post's OP has said anything since and has only that one post, I think this was satire at best and trolling at worst, with the fun of bringing up a valid topic.


I think that's generally accepted. If you look at homicide, for example, males are 90% of the offenders (and by that I mean "convicted for the crime"). Most of this is from drug- and gang-related homicides. Males are also three times more likely to be victims of homicide, by the way.

Now, I haven't even started on why this is, but according to the anthropologists (http://www.udel.edu/anthro/ackerman/universal_people.pdf), men are more violent than women in all studied cultures. Even if you include non-studied cultures - there aren't a lot of them left - this would at best make it a nigh-universal trait. And we know that some brain structures related to violence have a lot of testosterone receptors. These are structures that are involved in human-on-human violence. We know that androgen abuse causes aggression. How much evidence do you need?

That's not to say culture is irrelevant, however. It clearly isn't - just look at the homicide rate in Medieval times and compare them to now. But at some point we will have reached the limits of what culture could do. Should we go further? Should we tamper with biology? Does it depends on where we are, or are e.g. genetical methods categorically off the table? I think we should discuss that before we reach that point, and I like that we are discussing it here.

We also know that in situations where people assume that aggression is "natural", removing the legacy of older aggressive people who inflicted that behavior on children, aggression can be reduced without reducing any genetic traits. Just don't teach people, especially men, that being a jack ass is appropriate, let alone rewardable.

[Legato Endless]

I'll see your Serenity and Equilibrium and raise you Gattaca.

Frankly, this seems like a radical solution in search of a problem we are already making good progress on. This is not to say that violence against women for example is solved, it remains deplorably too common. But nevermind the middle ages, violence has markedly declined in the US since the advent of the 20th century till now. While I'm open to dialoguing it, I'm skeptical we should even bother seriously considering anything until we see a real plateau in in what social institutions can do, nevermind grappling with the nascent science.

Along with that, I don't see it being of equalivant interest currently. Between cancer and the vast host of genetic disorders, I think we should be focusing on dealing with harmful abnormalities before we start tinkering with the foundation.

[Zrak]

(The reason why I concentrate on undesirable men here is that men are not encouraged by media to marry aggressive, abusive, violent or otherwise undesirable women.)

I don't know if I buy this. I can't really think of an example in any remotely recent mainstream media where a husband abusing his wife is presented as acceptable, but I can think of a lot of sit-coms where a wife hitting her husband or a guy getting beaten up by his girlfriend is presented as the male deserving the assault and being entirely in the wrong. I mean, the entire plot of the movie Serious Moonlight is that Meg Ryan knocks Timothy Hutton unconscious and tapes him to things so that he doesn't leave her for another woman, then he decides not to and they live happily ever after.

[Asta Kask]

We also know that in situations where people assume that aggression is "natural", removing the legacy of older aggressive people who inflicted that behavior on children, aggression can be reduced without reducing any genetic traits. Just don't teach people, especially men, that being a jack ass is appropriate, let alone rewardable.

And never let them see this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO43p2Wqc08

[Karoht]

And as for the entire somewhat pointless topic behind genetic engineering you brought up, I think there are far better uses for the field. Like helping people regrow lost limbs. Or helping people transition--you know what I'm talking about--regardless of which direction they're going in. Or, hell, let's get some horns and hooves in here. About time people got working on that.Agreed, there are many better uses. On the other hand, discoveries like being able to greatly reduce things like depression, anxiety, or even aggression, are going to come up sooner or later. Now me, I'm all about reducing the causes of those things rather than resorting to some kind of gene therapy, but there will be patients who would be willing to undergo a treatment like this (maybe not for aggression but for something else), who has perhaps tried other options and just simply doesn't want to live with the problem of _______ anymore.

As far as helping people is concerned, I'm 100% confident that proper examinations and protocols will come into play as the tech is better understood. I sincerely doubt anything would be used on someone without proper consent. At the same point, I'm certain that one loudmouth doctor or quack will jump up and say "send your gay kids to me and using the power of genetics I can make them straight" or something equally absurd. Truthfully, I'm FAR more worried that this would happen. It bothers me that parents can send their kids to straight camp, it honestly upsets me that a parent might force a genetic therapy on their kids. Like really, that's scary and horrible stuff right there.

But again, as long as proper consent systems are maintained, what I just described shouldn't happen, we hope. Even discussing the odd premise of removing aggression in men has value, because it expands into things like this. I'm not going to invoke the slippery slope fallacy, but when discussing any kind of genetic manipulation, there are loads of potential issues and abuses in all kinds of directions. If we somehow get to the point where we can force someone to undergo a genetic therapy for condition X, why can't we do it for condition Y? Is it ethical or moral to forcibly change a person for one reason but not for another? Maybe fixing depression or anxiety is okay but aggression is not? Maybe behavioral modification is off the table altogether, who knows?

[Coidzor]

And never let them see this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO43p2Wqc08

What's the history of LGBTA rights have to do with this subject? :smalltongue:


I think that's generally accepted.

But dated, and becoming less accurate by the year since women have been having increases in their violent trends since around the end of the millennium. Or at least they were back in '08.

[warty goblin]

But dated, and becoming less accurate by the year since women have been having increases in their violent trends since around the end of the millennium. Or at least they were back in '08.

It's worth considering whether the statistic in question is whether women are becoming more violent (a greater proportion of women commit violent acts) or whether a greater proportion of violence is being done by women. The two do not relate to each other in a particularly obvious way; and given the declining crime rate in most of the developed world, it's quite plausible to me that if most of the decrease in due to men being less violent, the proportion of violence perpetrated by women could be rising; even if the actual proportion of women who do violence is stagnant or only slightly decreasing.

Not to mention that the gathering of crime statistics is really hard in some cases, and changes in questionnaires, survey methods, and changing awareness of some crimes can do very strange things to the rates. Woman on man domestic violence is generally considered to be badly underreported; so an increased survey effort there and better public awareness could easily make the numbers look different. If this coincides with a decrease in overall violence, it could make it look like women are becoming more violent, when in fact everybody is becoming less violent, simply due to a change in definitions/bias correction. I don't know if that is what is happening, but it's not particularly implausible.

(None of the above is to advance any sort of weird men's rights agenda or anything. I happen to work in survey statistics (although mostly to do with land cover use) and spend a fair amount of time thinking about this sort of thing; so I thought that might be worth sharing.)

[Asta Kask]

But dated, and becoming less accurate by the year since women have been having increases in their violent trends since around the end of the millennium. Or at least they were back in '08.

Going from 92% male violence to 90% male violence really doesn't change the big picture.

[AtlanteanTroll]

To be totally honest, I have more of an issue of the side effect of the mice, and then theoretically people, be coming bisexual upon their experimentation than forcefully making them less violent. But perhaps that is just me...

[Jaycemonde]

To be totally honest, I have more of an issue of the side effect of the mice, and then theoretically people, be coming bisexual upon their experimentation than forcefully making them less violent. But perhaps that is just me...

I doubt that would happen in humans. So far there hasn't turned out to be any correlation in hormone levels and who you wanna bang. It's a pretty gigantic grab bag, and there are thousands of variables that could cause your personal preferences.

I don't really see how it'd be a problem/of any concern if it did happen, though. There'd probably be less homo/biphobia.

[Coidzor]

Going from 92% male violence to 90% male violence really doesn't change the big picture.

Yeah, see, my point was that you probably need to actually check your numbers and assumptions, not dig in your heels with your self-hating maleness. :smalltongue:


I don't really see how it'd be a problem/of any concern if it did happen, though. There'd probably be less homo/biphobia.

And there'd be no homophobia after a couple of generations if we killed everyone who isn't straight and excised any propensity for bisexuality or homosexuality from the collective genome. That's not a point in favor of making everyone conform to X sexuality by force.

Do you enjoy all of the measures employed by people historically and in the present day to try to force non-heteronormative people to either be heteronormative or die? I rather doubt it. The only thing here is that the force is sanitized and meidicalized.

[Jaycemonde]

And there'd be no homophobia after a couple of generations if we killed everyone who isn't straight and excised any propensity for bisexuality or homosexuality from the collective genome. That's not a point in favor of making everyone conform to X sexuality by force.

Do you enjoy all of the measures employed by people historically and in the present day to try to force non-heteronormative people to either be heteronormative or die? I rather doubt it. The only thing here is that the force is sanitized and meidicalized.

Regardless of your pointedly taking what I said out of context, I merely said that I just don't see how more people being bisexual would be a particularly good or bad thing in general, and the point about there probably being less homophobia because more people would be able to relate to and understand the bisexual and homosexual people who were already there was a rather unrelated afterthought. I didn't state some grand goal to be reached through forcing everybody to be bisexual. I don't support any effort to forcibly change someone's sexuality, or gender identity, or body. Forgive me for following a tangential train of thought on a subject that personally affects me; I'll make sure not to do that anymore.

[Coidzor]

Regardless of your pointedly taking what I said out of context, I merely said that I just don't see how more people being bisexual would be a particularly good or bad thing in general, and the point about there probably being less homophobia because more people would be able to relate to and understand the bisexual and homosexual people who were already there was a rather unrelated afterthought. I didn't state some grand goal to be reached through forcing everybody to be bisexual. I don't support any effort to forcibly change someone's sexuality, or gender identity, or body. Forgive me for following a tangential train of thought on a subject that personally affects me; I'll make sure not to do that anymore.

Yep, reminding you of the context here is totally taking what you said out of context. :smalltongue:

Initially there'd be a break where there's the base mix of straight, gay, bisexual, asexual, pan, etc. in the male population and then every male child born after that is bisexual, but that's not going to lead to less homophobia because people would be able to relate to bisexuals and homosexuals better due to there being more of them except for a possible transitory state, really it's going to be that ultimately there's no homophobia because there's not going to be any more straight or gay men after those generations shuffle off this mortal coil, so homophobia is going to become meaningless unless women take up the torch to discriminate against half of the population for being bi and actually acting on it. Pretty implausible, especially after there's nothing to compare bi men to other than women.

Plus, things would have either had to improved significantly for people to all be OK with forcing their kids to be bi or the parents would have to be forced to go along with it, so either there's no real room for improvement because it's some kind of hypothetical perfect society in terms of attitudes towards GSRM(or at least bisexual men) or there's certainly room for resenting GSRM as the expression of the tyranny that's lead to this oppressive control of human reproduction. Until all of the pre-change generations are gone anyway.

Everyone being bi due to compulsory measures either cultural or governmental is bound up in why everyone has reacted negatively to the "every man is now bi" component, so not seeing the issue with that is just silly. Also, worlds of difference between "more people being bisexual" and "all men are now bisexual due to embryonic tinkering." Especially because no one was talking about the former until you claimed that was what you really meant just now when the context is that all men are being forced to be bi for their own good and the good of society.

[Kalmageddon]

Regardless of your pointedly taking what I said out of context, I merely said that I just don't see how more people being bisexual would be a particularly good or bad thing in general, and the point about there probably being less homophobia because more people would be able to relate to and understand the bisexual and homosexual people who were already there was a rather unrelated afterthought. I didn't state some grand goal to be reached through forcing everybody to be bisexual. I don't support any effort to forcibly change someone's sexuality, or gender identity, or body. Forgive me for following a tangential train of thought on a subject that personally affects me; I'll make sure not to do that anymore.

To be honest I interpreted Atlantean Troll as saying that he would be worried of changing sexuality, which I can understand. Having a medication change your sexuality just sounds wrong, doesn't it? Even if said change makes it more inclusive.

[SiuiS]

I doubt that would happen in humans. So far there hasn't turned out to be any correlation in hormone levels and who you wanna bang. It's a pretty gigantic grab bag, and there are thousands of variables that could cause your personal preferences.

I don't really see how it'd be a problem/of any concern if it did happen, though. There'd probably be less homo/biphobia.

Yeah. At most it seems like this doesn't change a critter's sexuality, it shuts down the -phobia part of homo-phobia. For some people, it would be "I'm not as averse to same sex, now" and for others it would be "I'm not angry about same sex now, but I still have my preference". That truly seems to be it.



And there'd be no homophobia after a couple of generations if we killed everyone who isn't straight and excised any propensity for bisexuality or homosexuality from the collective genome. That's not a point in favor of making everyone conform to X sexuality by force.

I actually doubt that. It seems pretty supportable that heterosexuality is just a thing that happens spontaneously, if only because that's what people are told to do.

I'm fairly confident that, assuming this heterogenocide happened, you took an Authority Figure, and a bunch of children, and suddenly Lord Of The Flies, and before the authority figure does he explains repopulation (let's further assume this is an apocalypse scenario that needs repopulation, since we are already contriving), that the children would prioritize heterosex, and their children as well, etc., because that's just what is done and what happens and what needs to happen, you don't have to like it.


To be honest I interpreted Atlantean Troll as saying that he would be worried of changing sexuality, which I can understand. Having a medication change your sexuality just sounds wrong, doesn't it? Even if said change makes it more inclusive.

Luckily, no one is talking about medicine which forcibly changes your sexuality or anything remotely close to it, because human sexuality is cerebral as well as hormonal.

Unfortunately, this information will pass by like a ship in the night.

[Frozen_Feet]

No comments about Universe 25? I was hoping to trigger some discussion about that. Is the experiment simply not well known to people here?

[Grytorm]

No comments about Universe 25? I was hoping to trigger some discussion about that. Is the experiment simply not well known to people here?

I think it is probably hard to think about. Directly wondering if we are going through a similar scenario is an extremely disturbing thought depending on how you inrerpret things. Probably the most uplifyng part of the experiment is that it shows how much things can change. That arguably human nature is not set in stone.

[warty goblin]

No comments about Universe 25? I was hoping to trigger some discussion about that. Is the experiment simply not well known to people here?

I didn't have any prior knowledge of the experiment.

However, if that effect is happening with people, it suggests that really hyper-dense urban areas will become demographically and cultural unstable and collapse over time. Whether or not the remaining people can reestablish a self-propagating culture out of the mess as the population density drops is a rather interesting question; the experiment seems to suggest not, but the parallels between mouse and human social structures and adaptability only go so far*. Even if they don't, it's not like we're short of people, so folks from outside the city will simply move in, and super-dense cities end up being a sort of demographic black hole. Since we're not short of people, that's probably OK.

On the other hand, as a rather rural person by inclination, this just gives me an even better reason to avoid the places. I like isolation, but I prefer it comes with a view and air that doesn't smell like reprocessed ass.



*Although on net, I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't give the edge to mice.

[smuchmuch]

No comments about Universe 25? I was hoping to trigger some discussion about that. Is the experiment simply not well known to people here?

I did not know about it. it is interesting, thanks.


Luckily, no one is talking about medicine which forcibly changes your sexuality or anything remotely close to it, because human sexuality is cerebral as well as hormonal.

While that is true, the building of the actual cerebral circuits involve from pre, perinatal and post to at least pubety hormonal exposure and possibly beyond. The exact how, when and why of how it works is ... horribly complicated and mostly vastly unknown due to the fact that you can't exaclty go experiment on humans directly and while Animals models are nice and good for studying underlying hormonals and cellulars mecanisms, they quicky show their shortcomings when it comes to behavior.

--------------------------------------
So I'm not going to enter those debates further but I just wanted to chimme in to confirm (sorry if this has already been said), in relation to this particular paper, that this study has pretty much zero perspective whatsoever in humans.

The vomeronasal organ is heavily degenerated (when not complelty absent) in adult humans and as far as I know renforced by a quick research, the TRPC2 gene is a non expressed pseudogene in primates *

Which is just as well, I suppose. It's might be worth something that among the recorded uses of the TRP2 channel in mice is the entry of calcium in the sperm, necessary for maturation an fecondation. So among the gender related issues that might crop up from TRP2, one might reasonably expect male sterility.

While I'm sure it would be an efficient long term way to get rid of all the filfthy violent menimals**, one fears there might somewhat of an overall negative effect on the renewal on the species as a whole.

*(Miller BA. H(2014) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24756702) , Vannier et al(1999) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10051594))
**(Battlefield earth screenwritters eat your heart ou...Oh it's already been done. Drat)

[AtlanteanTroll]

To be honest I interpreted Atlantean Troll as saying that he would be worried of changing sexuality, which I can understand. Having a medication change your sexuality just sounds wrong, doesn't it? Even if said change makes it more inclusive.
This kind of is what I was saying.


Luckily, no one is talking about medicine which forcibly changes your sexuality or anything remotely close to it, because human sexuality is cerebral as well as hormonal.

Unfortunately, this information will pass by like a ship in the night.
And your point is? We can change both hormonal as well as cerebral function.

[Coidzor]

And your point is? We can change both hormonal as well as cerebral function.

I'm pretty sure their point is that we shouldn't argue that forcing all men to be bisexual would raise ethical concerns when people say that they don't see any issue with such a course of action because it's too impossible to actually happen.

[SiuiS]

Smuchmuch, who did that avatar? Was it you? I love the colors and composition. Where did you go for inspiration or references? (Chinese Phoenix specifically)



And your point is? We can change both hormonal as well as cerebral function.

And we can eat fiber without digesting it, but that's not relevant to carpentry is it?

Someone mentions that in mice, there is a side effect which we have every reason to believe is completely mitigated by conscious thought and social mores. Someone else screams "how dare you consider forcing [side effect] on humanity!". My point that the side effect cannot be forced on humanity is pretty topical.

The ships in the night comment is because Kalmageddon has me blocked for daring to say science trumps his personal views on scientific matters, and so he's not going to see the response in context.


I'm pretty sure their point is that we shouldn't argue that forcing all men to be bisexual would raise ethical concerns when people say that they don't see any issue with such a course of action because it's too impossible to actually happen.

This, and it's also not possible to force all men to be bisexual.

[Frozen_Feet]

*Although on net, I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't give the edge to mice.

You, sir, have just given me an idea. A horrifying, horrifying idea.

In interest of not sidetracking this thread, I separated it to a new thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?352020-Universe-404-Internet-as-a-giant-Behavioral-Sink). You are invited.

[Coidzor]

Someone mentions that in mice, there is a side effect which we have every reason to believe is completely mitigated by conscious thought and social mores. Someone else screams "how dare you consider forcing [side effect] on humanity!". My point that the side effect cannot be forced on humanity is pretty topical.

You missed the part where someone expressed approval of just such a course of action which is more or less the same as saying one wants to do just that. :smalltongue:


This, and it's also not possible to force all men to be bisexual.

Which is irrelevant to someone wishing they could and being wrong for it. :smalltongue: It just means that thankfully they can never act on that desire.

[Zrak]

And we can eat fiber without digesting it, but that's not relevant to carpentry is it?

Spoken like someone who's never had to make a credenza while wracked with constipation.

[smuchmuch]

(Sorry for the sidetrack, jsut answering a question)


Smuchmuch, who did that avatar? Was it you? I love the colors and composition. Where did you go for inspiration or references? (Chinese Phoenix specifically)

It was made for me. reference images I got from a simple google search for 'Feng huang' and a short research on a few sites, don't quite remeber which ones, there might have been one image I might have used more than others (it's an old avatar remember everything) but the final result both color and pose wise is an original composite.