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If a program's code (DNA) has bugs that cause the system to fail when running without expensive workarounds (medical intervention), would that not be called bug

by thuffy 14y ago

If a program's code (DNA) has bugs that cause the system to fail when running without expensive workarounds (medical intervention), would that not be called bugs in the code? Also called defects? Thus it is defective code that cannot run without expensive workarounds. Your understanding of what is eugenics is flawed. What I am talking about is not eugenics. Eugenics is artificial selection for attempted good. What is happening is artificial selection that results in degeneration, which is bad. That is called dysgenics. I am against that, and thus you can only call my argument anti-dysgenic. Anyways, it is your comment that is absurd, as demonstrated by the majority of it being an insult. Try to remain civil - it better facilitates enlightenment of all parties to the discussion.

chris_wot 14y ago
You are seeing insults where there are none. I don't believe that comparing humanity with computer code is particularly wise. However, to use your analogy - if there is a bug in the code you fix it, and you correct any problems that the bug causes. That would be the ideal of modern science, but we aren't there yet. To be able to implement your ideas of genetic purity (which is basically your argument!) we would need to either a. Stop those with genetic "defects" from breeding, or b. withdraw treatment from them and hope they die before they have offspring, or c. end the life of those people to take away strain from the medical system and prevent them from reproducing. Regardless, to know this there would need to be mandatory mass screening of the population to make these determinations. Go work out the moral objections and monetary costs that would result from THAT, if you will! Furthermore, your original argument is that those with congenital defects cause excessive strain on health systems. Yet where do you get your figures from? I would be very interested. Yet there is more that you haven't considered. Using your own argument - which I find to be so terribly wrong - you haven't considered that not assisting those with a genetic defect may remove positive genetic attributes from the gene pool. Now you have the problem of judging whether one aspect of their genetics should cause them to propagate their genes. But if you do let that propagate, then you are exhibiting anti-dysgenics, which you abhore. What makes your argument particularly specious is that you never consider the intrinsic worth of the person receiving the treatment. On top of this, you think that it is moral to refuse treatment for those suffering from illnesses because they are defective. And yet they are not defective, they have a particular defect that is causing them medical problems. In short, I consider your ideas cruel, inequitable, poorly reasoned and ill-considered. That's not an insult: it's a reasoned opinion.
- thuffy 14y ago
  It is actually quite wise to consider DNA like any other programming language. It is a much more complicated language, being a spatial programming language, but it is a programming language none the less. Such a perspective provides great insight. Anyways, you are correct that we are not there yet with actually fixing the bugs in code. We are not even remotely close to that point unfortunately. The ideas of not subsidizing excessive defectiveness are a far cry from anything to do with genetic purity. It seems that you are in clear bias with a motive to shut down any discussion on the topic by poisoning the well of these truths by injecting labels such as 'genetic purity' and 'eugenics'. Any enlightened reader can see that your only arguments are appeals to emotion and guilt by association. A fallacious association as I have proved. My original argument is simply that subsidizing excessive defectiveness is increasing the amount of suffering in the world, not helping to reduce it as one might intuitively believe. You are correct however that it also causes an excessive burden. An ever increasing burden. Medicare costs are spiraling out of control in all nations with socialized medicine, that includes America (Medicare and Medicaid, de facto free emergency care, and so on). In fact, the American federal budget allocates more to socialized medicine than to the military. A military known for its expansive cost. It will only become worse with the new full blown explicit socialized medicare system recently affirmed by the supreme court. This dysgenic path humanity is taking is the primary reason for the ever increasing medicare costs of countries with socialist medicare. This is off-topic from my original point, however, I share it with you as you asked and said you were very interested. Your next paragraph is flawed in saying that somehow being anti-dysgenic is being dysgenic. I am advocating the lack of action. You are saying that requires selection? There is no selection I am calling for. I am advocating to let nature do the selection. I am calling for less artificial intervention. Not more. Your next point is also defective in saying that someone who has a defect is not defective. I refer you to my programming analogy from my previous comment. A system with such grave defects that it cannot operate without expensive workarounds is certainly worthy of being called defective. To your conclusion: you may feel such emotions regarding the harsh realities of the problem at hand, but emotions are not logic, and do not a reasoned opinion make.
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    Oh dear. A rebuttal looks to be in order: It is actually quite wise to consider DNA like any other programming language. It is a much more complicated language, being a spatial programming language, but it is a programming language none the less. Such a perspective provides great insight. I said, actually, "I don't believe that comparing humanity with computer code is particularly wise". However, you haven't proven anything in your sentence - you have made an assertion, but you haven't explained why this is a great insight. Anyways, you are correct that we are not there yet with actually fixing the bugs in code. We are not even remotely close to that point unfortunately. Indeed - to compare DNA to computer code, with computer code we can make changes to fix the problem. With DNA, we cannot do that as of yet. The ideas of not subsidizing excessive defectiveness are a far cry from anything to do with genetic purity. It seems that you are in clear bias with a motive to shut down any discussion on the topic by poisoning the well of these truths by injecting labels such as 'genetic purity' and 'eugenics'. Any enlightened reader can see that your only arguments are appeals to emotion and guilt by association. A fallacious association as I have proved. The ideas of not subsidizing "excessive defectiveness" are not a far cry at all. By discriminating against those who have congenital defects when it comes to providing health care, you are essentially labelling them as not fit to be supported by society. Furthermore, you have not explained what is exactly meant by "excessive defectiveness". For someone who doesn't like the term "genetic purity", you have a way of bandying about terms such as "excessive defectiveness" with abandon. This makes your protestations that I use appeals to emotion all the more interesting, given that you are currently doing this via ad hominem attacks (e.g. accusing me of poisoning the well of discourse and that my arguments are guilt by association, etc.). My original argument is simply that subsidizing excessive defectiveness is increasing the amount of suffering in the world, not helping to reduce it as one might intuitively believe. You are correct however that it also causes an excessive burden. An ever increasing burden. Medicare costs are spiraling out of control in all nations with socialized medicine, that includes America (Medicare and Medicaid, de facto free emergency care, and so on). In fact, the American federal budget allocates more to socialized medicine than to the military. A military known for its expansive cost. It will only become worse with the new full blown explicit socialized medicare system recently affirmed by the supreme court. This dysgenic path humanity is taking is the primary reason for the ever increasing medicare costs of countries with socialist medicare. This is off-topic from my original point, however, I share it with you as you asked and said you were very interested. Thank you for the attempt at information, but I haven't seen a single figure other than an assertion that medicine costs more than military spending in the U.S. Also, to put it finely, the United States does not equate to the entire world. You are, in fact, wrong when you say that medical costs are spiralling out of control in all nations with socialized medicine (what a wonderfully emotive term, by the way!). I live in Australia, which has a fantastic health system funded by the Federal and State Governments, with a parallel private health care system. Free health care for most medical conditions is given to all. Medical costs over here do indeed increase over time, but they have not been "spiralling out of control". In fact, costs have been increasing not because of congenital defects, but rather because of lifestyle issues such as overeating and lack of exercise. Quoting only the American Federal budget when making an assertion that "all nations with socialized medicine" is not only showing a very distorted world view, but one that is very easy to disprove - which I did above! I love the term "socialist medicare", incidentally. Well played - nothing quite like using a vague and emotive term that certain others find concerning. Your next paragraph is flawed in saying that somehow being anti-dysgenic is being dysgenic. I am advocating the lack of action. You are saying that requires selection? There is no selection I am calling for. I am advocating to let nature do the selection. I am calling for less artificial intervention. Not more. In that case, I apologize as I misunderstood your original assertion which is even more absurd than that which I thought you were saying! Next time you are sick, or if your eyesight starts failing due to a family traight, or if you have a congenital heart condition I strongly advise you to follow through your convictions and don't attempt to go to hospital. In fact, this must be a substantial cost saving as you don't have to fork out money for health insurance. I suppose those are the upsides to doing nothing. Your next point is also defective in saying that someone who has a defect is not defective. I refer you to my programming analogy from my previous comment. A system with such grave defects that it cannot operate without expensive workarounds is certainly worthy of being called defective. This point is defective in saying that someone with genetic strengths is not strong. I am, of course, being facetious. I would love to be a fly on the wall if you were to discuss your opinions with Steven Hawking. Though I'm not sure he would give you the time of day... To your conclusion: you may feel such emotions regarding the harsh realities of the problem at hand, but emotions are not logic, and do not a reasoned opinion make. "excessive defectiveness", "you are in clear bias with a motive to shut down any discussion on the topic by poisoning the well of these truths", "an enlightened reader", "socialized medicine", "Medicare costs are spiraling out of control". You are so sure of your argument that you have ignored all the opposing views and questions (I notice that you have not answered many of them) and do not even recognize your own emotive language!

by thuffy 14y ago

chris_wot 14y ago

You are seeing insults where there are none. I don't believe that comparing humanity with computer code is particularly wise. However, to use your analogy - if there is a bug in the code you fix it, and you correct any problems that the bug causes. That would be the ideal of modern science, but we aren't there yet. To be able to implement your ideas of genetic purity (which is basically your argument!) we would need to either a. Stop those with genetic "defects" from breeding, or b. withdraw treatment from them and hope they die before they have offspring, or c. end the life of those people to take away strain from the medical system and prevent them from reproducing. Regardless, to know this there would need to be mandatory mass screening of the population to make these determinations. Go work out the moral objections and monetary costs that would result from THAT, if you will! Furthermore, your original argument is that those with congenital defects cause excessive strain on health systems. Yet where do you get your figures from? I would be very interested. Yet there is more that you haven't considered. Using your own argument - which I find to be so terribly wrong - you haven't considered that not assisting those with a genetic defect may remove positive genetic attributes from the gene pool. Now you have the problem of judging whether one aspect of their genetics should cause them to propagate their genes. But if you do let that propagate, then you are exhibiting anti-dysgenics, which you abhore. What makes your argument particularly specious is that you never consider the intrinsic worth of the person receiving the treatment. On top of this, you think that it is moral to refuse treatment for those suffering from illnesses because they are defective. And yet they are not defective, they have a particular defect that is causing them medical problems. In short, I consider your ideas cruel, inequitable, poorly reasoned and ill-considered. That's not an insult: it's a reasoned opinion.

thuffy 14y ago
It is actually quite wise to consider DNA like any other programming language. It is a much more complicated language, being a spatial programming language, but it is a programming language none the less. Such a perspective provides great insight. Anyways, you are correct that we are not there yet with actually fixing the bugs in code. We are not even remotely close to that point unfortunately. The ideas of not subsidizing excessive defectiveness are a far cry from anything to do with genetic purity. It seems that you are in clear bias with a motive to shut down any discussion on the topic by poisoning the well of these truths by injecting labels such as 'genetic purity' and 'eugenics'. Any enlightened reader can see that your only arguments are appeals to emotion and guilt by association. A fallacious association as I have proved. My original argument is simply that subsidizing excessive defectiveness is increasing the amount of suffering in the world, not helping to reduce it as one might intuitively believe. You are correct however that it also causes an excessive burden. An ever increasing burden. Medicare costs are spiraling out of control in all nations with socialized medicine, that includes America (Medicare and Medicaid, de facto free emergency care, and so on). In fact, the American federal budget allocates more to socialized medicine than to the military. A military known for its expansive cost. It will only become worse with the new full blown explicit socialized medicare system recently affirmed by the supreme court. This dysgenic path humanity is taking is the primary reason for the ever increasing medicare costs of countries with socialist medicare. This is off-topic from my original point, however, I share it with you as you asked and said you were very interested. Your next paragraph is flawed in saying that somehow being anti-dysgenic is being dysgenic. I am advocating the lack of action. You are saying that requires selection? There is no selection I am calling for. I am advocating to let nature do the selection. I am calling for less artificial intervention. Not more. Your next point is also defective in saying that someone who has a defect is not defective. I refer you to my programming analogy from my previous comment. A system with such grave defects that it cannot operate without expensive workarounds is certainly worthy of being called defective. To your conclusion: you may feel such emotions regarding the harsh realities of the problem at hand, but emotions are not logic, and do not a reasoned opinion make.
- chris_wot 14y ago
  Oh dear. A rebuttal looks to be in order: It is actually quite wise to consider DNA like any other programming language. It is a much more complicated language, being a spatial programming language, but it is a programming language none the less. Such a perspective provides great insight. I said, actually, "I don't believe that comparing humanity with computer code is particularly wise". However, you haven't proven anything in your sentence - you have made an assertion, but you haven't explained why this is a great insight. Anyways, you are correct that we are not there yet with actually fixing the bugs in code. We are not even remotely close to that point unfortunately. Indeed - to compare DNA to computer code, with computer code we can make changes to fix the problem. With DNA, we cannot do that as of yet. The ideas of not subsidizing excessive defectiveness are a far cry from anything to do with genetic purity. It seems that you are in clear bias with a motive to shut down any discussion on the topic by poisoning the well of these truths by injecting labels such as 'genetic purity' and 'eugenics'. Any enlightened reader can see that your only arguments are appeals to emotion and guilt by association. A fallacious association as I have proved. The ideas of not subsidizing "excessive defectiveness" are not a far cry at all. By discriminating against those who have congenital defects when it comes to providing health care, you are essentially labelling them as not fit to be supported by society. Furthermore, you have not explained what is exactly meant by "excessive defectiveness". For someone who doesn't like the term "genetic purity", you have a way of bandying about terms such as "excessive defectiveness" with abandon. This makes your protestations that I use appeals to emotion all the more interesting, given that you are currently doing this via ad hominem attacks (e.g. accusing me of poisoning the well of discourse and that my arguments are guilt by association, etc.). My original argument is simply that subsidizing excessive defectiveness is increasing the amount of suffering in the world, not helping to reduce it as one might intuitively believe. You are correct however that it also causes an excessive burden. An ever increasing burden. Medicare costs are spiraling out of control in all nations with socialized medicine, that includes America (Medicare and Medicaid, de facto free emergency care, and so on). In fact, the American federal budget allocates more to socialized medicine than to the military. A military known for its expansive cost. It will only become worse with the new full blown explicit socialized medicare system recently affirmed by the supreme court. This dysgenic path humanity is taking is the primary reason for the ever increasing medicare costs of countries with socialist medicare. This is off-topic from my original point, however, I share it with you as you asked and said you were very interested. Thank you for the attempt at information, but I haven't seen a single figure other than an assertion that medicine costs more than military spending in the U.S. Also, to put it finely, the United States does not equate to the entire world. You are, in fact, wrong when you say that medical costs are spiralling out of control in all nations with socialized medicine (what a wonderfully emotive term, by the way!). I live in Australia, which has a fantastic health system funded by the Federal and State Governments, with a parallel private health care system. Free health care for most medical conditions is given to all. Medical costs over here do indeed increase over time, but they have not been "spiralling out of control". In fact, costs have been increasing not because of congenital defects, but rather because of lifestyle issues such as overeating and lack of exercise. Quoting only the American Federal budget when making an assertion that "all nations with socialized medicine" is not only showing a very distorted world view, but one that is very easy to disprove - which I did above! I love the term "socialist medicare", incidentally. Well played - nothing quite like using a vague and emotive term that certain others find concerning. Your next paragraph is flawed in saying that somehow being anti-dysgenic is being dysgenic. I am advocating the lack of action. You are saying that requires selection? There is no selection I am calling for. I am advocating to let nature do the selection. I am calling for less artificial intervention. Not more. In that case, I apologize as I misunderstood your original assertion which is even more absurd than that which I thought you were saying! Next time you are sick, or if your eyesight starts failing due to a family traight, or if you have a congenital heart condition I strongly advise you to follow through your convictions and don't attempt to go to hospital. In fact, this must be a substantial cost saving as you don't have to fork out money for health insurance. I suppose those are the upsides to doing nothing. Your next point is also defective in saying that someone who has a defect is not defective. I refer you to my programming analogy from my previous comment. A system with such grave defects that it cannot operate without expensive workarounds is certainly worthy of being called defective. This point is defective in saying that someone with genetic strengths is not strong. I am, of course, being facetious. I would love to be a fly on the wall if you were to discuss your opinions with Steven Hawking. Though I'm not sure he would give you the time of day... To your conclusion: you may feel such emotions regarding the harsh realities of the problem at hand, but emotions are not logic, and do not a reasoned opinion make. "excessive defectiveness", "you are in clear bias with a motive to shut down any discussion on the topic by poisoning the well of these truths", "an enlightened reader", "socialized medicine", "Medicare costs are spiraling out of control". You are so sure of your argument that you have ignored all the opposing views and questions (I notice that you have not answered many of them) and do not even recognize your own emotive language!