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Eugenics research is disruptive?

Why not phrenology?


Studying the genetic basis for various characteristics is not eugenics, anymore than studying the atom is building a nuclear weapon. Abuse of knowledge should be controlled, but banning the pursuit of knowledge itself?

That's just intentionally crippling our own understanding of the world, for fear that we might not like what we discover. That's hardly an unprecedented behavior, to say the least, but the cultures that have gone that direction are probably not the sort we might want to emulate.


I too am a socialist. But I believe people are different: hereditarily and culturally.

I assume only people like me and maybe a few like you will know what this means, but doesn't it upset you that I can freely say it?


> people born with family whealth (sic)

Most successful Phillips Exeter graduate doesn't quite have that ring for the Horatio Alger idea that is being pushed.


Ok let us go down Forbes 2022 billionaires list

Musk - father owned diamond mines

Bezos - alluded to in article - big loan from parents

Arnault - father owned Ferret-Savinel

Gates - born with million dollar trust fund, grandfather ran bank, mother on board with IBM's Opel etc.

Buffett - grandfather owned chain of stores, father a congressman


The claim was millionaire, not billionaire. Gotta keep going.


The US military just shifted its bloody campaigns in Afghanistan and Libya to a bloody war against Russia, a focus of its new massive military budget while it cries poverty regarding the needs of even its own workers for domestic programs.

That the Christian holiday is tied into the US military apparatus with its imperial bases and adventures throughout the world is no surprise.


This article goes on about progress for blacks in the US...a half century ago the New York City magnet school Stuyvesant had hundreds of black students (over 300). In recent years the number accepted each year has been 7 or 8 each year, with a student body of over 3000. Efforts to bring students in from different neighborhoods have resulted in massive political efforts against that. This is just one data point, but would shape local people's perceptions toward progress, and opposition seems even more vociferous in other parts of the country.

I put my trust in how the average person thinks things are going, not from people on high telling us everything is great and why don't we recognize this. In the past year our industry has seen stocks tank, and layoffs increasing along with the fed funds rate. Someone having to push a story of how great everything is will get a cool response. People can assess how things are going, despite efforts from on high that people are mistaken in how great things are going.


The security clearance he was stripped of was set to lapse a day afterward anyhow. After all his effort and contributions, he was attacked out of spite.


The Russian military has been in the Crimea since the time there were British redcoats stationed in New York City, before the USA existed.


Just as that fact doesn't grant England possession of NYC, it is entirely meaningless in 2014.


Karl Marx said unemployment was a foundational necessity of capitalism (although not the feudalism that preceded capitalism), so I don't see this program lasting long ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour ).


No need to bother Marx, plenty of economists will tell you that the market needs unemployment or "bad things will happen".

I think unemployment simply can't be solved in a capitalist society, as it would expose a major contradiction of liberist economies.

We tell people they have to work or they're parasites and don't deserve to have their basic needs covered, but at the same time we need a mass of them to be out of work, in order to be able to exploit the rest.

So much of our lifestyle is built on exploitation of the working class, be it local or foreign.


This was published seven years ago. Its arguments are very sketchy - as if settling nurture versus nature for humans were not social science, as opposed to science.

If identical twins are raised in a wealthy household versus a poor household, how can one determine traits coming from inheritance versus environment? This analysis does not really answer it.

The data of identical twins separated at birth is very light, as one can imagine. A look at the data of the major studies shows there really is not a lot of data - twins are separated at the age of 9 or so, or sometimes are separated at birth and then reunited.

Many of these twin studies are funded by the strange but well-funded Pioneer Fund. You can check out what they were up to in the 1930s if you're interested.


https://www.pioneerfund.vc/ ??? !!

( A fund of 300+ Y Combinator alumni investing in the top companies of YC and our Venture Partner network. )

Interesting coincidence, but I'm guessing you were referring to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Fund

> an American non-profit foundation established in 1937 "to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences".

> The organization has been described as racist and white supremacist in nature.

> One of its first projects was to fund the distribution in US churches and schools of Erbkrank, a Nazi propaganda film about eugenics.


> Taiwan as a sovereign state

Does the USA recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state? No.

Does the PRC recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state? No.

Does Taiwan recognize itself as a sovereign state separate from mainland China? No.


The US position is just politics between super powers. They’re literally sending high technology weapons to counter China.

The only body that makes decisions about Taiwan is the Taiwanese government. It has 100% control of the land within its borders.

Not sure how much more sovereign you can get than that.


> The only body that makes decisions about Taiwan is the Taiwanese government. It has 100% control of the land within its borders.

Being that the Taiwanese government claims Beijing and Shanghai as being within its borders, I don't think that this is the case.


Again politics.

It’s a sovereign state with claims over a larger territory than it controls.


> Does Taiwan recognize itself as a sovereign state separate from mainland China? No.

The Republic of China (Taiwan) is not going to say that China is separate from china. Their position is that Taiwan is the rightful ruler of mainland china (currently controlled by the communist party).


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