Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Let's put people down when they turn 60 before they become a drain on society, healthcare and stuff.

"When I was your age, we called the guy that poured our cokes Sode Jerks!"

"That's nice, grandma. Time to take your cyanide pills."

Yay, the kind of thread where the first to discuss it is the first to volunteer! Your services to your country are appreciated. Government men will be with you shortly.

 kronk wrote:
Let's put people down when they turn 60 before they become a drain on society, healthcare and stuff.

"When I was your age, we called the guy that poured our cokes Sode Jerks!"

"That's nice, grandma. Time to take your cyanide pills."

Could we also add people who haven't left their parent's house by the age of 21 - drain on their parents

 Wolfstan wrote:
Modern living does it. There was a program about the Romans in Britain and the guy pointed out how much weaker we are compared to that era. Ran through a typical day for a Roman soldier working Hadrian's Wall. Made me wince Just think of how much stronger a Viking warrior would of been from all that rowing. Then there's the research they did on the bones of the archers & sailors from the Mary Rose, showed how powerful their arms and chests were.

Yes we are weaker, but we do live longer and have a better quality of life (in the West that is)

I'd dispute the lack of strength. I'd proffer most of the human race is not different then it was 100, 500, or 1,000 years ago. Farmer Akhmed in Pakistan is living a life not that much different than 1014.

Just because hipster Joe can barely lift his frapaccino doesn't mean the rest of the world is like that.

 PotentiallyLethal wrote:

 kronk wrote:
Let's put people down when they turn 60 before they become a drain on society, healthcare and stuff.

"When I was your age, we called the guy that poured our cokes Sode Jerks!"

"That's nice, grandma. Time to take your cyanide pills."

Could we also add people who haven't left their parent's house by the age of 21 - drain on their parents

Nope. See, the reason we would be putting down 60+'s is because they are wasting resources that members of the reproductive population could use. However, the stay-at-homes carry their parents genes, and so it is still advantageous to the parents to keep them alive. Genes could be passed on (small though the chances are).

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
Evolution doesn't make a species "stronger," it makes a species more adapted to its environment. Part of that environment is the medical technology available. Evolution will make us a species better adapted to our current environment, including available medical technology, social conditions, etc. with the caveat that evolution moves a heck of a lot slower than those things change, so its effects will be questionable.

That wouldn't be evolution, just adaptation.

The interesting thing is that by not putting down people who we perceive as weakening the human race, we're increasing both the amount of reproduction that's going on, and the amount of genetic variation present.

In a lot of ways, that will probably make us stronger as a whole in case some fictional virus shows up and kills everyone who's not blonde or colorblind or something bizarre like that.

Lets have all people fight each other. The last man and woman standing get to create the first prototypes of the new Übermensch.
Nietzsche would approve of this thread.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Nietzsche would approve of this thread.

I hope you are being sardonic.

Interesting how I haven't yet mentioned breeding or selective genetics....and yet people go immediately toward eugenics.

My question had nothing to do with reproduction or breeding.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Wolfstan wrote:
Modern living does it. There was a program about the Romans in Britain and the guy pointed out how much weaker we are compared to that era. Ran through a typical day for a Roman soldier working Hadrian's Wall. Made me wince Just think of how much stronger a Viking warrior would of been from all that rowing. Then there's the research they did on the bones of the archers & sailors from the Mary Rose, showed how powerful their arms and chests were.

Yes we are weaker, but we do live longer and have a better quality of life (in the West that is)

I'd dispute the lack of strength. I'd proffer most of the human race is not different then it was 100, 500, or 1,000 years ago. Farmer Akhmed in Pakistan is living a life not that much different than 1014.

Just because hipster Joe can barely lift his frapaccino doesn't mean the rest of the world is like that.

Diet plays a role here too. Sure, fast food, obesity, blah blah. But people today can pack on far more muscle mass, even without the use of PEDs.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Nietzsche would approve of this thread.

I hope you are being sardonic.

Nietzche, misunderstood by everyone since 1844

 TheMeanDM wrote:
Interesting how I haven't yet mentioned breeding or selective genetics....and yet people go immediately toward eugenics.

My question had nothing to do with reproduction or breeding.

Please.
It had everything to do with that.
Asking if current medical technology makes the human race weaker essentially opens the door to this kind of discussion if it doesn't invite it inside and have dinner with it.

It's this funny thing where people delude themselves into thinking they're not talking about something unpleasant even though they are. Like "not to be racist but" statements with a lot more words

Eventually its going to come down to Citizen or Civilian

Pick up the can Civilian

To learn more click here

 Jihadin wrote:
Eventually its going to come down to Citizen or Civilian

Pick up the can Civilian

To learn more click here

No, seriously...it's a question about medical advancements.

Do you think that they have made us a weaker species overall?

If some diseases were allowed to run their course....would humanity be better off due to building up a natural adaptation (e.g. evolving) to resisting such diseases?

There are always going to be genetic goof-ups (down syndrome, for example) as well as physical foul ups (congenital defects of xyz). Those aren't really preventable (yet).

So...how does this all equate to eugenics?

Answer: it doesn't

 TheMeanDM wrote:
No, seriously...it's a question about medical advancements.

Do you think that they have made us a weaker species overall?

If some diseases were allowed to run their course....would humanity be better off due to building up a natural adaptation (e.g. evolving) to resisting such diseases?

There are always going to be genetic goof-ups (down syndrome, for example) as well as physical foul ups (congenital defects of xyz). Those aren't really preventable (yet).

So...how does this all equate to eugenics?

Answer: it doesn't

Then you have the wrong answer.

Eugenics (/juːˈdʒɛnɪks/; from Greek eu, meaning "good/well", and -genēs, meaning "born") is the belief and practice of improving the genetic quality of the human population.[2][3] It is a social philosophy advocating the improvement of human genetic traits through the promotion of higher reproduction of people with desired traits (positive eugenics), and reduced reproduction of people with less-desired or undesired traits (negative eugenics).[4]

I think that there's no easy was you can ask "should evolution be allowed to naturally keep our population controlled or should we do everything within our technology to stop the natural adaptation of humanity to its environment?" and not suggest "a social philosophy advocating the improvement of human genetic traits through the promotion of higher reproduction of people with desired traits (positive eugenics), and reduced reproduction of people with less-desired or undesired traits (negative eugenics)." without being either disingenuous or show a stunning lack of understanding of evolution.

Eugenics isn't just Gattica.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Human Beings are physically one of the weakest species on the planet. W/O Medical care we rarely live past 40. Our primary adaptibility is our intelligence, our ability to communicate and create. Our Upright body with dexterous fingers is not adapted to any form of enviroment. We can survive an most enviroments due to our ability to rapidly adapt.

It should be noted that the quality of our manual dexterity cannot possibly be understated enough. We have the finest motor skills of any known species to a radical degree. What we consider the simple act of aiming and throwing something at a moving target is miraculously advanced compared to any other species on the planet. Similarly, our manual dexterity is unmatched. While other species have been observed creating, modifying, and manipulating tools for use, obviously nothing has managed to come close to us. It's not just our rapid ability to adapt that has caused us to thrive, but our ability to force our environments to change around us as well.

 Fafnir wrote:
Similarly, our manual dexterity is unmatched.

That's what she said

 LordofHats wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Similarly, our manual dexterity is unmatched.

That's what she said

The truth behind human evolution is that since the beginning of time, man has been in an endless quest to find the most effective method of stimulating the clitoris. Everything else has simply been a side effect of that evolutionary journey.

Plus it's compensation for not having spikes on our dicks (can't believe I just wrote that).

 Cheesecat wrote:
Plus it's compensation for not having spikes on our dicks (can't believe I just wrote that).

And I can't believe you didn't write it sooner!

 TheMeanDM wrote:
Are we unintentionally creating a weaker humanity through our use of medical technology?

It depends very much on how you define "weakness". A large part of fitness is efficiency. I believe the saying goes: "Small as you can; big as you need". This is often the case with evolution.

In fact the human brain has been steadily shrinking for about 50,000 years. Modern human brains are about 10% smaller than those of our ancestors, which is a significant difference. There was a lot of a pressure on our ancestors to be smart and innovative. Having no large claws or teeth, they literally survived on their wits. We just don't have that kind of pressure, so it is not necessary for us to maintain such a large brain, especially when there might be other traits that are more desirable. For example a modern city dweller's immune-system might need to be considerably stronger than the immune-system of an early hunter-gatherer. Over time evolution will happily trade 20 non-essential IQ points for a trait that prevents death from plague.

The truth is we already grew dependent on our technology thousands of years ago. Tools, clothing, cooking, agriculture, it is hard to imagine how we would get by without these things. Even our big brain has grown dependent on society to provide our meals and started to shrink. Medical science is just another rung in the ladder. And yes we may very well evolve to be dependent on that too, but that doesn't necessarily mean we are weaker.

A very long time ago our ancestors lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C. This vitamin is absolutely essential for metabolic reactions in all animals and plants; nearly all living things are able to synthesize it themselves (cats, dogs, cows, fish, daffodils). But for some unprecedented reason evolution decided that we were better off without it. No one really knows why, but it is likely that vitamin C synthesis was the price we paid for a more useful adaptation. Unfortunately now we're all completely dependent on fresh fruit in order to not die from scurvy... But we seem to do okay. As do the other apes and monkeys who share our ancestry .

In the future perhaps everyone will be diabetic and unable to synthesize insulin... They would of course all be dependent on medical science to supply insulin for them (just as we are dependent on fruit to provide vitamin C). You could be forgiven for thinking that these people had grown "weaker" or lost fitness. But the truth is, traits don't usually proliferate unless they are beneficial. By losing the ability to synthesize insulin, future humans might acquire a more desirable trait that makes them "fitter" than us in some other arena of survival.

Traits don't usually die out unless they are damaging or just not needed in some way. We don't know why we lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C but it's possible it was a random genetic mutation in a few individuals that spread because it didn't effect the lives of the carriers.

Evolution doesn't just cause a species to drop a trait and in return pick up a different trait either. It's not swapsies.

Humans are more or less outside the regular rules of evolution to a degree because of our technology. We have no genuine selective pressure either because of this.

 Smacks wrote:

 TheMeanDM wrote:
Are we unintentionally creating a weaker humanity through our use of medical technology?

A very long time ago our ancestors lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C. This vitamin is absolutely essential for metabolic reactions in all animals and plants; nearly all living things are able to synthesize it themselves (cats, dogs, cows, fish, daffodils). But for some unprecedented reason evolution decided that we were better off without it. No one really knows why, but it is likely that vitamin C synthesis was the price we paid for a more useful adaptation. Unfortunately now we're all completely dependent on fresh fruit in order to not die from scurvy... But we seem to do okay. As do the other apes and monkeys who share our ancestry .

The ability to synthesize all the vitamins humans now need to get with their meals is very demanding on the organism, it consumes quite a lot of energy, as far as I know. In an environment where it is easy to get your vitamin C with your regular nutrition, humans apparently were better off "outsourcing" the vitamin C production and using the saved energy for other processes. I'm just starting to grasp biochemistry, though, so I can't provide more details about this.

 purplefood wrote:
Traits don't usually die out unless they are damaging or just not needed in some way. We don't know why we lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C but it's possible it was a random genetic mutation in a few individuals that spread because it didn't effect the lives of the carriers.

Evolution doesn't just cause a species to drop a trait and in return pick up a different trait either. It's not swapsies.

Humans are more or less outside the regular rules of evolution to a degree because of our technology. We have no genuine selective pressure either because of this.

I was not suggesting that it is as simple as "swapsies". However you should not be so quick to rule that out either. Soviet scientist Dmitry Belyaev's experiments with Siberian Foxes yielded some fascinating results in that area. He bred the foxes only for tameness. However over time as tameness was promoted the foxes also acquired many other traits which can only be described as "dog-like". Which suggests that the gene responsible for tameness in canines might also be responsible for floppy ears and a whole bunch of other stuff. It is not inconceivable that the gene responsible for synthesizing vitamin C is also responsible for another trait which wasn't beneficial.

This is beside the point though, and not what I was talking about. The fact is the vitamin C deficiency didn't just spread, it completely supplanted the creatures who could synthesis vitamin C. This shows that the creatures with the deficiency were in the end "fitter". It doesn't matter if there is a direct causal relationship or not. It might be that the fittest creatures, just happened to have a vitamin C deficiency and it was completely incidental.

The point is all animals are in some way dependent on something. Our ancestors were dependent on fruit, without it they would have died, and we would have never existed. With it they prospered and proved to be fitter than the animals who were not dependent. By the same measure our descendants might end up dependent on medical science, without it they would die, but with it they might actually prove fitter that us. So we shouldn't just write them off as weak, they just have a different set of dependencies.

Also I do not believe that humans are "outside the regular rules for evolution" at all. People are evolving all the time, especially when it comes to immunity. We also have recent traits such as the European ability to digest lactose (there's a long list of these recent adaptations which I'm sure I don't need to bore you with here, but they are easy to find online).

 Witzkatz wrote:
The ability to synthesize all the vitamins humans now need to get with their meals is very demanding on the organism, it consumes quite a lot of energy, as far as I know. In an environment where it is easy to get your vitamin C with your regular nutrition, humans apparently were better off "outsourcing" the vitamin C production and using the saved energy for other processes. I'm just starting to grasp biochemistry, though, so I can't provide more details about this.

That sounds like a reasonable hypothesis. TBH I haven't really read about this for some time, or what the prevailing theory is. But it is my understanding that all animals (almost) have outsourced the photosynthesis of carbohydrates. Certainly 'outsourcing' must be beneficial since there is an entire Kingdom of organisms based on that single adaptation. Animals certainly do seem more 'energetic' than plants

 welshhoppo wrote:
...and one race of sub-human goblinoid.

I don't have much to say on the subject other than the term "goblinoid" made me actually laugh out loud.

I do have one thing - I wish I knew why human's have terrible teeth and eyes. I mean, how did we evolve so well when half of people now a days need something to help them see? Hell, I can think of three different people I game with (along with myself) on a normal basis that are completely useless without glasses/contacts.

 mega_bassist wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
...and one race of sub-human goblinoid.

I don't have much to say on the subject other than the term "goblinoid" made me actually laugh out loud.

I do have one thing - I wish I knew why human's have terrible teeth and eyes. I mean, how did we evolve so well when half of people now a days need something to help them see? Hell, I can think of three different people I game with (along with myself) on a normal basis that are completely useless without glasses/contacts.

You see, because you are now reliant on medical technology you are now weak.
Be grateful we live in a cultured society or you'd be dead or on fire or whatever happens to savages when they can't make the tea.