Should society consider mandatory sterilization?

originally posted by: crazyewok

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: crazyewok

Yeah, i know you're not talking about race. I wanted to make sure i was clear that I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth.

It highlights the problem (as mentioned): you propose it to be this way, but it never works out this way. It works out that other way.

I guess that is the fudemental flaw is that human nature will take it to far.

It still leaves us though with the huge issue of overpopulation.

Here's what I don't get. Why is "overpopulation" such a bad thing anyway? As long as you have enough food & resources for yourself & your loved ones, why do you care so much what others are doing in their lives or in completely different countries? And if you don't have enough food or resources for yourself and your loved ones, how is sterilizing people on the other side of the world going to help your situation? Those people aren't the ones taxing you or imposing crappy laws on you. They're also not the ones controlling the global system of wealth & resource distribution, aka "trade".

So even if 80% of the world's population vanished overnight, what makes you think things would get better? In the year 1900, there were roughly 1.5 billion people on Earth. But guess what? There were still massive wars & crappy laws, and the governments were completely ruled by dictators, royalty, robber barons, and powerbrokers. So why do you suddenly think the world would be better off now if a lot of the poor and "undesirable" people were gone?

It's not like the people left over would suddenly give up their greed & vices and usher in a utopian world. Racism & bigotry would still exist. Rapes, murders, stealing, fraud, and every other crime would still exist. Competition over resources would still exist. Countries would still fight over borders & regional influence. What would supposedly change that makes a lower population more desirable?

Edit to Add: Oh yeah, and it's not like the poor people or "undesirable" people are the ones shortchanging their workers or jacking up interest rates & the costs for their products. Even if large sections of every demographic disappeared overnight, banks would still rip off their customers and companies would still work their employees for minimal wages.

In fact, I'd imagine things would get even worse for the survivors since banks wouldn't just throw away their now delinquent loans. & government contractors would have no incentive to renegotiate the terms of their now-overly expensive contracts. And central banks & owners of government debt wouldn't reduce the amount of debt proportionate to the reduced population. They'd force governments to bail them out & the remaining tax payers would be stuck with the burden of paying for it. Look at Japan, which has a declining birthrate. I highly doubt the groups I mentioned are throwing away the debts they're owed just because the country has decreasing population trends. So why should we assume they would suddenly change from business as usual with a lower population?

There are already far too many people in the world.

If we have a bad year for farming, millions will die of starvation.

Yet if you talk about sterilization, you are immediately called a Hilter.

It is time that the world take a serious looks at how to limit it's birth rate. You could start with free birth control for poor nations.

Hitler believed in a master race.. I don't believe in a master race but I do think that it's time to address overpopulation. Sadly the easiest target would be poor uneducated populations.

Those who wish to see such a program in place could perhaps volunteer for the first round themselves........

originally posted by: enlightenedservant

originally posted by: crazyewok

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: crazyewok

Yeah, i know you're not talking about race. I wanted to make sure i was clear that I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth.

It highlights the problem (as mentioned): you propose it to be this way, but it never works out this way. It works out that other way.

I guess that is the fudemental flaw is that human nature will take it to far.

It still leaves us though with the huge issue of overpopulation.

Here's what I don't get. Why is "overpopulation" such a bad thing anyway? As long as you have enough food & resources for yourself & your loved ones, why do you care so much what others are doing in their lives or in completely different countries? And if you don't have enough food or resources for yourself and your loved ones, how is sterilizing people on the other side of the world going to help your situation? Those people aren't the ones taxing you or imposing crappy laws on you. They're also not the ones controlling the global system of wealth & resource distribution, aka "trade".

So even if 80% of the world's population vanished overnight, what makes you think things would get better? In the year 1900, there were roughly 1.5 billion people on Earth. But guess what? There were still massive wars & crappy laws, and the governments were completely ruled by dictators, royalty, robber barons, and powerbrokers. So why do you suddenly think the world would be better off now if a lot of the poor and "undesirable" people were gone?

It's not like the people left over would suddenly give up their greed & vices and usher in a utopian world. Racism & bigotry would still exist. Rapes, murders, stealing, fraud, and every other crime would still exist. Competition over resources would still exist. Countries would still fight over borders & regional influence. What would supposedly change that makes a lower population more desirable?

Edit to Add: Oh yeah, and it's not like the poor people or "undesirable" people are the ones shortchanging their workers or jacking up interest rates & the costs for their products. Even if large sections of every demographic disappeared overnight, banks would still rip off their customers and companies would still work their employees for minimal wages.

In fact, I'd imagine things would get even worse for the survivors since banks wouldn't just throw away their now delinquent loans. & government contractors would have no incentive to renegotiate the terms of their now-overly expensive contracts. And central banks & owners of government debt wouldn't reduce the amount of debt proportionate to the reduced population. They'd force governments to bail them out & the remaining tax payers would be stuck with the burden of paying for it. Look at Japan, which has a declining birthrate. I highly doubt the groups I mentioned are throwing away the debts they're owed just because the country has decreasing population trends. So why should we assume they would suddenly change from business as usual with a lower population?

Its' not.

The population of UK, europe, russia and soon china are in population collapse. the US barely squeaks by with positive growth.i am not certain (tongue in cheek) but i think we need to at least replace our population in order for all the goobermint goodies to keep being paid for and for the economy to work and for society to work.

Forced sterilization isn't new...

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina – A child as young as nine years old. A 21-year-old mother of six who, a social worker complained, “made no effort to curb her sexual desires.” A woman who, the state’s official Eugenics Board worried, “wears men’s clothing all [the] time.” People considered “feeble-minded” on the basis of dubious testing.

The targets of that board’s 45-year reign, from 1929 to 1974, were disproportionately black and female, and almost universally poor. They included victims of rape and incest, women who were already mothers – and then their daughters, too. The state’s remedy for all of them: Forced or coerced sterilization.

“These people were dehumanized,” said Latoya Adams, whose aunt, Deborah Blackmon, was sterilized under the state’s eugenics law. “They treated them like animals.”

Blackmon was among the last to be sterilized, in 1972. The court documents Adams has since obtained read,

“Final diagnoses: Mental retardation, severe.
Eugenic sterilization.
Total abdominal hysterectomy.”

Blackmon was only 14.

North Carolina sterilized 7,600 people through its sweeping eugenic sterilization program, but it wasn’t alone. Thirty states had, and enforced, eugenic sterilization laws on the books, initially on the now-discredited theory that preventing the “defective” from reproducing would benefit humanity.

In addition to North Carolina, the first state to actually begin compensating victims, thirty states had similar laws. Eugenics has been around a lot longer than most folks realize, and it's likely the Nazi Eugenics programs took their playbook from directly from the Western Aristocracy.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

There are many smart people who are poor. This world is not fair and we all do not get the same opportunities in life and that has nothing to do with low IQ people or people with bad genetics.

Okay dude, lets take the idea you outlined in the OP and consider it hypothetically for a moment. How exactly are you going to convince less or more than roughly 80% of the human gene pool to voluntarily be sterilized? Or is involuntariness mentioned in your Op? What exactly are you basing your reasoning off of? You say in the OP that entire families and genetic lineages may inherit traits that decrease I.Q scores and overall intelligence, yet you than claim here that both environment and genetic variables have no effect over one's intelligence and behavioral function in society.

What constitutes as intelligence?
What constitutes as a mentally deficient human being?
There is no conclusive method to measure it universally so your absolutist argument is invalid. Also who get's to decide who is mentally unfit to live?
You? Me? God(s)? Politicians? A computer? Regardless the abuse of power is too great and it has been proven time and time again that ethnic cleansing soon follows after political ideas such as this are handed over to the authority of sociopaths. Unfortunately for you sociopaths are created through the environment so regardless of how many you breed out, it won't take long before another one is psychologically damaged enough to become sociopathic.

originally posted by: NateTheAnimator
a reply to: DeathSlayer

There are many smart people who are poor. This world is not fair and we all do not get the same opportunities in life and that has nothing to do with low IQ people or people with bad genetics.

Okay dude, lets take the idea you outlined in the OP and consider it hypothetically for a moment. How exactly are you going to convince less or more than roughly 80% of the human gene pool to voluntarily be sterilized? Or is involuntariness mentioned in your Op? What exactly are you basing your reasoning off of? You say in the OP that entire families and genetic lineages may inherit traits that decrease I.Q scores and overall intelligence, yet you than claim here that both environment and genetic variables have no effect over one's intelligence and behavioral function in society.

What constitutes as intelligence?
What constitutes as a mentally deficient human being?
There is no conclusive method to measure it universally so your absolutist argument is invalid. Also who get's to decide who is mentally unfit to live?
You? Me? God(s)? Politicians? A computer? Regardless the abuse of power is too great and it has been proven time and time again that ethnic cleansing soon follows after political ideas such as this are handed over to the authority of sociopaths. Unfortunately for you sociopaths are created through the environment so regardless of how many you breed out, it won't take long before another one is psychologically damaged enough to become sociopathic.

Well DUDE.... I guess you need to re-read the OP..... I NEVER said 80% needed to be sterilized did I? Here I quote a joke from Bill Burr which is clearly stated in the OP isn't it and you twist it don't you?

So DUDE re-read the post and re-ask your question because you might have a better question then the one above.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

I see no reason we can not begin to chlorinate the gene pool a bit. The world does seem to need it. We can not as a planet continue to sustain population growth as this rate. Yes negative genetic traits should be stopped dead in their tracks. I know that this would end up in a word a lot like Gattaca where it would turn into a class divide as to who has the best DNA, but I feel that to basically be inevitable anyway.

originally posted by: bandersnatch
Those who wish to see such a program in place could perhaps volunteer for the first round themselves........

Sure I would. Happily. I’m not a short sighted selfish fool and can see the impending catastrophe.

originally posted by: sycomix
a reply to: DeathSlayer

I see no reason we can not begin to chlorinate the gene pool a bit. The world does seem to need it. We can not as a planet continue to sustain population growth as this rate. Yes negative genetic traits should be stopped dead in their tracks. I know that this would end up in a word a lot like Gattaca where it would turn into a class divide as to who has the best DNA, but I feel that to basically be inevitable anyway.

I agree BUT with one difference .... we need to have fail safe security so no government or rich people can manipulate the process. I think this is the only challenge maybe the word danger would be best.....because if we let governments get involved then we would be no better off than we are now.

It would have to be a independent world wide agency of scientist with full disclosure with online internet and on the ground independent investigators where nothing is hidden. Full research (online) disclosure for every sterilized person. Introducing a new law that protects all races where race and gender does not matter.....what matters is stopping the spreading of hereditary diseases and illness.

a reply to: sycomix

We can not as a planet continue to sustain population growth as this rate.

This does not seem to be the case. While there may be isolated areas that appear overpopulated, there are other places where this is not only not true, but is a considered a severe problem.

Isn't the reason why Europe is in the middle of a mass immigration right now, because there isn't enough people in one place and too many people in another?

Aging Europe needs the migrants it doesn't want

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

In order to feed the continually growing population (exponentially growing population), we will need the help of science

But, like you point out: Europe is in a bit of a crisis. I think social stress from population creates its own solutions (less children born because of various reasons).

originally posted by: Wildbob77
There are already far too many people in the world.

If we have a bad year for farming, millions will die of starvation.

Yet if you talk about sterilization, you are immediately called a Hilter.

It is time that the world take a serious looks at how to limit it's birth rate. You could start with free birth control for poor nations.

Hitler believed in a master race.. I don't believe in a master race but I do think that it's time to address overpopulation. Sadly the easiest target would be poor uneducated populations.

From what i hear, this proposal to sterilize people is made out of fear, it is because of the fear of OVERPOPULATION
So lets slow down a bit here, and try to define what exactly is your fears. What is OVERPOPULATION??

Its not that we doesnt have any room for more people, so what is it then?
Is it because of the polution and overconsumption??? cause then the solution might be waste reduction instead, thats why its so chocking to hear a proposal like this, cause THERE IS a lot of better solutions to those problems. So unless you think human beings are waste, waste reduction should be the first thing to explore

If it has to be control, and enforced by law, wouldnt it be better and more simple, to demand that you plant X trees on a piece of land for your offspring to live on and by, if you get any children, or something less drastic like that??

Are you guys aware of the term Planned obsolescence, which basicly means that EVERYTHING we build, are made to last around 2 years, so you will keep buying new products...

I KNOW youre aware that we buy a lot of stuff from places like china, cause its cheaper to produce in poor countries, with poor and poluting factories, and no safety concerns for their workers, dont mind we have to polute and waste resources to transport it to our homes... And we got filters in our cars, so they cant blame us, right??

You have properly heard from politicians and such, that we need to create more jobs, right?
Do you know, that is because we DONT NEED anymore workers?? we can already produce and create most things, with machine powered tools, but if we dont work, we wont buy, and the rich wouldnt be rich and special anymore
So we give tax breaks to companies, who can create jobs, no matter how stupid it is.
So we produce something in the east, repack it in the west, and sell it back in the east. Now we need workers, to transport, and 2 factories instead of one = more jobs...

How about we began to THINK! of better solutions first, if we are so much smarter than the rest, who needs to be sterilized??

a reply to: NoFearsEqualsFreeMan

Yeah, the global supply chain is absolutely morose.

Nature has a way of culling the herds, including humans. Voluntary contraception makes more sense than enforced sterilization. Besides, who's to define what "stupid" is? I can guarantee that if enforced sterilization was made law, every politician would want to have their say as to who falls under the ax.

That said, remember that genetic engineering will change the face of the population in the near future anyway - people will be able to choose characteristics of their children, remove/replace damaged genes, regulate intelligence.

For the time being, let nature, education and local economics drive the ups and downs of population growth.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

Should society consider mandatory sterilization?

No. It has been done before and shouldn't happen again. Why? Because you don't sterilize people against their own will, regardless of their circumstances, it goes against their human rights.

I see overpopulation as a result of poverty, not the other way round, not a cause of poverty. We know that the more educated the person, the less children he/she will have, the healthier he/she will live etc. We need more education, not controlling people's productive rights.

The target groups are always the same: women, non white and poor. There are countries where they are still doing mass forced sterilization, like India for example, and funnily enough they never do it to the men or to the rich.

Be careful with what you wish, it may become a double edged sword and come back to hurt you..... depending on who decides who should get sterilized.

Obviously we need to do something about world population growth but it's hardly ever discussed in the MSM.

Two quotes from the well respected Sir David Attenborough...
"The human population can no longer be allowed to grow in the same old uncontrolled way. If we do not take charge of our population size, then nature will do it for us.”

"There is no major problem facing our planet that would not be easier to solve if there were fewer people and no problem that does not become harder — and ultimately impossible to solve — with ever more. And yet there seems to be a taboo on bringing the subject into the open."

Didn't India have a program that payed voluntary males to have a vasectomy? From what I remember it mostly attracted older men though. At least that would be a humane option.

I don't think Western population growth needs any control, apart from our borders. So trying to sell the vasectomy program to third world countries, would be called out as racist.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

screw your eugenics nonsense and screw your hostility to the mentally ill,Albert Einstein was mentally ill Einstein,Isaac newton was mentally ill ,betoven had mental illness and he created great works of music ,Abraham Lincoln had depression and he achieved a great deal of good,Leo Tolstoy one of the greater authors had depression and a bevvy of other issues and yet he acheived great things

vangogh,churchil,Hemmingway,Tennesee williams ,vivien Leigh (cat on a hot tin roof fame),john nash (a beautiful mind),Joplin list goes on so again take your eugenics crap back to the last century where that dark and backwards crap belongs

gsappweb.rutgers.edu...


io9.gizmodo.com... why it will always fail at least in our times,and with the ever expanding DSM V list of classifications of mental illness i bet the OP "suffers from a mental illness" he/she is not even aware of

www.google.com... y.org%2FFile%2520Library%2FPsychiatrists%2FPractice%2FDSM%2FAPA_DSM-5-Contents.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFQS2KAnGKSeTpx_moEvCP8P47I6g&sig2=Bd5mTOjyVrzcyrRpTPuhqw& bvm=bv.112064104,d.cGc PDF of dsmv

psychcentral.com... non pdf link of the ever expaning list of disorders

www.foreignpolicyjournal.com... almost ALL of ats would be "fit for sterilization" under this classification

Conspiracy theories can form a monological belief system: A self-sustaining worldview comprised of a network of mutually supportive beliefs. The present research shows that even mutually incompatible conspiracy theories are positively correlated in endorsement. In Study 1 (n ¼ 137), the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered. In Study 2 (n ¼ 102), the more participants believed that Osama Bin Laden was already dead when U.S. special forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive. Hierarchical regression models showed that mutually incompatible conspiracy theories are positively associated because both are associated with the view that the authorities are engaged in a cover-up (Study 2). The monological nature of conspiracy belief appears to be driven not by conspiracy theories directly supporting one another but by broader beliefs supporting conspiracy theories in general.[2] The conclusion is that conspiracy theorists have a generalized suspicion of all authority and thereby believe that any event is the product of a conspiracy by authority. Several categories were used to score contradictory attitudes in regard to conspiracy. The subjects were chosen from 137 undergraduate psychology students. Five questions were asked regarding conspiratorial beliefs in Princess Diana’s death.[3] The results “suggest that those who distrust the official story of Diana’s death do not tend to settle on a single conspiracist account as the only acceptable explanation; rather, they simultaneously endorse several contradictory accounts.”[4] There are several factors to consider: The small number of subjects drawn from the same background. Whether the belief in contradictory theories is rather the willingness to accept several alternatives rather than being bound to a single explanation. The tests appear to be of a “tick the boxes” character, and do not appear to offer the subjects opportunity to explain their views. The test therefore seems to be nothing other than very limited statistical surveys from which a generalised theory is postulated in regard to “conspiracism.” Other test categories were on 9/11 and the death of Osama bin Ladin.

www.damninteresting.com... and as eugencics were not only based on mental status but health (fat people kill the lot of them eh?) and IQ (fun fact alot of people with mental illness have higher IQ then "normies") oh and if your poor? well you must have made bad decisions so you get sterilized too under eugenics ,are you of native or first nation decent? congratulations they would sterilize you too for having inferior genes just as usa and canada did to the native Americans/Canadians


www.uvm.edu...

en.wikipedia.org...

The Immigration Restriction League was the first American entity associated officially with eugenics. Founded in 1894 by three recent Harvard University graduates, the League sought to bar what it considered inferior races from entering America and diluting what it saw as the superior American racial stock (upper class Northerners of Anglo-Saxon heritage). They felt that social and sexual involvement with these less-evolved and less-civilized races would pose a biological threat to the American population. The League lobbied for a literacy test for immigrants, based on the belief that literacy rates were low among "inferior races". Literacy test bills were vetoed by Presidents in 1897, 1913 and 1915; eventually, President Wilson's second veto was overruled by Congress in 1917. Membership in the League included: A. Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard, William DeWitt Hyde, president of Bowdoin College, James T. Young, director of Wharton School and David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University.[40] The League allied themselves with the American Breeder's Association to gain influence and further its goals and in 1909 established a Committee on Eugenics chaired by David Starr Jordan with members Charles Davenport, Alexander Graham Bell, Vernon Kellogg, Luther Burbank, William Ernest Castle, Adolf Meyer, H. J. Webber and Friedrich Woods. The ABA's immigration legislation committee, formed in 1911 and headed by League's founder Prescott F. Hall, formalized the committee's already strong relationship with the Immigration Restriction League. They also founded the Eugenics Record Office, which was headed by Harry H. Laughlin.[41] In their mission statement, they wrote: Society must protect itself; as it claims the right to deprive the murderer of his life so it may also annihilate the hideous serpent of hopelessly vicious protoplasm. Here is where appropriate legislation will aid in eugenics and creating a healthier, saner society in the future."[41]

en.wikipedia.org... oddly enough it would be legal as far as the supreme court is concerned

usatoday30.usatoday.com... more info on buck v bell

TLDR eugenics bad but strangely constitutional (dont see it surviving a modern challenge)