You could also make the argument that //everything// that happens on the political and cultural level is natural selection.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

For example: helmet and seatbelt laws prevent inapt people from being //selected out// because their lives are saved by these devices - and therefore have a greater chance of reproducing and passing on their genes. Inspection of food: this allows mass distribution of safe to eat foods but it also enables people who would otherwise not-survive to live, and to reproduce, thus passing on a gene set that is not adept at procuring sufficient nutrients from the local environment. These types of “well meaning” measures lead to over-population and competition for limited resources. I don't make value judgments here. It is not //good// or //bad//; it __is what it is__. I say “misguided” because I think nature can handle these matters **without** human intervention. I think, in the long run, less suffering would occur if these laws did not bolster weaker/fragile lineages. The population would be more stable and the human race would be more advanced. I also understand that I would have been //selected out// very early in my life and not produced any children. So this is not a selfish statement. It is an honest assessment of what would be best for the Earth and human ...

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Food inspection and seat belts do not prevent natural selection. Natural selection is supposed to happen because of one's own actions and it's not up to you if someone grinds up humans to feed you, or someone else rams into your car and kills your family.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I respectfully disagree. It is not a gazelle's fault if it get's eaten by a lioness, but that is still natural selection. It is gazelle's the faulty genes that slowed its reaction time and limited its ability to find safe. The inattentive driver dies when hit by a drunk. The gene for inattentiveness is selected out. If you eat food given to you by someone else and die, then the genes that limit your ability to procure your own food safe are selected out.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

You are actually an idiot. Do you grow all of your food and kill all of your meat? No, and you're not an inattentive driver if you're in the middle of the road when someone slams into you.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Well yes, technically, based on my IQ. Which is great, because according to the penal code section 26, I am incapable of committing a crime in the state of California due to this classification. But that being said. Not every accident (read death) is attributed to natural selection. Sometimes "fit" individuals parish, how sad. But overall I stand by my post. Many of our laws enable people to pass on genetic materials that would otherwise be //selected-out// if those laws were never written. Again, not saying its a bad idea - it is just the facts.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I disagree with the food point. I believe it is important to a society to supply products that are held up to a certain standard. That's just quality of life, not decision making. I agree with other points, though. It's silly that you can be ticketed for not wearing a seatbelt. Not wearing one does not pose a threat to anyone else, and will weed out the genes responsible for poor decision making skills. It's also annoying how it is difficult to find certain chemicals because people can hurt themselves. It used to be no problem to find things like potassium chlorate, potassium nitrate, potassium permanganate, and aluminum powder in stores, but now they're impossible to find because idiots blow themselves up. Salvia divinorum is being banned in the United States because stupid people who have no idea what it does are smoking it and filming themselves. Stupid people hurt themselves, and the freedoms of the rest of us get eroded.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

The question is not rather it is a good idea, the question is whether humans can do a better job, through rules and regulations, of managing population growth and enhancing human gene pool than nature herself would do if she was left alone.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

The problem of focusing on overpopulation is that it ignores the problem of overconsumption, and the fact that the United States is consuming a quarter of the world's resources.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Social Darwinism and eugenics sound excellent in theory. Hey, those stupid enough to place in their hand in a fire should be killed, right? Wrong. There are so many reasons that this is just flat out a stupid idea. 1. Children. Parent is stupid, hates seatbelts. Police, under this system, would NOT be legally obligated to force a seatbelt on that child. Car crash, child dies. Child wasn't stupid, parent was, but the child died. 2. ACCIDENTS HAPPEN. Yeah, those people who worked in textile factories during the Industrial Revolution? Ummm pretty sure they weren't like "hey, lemme put my hair into this machine because I'm bored!" No. If there were no such safety regulations, people would die left and right not because of stupidity, but because of simple accidents. 3. Say this system gets put into place. No more warnings on bleach bottles. No more eyeglasses to weed out the bad eyes. No more seat belt laws. What does this create? A smart society? A super-intelligent species that no longer experiences stupidity? No. More likely than not, the "smart" ones will get killed anyway because no regulations, like on drunk drivers. Death doesn't selectively kill the dumb.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

(ran out of space) A society like this wouldn't create a society any smarter or stronger, if that's what you desire through people being "removed from the gene pool." All it'd do, if such legislation was completely eradicated, is create a crazily dangerous society that moves 180 degrees AWAY from progress. Stupid idea.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Thanks for these thoughtful comments. This post says the laws render natural selection moot. It does not say that anarchy is preferred or that I think it would be a good idea to remove these laws. Laws DO protect the weak, that is why we have them. That's what the post says. But why do you equate intelligence with fitness? You argument could be construed to mean that indeed "smart" people are less "fit" because (as you seem to indicate) they will be selected out. Maybe "stupid" is actually superior in the world you have imagined here.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Because it doesnt require physical fitness to know when to wear a seatbelt. That's intelligence and logic. As I said, death doesn't selectively kill the dumb. With similar logic, I assumed the reader would understand that death doesn't selectively kill the smart, either. I've mentioned the word ACCIDENT many times. It wouldn't selectively kill the dumb, weak, overweight, brunette, short, funny, dark skinned, WHATEVER. The point is that if you removed this stuff, natural selection's effects would not be even profoundly seen. The only real way it would, as I would argue, is if you completely removed ALL man-made things. All of them.

by Anonymous 11 years ago