what exactly is eugenics?

[sickening]

about just a month ago i posted a tiktok touching on the subject and i said its not classist to say "poor ppl shouldnt have kids" and that its not eugenics to feel this. i had a part of my comment section calling me a fed and a nazi (unrelated but i had no idea what a psych op was before this post but ive been called that a few times also)

 

i was just curious about other perspectives and if it was just tiktok 

[Carter]

it’s not poor people having kids

at least the mom and dad needs sort of income to support the child before deciding to have one 

[Tcharm]

5 minutes ago, sickening said:

about just a month ago i posted a tiktok touching on the subject and i said its not classist to say "poor ppl shouldnt have kids" and that its not eugenics to feel this. i had a part of my comment section calling me a fed and a nazi (unrelated but i had no idea what a psych op was before this post but ive been called that a few times also)

 

i was just curious about other perspectives and if it was just tiktok 

I will happily tell the people in my lives - friends, acquaintance, even work friends, if they ask, whether I think its a good idea, if asked.

 

But on a larger scale, a global scale I will never shame or dissuade the poor for having children. 

The mass majority of the human race is poor. Most of the wealth of the world is tied up within a very small percentage. 

 

Furthermore many women in many countries lack access to sex education, contraceptives, and for many - reproduction is not a choice but a duty that is expected of them. 

 

It is eugenics to suggest an entire group of human beings dont deserve to or shouldn't have families.  

What we should be more outraged at is the fact that wealth inequality has widened so much that people working 40+ hrs a week cannot afford to feed and house themselves and have foregone children they may have wanted

[Souphanousinphone]

the education system has failed yall 

[Tcharm]

wow atrl cut me off... anyways

 

I def judge and side eye those close to me who i think make poor choices - such as having children with an abuser

I learned recently many times tho this is reproductive coercion which is very common in the West despite the misconception its mostly in the 3rd world. 

Many hobosexuals, envious bitter men, and controlling men will sabotage birth control of a woman so he is linked with her for life, wants to derails her success (in school, bright career) and future, wants to prevent her from leaving. 

 

Or people close to me who have children cause they want a mini me, doll, want to be like their friends, bored, refuse to use protection etc. 

 

But outside my interpersonal spaces, I feel like that type of advice is inappropriate - who am I or anyone to delegate who can and who cannot procreate. Finger wagging the morality of child rearing at the most vulnerable, resource deprived people in the world is just dark. 

[PrettyHurts]

It’s eugenics because you see reproduction as a luxury only certain kinds of people should have rather than an inevitability of human contact. People are going to procreate no matter how rich or poor they are 

[Archetype]

Eugenics goes way deeper than that, but a commonly accepted eugenics-inspired viewpoint is that it isn’t the best decision to procreate if you lack a plan or means to support your children.  I think that’s more logical than anything else, but it’s also unfair to expect people to stop procreating.  We shouldn’t police people’s bodies, we should provide affordable quality housing, healthcare, and education so that those born in unfortunate situations have the means to a better future.  That doesn’t, however, address the reality that this isn’t the case in most places.

[pavi]

22 minutes ago, Archetype said:

Eugenics goes way deeper than that, but a commonly accepted eugenics-inspired viewpoint is that it isn’t the best decision to procreate if you lack a plan or means to support your children.  I think that’s more logical than anything else, but it’s also unfair to expect people to stop procreating.  We shouldn’t police people’s bodies, we should provide affordable quality housing, healthcare, and education so that those born in unfortunate situations have the means to a better future.  That doesn’t, however, address the reality that this isn’t the case in most places.

You said what I wanted to say 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Souphanousinphone said:

the education system has failed yall 

+1

[Pop culture]

You're pretty much telling people from a poor background that they shouldn't exist 

[pisuke]

It is definitely not that. Eugenics is about genes, not wealth. 

 

 

[Lana Banana]

2 hours ago, Pop culture said:

You're pretty much telling people from a poor background that they shouldn't exist 

This is very farfetched, like cursing to someone “son of a b” and people literally responding with “did you just call my mom a b???”.

 

Critical thinking, sis. 

[pisuke]

Eugenics: 

1. the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. Developed largely by Sir Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, eugenics was increasingly discredited as unscientific and racially biased during the 20th century, especially after the adoption of its doctrines by the Nazis in order to justify their treatment of Jews, disabled people, and other minority groups.

[Contessa]

17 minutes ago, pisuke said:

It is definitely not that. Eugenics is about genes, not wealth. 

 

 

It definitely extends to wealth. Do you mean to tell me from the definition you posted that disability is solely a genetic trait? 

[pisuke]

7 minutes ago, Contessa said:

It definitely extends to wealth. Do you mean to tell me from the definition you posted that disability is solely a genetic trait? 

It does not. If someone poor has the traits that society finds desirable, that person would be allowed to reproduce based on the principles of eugenics. Classism would fit more the topic of wealth, but not eugenics.

 

I do not invent the definitions here. It is what it is. 

[Pendulum]

Do you people even grasp the definition of eugenics? Saying that people who cannot afford to have children shouldn't procreate is problematic but this does not fit the defintion of eugenics which is rooted in scientific racism  

[byzantium]

Why are you telling any group of people that they should not have children?  

[Tropez]

5 hours ago, Pendulum said:

Do you people even grasp the definition of eugenics? Saying that people who cannot afford to have children shouldn't procreate is problematic but this does not fit the defintion of eugenics which is rooted in scientific racism  

Exactly. Atrl never ceases to amaze me with it's use of terms it has no clue about.

[Phaunzie]

Hunny, please do your research. Eugenics is a deeply classist, and racist concept. It is the foundation for Hitler's the Aryan Race.  It is why a lot of white crusaders love eugenics and ethno nations like Japan. Eugenics to them is about the pure  white race and racial superiority. Every other race shouldn't be able to procreate as they are deemed inferior and would tainted their superior race. 

 

Watch Disney's Sky High to see what a Eugenics child friendly proganda flick would look like.

 

One more thing, Eugenics was used and is used as a justification to force sterilize certain immigrants and ethnicities like Indians, Africans and Arabs.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Phaunzie

[sickening]

14 hours ago, byzantium said:

Why are you telling any group of people that they should not have children?  

why bring a child into this world knowing u can provide for urself let alone another human being??

[byzantium]

47 minutes ago, sickening said:

why bring a child into this world knowing u can provide for urself let alone another human being??

Why bring anyone into this world at all? 

[A.R.L]

Not all rich people deserve children, while there are poor people who enjoy more stability with their families with limited financial budgets, but I find it strange when people generally rich or poor give birth to so many children. Nowadays, 1 or 2 kids are already enough tbh.

[CottageHore]

Eugenics is, by definition, a set of beliefs that aim to improve the “genetic quality” of a generation. Because class and socioeconomic disparity disproportionately affect marginalized people of specific race and cultures, the belief that people who are not of a specific class are not as equally entitled to creating offspring and thus passing on their genes is, indeed, a eugenics perspective.

 

That argument also lacks of empathy and very basic understanding of the intersection between class and wealth and how it intersects with race and culture, specifically in America. Most of these people are not in a low economic class because of a “skill issue” but because of centuries of oppression, generational setbacks and trauma, etc. and society has done close to nothing to offset this, making it very difficult for anyone to go from poor to financially stable, let alone affluent. This is a much bigger issue than simply “don’t have kids UNTIL you’re no longer poor”. It’s a question of why we still live in a society with a surplus of resources where millions upon millions of people are so poor and their basic needs (housing and healthcare) are not more affordable to them, making it unsafe for them to have children and extend their family’s genes, which is something most all people want to do and all people, of every class, should have the RIGHT to do.

[VOSS]

It’s a wide range of concepts that essentially boils down to systematically “enhancing” the human gene pool through the elimination of undesirable people/genes or promoting/facilitating people with “good genes” to procreate. Associated with the nazis for obvious reasons but there are a lot of things that could be considered eugenics.

Testing for for fetal abnormalities and aborting fetuses with disabilities, selective breeding (e.g. Yao Ming’s parents were the tallest people in China and were “encouraged” by the government to have a kid who would become a big basketball star), forced sterilization is another recent historical example.

I don’t think telling a poor person they shouldn’t have kids is necessarily advocating for eugenics. Some people think that poor people are genetically inferior and it’s just part of the natural social hierarchy, in that case it certainly would be, but really it’s often just good family/life planning advice to not have kids you can’t afford. A lot of people argue in bad faith or get all of their information from social media so I don’t think it’s worth arguing with people about it on the internet.