John Glad Future Human Evolution Eugenics in the Twenty First Century

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readily embrace. To be honest, some of these topics can be of
eugenic significance. At the very least, they can intersect with
eugenic considerations.
Presently, such self-control is not even being attempted. A
post-human or even a non-human evolutionary path to intelli-
gence as opposed to a general uplifting of the whole population
therefore appears more and more likely. Genetic IQ potential
will drop by about a point per generation among the broad
masses, while the privileged classes would create even more of a
two-tier society than we already have.
Legal barriers are already being erected in a frantic attempt
to prevent a resurgence of eugenics, but to believe that such
measures can be completely effective is a hopeless fantasy.
Campbell s logic is inescapable. The rejection of traditional
within-species eugenics despite all the posturing of society
will inevitably lead to the scenario he describes.
The invention of writing created a global human mind, in
which knowledge is passed on and accumulated over genera-
tions. In the process, individual people specialize in specific
The History and Politics of Eugenics 85
fields, and no one today would be tempted to speak of universal
geniuses. There is simply too much to know.
While the human brain has been millions of years in the
making, computers, which have been in development really for
only about a century, are already beating the best human play-
ers at chess. Hal may not yet have been born but he is even
now kicking in his binary womb.
Carbon-based technology has its limitations. The individual
human brain is limited by its size, by the amount of time avail-
able for learning, and by the speed at which it can process in-
formation. A computer can be created of any size with limitless
memory and limitless programming. As for speed, current tech-
nology is already processing information in picoseconds (tril-
lionths of a second), whereas the human brain is capable of mere
microseconds.
The human mind is itself a machine, and its quirks, self-
consciousness, and adaptability will all eventually be explained,
even though we are only beginning to unlock its secrets. Cur-
rently a noisy debate is ongoing as to whether computers can
ever equal or surpass the human brain in self-awareness, emo-
tional experience, and moral sense, but really it is a question of
when rather than whether. The two societies projected by H.G.
Wells in The Time Machine, one producing material goods and
the other, childlike, consuming them, are probably going to ar-
rive sooner than we think, and the childlike creatures will be us.
This soon-to-be reality relegates to eugenics a far more
modest role than would otherwise be imaginable. Any effort to
improve the human brain is targeted at an instrument inher-
ently limited in its capacity. The machine brain, on the other
hand, will be something like God.
Allotted only a thousand months or so of existence, we indi-
viduals are as ephemeral as chaff in the wind, but the fate of
thought, of culture, of life itself has been thrust upon us, and we
can either fritter away the patrimony of millions of generations
in the gratification of individualistic and tribal instincts or we
can stride forward to fulfill our fate, shouldering our responsi-
bilities to a future world and linking hands in the great chain of
generations.
Conclusion
A father s responsibility
Deuteronomy 6:1-9
As the collective human brain ponders both its own origins and
its future, the eugenics platform reemerges as timeless, for the
issues it deals with are independent of both historical advocacy
and repudiation by individuals.
The left-right political continuum has been set according to
issues of importance to currently living constituencies, whose
interests are largely peripheral and even instrumental within
the context of a Darwinian worldview. Against the backdrop of
our evolutionary past and future, the traditional political arena
appears quaint and childish.
The conflict of interests between us and future generations
represents a moral confrontation, but politics can best be sum-
marized as the formation of alliances based on mutual advan-
tage. Which are the constituencies that will agree to partner
with future generations when no quid pro quo is possible? Do
such constituencies even exist?
What You Can Do For Future Generations
1. Tell your friends about this book and forward to them the
website at which the book can be downloaded free of charge:
http://whatwemaybe.org.
2. If you are a native speaker of a language other than Eng-
lish and wish to volunteer to translate this book into your native
tongue, please contact Dr. Glad at jglad@umd.edu.
3. Assign the book to your students if you are a teacher deal-
ing with any of the following areas: academic freedom, anthro-
pology, bioethics, biology, biopolitics, cloning, crime, demograph-
ics, ecology, environmentalism, ethics, eugenics, euthanasia, evo-
lution, fertility, futurology, generational equity, genetics, history,
the holocaust, human rights, emigration/immigration, philoso-
phy, political science, population studies, religion, sociobiology,
sociology, testing, welfare. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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