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Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

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Re: Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

#21

Post by spxdcz »

cbeach wrote: post #12
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #4

This is bothersome as I have no beef with Tesla but his history of eugenics promotion gets swept under the carpet. His business failures, of course, have nothing to do with poorly thought out concepts and questionable return on investment, but by dirty tricks by Edison. Its also worth pointing out most, if not all of Tesla's patents, are based on previous works and are not original works. Apparantly, Tesla fandom is…

I admired Tesla's research. Now I've heard his words on eugenics, my admiration only grows. Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed. Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work…

Tesla: "prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization"

Who decides who is "unfit"? In the not too distant past, and possibly even today, that might include the non-white, non-straight, non-wealthy, etc. I find it incredibly scary that you could so easily agree that others should decide who gets to enact their human instincts. Let's face it, it would almost certainly be old, white, wealthy men that would make those decisions.

Re: Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

#22

Post by npinguy »

cbeach wrote: post #12
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #4

This is bothersome as I have no beef with Tesla but his history of eugenics promotion gets swept under the carpet. His business failures, of course, have nothing to do with poorly thought out concepts and questionable return on investment, but by dirty tricks by Edison. Its also worth pointing out most, if not all of Tesla's patents, are based on previous works and are not original works. Apparantly, Tesla fandom is…

I admired Tesla's research. Now I've heard his words on eugenics, my admiration only grows. Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed. Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work…

That program is extremely controversial, as your link says.

Drug addiction is all about the inability to commit to long term plans in favour of the quick short term happiness. Drug addicts are not capable of making rational decisions when faced with cash on the spot. There is a reason why we don't have a problem with boxing or MMA, but "bum fights" is unethical and looked down upon.

Offering drug addicts money for sterilization is unbelievably unethical. It is reinforcing the idea in their minds that their addiction is irreparable, probably guaranteeing after the fact that they will never seek help and recover. And if they do turn their lives around and are faced with different priorities than they did during addiction? Too bad so sad?

By the way, I'm not at all expecting to change your mind on this. Given your use of phrases like "left-wing metropolitan elites", I don't see how you could possibly be interested in a debate that involves you questioning your preconceived perspectives.

Re: Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

#23

Post by heliostatic »

cbeach wrote: post #12
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #4

This is bothersome as I have no beef with Tesla but his history of eugenics promotion gets swept under the carpet. His business failures, of course, have nothing to do with poorly thought out concepts and questionable return on investment, but by dirty tricks by Edison. Its also worth pointing out most, if not all of Tesla's patents, are based on previous works and are not original works. Apparantly, Tesla fandom is…

I admired Tesla's research. Now I've heard his words on eugenics, my admiration only grows. Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed. Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work…

I'm not sure if you're serious, but the problematic history of eugenics goes back to a nice long way.

For a good time, read the proceedings of the international conferences, starting in 1912 and running for the next ten years or so. Some great scientific efforts, combined with some pretty appalling work, as well.

Check out 'The Cause of the Inferiority of the Physical and Mental Characters in teh Lower Social Classes' to start, from 1912: https://archive.org/details/problemsineugeni00inte

Re: Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

#24

Post by [deleted] »

cbeach wrote: post #12
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #4

This is bothersome as I have no beef with Tesla but his history of eugenics promotion gets swept under the carpet. His business failures, of course, have nothing to do with poorly thought out concepts and questionable return on investment, but by dirty tricks by Edison. Its also worth pointing out most, if not all of Tesla's patents, are based on previous works and are not original works. Apparantly, Tesla fandom is…

I admired Tesla's research. Now I've heard his words on eugenics, my admiration only grows. Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed. Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work…

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

#25

Post by cbeach »

npinguy wrote: post #22
cbeach wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admired Tesla's research. Now I've heard his words on eugenics, my admiration only grows. Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed. Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work…

That program is extremely controversial, as your link says. Drug addiction is all about the inability to commit to long term plans in favour of the quick short term happiness. Drug addicts are not capable of making rational decisions when faced with cash on the spot. There is a reason why we don't have a problem with boxing or MMA, but "bum fights" is unethical and looked down upon. Offering drug addicts money for st…

"Drug addiction is all about the inability to commit to long term plans in favour of the quick short term happiness."

-Exactly why- they shouldn't be parents.

Re: Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

#26

Post by ch4s3 »

cbeach wrote: post #12
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #4

This is bothersome as I have no beef with Tesla but his history of eugenics promotion gets swept under the carpet. His business failures, of course, have nothing to do with poorly thought out concepts and questionable return on investment, but by dirty tricks by Edison. Its also worth pointing out most, if not all of Tesla's patents, are based on previous works and are not original works. Apparantly, Tesla fandom is…

I admired Tesla's research. Now I've heard his words on eugenics, my admiration only grows. Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed. Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work…

What? Just because Roosevelt et. al. were proponents doesn't make it a good idea. You hypothesis presupposes something about human nature that I think is fundamentally flawed, namely that people will be inclined to evenly disperse the benefits of such a program. Much like communism, or some sort of stateless libertarian utopia(what ever that's even called?) it sounds nice on paper if you squint and hand wave away the way real people actually behave.

Re: Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

#27

Post by npinguy »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #16
npinguy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While eugenics is indefensible, it was an extremely popular theory at the time with support from a large portion of the scientific community. I'm not saying we should whitewash history and avoid talking about this detail of his life at all costs, but it is not a huge black dot on his record either that is relevant to the narrative of his life. Plenty of worthwhile individuals in history were slave owners. Homophobia…

> You can't always apply modern standards of morality to historical figures. That's fine, but lets understand that this applies to Edison as well. Tesla fanatics judge him by modern business practices and regulations, but Tesla gets the hand-wringing reply of "but but at the time..." which seems unfair. Lets also get something straight, its one thing to have a positive view of eugenics and another to be a fervent sup…

Eugenics received widespread support pretty much until the truth came out about the treatment of the Jews in Germany, which is when the supporters suddenly woke up and understood what the realization of those ideas inevitably leads to.

But that truth was not fully revealed until 1945 with the liberation of various concentration camps. Until then, most details and rumors about the camps was dismissed as idle propaganda because noone believed the reality could possibly be so shocking.

In 1935, little was known about what was going on in with the Jews in Germany, and most of the really extreme ideas were not implemented yet. What discrimination occurred was not unique in Germany, as most nations of Europe practiced some minor forms of tacitly-approved anti-semitism

Re: Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

#28

Post by dragonwriter »

cbeach wrote: post #12
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #4

This is bothersome as I have no beef with Tesla but his history of eugenics promotion gets swept under the carpet. His business failures, of course, have nothing to do with poorly thought out concepts and questionable return on investment, but by dirty tricks by Edison. Its also worth pointing out most, if not all of Tesla's patents, are based on previous works and are not original works. Apparantly, Tesla fandom is…

I admired Tesla's research. Now I've heard his words on eugenics, my admiration only grows. Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed. Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work…

> Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed.

No, its not. Eugenics is about ensuring that only people with the "best possible" (from the point of view of its proponents, which is always subjective) genetic makeup live. Killing people with undesired genetic makeup, penalizing or preventing reproduction by those with undesired genetics, and promoting or compelling reproduction by those with desired genetics are among the means of eugenics.

"Ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed" is not eugenics.

> Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work in sterilizing drug addicts (voluntary sterilization in exchange for cash) to prevent children being born into misery.

Aside from discussion of whether that's a desirable policy, if it's really motivated by concern for childhood environment and not about eradicating drug addiction on the assumption that it is purely hereditary and preventing drug addicts from reproducing will prevent drug addiction, its not eugenics at all (as your wikipedia link correctly states, its been compared to eugenics, which is not the same thing as being eugenics.)

> We need to stop reeling off Godwin's law straw-man arguments against Eugenics and consider why a number of our national heroes (including the likes of Walt Disney) were proponents.

Just because someone is a "national hero" because they did (or are national mythology has attributed to them) something good in one domain doesn't stop them from holding reprehensible views in other domains. "National heroes" are not gods, and we are poorly served by treating virtue in one domain of life as granting special consideration in unrelated domains.

Re: Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

#29

Post by ollysb »

cbeach wrote: post #12
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #4

This is bothersome as I have no beef with Tesla but his history of eugenics promotion gets swept under the carpet. His business failures, of course, have nothing to do with poorly thought out concepts and questionable return on investment, but by dirty tricks by Edison. Its also worth pointing out most, if not all of Tesla's patents, are based on previous works and are not original works. Apparantly, Tesla fandom is…

I admired Tesla's research. Now I've heard his words on eugenics, my admiration only grows. Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed. Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work…

This is one of the most abhorrent ideas I've read about in quite a while. To call an addict's decision to do this "voluntary" is disingenuous to say the least.

Re: Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

#30

Post by parennoob »

cbeach wrote: post #12
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #4

This is bothersome as I have no beef with Tesla but his history of eugenics promotion gets swept under the carpet. His business failures, of course, have nothing to do with poorly thought out concepts and questionable return on investment, but by dirty tricks by Edison. Its also worth pointing out most, if not all of Tesla's patents, are based on previous works and are not original works. Apparantly, Tesla fandom is…

I admired Tesla's research. Now I've heard his words on eugenics, my admiration only grows. Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed. Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work…

> We need to stop reeling off Godwin's law straw-man arguments against Eugenics

This is one of the few cases in which Godwin's Law probably doesn't apply. The implementations of the National Socialist Party by themselves are an excellent argument against eugenics of any sort.

Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning here that Winston Churchill, while a "national hero" to some people, was unusually strongly racist even for his time. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/not-his-finest...

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