A. No, because a blackboard is not a biological organism which is capable of manipulating the environment. When a single man (which required being a zygote first) can invent a wheat that can "save a billion lives" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug) - then yes, it matters.
It also matters if they abort his education. Zygotes develop and acquire informtion, and the more of it, and the more collaboration from these humans from zygotes results in fundamentally world changing and humanity-pushing events. (As well as, admittedly, ones that scale humanity back, unfortunately - but abortion is the aid to this, not the contender.)
B. Red Herring, Straw Man. I like how you switched the argument over to sperms to make a sassy comment but then failed to actually refute the evolutionary mechanics of genetics. Right, because you can't. A subsequent zygote is fundamentally different in its genetic makeup than the one before - so why not keep both?
C. Ad Hominem. If my argument is "silly" why do you use logical fallacies?
Actually yes, a universe full of more information is simply progressive. Are you now arguing for destroying information? I hope that doesn't mean you are going to delete your comment - that would, afterall, be consistent with what you are proposing. However every new comment you add is providing unique insight - one which hopefully others will analyze and make beneficial conclusions from. In the same way as (A).
Stupid and fat people have actually produced rather intelligent offspring, surprisingly. Do you deny this? Because if you do, we first might need to have a discussion about not being intolerant.
When did I bring morality into it? I never did, just sheer math and evolution. I don't need morality to prove my point.
Are you proposing that we /should/ kill our young and unfit? I suggest not, but you seem to be refuting this - which puts you in an awkward position.
This is what I summarized from your last paragraph: "aborting babies ... helps [reduce] violence and suffering."
> A. No, because a blackboard is not a biological organism which is capable of manipulating the environment.
Your statement was about removing information from the universe, not biological diversity. Evolution is a processes of removing biological diversity - that's how it works, so it may be ugly at times, but hard to call it unethical.
> B. Red Herring, Straw Man. I like how you switched the argument over to sperms
The argument is about removing genetic diversity, and if it applies to zygotes, it applies to sperm. Every sperm has unique genetics, so why not use them all? In fact, lets clone every egg and sperm and generate every possible combination - that will help evolution along. You have to follow statements to their logical conclusion, and in this case, it's absurd.
> Are you now arguing for destroying information?
Destruction of information is as important as creation. Forgetting is as important as remembering. Evolution is a process of natural selection, meaning those organisms not selected are lost. The human brain forgets almost everything it perceives so that it can remember what's important. Death is as important to evolution and species survival as birth. So yes, I am perfectly comfortable with the "loss" of information.
I'm also comfortable with the loss of zygotes before they grow into sentient beings who are likely to lead a life of suffering and imposing suffering on others. Our species certainly does not need genetic diversity at the expense of other qualities.
> Stupid and fat people have actually produced rather intelligent offspring, surprisingly. Do you deny this?
No, but both characteristics are genetically influenced. Smarter people produce smarter offspring, and fat people produce fatter offspring. My point was not to advocate for eugenics, but to point out that if we are trying to help evolution along, that's the way to do it, not making unlimited babies.
> When did I bring morality into it? I never did, just sheer math and evolution. I don't need morality to prove my point.
Ok, so you are just advocating for a maximally dominant species, without regard to ethics. In that case, see above regarding helping evolution.
> Are you proposing that we /should/ kill our young and unfit?
No, I'm not suggesting that. I'm merely following the trails of logic.
> "aborting babies ... helps [reduce] violence and suffering."
Yes, aborting zygotes who are unwanted and are unlikely to be cared for certainly reduces violence and suffering, both for them and for those they will impose suffering upon.
Churchills, as you call them, by and large come from loving, supporting families, have access to opportunity and education, are well fed and sheltered, and have strong communities.
I don't know Churchill's biography, but I'm going to guess he was no gutter baby.
A. 1. Yes, you caught me there. I did say information, and then moved on to genetic information. Your point is valid against "information" in general. So I shall admit to that and move onto the important parts.
2. Evolution is the process of continual genetic diversity - natural selection is the process of eliminating the unfit. So you can't flip this.
B. Sperms, no. Zygote potential, yes. Therefore I would find it ideal to generate every combination, and play it out. This is not absurd at all - it is Evolution. No?
"Death" see (2)
I'd also like to point out that smart people come from fat people, skinny people come from stupid people, and skinny from fat and smart from stupid.
--> And zow! I believe we've hit the crux of our disagreement. Maximal evolution.
Well, I find the perspective of not protecting the young / killing of babies as an avoidable option, since we are the dominant species, we can manipulate our environment to restrain natural selection in favor of our own.
It appears, that you favor natural selection's brutality against us, and encouraging upon zygotes in unfavorable circumstances, thus diminishing their life.
I would argue against your assertion that "they'd grow up violent and suffering anyways" -- but that appears now to be pointless, since we've found our fundamental (and unfortunate) disagreement.
Thank you for sharing, I'm going to sleep now, it was interesting learning your perspective! (Feel free to reply, just don't bait me to respond back! lol.)
> B. Sperms, no. Zygote potential, yes. Therefore I would find it ideal to generate every combination, and play it out. This is not absurd at all - it is Evolution. No?
This is all wrong. Evolution and naturals selection refer to exactly the same process. If you want to separate them, evolution is the result of natural selection over time.
Your concept of "maximal evolution" doesn't make much sense to me. Regardless, the numbers in that scenario exceed the resources of the known universe.
I think we are far better off overall growing our species at a rate we can support with all the benefits of society rather than maximizing our gene pool. In fact, I think your proposition sounds far more brutal than mine. Streets filled with unwanted crack babies and accidental teen mothers sounds nightmarish. I'll take offing some zygotes any day.
> A. Destroys information from the universe.
Does erasing a blackboard or wiping a hard drive destroy information from the universe? I can hardly think of an action that doesn't destroy information. Moving destroys the information of where we were immediately before. Think destroys the thoughts we had prior. Do we have a moral imperative to preserve everything that exists in the present? If so, we are pretty screwed. BTW, information can not be destroyed from the universe, but that's a bit pedantic and beside the point.
> B. Destroys /genetic information/, which is an evolutionary mechanism.
Your body constantly creates unused genetic material in the form of billions of sperm each day. You can argue that a zygote is more complete genetic information, but it is (almost) no more information than the sperm and egg contain separately. Better stop beating it - every sperm really is sacred to the universe.
> C. Slows evolutionary development, as beneficial mutations are already rare enough - increased abortions also increase the loss of a punctuated-equilibrium event.
Seriously? This doesn't deserve a direct response, but it's addressed below.
Apparently we have a moral obligation to produce a maximal number of offspring and ensure that every egg is fertilized. Otherwise, we are robbing the universe of its precious information and stopping our evolution. That is the logical corollary of your silly rationalizations for why you oppose abortion. And if we are supposed to help evolution along, shouldn't we stop allowing stupid and fat people to breed and preserve our resources for the most fit? No, because none of what you say is the basis for any sort of morals - it's complete nonsense.
Side point: Animals kill their unfit young, or young they are unable to care for. Are they also stopping evolution and sinning against the universe? Or are they contributing to evolution by removing poor genes, and contributing to the survival and health of the species by preserving resources for young that can be cared for. Or is evolution an undirected process, which can't be "stopped?" Oh yeah, I forgot.
The second part just reinforces your idea that we are morally obligated to maximize our offspring to create as much genetic diversity as possible, which is on its face ridiculous. Of course, you neglect that genetic diversity is not the only, or even the primary determinate of whether we have "Hitlerbabies" or Churchills. In fact, much if not most of the difference is environmental, which incidentally is helped by aborting babies that will not be raised in a healthy environment, and are therefor more likely to bring violence and suffering to the world. Maximizing births is not the way to produce your uberman.
I'm not sure why I bothered responding, this is such a load of nonsense.