Religion – your views

[MrBadGuy]

It's not discriminative, and people who have disorders have done nothing wrong and deserve the same treatment from society as everyone else, it's just trying to prevent further problems with future generations, for both their sake, the sake of the people who have to look after them, and society as a whole. At least if there were laws, the number of genetic disorders and defections might decrease, although of course there's no way to completely prevent anything from happening, but that doesn't mean that we don't have laws for anything.

[Xenon]

Okay. I agree with that. But it's still not a feasible rule to enforce.

[Cairnie]

What about people who are healthy but end up with a child with say progeria, Treacher Collins or whatev?

[MrBadGuy]

Well that's just unfortunate, but could still be kept under regulation for certain diseases, as sometimes it is possible to identify the presence of the recessive allele in the person's genes, although it would be far too difficult to do this. But the point is, if people who have the diseases refrain from reproducing, there should be a significant decrease in the future of people who are limited in these ways and who are forced to lead difficult lives. Of course there will always be genetic diseases passed on, and also ones that cannot possibly be foreseen or controlled (eg. Progeria) but we can at least do something about some of them.

[Xenon]

That would cost far too much in human resources. The government simply won't conduct tests for each person to legislate some crappy rule against reproduction. You have to consider governmental costs before drawing idealistic rules like this - for the benefit of the economy it would actually be better if this rule was not laid out.

[MrBadGuy]

That's absolutely right, especially with that goddamn 50% tax rate, but that's why I said

although it would be far too difficult to do this.

But if people who have obvious diseases that are easily identified are not allowed to reproduce then it will prevent at least these diseases from continuing on to the next generations. Plus, nowadays fetus' are being tested for diseases anyway.

[Acarr]

People should be neutered.

[Cairnie]

Babypoppers aka people who are like cat hoarders but with babies should, yes.

[spiraldoor]

A few problems with that, though:

1) It's not good for society if society's dead from inbreeding.
2) The mutations causing the genetic diseases will happen again.
3) People can be carriers of genetic diseases without getting the disease, or they could start showing symptoms after having kids (like with Huntington's). In order to make sure no carriers of genetic diseases pass on their DNA to the next generation you would have to test everone. Testing 6.5 billion people for every genetic disease is impossible.
4) In industrialised countries, an even lower birth rate than we have today (which would ultimately be the outcome of your master plan) would be crippling for the economy. Lots of oldies and few workers is not good. If you want to solve the problem with immigration that would give the even bigger problem of Sharia courts popping up on every street corner.
5) The percentage of people who have serious genetic diseases is so low that it's pointless spending vast amounts of resources on exterminating them.

1) If the percentage of people who have serious genetic diseases is very low, then any inbreeding occuring as a result of this rule which would not have occurred otherwise would be minimal.
2) They will, but the number of people suffering from genetic disorders will be hugely decreased.
3) I wasn't thinking of unaffected carriers when I made my suggestion, but don't babies always get a blood test soon after they're born? If so, could that not be used to check for genetic disorders?
4) The earth is overpopulated. A decrease in population would be a good thing. And I guess if they really needed an increase the government could just give incentives like what Germany are doing?
5) I'm not sure what to make of that statement. You say that preventing genetic diseases would be pointless; do you also think that spending money on treating people who already have genetic diseases is pointless?

Babypoppers aka people who are like cat hoarders but with babies should, yes.

Like that woman who's pregnant with her fourteenth child, and says that she'll keep having them until the social services let her keep one? She should be shot.

[Tobbe]

4) The earth is overpopulated. A decrease in population would be a good thing. And I guess if they really needed an increase the government could just give incentives like what Germany are doing?

You don't get it, do you? A lower birth rate now would mean that in a few years time a relatively small work force would have to support themselves and a several times bigger population of retired people. The industrialised society is moving in that direction anyway, but we need immigration or an increase in birth rate for the next few decades in order to minimise the damage.

[PluMGMK]

People being born isn't much good if they have genetic diseases, is it?
BTW, I voted yes in the poll on this topic.

[Tobbe]

BTW, I voted yes in the poll on this topic.

Why?

[PluMGMK]

BTW, I voted yes in the poll on this topic.

Why?

Why do you think?

[Tobbe]

You're delusional?

[Xenon]

You don't get it, do you? A lower birth rate now would mean that in a few years time a relatively small work force would have to support themselves and a several times bigger population of retired people. The industrialised society is moving in that direction anyway, but we need immigration or an increase in birth rate for the next few decades in order to minimise the damage.

A stabilised birth rate would do nothing to solve this problem and an increase would only make things worse: it would magnify the problem in the future. A better solution would be to properly organise tax-payer funding, stop spending it on quality of trains, modernised buildings, things like that, and spend it on the care of the growing elderly population. As soon as the economical damage clears, the money could be distributed as it was, and so on and so forth.

Also, I think immigration is more negative than positive. One of the reasons this country suffers is because of the huge amount of foreign people, who work and send the earned money back to their country of origin.

[Cairnie]

Cool news I heard the other day, the UK's population is now nearing 61 million. Man I love how so many foreigners and teen mummies come in to take up all those nice new houses they are building on every bit of earth that's left here, while my sister - lived here all her life and has no kids - has been struggling for years to get a flat.

Xen I'll have to disagree with the "stop funding better buildings" part of your comment; while a nicer place is way more expensive to build and then to live in, most people would kill to live in somewhere that's affordable to rent and not a skankhole.

[Xenon]

Well, I was mainly referring to glass office blocks and buildings like that, but maybe it was a bad example. Just take a look at Borris Johnson's old plans, that will give a better idea of how an awful lot of tax-payer money is inappropriately spent.

[MrBadGuy]

I completely agree that government spending needs to be altered, especially in this time of economic crisis. Do they really need 50% ?

[Acarr]

I don't get why Councelors etc. need so much tax money.

She should be shot.

How nice.

[Cairnie]

I don't get why Councelors etc. need so much tax money.

She should be shot.

How nice.

lol I didn't say that