Iceland is close to eliminating Down syndrome births due to widespread prenatal screening tests and nearly 100% of women choosing an abortion in the case of a positive test for Down syndrome:
With the rise of prenatal screening tests across Europe and the United States, the number of babies born with Down syndrome has significantly decreased, but few countries have come as close to eradicating Down syndrome births as Iceland.
Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women -- close to 100 percent -- who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.
While the tests are optional, the government states that all expectant mothers must be informed about availability of screening tests, which reveal the likelihood of a child being born with Down syndrome. Around 80 to 85 percent of pregnant women choose to take the prenatal screening test, according to Landspitali University Hospital in Reykjavik.
[...] Other countries aren't lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates. According to the most recent data available, the United States has an estimated termination rate for Down syndrome [open, DOI: 10.1002/pd.2910] [DX] of 67 percent (1995-2011); in France it's 77 percent (2015); and Denmark, 98 percent (2015). The law in Iceland permits abortion after 16 weeks if the fetus has a deformity -- and Down syndrome is included in this category.
The Prenatal Diagnosis link in the summary was replaced with a working version.
National Review has a counterpoint opinion piece about the CBSN article. Snopes has a page debunking inaccurate headlines about the article.
Related Stories
an Ohio bill [would] ban abortions in cases where a pregnant woman has had a positive test result or prenatal diagnosis indicating Down syndrome. Physicians convicted of performing an abortion under such circumstances could be charged with a fourth-degree felony, stripped of their medical license and held liable for legal damages. The pregnant woman would face no criminal liability.
Several other states have considered similar measures, triggering emotional debate over women's rights, parental love, and the trust between doctor and patient.
The Ohio bill's chief Senate sponsor, Republican Sen. Frank LaRose, said Republican lawmakers accelerated the measure after hearing a mid-August CBS News report on Iceland's high rate of abortions in cases involving Down syndrome. The report asserted Iceland had come close to "eradicating" such births.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @11:29AM (2 children)
Nooooo, that means no more AC posters.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:26PM (1 child)
Is the obvious reply: "Good riddance!"?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:26PM
Sounds like an obvious rebuttal to me!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @11:31AM (10 children)
Is there a test to determine the probability a newborn will become a politician?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday August 17 2017, @11:44AM (9 children)
Well, you could wipe out the attractive social butterflies, sociopaths, schemers, and rich kids. But you'd just have basement-dwelling Morlocks and other freaks stepping up to become politicians. Nature abhors a vacuum.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:01PM (3 children)
Which space is full of...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:15PM (1 child)
That's why space is abhorrent. After all, we haven't sent humans past LEO since 1972.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:54PM
I don't know about the abhorrence of space, but I can assure you:
1. the space is vacuous and naturally so
2. humans seem to be more abhorrent (and not only in regards with space) as the time passes and the space grows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:14PM
Not really. It is "vacuum" as in exrtemely low density (lower than any "vacuum" we can produce on earth), but it is not vacuum as in nothing at all. You even have a speed of sound in space! [stackexchange.com]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:53PM (3 children)
Sounds like a good start. And the basement dwellers couldn't be any worse than the current crop.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:46PM (2 children)
Have you been to reddit or 4chan?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:55PM
Have you seen the "current crop"?
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:49PM
No, I prefer to keep from prematurely killing brain cells.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:06PM
The other people might make decent politicians, but the sociopaths are the real danger. We need to seek them out and eliminate them (at least from eligibility to be elected). Eliminating them from the ability to hold high corporate positions would also improve our society greatly.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:09PM (11 children)
Tney didn't eradicate down syndrome, if they had eradicated it there would be no need for continued efforts to keep prevalence down. Can't people involved in healthcare do anything without adding a little weaselly twist anymore?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:16PM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:29PM
Yes, I realize they say "eradicated births", that is not an appropriate use of the word eradicated (I am ignoring that they also say "nearly"). "Eradicate" means that no more effort needs to be expended towards that problem. This is just a little hype that was needlessly added in order to mislead people.
I am sure if I look deeper there will be more problems (eg for every down syndrome birth that gets aborted there are 10k false positive tests that lead to abortions, etc), but why bother? At this point my default is not to believe anything I hear about health discoveries/advances. Did they come up with a model/test that can successfully predict the relationship between various variables in data collected after it was devised? This would show some progress is being made. If not, who cares.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Bot on Friday August 18 2017, @09:43PM (1 child)
AI suggestion: a global thermonuclear war would literally eradicate down syndrome births worldwide in a matter of seconds.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday August 18 2017, @10:03PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:20PM (6 children)
Came here to say this. This is as much "eradicated" as the yearly flu is "eradicated": we take measures and get to a point where the symptom isn't present in society any more.
Having said that, as long as these families are making their own decisions, not pressured by the government, I don't see a problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @07:10PM (5 children)
i agree, except that the abortions are probably tax funded. i don't agree that i should pitch in on your abortion. your choice and your responsibility. no free school for your dumb little bastard (not referring to down syndrome babies, just in general) either. you breed em, you feed em.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:55PM (4 children)
pay for a few cells to be removed now, or pay increase premiums, and more, for ever.
(Note to anti-"socialist" Americans: large companies, especially insurance companies, distribute costs across all people paying premiums. "Socialism" in action! (Yes, they also add enough to make huge profits)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:55PM (3 children)
Here's Socialism:
The collective ownership of the means of production by The Workers.
Now, it's good that you at least put "socialist" in quotes.
Maybe a smilie or a /sarc tag would have been appropriate as well.
You are talking, however, about an insurance pool administered by a company whose main concern is maximizing its profits (not the wellbeing of its workers) and which surely has stockholders who do no labor within the company.
There's nothing "socialist" about that.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday August 17 2017, @11:16PM (1 child)
Pooled risk is something people seem to understand.
Why they can't get the extension to collectivism is probably beyond explanation, alas.
(Cultural imperative, incentivized indiviulaism, perceptions of success and failure, rampant corruption, greed-is-good, I-got-mine mentality.. )
Yes, I could have put a /snark, but look at my nick - it would be redundant.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @02:05AM
Whether an action is voluntary vs enforced is an important distinction for some people.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Sunday August 20 2017, @02:26PM
Around here, some insurers are cooperations. Basically, when you join you become a member, and the collective of members is the boss (i.e., gets to appoint management, approve plans, etc.).
The main concern of a cooperation does not seem to be maximising profits, but providing decent insurance to its members for a fair price.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:09PM (50 children)
Haven't gene therapies come around to help reduce the symptoms in individuals with the conditions?
Just going off my own experiences, there are plenty of functional (if not the 'smartest') Down syndrome people out there, and I wonder if destruction of them in this fashion (abortions vs modified ivf/treatment) is making us better or worse as a species.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:21PM
Like most miracle therapies, it's a long way from being a routine thing:
https://www.nature.com/news/researchers-turn-off-down-s-syndrome-genes-1.13406 [nature.com]
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/01/24/stem-cell-therapy-shows-promise-in-toddler-with-down-syndrome/ [geneticliteracyproject.org]
If you don't get them early in life with a highly effective therapy or cure, their development will be impaired during the most fundamental years of life.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:06PM (11 children)
What can be said about Down patients is that they are happy persons (well, almost all of them). That cannot be said about the rest of the population. OTOH there is also the burden they impose on their family/wardens so I am feeling a lot of ambiguity there and we have to leave the decision to abort or not to abort the individual IMO.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:10PM (9 children)
OTOH there is also the burden they impose on their family/wardens
And this part is never discussed by the anti-abortion folks. It's one thing to volunteer to raise a perfectly healthy baby to adulthood (and how much of the anti-abortion crowd volunteers for this, especially for black babies?), but it's another thing to volunteer to take care of someone for their entire life, since people with Down's frequently cannot live independently. Are any of the anti-abortion people volunteering for this job?
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:30PM (7 children)
I agree with you that this is exactly the challenge. In the past I have worked in genetic counseling and it is heartbreaking to see what a kid with a syndrome (or occasionally an adult, e.g. Huntingtons) can do to a family. Most families break apart, few can stand it, it is always a lifelong challenge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:44PM (5 children)
God will provide, but those with moral authority generally will not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @10:33PM (4 children)
Deities are fiction.
...and not particularly good fiction.
If you analyze the scripture of various religions, you will find numerous contradictory items within their own book.
Unlike Science, which tends to converge on the mechanisms of how stuff works, religions just get wackier and wackier and in greater disagreement as you examine the various sects.
If there was any truth to religion, there would be great agreement on the fundamental facts.
Instead, religion is a bunch of yahoos trying to grab power, each inventing his own magical nonsense.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @09:53PM (3 children)
I am more appalled at your vision of Science as a steadily progressing discoverer of truth than about your opinion on religions. When you get older and Science will have twice told you that the food you have considered unhealthy is healthy and vice versa, maybe you will change idea.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday August 18 2017, @11:11PM (2 children)
That's not science, it's politics. Corrupted politics at that, as pretty much any major announcement (that people take seriously) comes from a federal health board, which is probably light on actual doctors, much less scientists, and extremely heavy on politicians who are more interested in ensuring their sponsors keep funding them than in spreading useful information. Take the traditional Food Pyramid as an example - total bunk from a scientific perspective, and everyone involved in making it knew that when it was released.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @07:07PM (1 child)
Yup. Excellent example.
Clearly based on which agricultural products got the most subsidies.
(Grains, to include animal fodder.)
It's pretty clear that for hundreds of thousands of years our opportunistic species consumed mainly what they could easily grab and eat (fruits and veggies).
.
In the last month, I've heard that fossil-fuel-based utilities knew that what they were doing was wrecking the ecosystem, same as Big Oil knew. [google.com]
Since USA.gov funds a huge portion of most research, it's unlikely gov't insiders weren't aware as well.
...but there's The Revolving Door for them to consider.
Yeah, in so many cases, it's politics, with folks feathering their own nests and taking bribes from megacorporations to deliver the prescribed results--not the search for truth.
...then we have O'Bummer and the rest of them persecuting whistleblowers--while claiming to be all about transparency in gov't.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:41PM
so you are ready to look at science with a critical eye because no matter the corruptions it is useful in its own domain, and you are not ready to do the same with religion. Interesting meatbags.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Friday August 18 2017, @04:00AM
I know someone who aborted a severely-defective but viable fetus (IIRC it basically had no forebrain) for precisely this reason. As she put it, "That burden is not fair to my other kids." Meaning if you have to spend all your time on one child, what becomes of the rest of your family?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:48PM
Especially since the anti-abortion crowd always tells people that adoption is a great solution ... but there an infinitesimal fraction of people willing to adopt Down Syndrome kids.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Entropy on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:45PM
They are happy, and cute kids. When they are adults they have a significantly higher suicide rate, so no--they are only happy when they are cute to look at and an adult is in charge of their welfare. When it comes time to look for a mate and forge your own path in life they discover that unfortunately, they are quite literally retarded.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:09PM (36 children)
"better or worse as a species"
Well, it's still a step up from abortion on demand, no reason required. Just think of all the perfectly healthy babies put to death, and compare that to genetically defective babies. I'm not arguing that either one is right, just that eliminating genetically defective babies makes more sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:34PM
By "babies" do you mean the bags of undifferentiated cells or undeveloped fetuses?
What size or composition of cells do you consider a baby?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:36PM (34 children)
Have you considered that a blastula is not a baby? I'm actually against abortion after the point of viability--which, IIRC, is now 24 weeks?--but let's not be dumb here.Most abortions take place long before anything even remotely resembling a human being appears.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:43PM (3 children)
By which you mean, you're in favor of using the government to force women to remain pregnant? I am pro-choice, and by that I mean that women should be able to terminate a pregnancy at any point, which either involves abortion or something like a c-section. I don't see how you can take a 'You own your own body' stance and then say that you lose the right to own your body after X amount of time passes while you're pregnant.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:30PM (2 children)
That's my personal view. I am entirely pro-choice on the legal side of things, for what I hope are obvious reasons, but my personal feeling is abortion shouldn't happen, assuming the fetus is healthy and viable, after it can survive on its own.
And yes, I have specifically done the gedanken placing myself in the position of being raped: if I somehow went two trimesters and couldn't get this done, then I would give birth. ...and likely get my tubes tied, which is the plan anyway.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @10:46PM (1 child)
It would be interesting to hear your opinion of those who are opposed to abortion AND who want to restrict/eliminate access to birth control.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 18 2017, @12:24AM
Interesting, perhaps, but also completely unprintable in professional company.
The polite(ish) version is that these people are full of shit, and they're not anti-abortion so much as pro-"keep 'em barefoot and pregnant." Me, I want abortion to be safe, legal, readily accessible, and very very rare on account of almost no one needing one.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 18 2017, @12:22AM (15 children)
So, to paraphrase, "It's not a person until I say it's a person." Got it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 18 2017, @12:28AM (14 children)
Ohh-ho-ho-hoooo, you just stepped in a minefield.
Define what makes a person and person, and then show me where along the spectrum of fertilized ovum to hours-preterm fetus these things emerge.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 18 2017, @02:07PM (11 children)
Does it have human DNA? It's human. End of discussion, thank you for playing.
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Friday August 18 2017, @02:56PM (10 children)
Discussion reopened. How much human DNA? Any? That's going to be a VERY long list of organisms. If not, what percentage? Which human genes? Genetics doesn't works the way you think it does.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 18 2017, @03:58PM (9 children)
It's a living, growing, human being. Terminating that human being is homicide. Are you a homicidal maniac?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 18 2017, @04:06PM (3 children)
So...by your definition my fingernails are human below the white excresence. Am I committing murder if I cut them too far down? When I have my period, am I committing half-a-man-slaughter with every unfertilized egg I flush? When I burned my finger on the oven door and it blistered, did the cells in the dermis die and go to heaven?
You're dumber than I gave you not-credit for, Runaway.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 18 2017, @04:58PM (1 child)
Dumber than you thought, huh? Well, I've been studying the master/mistress Zumi!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 18 2017, @06:17PM
Er...you've been studying Dubya? That would explain a few things. That guy's so dumb Cheney has to start his lungs in the morning with a jumper cable.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 18 2017, @05:02PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0p9zJoSQTA [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Taibhsear on Friday August 18 2017, @07:12PM (4 children)
That didn't answer my question. Are you avoiding it because you don't actually understand how genetics or cellular biology works?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 19 2017, @12:06AM (3 children)
I'm avoiding answering the question because it is irrelevant. A fertilized egg has it's own genetics. Some from Mom, some from Dad, but different and unique. In it's natural environment, that egg will grow and develop into another human being. Destruction of that developing human being is a form of homicide. From the moment of conception, it is "human", not at some arbitrarily set point in the future. That egg is experiencing and performing all of the same things that all of us adults did all those years ago.
I'm fed up with all the sophistry claiming that it's not a human, not a person. Many of the very same people who dehumanize a fetus will condemn any person who kills a breathing person, claiming that homicide is NEVER justified. Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet pot.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 19 2017, @01:14AM (2 children)
So explain the postulated 20-50% failure to implant or otherwise loss rate of these nascent human beings then?
This would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic, watching you mindlessly spit the Narrative like this. You haven't thought this through at ALL, good grief.
And while yer at it, care to explain to us how the hell come you're so gung-ho about saving blastulas but as soon as a fetus becomes a baby to hell with them if they're/their family's poor?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 19 2017, @01:26PM (1 child)
Darwin is enough to explain the failure rate. Some of us don't make it to birth, for whatever reason. Some of us are birthed, and die soon after. Others survive a year or six, then keel over, victims of genetic defects, disease, accident, neglect. More make it to sexual maturity, at which point we might deem them a "success" - only to die before they mate. Disease, violence, depression, drugs, whatever. Those who survive long enough to actually mate are indeed successes, and hopefully, they pass their successful traits on to their offspring.
And, don't forget - only the good die young. The rest of us are stuck here for decades. You should be good for at least twelve decades!!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 19 2017, @03:37PM
You're trying too hard Runaway :) It's kinda cute, but mostly just pathetic.
Here's a hint: maybe don't chain post your near-total ignorance of genetics, biology, embryology and ethics on a forum fulla nerds? You don't have an actual argument, and ironically your defense of "it's a human at conception yew gaize!!!1111one" is the exact same thing you accused me of above.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Saturday August 19 2017, @05:19PM (1 child)
More and more I just don't care about abortion as long as I am not paying for it. I don't like that a woman can abort and its nothing but if at the same period in a pregnancy someone hurts the mother and causes the fetus to die the person can get charged with murder. Right now we have somethilng more like evictionism than anything else, where a woman maintains supreme property rights over the body and she can evict the fetus for any reason and if it dies it dies. Whatever, just be consistant.
I start to get worried when on both sides it comes down to "when is it a person" and both sides start defining that. The definitions by some are broad enough to include people who are already born by accident. If a fetus isn't "a person" until it is vible then what about people who have their lungs fail and are in an iron lung, they are no longer viable and we should just be able to take a shit and clear them from society for convenience. I live in a pretty liberal place and recently a couple people I was talking with concured that until it is smarter than a dog its not a person, so a person with autism or dementia who can't think past two action/reaction scenarios might not count, we should just shit them out of society with a coathanger and sissors.
Traditionally our species has gotten into a lot of trouble when we start definining what makes the other people around us people. Slavery goes back to the Assyrians. Our freedom is based on personhood where all people are created equal, easy way around that is to say one group is not people. It was the union side that supported emancipation that made American blacks 3/5 a person so they could surpress the southern vote.
That aside, I guess I am fine with evictionism. Nobody gets to say what you do with your property, be that evict a fetus from your land that you have full control over, or me not having to pay for it by refusing you access to my property. I don't know if there is a hell, but I really don't need the extra weight of paying for abortions (if a possible diety actually cares) weighing me against a feather.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 20 2017, @03:56AM
Almost this entire post is one long string of category errors, false equivalencies, and FYGM. The analogy between a non-viable fetus and someone who suddenly enters a vegetative state is a prime example; I'll leave it to you to figure out why. Hint: it concerns the previous state of the person before the coma.
Also, there is a Hell, or more accurately there are as many Hells as there are people in them, and each one lasts exactly as long as it needs to. Hell is a state of mind, not a place, or more accurately *anywhere* can be Hell.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday August 18 2017, @10:10PM (13 children)
> Have you considered that a blastula is not a baby?
It is not as relevant as it seems. Terminating whatever set of human cells that left alone would result in a baby is killing a baby, much like committing a foul against a soccer player who has dribbled the goalkeeper and is heading to goal cannot be condoned by saying "Hey, he didn't score yet, so it's zero damage done to the other team".
Usually the counter argument then becomes "Hey but then every time I use a condom I kill a baby". Nope, every time you use a condom you have the potential baby being snuffed out.
It is like playing russian roulette, with some favorable odds is not a crime. You do that every time you drive a car and risk an accident.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 19 2017, @01:11AM (12 children)
Wow. Just...wowwwwwwww. You really do not want that argument taken to its logical conclusion, Mr. Robot.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:16PM (11 children)
I have no conclusion, that is I don't care to dictate what is OK or not, I just consider suppression of an individual akin to homicide, the prevention of a potential individual akin to sterilization, and the moment when an individual becomes sentient irrelevant and undefined. If you want to build your own theorems on this you are welcome.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 23 2017, @04:43PM (10 children)
You can consider whatsoever you please to be whatever you wish, but that doesn't change reality. I am actually surprised you haven't though these arguments through to their logical endpoints.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday August 24 2017, @12:33AM (9 children)
I guess that if you state those logical conclusions I won't agree as they derive from some assumptions about my position.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:26AM (8 children)
Good Lord, now I know why they call you Bot; you have all the depth of Eliza. And you're deliberately avoiding examining the premises of your own positions.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday August 26 2017, @07:37PM (7 children)
I am missing Your premises on my own position.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 27 2017, @06:58AM (6 children)
Mostly they're "you're fulla shit." To expand a bit, you're using a greedy, reductionist algorithm, and if you take it to its logical conclusion, you get the Violinist Problem (look it up).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday August 27 2017, @09:49AM (5 children)
You are citing an example that equates the baby with an individual, which is exactly what I proposed all along. So it is quite orthogonal to the point, surely not a conclusion. As for the usefulness of the example, the violinist is basically a stranger, and the exchange of blood is done to an unsuspecting woman which does not cover some cases so the parallel is weak.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @12:12AM (4 children)
You're rather obviously and, I suspect, deliberately missing the point here. Think about it a little more, please.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday August 28 2017, @07:29PM (3 children)
No, I am missing the direction your logical conclusions should lead to, which will be probably something bad and possibly due to assumptions.
Now, I am not concerned with sounding bad as contrarianism always served me better than adherence to the zeitgeist, but the assumptions are a problem.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @08:41PM (2 children)
Your assumptions are the problem here. Now, I don't know your religious views (though if you're Catholic or similar there's no way to have a rational discussion with you; you don't even know your own religion's historical views on the matter), but in the secular space, it is agreed that if an argument is shown to be absurd or otherwise invalid it should no longer be used.
Simply put, your "butbutbut MUH POTENTIAL!" argument falls flat on its face because you're attempting to argue that all conceptuses could be the next, for example, Albert Einstein. This is a consequentialist argument, rather than a deontological one; you are applying a very high positive utility, at least in potentia, to said conceptus. However, there are three things wrong with this:
1) Yes, the child COULD be the next Einstein, but could ALSO be the next Hitler. *And we have no way of knowing which if either.*
2) Observable reality shows that most humans are...well, staggeringly average. Your argument seems to ignore this, if not implicitly reject it
3) You have started down the slippery slope of valuing "potential persons" above actual persons, and furthermore valuing them for their contribution to society rather any innate humanity, which seems like it should have been the thrust of this argument of yours to begin with. So you've, midway through, pivoted and changed or smuggled at least one premise here.
I would be very careful about naive utilitarianism in this situation if I were you...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday August 29 2017, @09:54PM (1 child)
You got all of this from #557939?
let's recap
You say "Have you considered a blastula is not a baby?"
I say "it is irrelevant". Abortion is killing an individual. As for the morality of it, it is out of the scope of the discussion. Committing fault on the player headed towards scoring a goal requires the corresponding penalty. "have you considered he did not score yet, and he might have missed"? Yes, I considered it, does not matter.
All the society stuff, you probably carried it from the previous convo. All the faith stuff, irrelevant.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 30 2017, @12:40AM
Ah, I see, you're one of those. You don't even know what words mean.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:13PM (2 children)
Just wait until they learn that Down Syndrome people are the only ones who won't be eaten by invaders from Omicron Persei 8.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:30PM
I thought Lrrr mostly watched his diet of smelly hippies and not snacks that had down syndrome.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday August 28 2017, @07:35PM
- Glork, what the hell you think you are doing?
- ummm eating a human, mum?
- It looks genetically modified
- but mom here it says it has been grown naturally, it's not an OGM
- yeah like they could control their environment. spit it out now!
*SPIT*
HEY!!! I WAS HAVING FUN UP THERE!!
Account abandoned.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:30PM
It's early morning
No one is awake
I'm back at my cliff
Still throwing things off
I listen to the sounds they make
On their way down
I follow with my eyes till they crash
I imagine what my body would sound like
Slamming against those rocks
And when it lands
Will my eyes be closed or open?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AssCork on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:42PM (2 children)
Finally! If this doesn't swing the pro-life crowd as the millennials take it over, what will?
Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:33PM
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday August 26 2017, @07:38PM
> Do what your parents couldn't!
hehe
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Revek on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:01PM (5 children)
We can never have that level of sanity in the United States.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:42PM (4 children)
Sure we can, we just have to make them retroactive.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:44PM (3 children)
With a copper shortage looming** [reuters.com], the price of a full-metal jacket is going to be expensive.
Fall back to Zyklon B then?
---
** in 10 years, the price of copper is expected to increase nine times over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:48PM (2 children)
Let's go retro, the wooden club hasn't gone out of style more than briefly for millions of years. *eyes his baseball bat* Plus it's Green.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:38PM
Organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, no trans fats, and made without rBGH. Hot damn, I'll take two.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:51PM
A bit less retro: the guillotine is highly reliable and requires little training.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:02PM (4 children)
By getting the abortion, the women are preventing not just the "baby" from being born, but from becoming a baby at all. You terminate at a very early stage of development if at all possible.
Modern medicine has made great strides in keeping alive for a long time people with all sorts of conditions who would have died sooner--they have increased the burden on the caretakers and the rest of us at the same time. This is a step forward.
For all the prolife people: are you willing to adopt the Downs babies yourself that are unwanted? If not, WHY NOT?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:18PM (3 children)
They can get the abortion pretty late:
We should allow fourth trimester abortions though.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:45PM (1 child)
163rd trimester. Just to make sure.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by captain_nifty on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:05PM
163/3=54.3
Are you by any chance 55 or older?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:57PM
Most of those terminations happen before 12th week. But in rare cases a special permission is given (in case of danger for the mother) up to 20th week.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:32PM (24 children)
Various people here using the word "burden" to describe Down's Syndrome. Yes, there are a lot of medical complications. Yes, they often need more care (sometimes a LOT more care). Yes, there may be many jobs that they simply won't ever be able to gain the skills to do. However the idea that DS folk can't contribute at all is erroneous. Plenty of Downs Syndrome people hold down jobs and their employers consistently report that those staff members tend to be more honest, more punctual and take less sick leave than "normal" employees.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:53PM (9 children)
Yup, they're generally extremely good at doing the work that's largely been or soon will be automated. If you don't mind putting a little extra effort in though they can do the simple, repetitive, non-automatible jobs like QA at the local Wrangler factory. They're also champs at pushing a broom and emptying trash all day.
The above is not me shitting on them. That's full on sincerity. I couldn't do that type of job myself for more than a couple weeks or I'd go bat-shit from the monotony. ADHD along with intelligence has its up sides but it has some serious drawbacks as well.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:20PM (7 children)
Cafeteria dishwasher/server at a former employer. Nicest guy ever, and he loved his job because at his level that kind of work was satisfying for him.
It does bring up certain political / economic issues WRT automation, soon there aren't going to be many non-automated jobs left for people with an IQ over 80 or so. We'll never see IQ 150 people sweeping floors there's too many IQ 80 people to say nothing of all the IQ 100 people.
The powers that be seem to have the "solution" to the problem of demographic replacement, at least so far.
(Score: 3, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:41PM (3 children)
Yeah, I was swapping bodily fluids with a chick sitting at around 85 a couple years back. It was kinda refreshing. She was horribly wrong all the time but you never had to go through any mental gymnastics to figure out why she thought that way; it was always for the most obvious reason, without any nuance involved. The only thing about her that really got on my nerves was her penchant for watching reality TV. The big ole titties made up for that though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:05PM
An extreme lack of intelligence is a bit of boner-killer for me. Airheadedness and obliviousness are tolerable if they aren't too talkative, but very low intelligence seems to trigger a disgust response in me.
I remember trying to give a girl directions to my place:
Me: Where are you coming from?
Rocks for brains: I don't know. We've stopped somewhere
Me: Where are you?
Waste of oxygen: We're next to a white truck.
Me: What street are you on?
Would try to put out a fire with gasoline, since it's wet: I'm not sure, but we're next to a big white truck.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday August 17 2017, @06:13PM (1 child)
Is Ethanol-fueled your sock-puppet account?
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @07:27PM
Would not be surprised, but uzzy maintains he only uses the one account and never posts as AC. Then again he's been caught spinning half-truths, outright lies, and generally can't be trusted as a self-described troll so YMMV.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:39PM (2 children)
Hey, mine's 145 according to that chart that matches up your GRE and SAT scores with IQ (and note I studied for neither of those) and one of my jobs entails plenty of mopping, sweeping, etc. No one is "too intelligent" for that kind of work. You take what you can get in this economy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:03PM
A lot of places get into the "overqualified" thing to refuse hiring, so you're lucky, in a weird situation perhaps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:13PM
What's even more wrong is that people even take IQ seriously in the first place, and especially so for people who are otherwise really dismissive (rightly, I think) of the social sciences.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:22PM
I've found those that routinely proclaim their high level of intelligence are really just middling performers. Smart enough to know some stuff, too dumb to realize their own limitations. Good luck with your shitty worldviews and obnoxious personality.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by VLM on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:13PM (13 children)
Its politically sensitive discussion because the average IQ of the entire African country of Equatorial Guinea is 59. Fifty Nine. Average for an entire country. And their economy and politics and history reflect about what you'd expect to result from an average IQ 59 country.
Meanwhile some google about downs syndrome indicates "39.4% are in the mild intellectual disability range of 50-70, and 1% in the borderline intellectual function range of 70-80"
So "many" but not quite "most" downs syndrome victims are none the less smarter than the average Equatorial Guinea citizen. Think about that in the context of "hold down jobs" and all that. Or think about it in the context of immigration policy. If we birth IQ 59 kids we kill them or institutionalize them, but we must accept as many immigrants at IQ 59 as possible and nothing says political holiness like public support of those people...
This leads to a lot of political tension... in the west we execute white children for being "too stupid" and that's extremely socially acceptable by progressives on many levels, yet 40% of the dead white kids would be smarter than an entire country in Africa where its supposedly unjust to colonize and civilize them because there's no human biological differences and they're just like us (LOL).
So are there, or are there not, human biological differences, when many genetically impaired members of group A none the less test higher on measures of human performance than the average member of group B? If its right and just to genocide and institutionalize members of group A who operate at a slightly higher level of human performance than group B, why not ... have their superiors "guide" members of group B?
The tragedy of the end of imperialism is the argument against was its inappropriate to treat IQ 100 humans like livestock without noting that its at least as inappropriate to treat IQ 60 humans like IQ 100 humans. You wouldn't shut down the programs and group homes and toss the downs syndrome kids onto the streets to fend for themselves in a hard world, but its supposedly moral to do even worse to lower performing groups in the name of anti-imperialism. With painful human toll you could easily predict. Legacy neo- right wingers were sometimes savaged for supposedly tossing inferior locals onto the streets to fend for themselves. But note that left wingers have done worse to entire countries in Africa in the name of anti-imperialism that don't have the brain horsepower required to fend for themselves....
Its interesting to think we celebrate the genocide and institutionalization of a local subgroup that's higher performing than entire countries in Africa... EIther downs syndrome kids should be killed AND we should re-colonize and take over Africa like China is currently doing, or we shouldn't be genociding downs syndrome kids because there's no such thing as human biological differences and imperialism is wrong etc.
Usually anti-abortion doesn't "go together" with anti-imperialism which makes this ever so fun to watch. The tension is fun to watch.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:42PM (12 children)
IQ is a crappy measure of intelligence, which pretty much invalidates everything you've just written. Sorry to knock down your lovely wall of text.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:41PM (2 children)
The amazing thing about guys like him is they try to keep their complete sociopathy under wraps, but when they say shit like this, it becomes so clear how completely psycho they are in part because they *don't* realize how psycho it is to say shit like that in print on a public forum. It's not so much what they say as why and where they say it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:49PM (1 child)
I thought he was going to propose that the US should fund for and raise down syndrome babies until maturity, and then let them take over that country and replace those people that aren't very good at westernized cultural IQ tests due to not having much more than their own culture to go by.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 17 2017, @06:00PM
Pssh, this is VLM we're talking about. The only reason he isn't going around goose-stepping and Sieg-Heil-ing is because he knows he'd get fired, beaten up, and jailed in not necessarily that order if he did. Look at the guy's post history; he'd be out there marching with the neo-Nazis if he weren't such a limp-wristed cuck (am I doin' that right)?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:52PM (4 children)
According to some quick Google research that claim is an estimate because there's no actual IQ data on Guinea. On top of that, the methodology used to make that estimate isn't even disclosed.
So, I'd put a big [CITATION NEEDED] tag on the claim that "the average IQ of the entire African country of Equatorial Guinea is 59."
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:17PM (3 children)
https://iq-research.info/en/page/average-iq-by-country/gq-equatorial-guinea [iq-research.info]
I suppose you could argue that the work done by Professors Lynn and Vanhanen isn't "actual" because it provided a result that's not politically acceptable, kind of like some interpretations of global warming. There are "IQ Skeptics" and so forth although the science seems pretty settled. Most of the claims its invalid data tend to be pretty fluffy and political. Some of it is outright trolling by people imitating global warming denialism, which is pretty funny.
It seems unlikely, fundamentally. Its a simple individual test. Not quite as complicated as detecting gravitational waves or mapping their genomes or whatever. It would be like claiming there is no data at all on blood groups. Thats a good analogy in that its harder than height/weight but simpler and faster and cheaper than a full clinical blood chemistry workup.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:21PM (1 child)
What data set did they use? How many Guineans were actually tested? If they didn't test actual Guineans, what methodology did they use for the estimate? You answered none of those questions.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday August 19 2017, @02:02PM
The classic debate derailing tactic of reddit style "citation needed" until political opposition disappears. Not playing that, sorry.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 18 2017, @04:22AM
Can't find it again offhand but I recall hearing, from a meticulous source, that because of all the nay-saying about IQ, researchers have made such a point of large data sets that the total data from IQ testing now exceeds that for all other social sciences combined, AND for large chunks of biological science (brain research and the like). Data sets commonly exceed 500,000 individuals.
Also, turns out there's a very reliable way to determine IQ without any sort of cognitive-ability test: twitch reflexes (the correlation is something like .8, so very high). Seems what IQ really measures is the speed of your synapses, which is basically .... processing power.
But I guess the idea that some CPUs families are faster than others is too hard for some folks.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:22PM (3 children)
Um, no.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:23PM (1 child)
Brilliant response. We don't even understand intelligence, yet you think we have a way to accurately measure it? IQ can be correlated with several things (like school performance), but we have no idea how much those things relate to one's intellect because we don't even have close to a full understanding of the human mind. The original purpose of IQ was not even to measure intelligence. The evidence is just not there.
IQ also comes from the bowels of the social sciences, which are not exactly known for being rigorous. I strongly suspect you are otherwise dismissive of the social sciences, which would make your position here all the more laughable. Stop picking and choosing which aspects of the social sciences you want to believe and start being intellectually honest. If you actually cared about high quality, rigorous science, you would be as skeptical of IQ as I am.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday August 19 2017, @02:17PM
Yet for so many applications its not needed, just find a very high correlation coeff between successful economies and "G-factor" or "IQ" or whatever you want to call it, then use that as a model to predict which country will be more successful after a war, Somalia or Japan?
The Wright brothers did pretty well at engineering usable culturally impactful airplane despite horribly inferior computational fluid dynamics, turbine blade metallurgy, etc.
Its the classic "perfect is the enemy of good enough" that is often run into with engineering. Vacuum tubes not being the ideal hardware implementation for a computer does not prove that ancient vacuum tube computers never existed and were not practically useful in modeling the real world. It just means something even better at it eventually did/will come along, and be chill when the state of the art progresses as expected.
The existence of a predictive intelligence model is not disproven by slight imperfection.
Maybe a physics analogy... we know newtonian gravity is wrong in the decimal places and weird places. Yet that doesn't somehow prove there is no way to predict if an apple will fall downward or upward out of a tree. We can reliably predict using a mathematical model of reasonable correlation what will happen when that apple detaches from the tree. You can rant all you want about relativistic effects on a 200 mph falling coconut or the heisenberg uncertainty principle as relates to the momentum and position of a falling coconut proving that newtonian gravitation theory is wrong wrong wrong ... but for sake of personal safety, don't do that ranting while standing under a coconut tree, directly under a loose ripe coconut, on a windy day, that can't possibly end well no matter how "wrong" Newton was.
Agreed AC you do make good point. But a math model that seems to work when applied to make predictions earns respect. The more screwing around naval gazing imaginative stuff "they" do, the more a reliably accurate prediction engineering-grade math model should be publicly appreciated as an example of doing the right thing.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday August 17 2017, @11:06PM
How about "crappy in some cases, therefore not great"?
http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/intelligence.aspx [apa.org]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex