Post: #1

http://news.uk.msn.com/world/courts-back...est-ruling

http://now.msn.com/now/0412-german-incest-ruling.aspx

   

Patrick Stuebing and Susan Karolewski were siblings separated as children, and reunited as adults when their mom died. He went in hard, and now they have 4 children. I'm speechless on this one...

Post: #2

Always rely on the Germans to take the Kinky side up a notch!

Post: #3

2012 and that's the best picture they could come up with?

Post: #4

Its the experimental toaster-cam.

Post: #5

If gays should have the right to marry, why shouldn't siblings have the same right too?

Discrimination!!!!

What is the argument against incest? Aren't we talking about two consenting adults, here? Does it affect your lives what they do in their privacy? Be open-minded, people!

Post: #6

The argument of the defence is interesting. The prosecution is saying that they shouldn't be allowed to have children because of the higher risk of birth defects. Defence points out that older women have a higher chance of giving birth to children with birth defects, but they are not banned from having children.

Post: #7

(04-14-2012 01:48 PM)Icarus Wrote:  If gays should have the right to marry, why shouldn't siblings have the same right too?

Discrimination!!!!

What is the argument against incest? Aren't we talking about two consenting adults, here? Does it affect your lives what they do in their privacy? Be open-minded, people!

Might have something to do with the side effects of inbreeding, including the dramatically increased risk of congenital abnormality. You know, whereby over 1/3rd of children born into such unions have been shown to die or suffer a major disability (with the rate being higher in other studies)?

It becomes our problem when:

A: We (taxpayers) have to foot the bill for the healthcare needed to look after the defective products of these unions.

B: Some of the products of these unions are able to grow and function while carrying these defective genetic traits (again, brought forward by inbreeding) into adulthood, and spread them further into the gene pool. That can fuck up entire sections of the population (those who inherit his/her messed up genes in the future) by leaving them vulnerable to illness.

I'm all for freedom of association and all that, but this is something we need to avoid. The limit needs to be set at the second cousin level, where the risk of increased morbidity in offspring is still relatively low. Any relationships between individuals who are genetically closer than this should be prohibited.

Post: #8

(04-14-2012 01:52 PM)Caligula Wrote:  The argument of the defence is interesting. The prosecution is saying that they shouldn't be allowed to have children because of the higher risk of birth defects. Defence points out that older women have a higher chance of giving birth to children with birth defects, but they are not banned from having children.

It is a weak argument. The risk of birth defects in children born to full siblings is many times greater than that of those born to an average 40 year old woman.

With the 40 year old, you're looking at a risk of 1-2%. First cousins are at around 4-5%. With siblings of any age (or child-parent relationships), you're looking at a 20-36% rate.

There is no comparison here. One practice is clearly VASTLY more dangerous than the other. One can use the argument regarding the risk of defects in children born to older women to justify some more distant incestuous relationships (ex: second cousins), but that is as far as that argument can go.

Post: #9

If we have to ban gay marriage to stop this shit, then we should ban gay marriage.

This is just fucked. Both should be thrown in jail.

Post: #10

I'm with Athlone on this. The risk of genetic abnormalities is too great to allow full siblings to have children. It's not fair to their offspring (frankly, I can't imagine how anyone who's ever met someone with a serious heritable illness could disagree with me).

That said, I'd be in favor of allowing them to bang if one of them gets sterilized. One argument that doesn't convince me all is that it's somehow wrong in and of itself for them to fuck just because they're siblings, independent of the consequences for their offspring. I think that attitude is just a visceral reaction left over from the fact that we evolved not to be attracted to family members, and not based on any defensible moral theory.

Post: #11

Sibling relationships are the product of mental illness. No mentally healthy human being wants to have sex with his sister(or mother for that matter). This seems to be culturally universal, which suggests that it's wired into our DNA to avoid procreating with close relatives. This should not be given the respect of being socially sanctioned.

Post: #12

(04-14-2012 02:22 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  Sibling relationships are the product of mental illness. No mentally healthy human being wants to have sex with his sister(or mother for that matter). This seems to be culturally universal, which suggests that it's wired into our DNA to avoid procreating with close relatives. This should not be given the respect of being socially sanctioned.

One leading hypothesis for why we aren't attracted to close family members is that there's some kind of imprinting that goes on in early childhood, where extended close contact shuts off the circuits that would normally make you attracted to opposite-sex relatives. If they were separated as young children, this process might not have ever happened and they could be attracted to each other without any mental illness being involved.

Post: #13

(04-14-2012 02:05 PM)Athlone McGinnis Wrote:  

(04-14-2012 01:48 PM)Icarus Wrote:  If gays should have the right to marry, why shouldn't siblings have the same right too?

Discrimination!!!!

What is the argument against incest? Aren't we talking about two consenting adults, here? Does it affect your lives what they do in their privacy? Be open-minded, people!

Might have something to do with the side effects of inbreeding, including the dramatically increased risk of congenital abnormality. You know, whereby over 1/3rd of children born into such unions have been shown to die or suffer a major disability (with the rate being higher in other studies)?

It becomes our problem when:

A: We (taxpayers) have to foot the bill for the healthcare needed to look after the defective products of these unions.

B: Some of the products of these unions are able to grow and function while carrying these defective genetic traits (again, brought forward by inbreeding) into adulthood, and spread them further into the gene pool. That can fuck up entire sections of the population (those who inherit his/her messed up genes in the future) by leaving them vulnerable to illness.

Thanks for making the best thinly-veiled case for eugenics that I have heard in a while. Why not take things to the next level, and prevent older women, who are at a higher risk of birthing defective children, from having children. Why not sterilize retarded people?

It is interesting to note that eugenics in Scandinavia in the early 20th Century was a result of the emerging welfare state. If the collective takes care of each individual, then the collective decides who is allowed to breed and who is not. This goes against Enlightenment values, but the alternative seems to be slow national suicide.

PS: my comment was tongue-in-cheek. I was merely parodying the average liberal's platitudes.

Post: #14

(04-14-2012 02:39 PM)Icarus Wrote:  

(04-14-2012 02:05 PM)Athlone McGinnis Wrote:  

(04-14-2012 01:48 PM)Icarus Wrote:  If gays should have the right to marry, why shouldn't siblings have the same right too?

Discrimination!!!!

What is the argument against incest? Aren't we talking about two consenting adults, here? Does it affect your lives what they do in their privacy? Be open-minded, people!

Might have something to do with the side effects of inbreeding, including the dramatically increased risk of congenital abnormality. You know, whereby over 1/3rd of children born into such unions have been shown to die or suffer a major disability (with the rate being higher in other studies)?

It becomes our problem when:

A: We (taxpayers) have to foot the bill for the healthcare needed to look after the defective products of these unions.

B: Some of the products of these unions are able to grow and function while carrying these defective genetic traits (again, brought forward by inbreeding) into adulthood, and spread them further into the gene pool. That can fuck up entire sections of the population (those who inherit his/her messed up genes in the future) by leaving them vulnerable to illness.

Thanks for making the best thinly-veiled case for eugenics that I have heard in a while. Why not take things to the next level, and prevent older women, who are at a higher risk of birthing defective children, from having children. Why not sterilize retarded people?

It is interesting to note that eugenics in Scandinavia in the early 20th Century was a result of the emerging welfare state. If the collective takes care of each individual, then the collective decides who is allowed to breed.

PS: my comment was tongue-in-cheek. I was merely parodying the average liberal's platitudes.

It's the scale of the problem that matters. Like Athlone pointed out, the risk of birth defects in offspring of full siblings is up to 36%, compared to 1-2% for a 40 year-old woman.

You might make the point that this is a distinction of degree and not of kind, but I don't see that as a problem for his argument. There's a certain amount of risk in anything, including birth defects in children whose parents have absolutely no risk factors. The magnitude of the risk is exactly what we should be looking at, and it's pretty clear that for first-degree relatives the risk is intolerably high.

So no, this isn't a slippery slope to full-on eugenics. None of the examples you could cite are at all comparable.

Post: #15

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/63518...towns.html

This story reminded me of this case. This came out of the fundamentalist Mormon sect headed by Warren Jeffs. Because these sects are insular (they actually live behind the walls of a compound), new genes don't mix with their population. This means a defective gene stays in the pool, increasing the odds greatly that there will be many carriers of that gene. Because of inbreeding/polygamy, the odds of two carriers coming together and having a child born with defects/disease are practically guaranteed. There were few cases of this disease worldwide, whereas DOZENS of cases of it came out of this one sect. This is why incestuous breeding MUST be outlawed.

Post: #16

Quote:So no, this isn't a slippery slope to full-on eugenics. None of the examples you could cite are at all comparable.

Of course it is a slippery slope. If the collective is given the power to decide that some people cannot be allowed to breed, one opens a Pandora's box that leads logically to eugenics.

I am not taking a stand against or for anything. I am merely presenting extreme examples, as asking questions is generally much more fun than pretending to know all the answers. Nothing more than mental gymnastics.

Post: #17

(04-14-2012 02:54 PM)Icarus Wrote:  

Quote:So no, this isn't a slippery slope to full-on eugenics. None of the examples you could cite are at all comparable.

Of course it is a slippery slope. If the collective is given the power to decide that some people cannot be allowed to breed, one opens a Pandora's box that leads logically to eugenics.

I am not taking a stand against or for anything. I am merely presenting extreme examples, as asking questions is generally much more fun than pretending to know all the answers. Nothing more than mental gymnastics.

No, it isn't. Saying the government can tell siblings not to breed because of the extreme risk of birth defects doesn't logically lead to anything resembling eugenics. Not for a second. First-degree relatives producing offspring is a unique case with features that don't apply to virtually any other example you could cite. No slippery slope here.

Moreover, lots of countries prohibit siblings from reproducing. If there were a slippery slope we would expect these countries to have adopted eugenics-like policies, but that hasn't happened (at least not since the early 20th Century). So not only is there a clear theoretical difference, the evidence seems to be against you too.

Post: #18

"Why not sterilize retarded people?"

You'd be surprised at how widely this is suggested. Mostly because it is believed that the developmentally disabled don't understand sex or sexuality, and are merely operating on natural desires. Thus it makes it easier to simply sterilize them to prevent them from passing on defective genes, and they probably won't understand what is being done to them anyway.

Post: #19

Quote:No, it isn't. Saying the government can tell siblings not to breed because of the extreme risk of birth defects doesn't logically lead to anything resembling eugenics. Not for a second. First-degree relatives producing offspring is a unique case with features that don't apply to virtually any other example you could cite. No slippery slope here.

We're discussing semantics here...

Once the collective decides that people cannot have the right to breed with whomever they want, then I would claim that eugenics follows logically, because the two are essentially examples of denying full reproductive rights to individuals in the interests of the collective. Eugenics is nothing more than taking things to the extreme.

I do understand that eugenics makes people uncomfortable and emotional. But prior to 1933, eugenics was a reality all around the world, including the U.S. and Brazil.

Post: #20

(04-14-2012 02:39 PM)Icarus Wrote:  Thanks for making the best thinly-veiled case for eugenics that I have heard in a while. Why not take things to the next level, and prevent older women, who are at a higher risk of birthing defective children, from having children.

Because the risk of morbidity among the children of full siblings is anywhere from 20-30 times greater.

Post: #21

(04-14-2012 03:09 PM)Icarus Wrote:  

Quote:No, it isn't. Saying the government can tell siblings not to breed because of the extreme risk of birth defects doesn't logically lead to anything resembling eugenics. Not for a second. First-degree relatives producing offspring is a unique case with features that don't apply to virtually any other example you could cite. No slippery slope here.

We're discussing semantics here...

Once the collective decides that people cannot have the right to breed with whomever they want, then I would claim that eugenics follows logically, because the two are essentially examples of denying full reproductive rights to individuals in the interests of the collective. Eugenics is nothing more than taking things to the extreme.

I do understand that eugenics makes people uncomfortable and emotional. But prior to 1933, eugenics was a reality all around the world, including the U.S. and Brazil.

You could claim it, but you'd be wrong. The reason why eugenics is "taking things to the extreme" is because it doesn't follow logically from the arguments for prohibiting siblings from reproducing. Yes, the difference is one of degree and not necessarily of kind, but given that absolutely everything we do has a nonzero amount of risk, degree is everything. And eugenics just doesn't measure up on this count--there's no warrant for it that remotely resembles the reasons for not allowing siblings to have children.

Again, if this slippery slope existed then we would expect to see countries that prohibit incest adopting eugenics-like policies. But what we see is the opposite--eugenics is an idea that's been universally rejected, and whether or not siblings are allowed to have children has had no effect on this.

Post: #22

Quote:You could claim it, but you'd be wrong. The reason why eugenics is "taking things to the extreme" is because it doesn't follow logically from the arguments for prohibiting siblings from reproducing. Yes, the difference is one of degree and not necessarily of kind, but given that absolutely everything we do has a nonzero amount of risk, degree is everything.

Logic and statistics are different things.

What is the threshold? Above what percentage of child morbidity are we going to forbid two consenting adults from reproducing? The number is completely arbitrary, which is scary.

Fortunately, women become infertile at some point. Men, less so. What if evidence shows that old men are much more likely to produce defective children? Are we going to forbid 65+ year old men from becoming fathers? If the threshold is at age 65, why not at 60, or 55? You see the problem, right?

Post: #23

(duplicate deleted)

Post: #24

(04-14-2012 03:29 PM)Icarus Wrote:  

Quote:You could claim it, but you'd be wrong. The reason why eugenics is "taking things to the extreme" is because it doesn't follow logically from the arguments for prohibiting siblings from reproducing. Yes, the difference is one of degree and not necessarily of kind, but given that absolutely everything we do has a nonzero amount of risk, degree is everything.

Logic and statistics are different things.

What is the threshold? Above what percentage of child morbidity are we going to forbid two consenting adults from reproducing? The number is completely arbitrary, which is scary.

Fortunately, women become infertile at some point. Men, less so. What if evidence shows that old men are much more likely to produce defective children? Are we going to forbid 65+ year old men from becoming fathers? If the threshold is at age 65, why not at 60, or 55? You see the problem, right?

I get what you're saying, but you're overstating your case. Yes, the degree of risk of birth defects is a continuous variable--this means there will always be a gray area around the margins of what's reasonable, and setting a single cutoff point will be arbitrary to some extent.

But your mistake is thinking that this puts us completely at sea, with no cutoff any more or less reasonable than another. If you're interested, there actually are quantitative methods of measuring our tolerance for risk that can help us make semi-objective determinations of where the cutoffs should be, but non-borderline cases can usually be resolved just by appeal to what's reasonable. For instance, reasonable people can agree that the benefits of allowing people to drive outweigh the baseline risk of getting in a car accident, but driving drunk elevates the risk to a sufficient degree that it shouldn't be tolerated. I think we can agree to this without appealing to a complicated statistical model (although we could make such an appeal in principle) because drunk driving so obviously is outside of any gray area that a reasonable person might draw.

Once you move outside that gray area, it becomes quite possible to make confident judgments. Maybe we can argue over whether a 30% elevation in risk for offspring of first cousins is significant enough to justify intervention, but for first-degree relatives that jumps up to a 2000% increase or more. You can say the second risk is intolerable without being committed for a second to taking the same position with respect to the first.

Finally, I'm going to have to keep insisting that the evidence has falsified your position. If prohibiting sibling procreation carried a genuine danger of leading to eugenics, we wouldn't see the universal rejection of eugenics that exists today, independent of countries' policies toward incest.

Post: #25

(04-14-2012 03:50 PM)gringochileno Wrote:  Finally, I'm going to have to keep insisting that the evidence has falsified your position. If prohibiting sibling procreation carried a genuine danger of leading to eugenics, we wouldn't see the universal rejection of eugenics that exists today, independent of countries' policies toward incest.

I will summarize what we've learned from this discussion so far...

This incest scandal shows that, despite the antipathy towards limiting people's reproductive rights, it is still viewed as legitimate to forbid two consenting adults from reproducing when the risks are too "high". In other words, the "switch" that allows the collective to decide who should breed is already in the "on" position, despite the bad memories of the late 1930s, early 1940s.

It would be foolish to claim that forbidding incest will lead to eugenics in our era. The spirit of the times is such that eugenics is deeply repulsive to most people and, thus, will be seen as illegitimate to the collective.

But, the spirit of the times can and will change. In another era, say, 200 years from now, since the "switch" is already in the "on" position and unlikely to ever be in the "off" position, then eugenics may become a reality. If the giant social experiment that is liberalism fails, our descendents will adopt policies that counter those of our time, since it is only normal for the child to rebel against the father. Ideological trends and fads are fickle beasts. A mere economic crisis can make society shift from one end of the ideological spectrum, to its opposite.