• janonymous@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Someone called it “soft eugenics” and that makes the most sense to me. It’s probably too much bad press and effort to do the old school active eugenics of preventing undesirable peoples from reproducing. So instead you remove health and safety services so “nature” will take care of them. While you simultaneously make it “easier” for the others to reproduce by handing out benefits and preventing birth control.

    I’m sure that makes sense to the “utilitarian” crowd or whatever they are called, that believe that the goal of humanity’s survival against whatever hypothetical future scenario they think of justifies any means today. Well, except to those who paid attention in biology and know that diversity is actually our best strategy to do just that.

    • MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com
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      9 hours ago

      I get why that term is used, but eugenics is eugenics. At least soft eugenics has the word in it, but it really isn’t soft it’s just normal eugenics. I can’t wait for them to rebrand labor camps as soft prisons or whatever because technically the people there aren’t prisoners so they can call it something else.

      • huppakee@lemm.ee
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        9 hours ago

        I agree, but also something can be said about there being different levels of intensity. Like prisons, there is gradation in the regime. You might need a different prison for hardened criminals constantly trying to break out and elderly criminals who long gave up on ever getting out and just watch tv all day. This being called soft eugenics doesn’t make it less eugenics, it has the word in it and you could argue there is a difference between this and hard eugenics where you actually slaughter people with ‘undesirable’ traits. Not saying there is good eugenics and bad eugenics, but i guess i were a victim I rather go through soft eugenics than just be executed on sight.

        • creamlike504@jlai.lu
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          2 hours ago

          It’s like first vs second degree murder. It soundsless intense to the jury, but if you’re the victim… you’re still dead.

        • MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com
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          6 hours ago

          Yea. I totally understand that. And like I said I understand and appreciate that it at least has eugenics in the term, but it’s very much still eugenics and the fact we have to delineate between hard and soft is just silly in my opinion. Eugenics is still eugenics regardless of if executed on site or just left to starve or die. It is technically not as “direct” I guess but it is still 100% eugenics. I wasn’t explicitly criticizing the use of the term just that we live in a society where we now have that distinction and have to make it clear so a bunch of bad faith actors don’t point to the fact there’s no gun to peoples head and say therefore no eugenics.

      • FearfulSalad@ttrpg.network
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        5 hours ago

        Higher infant mortality, and higher maternal mortality to boot, all while chasing the $5k bait with poor insurance coverage at public hospitals. Meanwhile, the haves can afford better private care. Since that’s where the money will be, they’ll be pulling better doctors and nurses to it, thus avoiding becoming statistics.

        Edit: it all boils back down to “survival of the fittest”, where “fittest” has been redefined to mean “has the most money”.

      • compostgoblin@slrpnk.net
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        6 hours ago

        Forces everyone to reproduce. Lack of healthcare kills off the ones who can’t afford to survive. The “undesirables” still reproduce, they just die young.

        • photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          5 hours ago

          Prevention of birth control leads to teen pregnancies, especially among the poor. It doesn’t matter if they die young as long as they reproduce. That seems counterproductive…

          • compostgoblin@slrpnk.net
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            4 hours ago

            They don’t want the undesirables to die out entirely. They just want them under heel as worker drones.

            On the other side of the coin, gotta make sure the “right people” have lots of kids to make sure there will be an upper class to rule over the worker drones.