Quote:
Originally Posted by Penguin
You may not wanted to imply any morale here, but you did.
The talk about the racial gene pool sounds like promoting eugenetics to me. Mankind has evolved from gatherer and hunter society, and even then, the old, weak or dumb were fed (if possible). If you couldn't hunt, then a paerson may contribute to the tribe in other ways.
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First, I excluded any moral perspective in my posting already in my very first four words by which I opened my posting. If you know better what I did, then I cannot help it.
Second, I wanted to draw attention to a medical conseqeunce of modern medical treatement, and that is that by doing so we reduce the evolutionary mechnaism of survival of the fittest. We indeed weaken our gene pool that way, whether we like to realise that or not is not the issue here: we nevertheless do. That is a problem that compares to the growing life expectancy due to modern mdeical treatement: it increases costs of the medical system, and sees eiother health system collapsing, or trewatement that is efféctive more and more only affordable for the rich, while the poor do not get it. Talking of 2- or 3-class medicine here. Also, with the share of old population becoming bigger and the share of payiong young population becoming smaller, there are financial problems to which so far nobody has an answer.
All these trhings are factual problems that nobody adresses and noboy can solve so far. Many diseases that are genetically transferred from generation to generation, withion families, thus are spreading, that is a fact. As a race, the homo sapiens in general that is, we become weaker and sicker. That has nothing to do with eugenics or rtace theory. It must be allowed to point out an implication that has a controversial reputation without getting accused of being a racist or in defense of eugenics. Again, I made that clear from all beginning on that I ignored the moral perspective on it all.
And on the old being treated in earlier times. The Iuit, when wandering around in the arctic, used to put their old and weak ones inside an iglo they built once the old became too heavy a burden for the tribe/family to care for, the iglu was sealede from the outside and could not be opened from the inside, and that way they left their oldest members behind. Several indian tribes in North America saw the old ones staying behind when they thoight theior time has come, especally in times when their was pressure on the tribe due to low food stocks or extremew cold winters. In South America, some Indian tribes know the old ones moving out on one last hunt that was meant to mark the end of their wandering on Earth, called the ghost hunt. Other communities sacrificed the weak or old ones to their deities. Both ways are known amongst African tribes as well.
And then I recommend the chapter on the genocide in Ruanda, in the book "Collapse" by Jarred Diamond. There he shows a demographic analysis of the population age structure, and shows that there was a huge rivalry betweern the poseessing old generations qwho could live off their possessions,w hile the young oines had no place and ressources left for themselves to found families, and that this inner tension formed an inner dynamic of highly destructive energy that decisively contributed to the outbreak of the killing.
And all all continents, there were hige movements by people caused by ori8ginal living places becoming too crowded to support the survival of all, or expoeditonary colon ists being sent out in to the unknown to seek relief frpom demographic pressure at home. In these endavours, again the weak and the old ones were the most disadvantaged and were the ones whose interest were sacrificed first.
So, wars also were a way by which demographic pressure was solved.
Your implication of the "edle Wilde" who does not do brutal things to the old and cared for them so much better than we do, is a bit one-sided, I would say. From all eras and continets you can find many examples illustrating the opposite. And when I look at the conditions in some of our contemporary "Pflegeheime", then I remember many examples from the media (and my own experience when I did my practicals at hospitals) that have taught me that my life may become of a kind that I may want to conclude that the price for living any longer may become too high and that it is better to make a certain decision by myself instead of leaving it to fate and random chance alone.
Thinbking about my intial posting with a little bit more of sober mind and a little bit less of sentimentality, is of the essence. The implications I point at, are real, they are problematic, and so far they are unsolved.