Eugenic vs Lifeloving
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No, eugenics is selective breeding and sterilisation. Genetic engineering is to through (real) science alter the genetic material at fundamental levels.
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Well, any sane eugenicist (i.e. not the ones that have existed historically) would focus only on a small number of genes that clearly have advantages and which don't relate to immunity, and would seek as much diversity as possible in traits that do not have advantages.
This would be difficult to do with forced sterilizations (since traits that aren't negative but just happen to be in "genetically inferior" people will disappear), but is trivially easy to do with genetic modification (modify "inferior" people to have the "superior" trait, keeping all other traits the same).
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Well I have never heard anybody refer to gene modification as eugenics.
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The thing is, there is no reason NOT to purge useless traits (for example, skin colour plays no real role in survival anymore, so it is a matter of "why not" as much as it is a matter of "why".). In modern society, it is 100% a subjectively moral issue. It is the issue of creating a species only populated by genetically desirable members, vs maintaining the integrity of individual rights to life (and the right to life is subjective). Well, I guess with that argument, even subjectivity leads to economic realities, so there would be economic implications for eugenics (so now it is 50% a moral issue, 50% an economic issue). For example, capitalism is most lucrative when there are more participants (only if they play fair though, and if you don't particularly care who is up top as long as they got up top fairly). Assuming laws are enforced and people aren't corrupt, purging based on genetics is detrimental to the integrity of a capitalist system (not only will there be fewer competitors in a system based on competition, you also invoke the ire of people who aren't fond of dying, who will actively work against the economic system, or will be less productive due to fear of being killed).
In game terms, these are non-issues if you are a xenophobic species or collectivist species. Xenophobes don't want other races succeeding over them, and collectivists don't mind being purged for the betterment of their species' genome.
BTW before you think things about me, no, in real life people will only purge others around me based on genetics over my dead body.
It's a very recent phenomenon. Classical eugenics would not include gene manipulation, but contemporary eugenics does.
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That's because eugenics has a negative connotation, but genetic modification, cloning, gene therapy, genetic engineering, etc are all methods of new eugenics.
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Which is sad, if you think about it. People should not be afraid of science, rather they should be intrigued and wise about how it is used.
This could possibly offer another end-game catastrophe, perhaps one similar to the rise of sentient AI where members of species become so compelled to change their genetics that they become driven by genetic purity rather than nationalism or rationalism to purge the rest of the galaxy of "naturally formed" individuals. Naturally, they would do this after finding a universally fitting "most optimal" genetic makeup, much like how AI are "most optimal" in their creation.
They already have situations like that, where your genetically modified pops can revolt. It's in one of the Dev diaries.
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Don't worry about it. It's fine to want to be able to do evil things when you're playing evil roles. It's just a game after all. As long as there's nothing that's actually offensive in a real world context it's harmless, and I doubt there's any such thing in a game about space foxes.
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perhaps a more reasonable game mechanic for this would be the following:
-Eugenics
* May issue edicts such as:
* Forced Sterilization (a mechanic to remove pops if the option of purging them is otherwise removed)
This would obviously cause severe unhappiness among the affected pops sparking revolts.
* Genetic Augmentation (choose some bonus; research, productivity, happiness, etc... to give to your citizens but with some cost associated as this would be a large undertaking.
-Life-loving (Genetic Purity)
* May issue edicts such as:
* Banned Genetic Manipulation (Not sure the effects of this but maybe it limits ethos divergence and gives happiness)
* Purity Initiative (Remove genetically modified pops from a planet)
(These would kind of revolve around the idea of genetically modified pops having some form of a down side.)
The reason for why someone would want to play with a life-loving (Purity) species may be purely cosmetic. I personally like it best when there is meaning to play a certain style but not everyone feels the same way. The idea of a genetically modified population being statistically better is arbitrary if someone finds more enjoyment out of role playing and immersing themselves in their game.
-Eugenics
* May issue edicts such as:
* Forced Sterilization (a mechanic to remove pops if the option of purging them is otherwise removed)
This would obviously cause severe unhappiness among the affected pops sparking revolts.
* Genetic Augmentation (choose some bonus; research, productivity, happiness, etc... to give to your citizens but with some cost associated as this would be a large undertaking.
-Life-loving (Genetic Purity)
* May issue edicts such as:
* Banned Genetic Manipulation (Not sure the effects of this but maybe it limits ethos divergence and gives happiness)
* Purity Initiative (Remove genetically modified pops from a planet)
(These would kind of revolve around the idea of genetically modified pops having some form of a down side.)
The reason for why someone would want to play with a life-loving (Purity) species may be purely cosmetic. I personally like it best when there is meaning to play a certain style but not everyone feels the same way. The idea of a genetically modified population being statistically better is arbitrary if someone finds more enjoyment out of role playing and immersing themselves in their game.
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Genetic purity would definitely be part of Eugenics. The whole point of it is to get the most pure, strongest, and most efficient genes. Non-modified genes would be seen as "impure" and "weak."
And again, why would "life loving" be the opposite? Even with the most extreme eugenics where you euthanize people, that doesn't mean you don't "love life."
If anything, I can make an argument that eugenics would show I love and value life more.
Killing the weak does not mean, "we aren't life lovers, we don't value lives!"
It means, "we won't hold back the lives of the productive and strong by making them slow down for the weak."
Where as the others say, "sorry, your lives will have to be held back so we can take care of these."
And again, why would "life loving" be the opposite? Even with the most extreme eugenics where you euthanize people, that doesn't mean you don't "love life."
If anything, I can make an argument that eugenics would show I love and value life more.
Killing the weak does not mean, "we aren't life lovers, we don't value lives!"
It means, "we won't hold back the lives of the productive and strong by making them slow down for the weak."
Where as the others say, "sorry, your lives will have to be held back so we can take care of these."
Man I love pruning the branches and killing the weak, but goddamn am I depressed.
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When I say purity I mean un-altered, un-modified, everything in their DNA is 100% the product of natural processes. When you use the term genetic purity it is often not used to describe genetic alteration to produce a perfect species. Perhaps a more related term would be genetic superiority.
And you are correct, calling them "life loving" would not be accurate as any species with any ethos can love life. This is why I placed Purity in parenthesis. Either way it would only be a name, purely inconsequential.
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Perhaps it is best to put it like "Purist vs Non-Interventionist". Every ethos has its reasons for genetic purity, as they do for genetic nonintervention. A militaristic species might demand that interfering with natural development is detrimental to warfare in the long term, while a pacifist society might determine that violence is genetic (and violent genes should be purged).
As a biologist-to-be, I'd argue that a eugenic approach based on biology would definitely value diversity. You never know when a trait may have an unexpected benefit, or when it serves as a pre-adaptation (a trait which has no value in itself, but just so happens to be necessary for later traits that are valuable). It can be seen in many of the best studied cases of evolution - the influential Lenski study demonstrated that E. coli were able to evolve the ability to digest new foods, which is an enormous evolutionary advantage, but only if they received other traits with no evolutionary advantage by genetic drift. A common example of this is gene duplication - when a gene is duplicated, the second copy usually simply does nothing, but in many cases the second copy undergoes a mutation which enables it to do something valuable without having to give up the initial trait.
Given this fact, even a ruthlessly eugenics-based society would likely leave traits alone unless they had clear reason to believe that it could be replaced by an objectively better trait. This is not just a hypothetical concern either; there are many disease-resistance genes in humans which exclusively appear in some racial group or another (they are particularly common in sub-Saharan Africans, the most genetically diverse group of humans by far). A eugenics advocate who claims to be strengthening the population by removing traits that do not have clear disadvantages are not just violating ethical principle, but are acting against the evolutionary principles they supposedly believe in. For that reason, I'd say that being a "purist" is very different from advocating genetic engineering, although eugenics is vaguely defined enough that it could be interpreted to mean either one of those things.
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I am tired and at first I mistaken "eugenics" with "euthanasia" and was seriously "wtf how innately suicidal species are supposed to survive till ftl era". It took me few minutes to understood what OP means.
And I like the concept! Maybe eugenic vs life loving is bad naming, but the distinction between "species caring about the weaker of them" and "species trampling weaker of them" sounds like a genetic trait that makes sense. Think about animals that kill their young vs species that have deeply ingrained caretaking.
The problem is, current engine doesnt allow on traits that have simultaneously positive and negative effects, because each trait has to either cost trait points (positive) or give them (negative) so they should either both be positive or one positive one negative.
And I like the concept! Maybe eugenic vs life loving is bad naming, but the distinction between "species caring about the weaker of them" and "species trampling weaker of them" sounds like a genetic trait that makes sense. Think about animals that kill their young vs species that have deeply ingrained caretaking.
The problem is, current engine doesnt allow on traits that have simultaneously positive and negative effects, because each trait has to either cost trait points (positive) or give them (negative) so they should either both be positive or one positive one negative.
Thinking about this a bit more, I think ethos axis and opposing traits should be dichotomies, not just two related philosophies.
So instead of "Eugenic vs Life-Loving", we'd have "Transhumanist vs Naturalist" or something more species-neutral; one wants to change their physical body to some sort of more ideal form, the other wants to leave it as it is. Extreme transhumanists would be like Nazis, moderates would be like a race of scientists trying to improve themselves. Extreme naturalists would be puritan zealots, moderates would be ecologists.
However you could argue this is already represented by materialist/spiritual already with their access to augmentation and psychic powers, respectively.
So instead of "Eugenic vs Life-Loving", we'd have "Transhumanist vs Naturalist" or something more species-neutral; one wants to change their physical body to some sort of more ideal form, the other wants to leave it as it is. Extreme transhumanists would be like Nazis, moderates would be like a race of scientists trying to improve themselves. Extreme naturalists would be puritan zealots, moderates would be ecologists.
However you could argue this is already represented by materialist/spiritual already with their access to augmentation and psychic powers, respectively.
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- "life loving" is not a good name, and is not the opposite of eugenics
- Genetic engineering, as has been pointed out, makes eugenics kind of moot
- genetic engineering is not always the same thing as eugenics, especially not if you are talking in vivo or growing people body parts
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