Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
No bio...
User ID: 732
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
But how is this eugenics specifically? Yes, Down Syndrome in particular is a genetic condition, but what about aborting a fetus with any other sort of detectable congenital condition, i.e. hydrocephaly, missing limbs, etc.? I think that these are all motivated fundamentally on a recognition that some people’s lives are doomed from the very start to be unpleasant, short, or burdensome, and that if one had the ability to spare such people a life of suffering and extreme adversity, it is morally correct, or at least permissible, to do so. I think it’s coming from a totally different perspective than progressive eugenics proper.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
”Classic” - The Knocks & POWERS
“Burning Up” - Marianas Trench
“My Type” - Saint Motel
“Dance” - DNCE
“Bulletproof” - La Roux
“Classic” - MKTO
“Talk (Single Edit)” - Two Door Cinema Club
“Brokenhearted” - Karmin
“Kill The Lights” - Alex Newell, Jess Glynne, etc.
“Mamma Mia” - A*Teens
“Time To Groove” - Majestic & Nonô
“Funhouse” - P!nk
“Cake By The Ocean” - DNCE
“Collect My Love” - The Knocks
“Preach” - Saint Motel
“Fireworks” - Purple Disco Machine
“Black Magic” - Little Mix
“Don’t Start Now” - Dua Lipa
“Safe And Sound” - Capital Cities
“Sway” - Fitz & The Tantrums
“Try Me” - Josh Ramsay
“The Feeling” - The Knocks
“Better Days” - NEIKED, Mae Muller, etc.
“Upside Down” - A*Teens
“Everytime We Touch” - Cascada
“We Like To Party” - Vengaboys
“Our Own House” - MisterWives
“Want To Want Me” - Jason Derulo
“How 2 Dance” - Kaiser Chiefs
“I Don’t Like It, I Love It” - Flo Rida
“Sugar” - Maroon 5
“Nightcalling” - Red Rum Club
“Dancing Feet” - Kygo & DNCE
“Break My Heart” - Dua Lipa
“Can’t Stop The Feeling!” - Justin Timberlake
“Disco” - Sub-Radio
“Moves Like Jagger” - Maroon 5 & Christina Aguilera
“Shake It Off” - Taylor Swift
“Hard Times” - Paramore
“Shut Up And Dance” - Walk The Moon
“Rhythm Of Your Heart” - Marianas Trench
“Dancing Queen” - A*Teens
“Animal” - Neon Trees
“Came Here For Love” - Sigala & Ella Eyre
“Kiss You” - One Direction
“Move” - DNCE
“Kings & Queens” - Ava Max
“Je Viens De La” - Two Door Cinema Club
“Sugar” - Robin Schulz & Francesco Yates
“HandClap” - Fitz & The Tantrums
“Steal My Sunshine (Single Version)” - LEN
“Ride Or Die” - The Knocks & Foster The People
“Talk Too Much” - COIN
“Kiss” - Prince
“Troublemaker” - Olly Murs & Flo Rida
“Vowels” - Capital Cities
“Rock Your Body” - Justin Timberlake
“Hot Wheels” - Doom Flamingo
“Up All Night” - One Direction
“Waterloo” - ABBA
“Perfect Mistake” - Josh Ramsay
“Work This Body” - Walk The Moon
“Anyway (Rhythm Shed Refix)” - CeeLo Green
“Moves” - Olly Murs
“Emotions” - Mariah Carey
“Coloring Outside The Lines” - MisterWives
“Rose-Colored Boy” - Paramore
“Closer” - Tegan And Sara
“Everybody Talks” - Neon Trees
“Kissing Strangers” - DNCE
“Shut Up And Kiss Me” - Marianas Trench
“Cinderella” - The Knocks
“Uma Thurman” - Fall Out Boy
“Happy” - Pharrell Williams
“Daydream” - The Aces
“Toxic Pony” - ALTÉGO, Britney Spears, Ginuwine
“Cheap Thrills” - Sia
“Never Gets Old” - Penguin Prison
“I Sold My Bed, But Not My Stereo” - Capital Cities
“Misery” - Maroon 5
“Do Me Right” - Vintage Trouble
“Dance Monkey” - Tones And I
“Crazy In Love” - Beyoncé & Jay-Z
“Moneygrabber” - Fitz & The Tantrums
“Stutter” - Marianas Trench
“Walking On Sunshine” - Katrina & The Waves
“Feel It Still” - Portugal, The Man
“Blurred Lines” - Robin Thicke, T.I., Pharrell Williams
“No Need For Dreaming” - MisterWives
“Shut Up And Let Me Go” - The Ting Tings
“Come Alive” - FMLYBND
“Paper Wings” - Taylor Swift
“1901” - Phoenix
“Feels” - Calvin Harris, Pharrell Williams, Katy Perry
“Feels Like Summer” - Panama Wedding
“Untouched” - The Veronicas
“Popular Song” - MIKA & Ariana Grande
“Levitating” - Dua Lipa
“September” - Earth, Wind & Fire
“101” - WALLA
“Rain On Me (Purple Disco Machine Remix)” - Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande
“Total Eclipse Of The Heart (Dance Mix” - Nicki French
“Sucker” - Jonas Brothers
“What You Know” - Two Door Cinema Club
“Here (In Your Arms)” - Hellogoodbye
“It’s All Happening” - Saint Motel
“Dance” - Tim Halperin
“Raise Your Glass” - P!nk
“Midnight City” - M83
“I Think I Like You” - The Band CAMINO
“It’s Time (Penguin Prison Remix)” - Imagine Dragons
“Kids In America” - Cascada
“Untouched” - The Veronicas
“I Can Talk” - Two Door Cinema Club
“What Makes You Beautiful” - One Direction
“Do Me Right” - Vintage Trouble
“Paper Rings” - Taylor Swift
“Brave” - Sara Bareilles
“How Will I Know” - Whitney Houston
“Girls Just Want To Have Fun” - Cyndi Lauper
“Time & Time Again” - Sleepy Tom & Hotel Mira
“Locked Out Of Heaven” - Bruno Mars
“You’re Gone” - Smoove & Terrell
“Shadows” - Alphabeat
“Valerie” - Mark Ronson & Amy Winehouse
“Fire Alarm” - Castlecomer
“Electric Love (Oliver Remix)” - BØRNS
“Paralyzed” - Rock Kills Kid
“Hey Ya!” - OutKast
“Stutter” - Marianas Trench
“Fiona Coyne” - Skylar Spence
“Watermelon Sugar” - Harry Styles
“Around The Bend” - The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
“Play That Funky Music” - Wild Cherry
“I Wanna Dance With Somebody” - Whitney Houston
“That’s Not My Name” - The Ting Tings
“ABC” - The Jackson 5
“Paralyzer” - Finger Eleven
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
Flatworld
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
I think that a lot of this comes down to the fact that modern men living in many European/Anglosphere countries have lived for a decade+ under a system in which women wield a massive amount of power over citizens’ lives, and men can see very clearly the failure modes inherent in the way that women’s psychology interacts with access to power. (A recent and revealing example of which is this brief clip of an interview with Biden’s new pick for Director of the CDC, a textbook demonstration of the catty and supercilious nature of a woman given far more power than she should ever have tasted.)
It may at some point have been possible to believe that women given power under the right circumstances, if thrust into power and forced to perform, might do as well as men. Certainly history contains salient examples of exceptional women - Elizabeth I of England, Boudica, etc. - ably wielding power even under extraordinary pressure. (For a fictional example, many would point to Ellen Ripley from the Alien film series.) However, now that so many men are living under the direct consequences of a feminized power structure - in which even most male officials have to cater to and navigate around female preferences and sensibilities - it’s extremely natural for men to bristle against a regime that is always going to feel on some level like an unnatural imposition.
I will say that young boys, for whom sexual ideation has not yet come to totally dominate their interactions with females, might have an easier time connecting with fictional female characters. I might be shredding some of my already-scarce Dissident Right credibility by admitting that I was a massive Harry Potter fan up into adulthood, and I always found Hermione Granger extremely relatable. She’s exactly the sort of spergy, fastidious, precocious pedant that so many of the commenters on this forum almost certainly were as kids. Of course, now we are confronted with the consequences of living under a political regime controlled by Hermione Grangers - the great majority of whom don’t even have the courtesy to look like Emma Watson while crushing us under the might of the longhouse - and reading the series over again with that life experience makes it far more difficult in hindsight to feel any warmth or empathy toward the character.
A world in which a precocious and hyper-intelligent girl could have her energies directed in a positive direction is certainly desirable; I don’t want Hermione forced to be a housewife, her prodigious mental faculties dulled by menial drudgery. Female scholars and researchers have done wonderful work in the past - see Marie Curie and Rosalind Franklin - as have great female artists and writers. What I don’t want is a world where those same women’s political sensibilities come to dominate the cultural production, and consequently the political priorities, of our society. (This is leaving aside discussions of hypergamy, and whether or not by opening up more avenues for women to accrue significant power, resources, and status, we throw reproductive/romantic relations between the sexes into chaos.)
Everyone involved in that series, with the exception of Rupert Grint, got extremely hot. I’m entirely willing to chalk it up to a combination of 1. anyone can become hot with enough money and resources, and 2. the kinds of kids who had the acting background to be selected for these roles in the first place, and the basic functionality to be able to sustain that career without flaming out horribly (like the kid who played Vincent Crabbe in the early films) are heavily weighted toward coming from affluent and intact families with good genetics.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
Who else? Maria Theresa did decently for Austria but by diplomacy and influence rather than wielding power directly. She still lost Silesia to Frederick and couldn't retake it even when it was her and half of Europe against him alone. She was about marriages, not conquest and glory. Queen Victoria did very little but sit still and be adored. Theodora has a rather dubious track record.
I would offer Boudica as an interesting example. Her revolt failed, as so many other revolts against the Romans did, but otherwise her story is genuinely extremely compelling and admirable.
Hollywood writers can't write a relatable girl-boss, because it starts with needing to cast a sexually undesirable woman. It starts with recognizing, that they need to thoroughly deprive their character of the 'women are wonderful' effect. Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 is a properly relatable girl-boss, in part because she is NOT 'Hollywood sexy'. It also helps that all 3 male characters in the movie: John, Arnold & T2 are incapable of sexualizing her.
Something similar occurred to me and I’d considered touching on it in my earlier comment, but didn’t want to get bogged down in a potentially crass “is so-and-so fuckable” argument with anybody. The example I was going to give was Sigourney Weaver - who I personally find somewhat mannish and haggard-looking, even when she was in her prime as Ripley - and I would say that some more recent examples would be Michelle Rodriguez and, to some extent, Jennifer Lawrence. (Lawrence has an attractive body, but it’s easy for a director to de-emphasize it, and her face is somewhat plain.) The key tightrope act is that these women aren’t unattractive - there’s nothing obviously off-putting about them that would make men want not to look at them (it’s not like we’re talking about casting Melissa McCarthy or Ruth Buzzi or whatever) - but not so attractive that a man would be unable to turn off his “sexy lady want to bone awooooogah [wolf whistle]” instinct long enough to relate to her on a peer level.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
Oh sure, obviously Boudica isn’t topping anyone’s list of most impressive rebel leaders; her legend is almost certainly inflated by the fact that people want so badly to find any examples, other than Caractacus, of the Celtic Britons mounting a credible defense of their homeland instead of just getting constantly steamrolled. I just think she’s an interesting example of a female war leader who genuinely seems to have demonstrated masculine virtues and achieved some modest measure of real success in doing so.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
So, obviously societies rules by men have their own catastrophic failure modes. History is littered not only with incompetent male rulers, but also men who very competently and effectively executed their vision for society, to the immense detriment of everyone involved because their philosophical premises were rotten. The masculine virtues of course have their corrupted forms, and I would dread living under a regime run by men who embodied those corrupted virtues. (Being sent off to get butchered in some pointless war waged merely to satisfy some red-blooded moron’s bloodlust and pig-headed sense of honor would be a nightmare scenario for me personally.)
Now, when we’re talking about the 20th century, it’s a complicated discussion because in most of the nations you’re talking about, women could vote, and even in the ones where they couldn’t, they were certainly far more emancipated, and their preferences taken far more seriously, than in any previous time in history. That arguably had a massive effect on the political trajectory of the 20th century, even if the people actually tasked with implementing those political preferences were still overwhelmingly male. But, of course, you’re right to point out that it wasn’t female leaders who drove most of the disastrous decisions we’re living under today.
Those are in the past, though, and most men living today didn’t experience life under those regimes firsthand. They have experienced life under the gynocracy, though, so its failure modes and frustrations loom heavily in their minds. And even if male-dominated societies suck in their own ways, female-dominated societies are always going to feel more unnatural, more like an imposition, more difficult to live under, for men, which is whose perspective I was talking about.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
Why are you assuming that fascism was one of the things I had in mind when discussing the disastrous political decisions of the 20th century?
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
It seems there are two separate arguments happening at the same time.
I acknowledged that masculine governments have well-documented failure modes, probably the most obvious of which is a cavalier attitude toward war. I even think that it’s fair to point to the one-two punch of the World Wars - one of which it’s reasonable (although more contentious than you might think) to blame primarily on fascism, the other of which has causes so multifarious that it’s impossible to persuasively pin the blame on any one factor or ideology - as the thing which finally totally discredited the old masculine virtues in the minds of many subsequent generations. I don’t know how long it will take, if ever, for the classic God-and-country martial virtues to re-assert themselves in European/Anglosphere countries; certainly the “specter of fascism” cannot continue to look over our national psyches in perpetuity, but it might take a very long time before people’s mental barriers against unadulterated traditional masculine governance erode.
Still, you haven’t yet offered an affirmative defense of feminine governance models. My contention is that most men would be more psychologically comfortable under a macho fascist-adjacent government - even one that led them to fruitless slaughter - than under the soft gynocratic model of governance under which they live now. If your argument is that those same men are stupid to feel that way, and that they ought to be far more willing to give women an honest go at governance for a while, since men fucked it up so badly a century ago, then it’s an argument we can have.
You are asking two separate questions - “is the origin of life evidence for theism” and “is the origin of life evidence for Christianity” - but appear to be treating them as the same question. Even if I take seriously the cosmological arguments that abiogenesis should move my priors toward believing in a “prime mover” or theistic/deistic supernatural origin for life - and to be clear, I do take those arguments seriously - it seems to still require a massive logical leap to get from that to “and that’s why I believe that Yeshua Ben Nazareth, a Galilean carpenter and mystic, was the incarnation of God on Earth.” Generally when I have these discussions with Christians, they make these very compelling arguments for a non-naturalistic origin of life, and then expect me not to notice that they’ve failed to provide any additional logical scaffolding to get from there to Christianity specifically.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
and so any sentient being when considering existence will also point at existence and maybe cry out “Abba”.
When looking at prime Agnetha Fältskog, I too often feel that I’m observing some grand truth about what existence is all about.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
Also, for every 'i am far-right and my wife slowly became a far-right' story', theres a 'my wife broke up with me because i was a nazi' story.
Right, this is precisely how my last relationship ended - and this is with me substantially concealing the full extent of my real views - which is the main reason why I’m so dubious. To defend the original proposition, though, it’s also true that the relationship had other issues, and that perhaps if our relationship had otherwise been going perfectly, the political issue wouldn’t have been such a deal-breaker.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
Surely you know that this is a lazy approach to the question. In fact, it seems tailor-made to be lazy and to require the least amount of thought possible. “I find this question yucky, so I will throw my hands up and refuse to contemplate it with any depth whatsoever.” You can’t seriously believe that percentages and probabilities mean nothing at all. You don’t actually think that the existence of a teeny-tiny handful of Jewish converts to Islam, or an infinitesimally small number of Jewish bums and street criminals, means that we cannot draw any useful conclusions about likelihoods and general tendencies. I trust that you’re smart enough to see why this is an absurd approach, in the same way that the existence of a tiny and statistically-insignificant number of female muggers and MMA fighters does not in any sense render us unable to draw reliable conclusions about the differences between men and women.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
I am not disputing that; I am disputing that the existence of Jewish bums and “Jewish Muslims” disallows us from forming any useful generalizations about patterns involving Jews as an ethnic group, which is the claim that Duplex made. Certainly there were prominent Jews in most major post-Enlightenment European/Anglosphere philosophical movements, and I agree that this should give the hardcore “all leftism is the Jews’ fault” antisemites serious pause. This does not mean that Jews are exactly as undifferentiated and lacking in specific/prefictable qualities as German-Americans.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
A very close friend of mine is a Messianic Jew - the only one I’ve personally known. She was born in Israel to an Israeli Jewish mother and an American Christian father. Her mother died of a brain aneurysm when she was an infant and she was raised in America entirely by her father, who soon remarried to a Christian woman and had three more children with no Jewish ancestry.
For my friend, her relationship with Judaism and Christianity is theological on the surface, but at root I think it’s fair to say that it’s an attempt to navigate the agonizing complexities of her own ancestry and her connection to a mother whom she never knew. When she was growing up, her family would honor Jewish holidays - probably somewhat half-heartedly, and as an act of indulgence toward her - as well as Christian holidays. I don’t have any insight into their theological understanding of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity; I’m neither a Christian nor a Jew, so I have no opinion on it either. For this family it seems more like their way of grappling with the presence of a half-Jewish daughter and sister unfortunate enough to exist as a living link to a woman who is now dead.
On the one hand, my friend certainly serves as an illustration of some of the perils of mixed marriages; children of these marriages, even under the best of circumstances, are forced to be “torn between both worlds”, to say nothing of the more material problems they face, such as the potentially fatal issues they have with receiving organ donations. On the other hand, I’ve always found her embrace of a syncretic reconciliation of her two ancestrally-received traditions somewhat touching. If she were to ever attempt to move back to Israel, which she has talked longingly about doing multiple times, she would probably suffer a lot of shunning and social penalties for being a Messianic Jew - especially because all the guys she’s ever dated have been Christian and she would presumably be bringing a gentile spouse in tow with her. I don’t begrudge the Jews their hostility toward “Jews For Jesus”, especially ones within Israel itself; it is good and right for them to oppose what they appropriately see as a subversive fifth column trying to corrode their particular identity and lead future generations into the waiting arms of homogenizing Christianity. I just happen to have a soft spot for Messianic Jews due to my very positive personal relationship with one of them.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
Has the popularity of “prank” shows, starting with Candid Camera and *Punk’d” and then on to the massively popular (and utterly garbage) Impractical Jokers, contributed to a lower-trust society? Or is it merely a reflection of the decline in social trust?
It seems, naïvely, that prank shows like these could not have existed in (at least American) 1940s or 1950s society; the overall sense of propriety in public spaces, and the general expectation that one should be what one purports to be and deal forthrightly and in an upstanding manner with others, seems like it was far too high to permit would-be pranksters to operate without scorn.
It seems to suggest something ugly and mean-spirited about our culture that so many TV watchers apparently enjoy watching pranks played on others, and enjoy watching grown men walk around in public creating mistrust and confusion. I don’t like the idea that people are being rewarded for helping to foster an environment in which one can never truly be sure if the guy they’re dealing with is someone totally different from who he purports to be. If I go to a restaurant or a grocery store, I want to be pretty much 100% certain that I’m not going to be forced to participate in tomfoolery instead of just getting what I wanted and expected based on normal societal functioning. If I get asked to a job interview, I want to be damn sure it’s a real job interview and not some farcical joke.
Am I just being a massive fuddy-duddy? Is my obviously-escalating cortisol level turning me into a dour misanthrope? Is the existence of popular prank shows actually helping to strengthen our society’s inoculation against actual con-men, by cultivating people’s healthy suspicion of the motives of others? Is all of this just totally irrelevant and it’s not that deep?
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11mo ago
I had no idea that Candid Camera was that old!!! I’ve only seen episodes from like the 80s onward. That certainly does poke a significant hole in my theory.
It is certainly true that scammers were widespread in the 19th century and earlier, and even that fairly benign flim-flam artists and carnival barker sorts, like P.T. Barnum, were able to secure significant financial gain and celebrity even from people who acknowledged their dishonesty. Perhaps it’s just the ubiquity/saturation of “prank” content now, and the particularly grating and lowbrow aesthetics of the ones that seem popular, that have unjustly triggered my snobbish instincts.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
Any Baltic sorts
I’m wondering if you meant “Balkan”. Are Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians associated with criminality by Western Europeans?
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
Ah, fair enough, I missed that the discussion was about EU countries specifically. I was under the impression that Serbia, Albania, and North Macedonia had fairly high murder rates by European standards, although I’m not surprised to hear that the same is not true of Croatia and Slovenia. I have a soft spot for the Baltic states for weirdo esoteric/historical reasons, but it’s good to get a reminder that they are, by European standards, still fairly poor and dysfunctional.
We’re still waiting for one of your high-effort “Inferential Distance” posts to produce a single new insight or argument that hasn’t already been repeated by you in tons of smaller comments over the years. This was literally just a long-winded (and full of misspelled words and poor grammar) restatement of the exact same argument you’ve made 10,000 times.
You mock people who want to “consoom product” on the one hand, but on the other hand the only new content you produced in this post is extolling the supposedly profound insights of two massively-popular Hollywood films.
You brought up the Wittgenstein quote about how if a lion could speak, we would not understand him. Well, the lion also would not understand us! We could maybe glean an interesting window into the thought processes of an alien mind, if we really cared to listen and to parse things out over iterated conversations; meanwhile, there are entire constellations of subject matter which intelligent humans could try and make the lion comprehend - particle physics, the principles of compound interest, comparative linguistics - and he just wouldn’t have any hope of grasping any of it. Firstly because his brain simply does not have anywhere near the level of raw computing power that even a below-average human’s brain does, but also because he would find all of it utterly uninteresting and would not bother to try and grasp it.
I’m not saying you’re as dumb as a mere beast, Hlynka. But I am saying that your posts on this topic grow more and more tedious each time, because you continue to fail to demonstrate that you’re even making a cursory attempt to understand, or learn anything from, or synthesize, any of the counterarguments we offer. You can shout “identity politics is bullshit” three trillion times into the void, but if every time some smart person offers a sophisticated rebuttal and you don’t integrate that rebuttal into your worldview at all, people will justifiably begin to lose interest in you.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
But I also noted the "I’m not saying you’re as dumb as a mere beast, Hlynka" apophasis.
This was not an apophasis at all, but merely a way to proactively head off that interpretation at the pass. I understood the way that the lion analogy might be perceived, and I was genuinely attempting to make clear that the intent was not to call Hlynka stupid. I have made no secret that I find Hlynka’s oeuvre tedious and of very little intellectual value, but I don’t think it’s because he’s not smart enough to do better. If I thought he was too dumb to learn, I wouldn’t keep replying to him in an attempt to get him to learn.
Say what you will about SecureSignals, but every time somebody refutes or challenges on of his points, he has a well-sourced and effortful response that addresses the specifics of the challenge. I myself have argued with him multiple times, and I’ve explicitly told him that he has failed to adequately meet challenges to some of his claims. He also has many users here who take shots at his claims, and who are far more knowledgeable about the subject matter than I am; are you suggesting that I’m not allowed to argue with Hlynka unless I also spend equal time arguing with every other user?
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
10mo ago
I can only assume that you don't consider Egypt to be "Africa" if you are questioning the impressiveness of African art and architecture.
When HBD proponents talk about “Africa” we are pretty much exclusively referring to sub-Saharan/“black” Africa. Egypt, Carthage, and other historical North African superstates were Semitic or Semitic-adjacent, and part of the Mediterranean world, not the “African” world as most people intend it when doing comparative history like this.
I think you’re totally misunderstanding the motivations and thought process of the average woman who gets an elective abortion.
Eugenics requires perceiving oneself and one’s progeny as part of a larger biological project - as merely one tiny branch of the human genetic/ancestral tree, the long-term health of which requires careful and intentional cultivation. Eugenics is a fundamentally communitarian endeavor. It’s about wanting humanity as a whole to be improved, using individual instantiations of eugenic breeding/sorting to direct the overall genetic health of the population in the direction of iterated improvement.
A middle-class American progressive woman who aborts a fetus with Down Syndrome is not thinking like this at all. Her decision could be framed in two ways: one is as a purely selfish decision - “If I have to raise a massively burdensome and defective child for the rest of my life, it will be financially catastrophic, require massive amounts of resources and effort, and will substantially decrease my quality of life.”; the other is to see it as an act of mercy for that child - “It would be better not to be born at all, than to be born as an incurably defective and mentally/physically retarded person, incapable of independence and entirely dependent on the indulgence of others for my entire life.”
Neither of these require, or in fact in any way involve, any orientation toward how your decision to abort a child ties into the larger genetic health of other future humans. Many of these women are some of the smartest and most capable individuals in our society; if they were primarily motivated by eugenic thinking, why on earth would they be deciding against perpetuating their superior genetic stock just because “it’s not the right time for me personally”? Abortion is clearly the dysgenic course of action in that case, barring fetal abnormalities.
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