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anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
Inscrutable Exhortations
@anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
500 followers 390 following 840 posts
I like Eric Hobsbawm, sparkling water, and Bananagrams

Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave

They/them
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anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
All this to say, if you write a history of eugenics, the entire first chapter shouldn't be a biography of Galton called "The Founder of the Faith" or whatever
December 10, 2025 at 6:16 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
One of the interesting things about the advocacy of eugenics in Emma Goldman's magazine Mother Earth is that they don't reference Galton at all. They (mostly) view their eugenics as Malthusian, not Galtonian
December 10, 2025 at 6:13 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
Paul Popenoe has an odd little essay where he argues that the medieval Islamic practice of cousin marriage was proto-eugenic

bsky.app/profile/anor...
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social Inscrutable Exhortations @anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social · 22d
Wait there were eugenicists arguing that cousin marriage had eugenic effects?
1. Consanguineous marriage This is a feature of Arab life much older than Isl4m, but like many other traditions and customs is deemed by the Arabs to have received the sanction of Muhammad. It is well known that among the desert Arabs in particular, a young man had what might be termed “the refusal” of any female cousin. As a general rule, the latter was not betrothed by her parents, until her own male cousins had the opportunity to take her in marriage; and it was quite the custom for cousins to marry. This led to the establishment of the phrase “daughter of ————— my uncle” as an accepted euphemism for “my wife,’’ since delicacy forbade a man to speak too directly, in public, of such a personal matter as his harim. It is not necessary to point out the eugenic effect of consanguineous mar- riage, in the light of researches of the last half century. Ina country where existence was as severe as in desert Arabia, it may be fairly assumed that many of the weaklings were weeded out early in life, and the relatively strong, physically and mentally, left to reach adult life and accompany the tribe on its wanderings. In such a stringently selected people, the practice of cousin marriage could not fail to be useful, by intensifying the desirable traits of the tribal germ-plasm.
December 10, 2025 at 6:08 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
The eugenicist Allen G. Roper (unfortunate last name and middle initial combination) wrote a whole book about proto-eugenics in classical antiquity

archive.org/details/anci...
Ancient eugenics, the Arnold prize essay for 1913 : Roper, Allen G : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
26
archive.org
December 10, 2025 at 6:07 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
Eugenicists themselves often viewed their project as part of a much longer history. One rabbi took traditional Jewish martial practices to be proto-eugenic e.g.

catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/00245...
catalog.hathitrust.org
December 10, 2025 at 6:05 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
Plato having eugenic ideas 2500 years ago feels like something that should be brought up when considering why eugenics took off in the late 19th century and not sooner
December 10, 2025 at 6:02 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
See also

aeon.co/essays/eugen...
Eugenics today: where eugenic sterilisation continues now | Aeon Essays
Thought eugenics died with the Nazis? Think again: the eugenic programme of sterilising the ‘unfit’ continues even today
aeon.co
December 10, 2025 at 5:47 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
places as diverse India or China. Like there were at least eugenic movements, if not much eugenic success, all across the world
December 10, 2025 at 5:46 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
The individual focus also makes it very hard to understand why eugenics became so influential internationally. If it was just an idea Galton, Pearson, et al. came up with, then it's difficult to see why it would take off even in other western countries like Canada, France and Germany, let alone in
December 10, 2025 at 5:46 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
Read this instead

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Ideas of heredity, reproduction and eugenics in Britain, 1800–1875
In this paper I begin by arguing that there are significant intellectual and normative continuities between pre-Victorian hereditarianism and later Vi…
www.sciencedirect.com
December 10, 2025 at 5:42 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
The writing is also just not great. He's not very focused. The book feels disorganized. It isn't very coherent either chronologically or thematically. Definitely needs an editor. It feels like you're reading a person who has collected one million facts and simply wants to list all of them
December 10, 2025 at 5:41 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
politicization of medicine, increasingly visible and destitute lower classes, industrialization, etc). He also spends way too much time talking about developments in genetics that are only tangentially related to eugenics (how much time, really, needs to be devoted to the discovery of blood types?)
December 10, 2025 at 5:41 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
from happening. There is also an overwhelming and frequently tedious focus on the biographies of particular biologists and statisticians. That's fine to some degree obviously but he then totally fails to discuss broader trends that lead to the popularity of eugenics (professionalization and
December 10, 2025 at 5:41 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
What the hell
A third, related factor is Persson and Savulescu’s utilitarian lens on staving off ultimate harm. For them, “It is a matter of such urgency to improve humanity morally to the point that it can responsibly handle the powerful resources of modern technology that we should seek whatever means there are to effect this” (2013, 130). Since well- being alone has intrinsic worth, and the “negative (instrumental) value [of ultimate harm] is indefinitely high,” moral bioenhancement “would be compulsory” (2012, 15, 21; 2019, 12; 2008, 174). Such means could be imposed involuntarily or nonvoluntarily, and surveillance well beyond that used “in the fight against traditional crimes” would be needed (2008, 174; 2019, 14; 2012, 125). In terms of preventing ultimate harm, Persson and Savulescu’s “fail- safe” is the God Machine, which would exhaustively monitor everyone’s thoughts, desires, emotions, and intentions to ensure that “serious crime” does not occur (Savulescu and Persson 2012, 414, 416). Though “such interventions and such control are not plausibly moral enhancements of [a] person,” if called for to avoid ultimate harm and associated “grave suffering,” they would be requisite (417). Reflected here is a standard utilitarian notion that one provides benefit by minimizing or preventing harm.
December 10, 2025 at 12:41 AM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
What’s more, the brains of those whose serotonin levels have been raised exogenously produce less serotonin, and withdrawal symptoms include mood swings and disproportionate anger (Wiseman 2014a, 23– 24). Worth noting, finally, is an “apathy syndrome,” induced by SSRIs, that is tied to behavioral and emotional indifference (Sansone and Sansone 2010). Though clinicians and patients often mistake it for a symptom of the underlying depressive condition, the texture and origin of this apathy are distinct (Marin 1991; Sansone and Sansone 2010). Apathy syndrome and the linkage of SSRIs to impulsive aggression prompt Wiseman’s observation that SSRIs seem to “work, ultimately, by suppressing higher order brain function— powers that most agree are rather important in moral discernment and practical wisdom” (2014a, 24). Since the difficulty here is not with SSRIs, specifically, “but rather with the very way serotonin interacts with the brain, overcoming [it] is not something that can be achieved by simply ‘making better drugs’ ” (24).
December 8, 2025 at 12:04 AM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
SSRIs are something less than moral magic
It turns out that the exogenous addition of serotonin may have either an ameliorating or a precipitating impact on impulsive aggression (Okada and Okajima 2001). Increasingly, research addresses its role in promoting aggression and impulsivity. Though SSRIs have also been linked to increases in premeditated aggression, insofar as serotonin is tied to aggression, it is almost always the impulsive kind (Crockett et al. 2010; Coccaro 2012; Wiseman 2014a). SSRIs are also tied to “highly troublesome aggressive obsessions” (Modestin 1998, 587); though not acted upon, this ideation reflects internal disinhibition of a violent nature (587). T he aggression at issue in humans can be self- or other- directed. The latter type includes murder and assault (Breggin 2001; 2003/ 2004). Here, “It is a fantastic irony that Persson and Savulescu (2008) conclude the very article in which they posit the possible use of SSRIs as a means for reducing violent aggression with the cautionary tale of Seung- Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech killer of 2007. At the time of the murders, Cho was being medicated for depression” (Wiseman 2014a, 25). As for self- directed violence, “Studies show that many more suicides are attempted on normal doses of SSRIs beyond what is seen on placebo or many non- SSRI antidepressant drugs” (Kauffman 2009, 11). SSRIs “can induce obsessive suicidal ideation” of a violent nature in patients with no prior experience of it (Teicher et al. 1993, 193– 94). Peter Breggin has been especially tenacious in pointing out the risks of aggression/ violence linked to SSRIs (2001; 2003/ 2004; 2004a; 2004b; 2010). Based on extensive work as a psychiatrist and medical expert (2004b, 2), he offered guidance to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA): When evaluating the vulnerability of children or adults to SSRI- induced adverse drug reactions, the inquiry should be broadened from suicidality to include the overall problem of SSRI- induced mental and behavioral disturbances, such as m…
December 8, 2025 at 12:03 AM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
I am quite liking the "you can't chemistry your way to moral goodness"
Subsequent studies and reviews gainsay the rosy view that oxytocin promotes prosociality, pure and simple. Rather than warranting the conclusion that we should not rely on oxytocin alone (Persson and Savulescu 2012, 120), this growing picture suggests that we should not do so at all. Having sifted through alleged findings of greater prosociality, Bartz et al. conclude that “almost half of the studies/ outcomes reported in the prosociality domain found no significant main effect of oxytocin. . . . Moreover, situational or individual difference factors moderated 60% of the outcomes reported” (2011, 304). Further, a number of studies found “antisocial . . . effects, such as increasing feelings of envy, mistrust . . . [and] out- group derogation” (304). Since the review of Bartz et al. in 2011, the amount of research on oxytocin and antisocial behavior has increased (Smith et al. 2017). Per Smith et al.’s literature review, more recent work (e.g., Ne’eman et al. 2016) “highlights our growing understanding of the importance of oxytocin in mediating a range of antisocial behaviors” (2017, 621); in sum, their review and pilot data underscore “the potential for oxytocin to promote both prosocial and antisocial behaviors” (625). What’s more, such f indings, though brought to the fore only recently, have existed “from the early days of research on OT” (Beery 2015, 179).7 Among studies of oxytocin that have documented antisociality, Shamay- Tsoory et al. (2009) provide a telling illustration. They hypothesized that if oxytocin “is involved only in prosocial positive emotions, then the [exogenous] administration of OXT would diminish the levels of envy and gloating. By contrast, if OXT is generally involved in modulating social emotions, then the administration of OXT would be expected to increase the ratings of envy and gloating” (868). Shamay- Tsoory et al. contextualized their finding, that oxytocin “increases reported levels of envy and also has a moderate effect on gloatin… Oxytocin strengthens prosocial and antisocial conduct, not only interpersonally, but also on the level of groups. De Dreu et al. found a heightened occupation with the welfare of one’s own group, fostered indirectly by “aggression against the out- group” (2010, 1408– 1409). They tested the hypothesis that ethnocentrism, defined as “the tendency to view one’s own group as centrally important and as superior to other groups,” is both “a key mechanism facilitating . . . in- group cooperation” and what oxytocin promotes (2011, 1262). Per their results, oxytocin fosters “intergroup bias because it motivates in- group favoritism and, in some cases, out- group derogation” (1264). As such findings suggest, what has often been seen as oxytocin’s univocal boosting of prosociality is actually a double- edged phenomenon. On De Dreu et al.’s formulation, “Through its influence on in- group favoritism, oxytocin contributes to the development of intergroup bias and preferential treatment of in- group over out- group members. Because such unfair treatment triggers negative emotions, violent protest, and aggression among disfavored and excluded individuals, by stimulating in- group favoritism, brain oxytocin may trigger a chain reaction toward intense between- group conflict” (2011, 1265). They therefore reject the sensationalist claim that oxytocin is “a ‘cuddle chemical’ or ‘love drug.’ . . . Rather than making humans prosocial, oxytocin functions to strengthen an . . . evolved and rather functional tendency to discriminate between in- group and out- group as well as to give members of one’s own group preferential treatment. Such ethnocentrism has adaptive value to individuals and their groups but, unfortunately, also paves the way for intergroup bias, conflict, and violence” (1265). Persson and Savulescu need us to surpass “parochial altruism” (2012, 83): optimally, we would view everyone, the world over, in the same altruistic light (122– 23). Though they cite De Dreu et al.’s (…
December 8, 2025 at 12:00 AM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
Moving from Minnesota to Colorado and trading Walz for Polis has turned out to be a bigger downgrade than I was expecting
December 7, 2025 at 11:29 PM
anorbicleofjasp.bsky.social
Catholic and Orthodox angry wojaks whining at each other. "You split from me!!" "No you split from me." Southern Baptist Church of Arkansas looks on pityingly. There's a family tree sort of thing forking up from the bottom of the screen, indicating that the Southern Baptist is the branch from which the others split
December 7, 2025 at 1:00 AM