

"I'd rather spend my money on my genome than a Bentley or an airplane" - fleaflicker
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/health/research/04geno.html?ex=1362286800&en=1a8fb705f5970ec0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

======
mynameishere
_Biologists have mixed feelings about the emergence of the genome as a luxury
item. Some worry that what they have dubbed “genomic elitism”_

...

 _“What the heck am I doing?” Mr. Stoicescu recalls wondering. “And how many
children in Africa might have been fed?”_

In the early 1900s, eugenics was a popular topic among a diverse crowd of
intellectuals. Then, of course, the method was primarily a matter of
encouraging "lesser" people to have fewer children ("Negative eugenics") and
"better" people having more. A similar recent program is described thus:

 _To its critics, Project Prevention or Crack - an American organisation which
pays drug addicts and alcoholics to be sterilised - is a terrifying throwback
to the neutering of "defectives" during the 20th Century._

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3189763.stm>

...and so on. Of course, all of the Equality rubbish that has been preached to
a sickening degree by liberals has only one possible realization: Positive
eugenics. So Mr. Stoicescu wonders if his money would be better spent on
cornmeal or whatever for starving Africans. I would suggest it's egocentric
people like himself who are Africa's only real hope. He blows a few 100K on
vanity, but that money will advance the state of the art to the point of
genetic engineering, which will allow an actual improvement in people.

