AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Keep arguing eugenics if you wish, but I'd just like to butt in here and ask something related to the original topic of Angelina Jolie.

I think, personally, that there's a huge difference between someone looking at their own genetics and deciding to take actions based on it versus forcing people to do something based on their genetics. Seeing that you have a genetic susceptibility to something and taking action to prevent it isn't innately wrong, and neither is suggesting others do so if they can. Angelina Jolie isn't forcing other women to have masectomies, or saying that they shouldn't have children or are lesser for their genes.

Using genetics to lower a risk of getting a life-threatening disease isn't Gattaca-style eugenics. It's not saying people are worth innately more or less, or forcing them to do certain things, or treating them differently for their genes. It's letting them look at their own genes and make a personal choice if they want to minimize their risks; if they don't, that's also fine. And I don't think it's accurate to argue that there's a slippery slope there, either, because we are staying within the domain of voluntary personal choice here.

Admittedly drifting into eugenics was me pushing the argument to extremes. I may have put two-and-two together there and presumed that Angelina Jolie has had her DNA 'screened' for problem or faulty genes - IIRC she actually stated that she definitely has a faulty gene so she probably did have her genes or genome checked.

I know Angelina Jolie is only encouraging people to make an informed decision so they can potentially save themselves a lot of pain and heartache - which is great. My argument is - with the option of people having their genome screened* as Jolie presumably has - therein also lies the potential to abuse that knowledge for some of the purposes I have outlined.


*it's probably not cost-effective for anyone other than celebrities or the uber-rich to have their genome screened yet - but it will be in time.

There's a difference between a genetic disease and cancer. Genetic diseases tend to make life much harder but they also don't have a guaranteed chance of killing the person. Cancer on the other hand is your body destroying itself. It's not a matter of if you will die but when and how painfully. Treatment of cancer is like no other disease because the treatment itself shortens your life and adds its own kind of pain. Launching radiation at the body kills the cancer and everything else.

Not to mention it can come back later, even after you were sure it was gone. And when it comes back it is much harder to beat because now it's had time to develop some more without being bombarded by chemo.

I'm not talking eugenics here because I don't think it has anything to do with the context of the reason this discussion came up. A woman was told she had a 90% chance of developing cancer and all she had to do to pretty much ensure she would not die was give up her natural lumps of fat and replace them with silicone. Sure, not every woman can afford that sort of treatment, but she could and she did. It was a good choice.

Because Angelina Jolie's mother died of ovarian cancer, she decided to have herself tested for two specific genes - BRCA1 and BRCA2 - that have been linked to breast and ovarian cancer. So far, the screening isn't just an overall "find problem genes" thing, and only applies to testing a few specific genes if you know what you're looking for. At this point in the technology, I don't see it as problematic. Could the technology be abused further down the line? Sure. But right now, we don't have a full genome screen or anything like that. As it is now - just looking to see if you have the genes for a specific disease - I think it's fairly benign.

@ banter: Oh I see.


@ Madican: It may not have had anything to do with the reason the topic came up (but it did come up - I was there) - I just thought I'd bring eugenics to the table on the off chance people wanted to talk about it.

People can talk about either, I don't mind. I'm personally more interested in people being informed about eugenics and its pitfalls.

I'm pretty sure they are, or at least have some idea of it. There's a reason that the majority of the world is opposed to it.

banter wrote:But right now, we don't have a full genome screen or anything like that.

We actually do, we just don't know the extent to which all genes effect us. We have lists of genes from when we mapped the genome, and we can tell whether they're active or deformed, but without research on what those genes code for and how they effect the cells, we don't have a full view of what our genome screenings say.

However, it's becoming more and more common to get a genomic map, especially after you pass away (so insurance companies can't screw you over and your kids/family can know what they might inherit). You just might not know what all of it means, and it's certainly not common enough to become a societal problem.

Also, in case people don't know, mastectomies are pretty gruesome procedures. They generally slice each breast open into an X (or a +) and scoop out the breast tissue. When it heals, you have big scars over the area, which most women feel ashamed of and feel the need to cover up, especially when most clothes are made to accentuate the bosom. I'm not sure what Ms. Jolie's reconstructive surgery was, but in most mastectomy cases, it isn't done to put in a set of silicone, but rather to clean up the scar tissue and make the area not look like you were ravaged by a knife.

However, the thing with this kind of preventative surgery is that a lot of women choose to not even do the first step (the mastectomy) because they're afraid they won't be found attractive. Now, in the cases where this is a personal image thing, I respect their choice, but many women have admitted that they were afraid they'd lose their job, or their husband would lose respect for them, or they were single and afraid it'd scare off potential lovers. This is the part that's shitty, where people feel like they can't make a choice for themselves because of how it'd affect their image in other people's eyes.

And that's why I think Ms. Jolie's story is inspiring. She's largely considered a sex symbol and her breasts are one of her biggest assets in the minds of many people, yet she's giving that up for her health and her family, because she doesn't owe her breasts to the public. She took a stand against this fear of self-worth.

This may not be the right choice for everyone, but no one should have to make the choice on their health based on how other people will react. Especially when it comes to something like this.

Relatedly, I find the breast cancer awareness stuff really irritating. If I'd had a nickel for every time I heard or read "save it tits!" I'd probably have a good 5 bucks.

And a good chunk of it is only marketing. There's a documentary about how plenty of companies make special PANK products to "support breast cancer victims" or organize public demonstrations by survivors to "raise awareness" but give nothing to research or funds. It makes them look like they care and makes cancer glamorous so consumers are pop flyin'.
Kind of like how most giant corporations and banks give insignificant fractions of their profits whenever there's a natural catastrophe that gets a lot of attention where their markets are (e.g. earthquake in Haiti). Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie gave $1M, while banks that make billions a year gave $100,000 and got praised in every news reports for a week afterwards.

Well, the save the boobies campaign started years ago as a catchy slogan for supporting preventative measures of breast cancer. The woman who started it said the message she wanted to send was that no one should have to go through the steps to lose a part of their body (even if it's "just breasts") to cancer, and that she wanted to get people help so that they would never have to go through it personally, especially since most people didn't think breast cancer was "a big deal" (the "just breasts" mentality, though they also scorned people who had their breasts removed for cancer, like they were some kind of non-human).

Unfortunately, it caught on to less than savory individuals, and now there are people using the term to advocate for the absolute protection of breasts, even at the expense of the woman they're attached to. That the woman has no right to have them removed.

It's like we've gone full circle back to the abortion debate only we're talking about tiddies rather than a potential human.

Is 'twerking' appropriating black culture? I just saw a small post about this on tumblr and to be honest I had never really thought about it before. Isn't 'appropriating' a culture only when you do it negatively e.g. blackface? Like, if you're doing a dance then should you not do dances from other cultures? It kind of reminds me of this music video (basically a white female rapper is doing traditional indian dances) and some people are saying it's racist because she as a Caucasian shouldn't be dancing in the indian style. Is that considered offensive though?

The idea of "appropriating" culture is kind of inherently racist. Should white people also not be allowed to dance hiphop? Is Eminem a racist?

Edit: also since when is shaking your booty up and down culture?

One black rapper, Azealia Banks did actually say that only black people should rap (although I don't think that's right). And I think it's because twerking was invented mainly by black female dancers or it originated from Jamaican dancehall type dances.

I don't care who invented it, a fad isn't automatically culture (though it's hard and subjective to define what is).

In my view appropriation is only bad if it's a poor imitation of the original. See also: Harlem Shake.

people have been stealing from one another's culture for centuries, you won't be able to stop them now.