Respect for Life

People often put down the crazy Catholic notion (such that it is) that sex is wrong if you try to prohibit the production of a child. Catholics consider this notion part of the idea of the "sanctity of life." This is yet another example of a religion inventing a word (here, "sanctity," or "holy," and "sacred") then attaching an arbitrary meaning and importance to it, and not explaining the meaning or importance. To paraphrase Mr. Prosser, on why sanctity is so important: "it's sanctity. You've got to have sanctity."

The other, supposedly more sane element of society has its own problems. "Respect for life" is translated as meaning "the right to life." This means that anyone has the right to continue living. However, in most of Europe, this is taken to mean that people must continue living, by whatever means necessary. This even supercedes the individuals' right to die. In what way is this respectful to the living, when it takes away a fundamental decision that they may want to take? It effectively condones torture.

The main point of what I want to say here, is that the solution of many of the problems is to redefine "respect for life" to something more basic and sound:

Respect for the quality of life.

This embodies the general well-being of each individual that all worthy causes should teach in their moral stories, and it includes enshrining the right to live without coercion.

One of the best ways to improve quality of life is to vet embrios before or shortly after they are born. If the defects are too major, and the would-be person (or the parents, or anyone else) would likely suffer more than enjoy life as a consequence of their being born, then they should not be allowed to continue living.

Not only is this in the best interest of the would-be person, but also of the state, which has to spend fewer millions on the drugs, treatments, equipment and staff necessary to help them continue their existence, and by extension all the state's subjects, who pay taxes to fund it.

Embrio vetting would also improve the devastating impact of overpopulation that the world is currently suffering from, thanks to the sort of people who ignorantly or selfishly (to paraphrase George Carlin) shit out yet another worthless baby. After all, the more people there are in the world, the less each person is "worth": Beyond a certain point, people effectively cease to be individuals. But after the overpopulation tipping-point, they're full-fledged burdens. They get in the way of everything, they form ever more groups and create ever more divisions, they become more emotionally and respectfully isolated from the other groups, conflict inevitably occurs, and eventually people don't want what is good for all, they want what is good for them or their individual group, at whatever cost this might bring to other individuals or groups. And that's where we are in the world today. Exactly where is the global, or even national, respect for life now?

Even better, the the parents should be screened in order to determine whether they should be allowed to have children in the first place. That way, this whole sorry mess can be avoided before it begins. As I've said previously, remove people's right to bear children, and let them apply. Those who can prove that they can afford to keep a child and care for it adequately, those who are not likely to give the child a life of physical or mental agony through genetic defects, those who can show that they have a good case to have a child other than "we want one," should be allowed. Otherwise, it's child cruelty, and therefore a crime against humanity.

Unfortunately, as soon as I started mentioning genetics, you probably jumped straight to Hitler and his use of eugenics, as you were programmed to. Here's fallacy number one:

Since Hitler was evil, and Hitler advocated eugenics, eugenics is evil.

Hitler must have polished his shoes at some point, and he was also vegetarian. Are shoe-polishing and vegetarianism evil? There's some logical jiggery-pokery going on here. Go and read something unbiased about eugenics, which examines what it is, but doesn't include how it's been used in the past, and doesn't play the Hitler card. Because chances are, you don't currently know what it really is.

Here's fallacy number two:

Allowing people to judge who lives and doesn't is a slippery slope and open to abuse.

Yep, it's sensitive in nature, and everything sensitive can be abused if adequate checks and measures aren't in place. So let's put them in place: Decisions like this can be made fairly enough by a panel of respected, independent, expert advisers, in the same way that judges shape laws and preside over trials. And if you're not even happy that that would be fair, then there's no pleasing you. Humans are hardly perfect. You may as well say that granting someone a fair legal trial is impossible. And then we're at an impasse. So what do we do then? Exterminate all of humanity because they may make a wrong decision that unduly affects someone's life?

It's an emotionally-touchy subject, of course, and that means it's easier to sway people's opinions one way or the other. After an association with Hitler, people are given the excuse to shy away from what is quite an obvious force that could be used for good, simply because a bad guy used it for evil. Atomic bombs were invented and used for evil, does that mean atomic power is evil? No. Of course not. It has sound practical implications that provide a variety of benefits, such as electricity. So if you have strong feelings one way or another about what I've said so far, then you would definitely not make a good judge: We need people who examine the facts objectively and come to a rational conclusion.

Nor is the "discrimination is bad" argument worth pursuing. Discrimination in favour of the greater good is objectively the right thing to do. People discriminate all the time: let's say you give money to a charity to cure muscular distrophy. You're then depriving the other charities, such as cancer, poverty and the homeless. Does that make you a complete bastard? No: You made a decision, and the "fair" decision not to give any money out at all would be worse. Giving your money equally is impossible, because there are too many causes. And in any case, "equal" would be subjective - there are too many variables, and some causes should in "fairness" be given more than others.

Hopefully, by now, I've deconstructed your misconceptions enough at least for you to consider that eugenics can be used for good. I know the denial of a life sounds not to be a very nice thing: That person might have grown up to be brilliant and contributed hugely to humanity and people's lives. But if, on average, such as person is unlikely (which, let's face it, it is), then it's not cruel to deny that chance - rather the opposite, because of the probabilities. In any case, you're not denying any person a right, because the person didn't exist in the first place. No-one suffered, because no-one was there to begin with.

So let's reconsider what the right to life really is, use genetic screening for the greater good, and remove the automatic right for people to have children. It's scary, but all radical changes are scary. Unfortunately, some are necessary.

Guarantees

You might think that I'm going to harp on about the problems people have with claiming on them, and that they're not worth the paper they're written on. Well no. In fact, I think they're worth quite a lot.

Guarantees are a clear, un-fakable expression of how much trust manufacturers place in their own workmanship. So the length of a guarantee is a good indicator of the quality of the product.

Then something odd comes to light: How short guarantees are. I've rarely seen a guarantee for a major, pricey product that spans more than five years. So that means most products are only expected to remain intact for a short period of time. Why aren't people extremely angry at this, and why are they not boycotting products? If I buy a vacuum cleaner, or a TV, or a washing machine, I would expect it to last for at least ten years. "Will probably last beyond the guarantee" isn't good enough.

If a long-term product that costs a lot of money is guaranteed to last for fewer than ten years, then I don't consider it a purchase: I consider it a rental.

A purchase is something that should be considered final. Nothing lasts forever, of course, I recognise that. The thing is, the focus should be on the product being built in a decent way, built to last. Less time wasted by things going wrong and less stuff going into landfill. If a product that you'd expect to be qualitative comes with a five-year guarantee, then that's definitely not built to last. It's the manufacturer's way of saying, "we can only risk giving you the assurance that the product will work for five years. After that, god knows. The chances of you possibly needing to buy a new one after five years are so great that we can't afford to cover you beyond that." Quite incredible.

To pick on a random, expensive, common household appliance, let's look at a washing machine. At the time of writing, this one from Hoover is the cheapest one in their range available at Argos. It's just under £270, and it comes with a five-year guarantee for parts (only one year for labour!) This effectively means that you're renting it. It works out at £54 per year. Yes, your washing machine alone is expected to cost £54 per year, for life. Imagine how many other espensive appliances you have, with even more restrictive guarantees (if any) than that.

We need the Minimum Quality of Goods Act, in which specific minimum guarantees must be offered for specific products. That way, companies will be forced to manufacture goods to a better quality so that they don't get stung by masses of claims. As a benchmark, 10 years is a good minimum figure: Even then, your washing machine is costing £27 per year (plus labour costs, if it breaks down). Any less than 10 years should be considered rental by law, and the companies should be forced to advertise the products clearly as "for rental" rather than "for sale."

There is, of course, the old argument that the lower classes go for cheaper products that they can more likely afford. However, if you define "cheaper" in terms of the cost per year (i.e. the total cost of the product divided by number of years guaranteed), "cheaper" products become pretty damned expensive. If they have any guarantee at all, they're likely to be very short and very limited, and the products are much more likely to break down (a probability that would bias the rental cost even more).

Who specifically goes out wanting a washing-machine that will only last for five years? The only people I can think of are dodgy landlords who want to blame the occupants when something breaks down, rather than bear the cost themselves, and I don't really think they have a particularly good case.


So next time you go into Dixons, and a poster proudly states, "Guaranteed for 5 Years!", kindly flag down an attendant and make a statement of your own.
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[Edit: 18.12.11] By astonishing coincidence, I just watched one of David Mitchell's very good rants about precisely the same subject. (WARNING: There'll probably be an advert inflicted on you at the start.) He takes a different slant on the idea, to my relief (as he got there first).