Genetic Engineering With Prison
The prison system is a method of genetic engineering if 1.) the crime is penalized for a long enough period of time and 2.) there is some (even if indirect) genetic link between the frequency of commiting the punished activity and being sentenced to prison. The reasoning is as follows, if 10 people are put into prison for one year for the same crime, 2 of them would have fathered children (guestimate:whatever the average rate of parenting a child is) if they had not been behind bars. The effect would be cumulative. On the surface this may seem as purely positive, however the reasons for a criminal action are not always specific. Rebellious and anti-authority instincts certainly play a role in criminal behavior, because otherwise they would be more than happy to follow societies law (outside of some forms of peer pressure or conditioning in relatively small isolated groups). It is one reason that I believe we should be very specific about what we label as a punishable offense [see Just Say no to the Majority]. The problem is especially true with sin laws where the connection between commiting the offense and natural harm to society is neither clear nor direct. For example, I get into many arguments about the role of drugs in our society. Most prohibitionists I come across assert the opinion, ‘don’t do it because it’s illegal’. It is not about medical risk, addiction-or anything else naturally occuring, it is purely about the punishment placed upon the action by society. They go on to state that there may be a genetic predisposition to drug use, however there could just as easily be a genetic predisposition to not submitting to authority. I’m not necessarily putting a value judgement on the laws we have, only stating the opinion that we should be very cautious in how we run our legal system because it will have long lasting consequences genetically that we may not even begin to understand today.
