Nikola Tesla Quotes
The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit.
Tesla, Nikola. "A Machine to Read Your Thoughts." Interview by George Sylvester Viereck. Liberty, 9 Feb. 1935, p. 43.
This book was the first popular attempt to spread the eugenics concept. Is was translated into German in 1925 and unfortunately read by Adolf Hitler who sent Grant a complimentary letter. See {603544}
There was a substantial movement to prevent mentally defective and people of low intelligence from being able to reproduce. Over 20 states, with the approval of the then Supreme Court performed forced state sterilizations. Of course the then definition of “degenerates” changed from state to state. A century later, American values changed so much that there is no state that would even consider involuntary sterilization and if they did, the Courts would hold it un-Constitutional.
This quote was the beginning of the now discredited Eugenics movement. The essential problems were twofold: One was that someone had to decide which characteristics were desirable and undesirable, and there is wide difference of opinion that there is no way of resolving. Genocide is the result of Eugenics taken to extremes. Second, it the issue of human rights. No person, organization, or government has the right to tell a particular individual what genetic characteristics he/she may have with his/her children. Note that the issue of Population Control for size was also a part of the early Eugenics movement but is a totally separate issue. It is the voluntary verses the compulsory nature of Population control the is the critical ethical element.
The Eugenics Movement, which grew quite popular for a while, tried to improve the race of man, not by improving individual people or even a generation of people, but of selective and restrictive breeding of humans. The coercion and bias associated with it caused one of the worst violations of human rights in American History, and then was picked up by Adolf Hitler who carried the ideas to one of the worst atrocities in human history—the murder of “inferior races” so that they could not breed, thereby in their warped theory developing a super race.
He was restating the argument of the Eugenics Movement but was a critic of many parts of it. This Movement, which grew quite popular for a while, tried to improve the race of man, not by improving individual people or even a generation of people, but of selective and restrictive breeding of humans. The coercion and bias associated with it caused one of the worst violations of human rights in American History, and then was picked up by Adolf Hitler who carried the ideas to one of the worst atrocities in human history.
This pseudo-scientific organization, in spite of the junk science it was promulgating, actually had a substantial American following and over 20 states actually passed laws to allow forced sterilization who were “UNFIT”. In reality while there is a genetic component to each of the examples it only increases the probabilities and is not determinative. And even f it were and there were selective breeding of humans, these “TRAITS” would not be eliminated in 3 generations,
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
