Skip to main content
Log in

EUGENIC TARGETS

    Administrator
    By Administrator

    Write me a comprehensive list of who or what type of malady could or would be targetted by Eugenic policys 

    [AI query]  

    [query response]

    Historically, eugenics policies have targeted individuals and groups based on perceived physical, mental, social, or racial "defects." Eugenics programs—most notably in the early-to-mid 20th century across the United States, Germany, Sweden, and other nations—aimed to alter the genetic makeup of a population through forced sterilization, institutionalisation, marriage restrictions, and extermination.
    Here is a comprehensive list of who and what types of maladies have been historically targeted by eugenic policies.

    Mental and Cognitive Conditions

     
    • Intellectual disabilities: Historically labeled with derogatory terms such as "feeble-minded," "idiot," "imbecile," or "moron."
    • Psychiatric disorders: Individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, manic-depressive disorder (bipolar disorder), severe depression, or psychosis.
    • Neurodivergent conditions: People with autism, severe learning difficulties, or profound developmental delays.
    • Epilepsy: Chronically targeted due to the historical misconception that it caused cognitive and moral degeneration.

    Physical Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses

     
    • Congenital deformities: People born with missing limbs, cleft palates, or skeletal dysplasia (dwarfism).
    • Sensory impairments: Hereditary blindness and profound deafness.
    • Neurological conditions: Degenerative diseases like Huntington's chorea or advanced neurofibromatosis.
    • Chronic infectious diseases: Individuals suffering from long-term illnesses like tuberculosis or advanced syphilis, which were falsely thought to permanently corrupt the gene pool.

    Social and Behavioural "Maladies"

     
    • "Moral imbecility" or deviance: Women deemed "promiscuous," unmarried mothers, and individuals who violated traditional gender or sexual norms (including homosexuals).
    • Criminality: Chronic offenders, thieves, and violent criminals, under the belief that criminal behavior was entirely hereditary.
    • Pauperism and dependency: The chronically poor, vagrants, and individuals relying permanently on state welfare or charity.
    • Substance abuse: People suffering from chronic alcoholism or drug addiction, viewed as a sign of hereditary weakness.

    Racial, Ethnic, and Marginalised Populations

     
    • Minority ethnic groups: Indigenous populations, Romani people, and Black populations, who were targeted under the guise of "racial hygiene."
    • Specific religious and cultural minorities: Most notably European Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, targeted for total elimination based on pseudoscientific racial hierarchies.
    • Immigrants: Specific nationalities or ethnic groups deemed "biologically inferior" or undesirable by dominant political classes, often leading to strict immigration quotas.
    If you would like to explore this topic further, I can provide more specific details. Please let me know if you want to focus on:
     
    • The specific countries where these policies were legally enacted (such as the US or Sweden).
    • The legal mechanisms used, such as the Buck v. Bell US Supreme Court case.
    • How the discovery of modern genetics eventually discredited these pseudoscientific movements.
     
     
     

    Comments

    NoticeLog in

    Your need to be logged in to be able to comment.

      • Administrator
        By AdministratorComment by owner

        [AI QUERY] What percentage of the population would this constitute in say Australia

        [AI RESPONSE] 

        Applying historical eugenics criteria to a modern population would target a staggering majority of people. If you look at present-day Australia, well over 50% of the population would qualify for targeting under the broad umbrella of physical, mental, social, or racial categories historically used by eugenicists.
        Because individual categories heavily overlap—and historical programs varied in intensity from mild marriage restrictions to extreme measures like forced sterilisation—it is helpful to look at how modern Australian demographics map onto those old, pseudo-scientific criteria.

        1. Physical and Cognitive Disabilities (21.4%)

        Modern data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) indicates that roughly 21.4% of Australians (5.5 million people) live with some form of disability. [1]
         
        • Severe Targeting: About 7.9% of the population has a profound or severe disability. This group—requiring daily assistance with communication, mobility, or self-care—would have been the primary targets for forced institutionalisation or sterilisation. [1]
        • Sensory and Congenital: This includes hundreds of thousands of Australians living with hereditary blindness, profound deafness, or congenital anomalies.

        2. Mental and Behavioural Conditions (22% – 43%)

        Mental health conditions were heavily targeted under the eugenic label of "feeble-mindedness" or "hereditary madness."
         
        • Active Conditions: According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), about 22% of Australians aged 16–85 experienced a mental disorder within a single 12-month period. [2]
        • Lifetime Incidences: The ABS National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing shows that 43.7% of Australians experience a mental disorder over their lifetime. Under strict historical rules, an episode of severe clinical depression, bipolar disorder, or a diagnosed anxiety disorder would make an individual a candidate for reproductive restrictions. [3, 4]

        3. Historical Racial Targets in Australia (3.8%+)

        Eugenics was not a far-off concept; it actively shaped early 20th-century Australian policy. [5]
         
        • First Nations Australians: Indigenous Australians make up approximately 3.8% of the population. Historically, the state enforced assimilation policies, such as the forced removal of children (the Stolen Generations). This was driven by a eugenicist desire to "breed out the colour" of mixed-descent Aboriginal populations. [6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
        • Immigration Policies: The White Australia Policy (enacted via the Immigration Restriction Act 1901) explicitly sought to block non-white immigrants to maintain a homogenous British-descended population. In today's globalised Australia, where nearly 30% of the population was born overseas, almost a third of the country would have been blocked or excluded under those same racial hygiene frameworks. [11, 12, 13, 14, 15]

        4. Social "Maladies" and Substance Use (3% – 10%)

        Historically, eugenicists lumped social vulnerability in with genetic inferiority.
         
        • Substance Use: About 3.3% of Australians meet the criteria for a substance use disorder in their lifetime. Chronic alcoholism was frequently used as a primary justification for forced sterilisation in Western eugenics programs. [4]
        • Socioeconomic Status: People reliant on long-term government welfare, the chronically unhoused, or individuals with a criminal record were branded as having "pauperism" or "criminal tendencies" and heavily targeted.

        Summary: The Overlap

        Because a person can simultaneously be an immigrant, have a physical disability, or experience depression, you cannot simply add these percentages together. However, if a state enacted a sweeping eugenics program today using early 20th-century definitions, at least 1 in 2 Australians would see themselves, a child, or a parent targeted for exclusion, institutionalisation, or reproductive restriction.
        If you want to look into how these theories specifically manifested in local history, I can provide more details on:
         
         
        • The history of the Stolen Generations and the assimilation theories behind it.
        • How the Eugenics Education Society operated in states like Victoria and New South Wales in the 1920s and 30s.
        • How standardised testing in early Australian schooling was originally influenced by eugenic ideals. [7, 16]