How Much of a (Soft) Eugenicist Are You? Take the Quiz.
Plus what it's like to be extremely beautiful and genetic influences on interests, political views, and religiousness.
Let’s not kid ourselves. For all the TED talks about differences (your superpower), empathy (another superpower), identity (another?), delayed gratification (more?), and patience (for fuck sakes?) there’s a quiet click happening behind closed screens: people sorting through sperm donor catalogs like they’re shopping for high-end espresso machines. Adjustable features, filtered search options, premium models with musical aptitude and six-pack abs.
We don’t call it eugenics anymore. That’s a 20th-century word. A deadly descriptor of despised ideas (like the three decades of disdain for The Bell Curve). Dusty, mustached, and swastika-adjacent.
In the current climate, we avoid the term. We might bust out a phrase such as discernment, family planning, or maximizing potential. The goals are similar: control who gets to contribute DNA to the future, and optimize the odds that your offspring will win the spelling bee, bench 225, and never chew with their mouth open at dinner.
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This is no longer a conversation limited to reproductive decisions. Eugenics. Or at least lightly sugared, socially digestible eugenics, is baked into how we hire, date, educate, and “network.” So let’s stroll through modern life with our secret eugenicist goggles on, and see what we’re selecting for…
The Baby Supermarket
Let’s start in the most obvious place: the glossy online aisles of sperm and egg banks. These can be described as “donor” situations. Or, more accurately, auditions.
Yes, you want healthy swimmers. You want the right vibe. If the donor can solve a Rubik’s Cube, surf, play cello, and attend Stanford? You’re upgrading to the “intellectual-athlete-artist” gene pack.
There are audio recordings so you can hear if the donor has a gravelly, documentary narrator voice or a screechy, mid-pubescent timbre. Some clinics offer “lookalike matching,” where you pick a celebrity and they dig up a genetic doppelgänger (more on that - here). Want your kid to resemble young Keanu Reeves? Or Emma Stone if she had a math degree? Done.
This isn’t parenting. It’s speculative investing. You’re buying futures. With a face.
But this is just the start…