Bret Devereaux

This is my point. Even if he had an argument that he wanted to make, he clearly fumbled the delivery. He can’t even manage to say “I stand by my point, but I could have delivered it better. Let me try this again.”

I agree with that, but he did not "indefensibly advocate" for eugenics.

Yeah, he did. I’m fine with us disagreeing on that point, but I don’t think it’s misreading his tweet to say he advocated for it. I also don’t think it’s a stretch to say that position is indefensible. The backlash isn’t occurring in a vacuum. People are angry for a good reason.

He explicitly says that we shouldn’t do it and that it’s would be morally reprehensible. I’m curious how you square that with advocating for it?

The issue I take (and I think most take) is “it works.” Don’t you read that as advocacy? Also, it isn’t true. Eugenics in any form pretty much always has unforeseen consequences, often disastrous. We see this in agriculture, specialized pets, etc.

Ah, but I don’t agree that Sparta was necessarily eugenicist (in comparison to the ancient general practice of infanticide). I believe this is Plutarch’s mythmaking inflated by laconophilia. It’s one of the major points I make in THE BRONZE LIE.