In theory, I find the concept interesting and potentially something that future generations may have to consider.
In practice, I can't see a way for it to occur without either
a) creating some of the worst discriminatory and authoritarian atmospheres we've ever seen, or b) being wildly inefficient, from both a social and economic standpoint
The planet's got too many people on it. Some will make the argument that advances in technology will continue to allow us to accommodate more people (heh, I've heard arguments made that we can support 40 billion people right now, which I find ridiculous). It is true to an extent, but the rate of advancement coupled with the corrupted nature of suppressing true innovation throughout the world for as long as possible means that it's not true when it comes to relative sustainability.
Then there's the fact that we've created a completely different dynamic over the past century for human civilization. We've managed to create an environment in which people who are truly ignorant, physically inept or mentally compromised can now quite easily survive just as long or do just as well as anyone else. It's not inherently a bad thing, but coupling that with the fact that the ignorant tend to reproduce more leads to a two-pronged issue. If any form of eugenics did become the law of the land in this country or world, then I hope those who wind up being overseers of it will adopt the neutral morality of whatever cold, sterile personality it'd take to do such a thing and not base it on race, gender, class, geography or formal education.
There's only one legitimate reason why this issue would ever have to be considered or implemented, and there's only one by-product of such an event that eugenics would have a credible ability to rectify on a macro scale. Anything else and it's genocide.
Another problem I have is that the whole idea of eugenics stems from the idea that we should "perfect" the human race. I mean, I'm obviously not against advancing technology to improve people's lives and I'm not even against using genetic engineering to achieve it, but I think, from a philosophical and, yes, a religious standpoint, that humans can only push their narrow and ultimately shallow ideas of "perfection" so far.
Humans were never meant to create fellow human beings without naturally reproducing. I think that's God's business. Others think that's nature's business. Either way, the attitude that man should have the final say in the affairs of the natural order and not the other way around has never worked and never will work even though that's basically the mainstream opinion in many respects. I don't see that view becoming any less prevalent as time goes on. I just hope I'm long dead before that barrier is completely decimated.
There's also, of course, the inevitable fact that the first ones to benefit from eugenics will be the very wealthy. You can try to equalize it all you want. Money wins in the end. And even if it is made available to everyone, the common "preference" for the perfect human will shift as fast as clothing trends. Even if the desired effects are achieved, people are still going to be unsatisfied and the accepted definition of "perfect" will change year after year. Right now, we're taught that high IQ and wealth are the only superior measurements of "success." Once those are eliminated, what's next? What other methods will we have of building social hierarchies for the sake of utter dominance?
After all, if everyone's perfect, well, no one is.
