It wouldnโt be a happier population because there are virtually no social services and no one has any savings to live off of.
If people donโt have a job in 2024 America, they arenโt gardening and writing poetry and living their best lives not having to work. They are dying when they canโt afford healthcare.
What you are describing is gene therapy, not eugenics. When eugenics was a thing, it was mostly voluntary in liberal countries. Propaganda was used to convince โinferiorโ people to sterilize themselves, including black people. How is that different than reinforcing the idea that โdysgenicโ people are doing the right thing by not having kids?
My genes arenโt unique and my traits donโt need to be passed on
I never said they did. Some people will never have kids and thatโs fine. Thatโs not the issue at hand with eugenics. Eugenics is treating people like chinchillas actually, animals that must be bred and selected for the best traits.
If I could generically engineer myself into someone with no anxiety disorderโฆ
Thatโs the thing, you canโt. Not synthetically at least. The current gene framework is a house of cards and it will be replaced by a better system of understanding. Look into Denis Nobleโs work. Also look into epigenetics. The genes you pass on to your children are not the genes you inherit from your parents, they change, and they are changed by your body in response to your environment for the better. No organism is doomed to the fate of inferior genes, they are naturally mutable. But perhaps your environment and lifestyle is not serving you well, and that may be your real problem.