You could also make people grow up a bit faster. Some kids are more mature, bigger, etc than others at the same wall-clock age. If this doesn’t conflict with lifespan then it would allow the superbabies to be productive sooner. Wouldn’t want to rob someone of their childhood entirely, but 12 years of adolescence is long enough for lots of chase tag and wrestling.
This is a big ethical issue. Also, I haven’t checked, but I’d guess that generally to have much of a noticeable effect, you’re stepping somewhat to the edge of / outside of the natural range, which carries risks. Separately, this might not even be good on purely instrumental grounds; altriciality is quite plausibly really important for intelligence!
You could also make people grow up a bit faster. Some kids are more mature, bigger, etc than others at the same wall-clock age. If this doesn’t conflict with lifespan then it would allow the superbabies to be productive sooner. Wouldn’t want to rob someone of their childhood entirely, but 12 years of adolescence is long enough for lots of chase tag and wrestling.
This is a big ethical issue. Also, I haven’t checked, but I’d guess that generally to have much of a noticeable effect, you’re stepping somewhat to the edge of / outside of the natural range, which carries risks. Separately, this might not even be good on purely instrumental grounds; altriciality is quite plausibly really important for intelligence!
The wikipedia page picture has some evidence that you are right