Also beware that reversed stupidity is not intelligence. The existence of the Flynn effect does not imply that “dysgenic” or “eugenic” (scare quotes because there’s no value-neutral way to say what counts as an improvement) trends aren’t worth thinking about. Suppose hypothetically that genetic trends were leading to lowered average potential intelligence, but that this effect was exactly cancelled by an environmental Flynn effect. This is only a win if you think the status quo is optimal; if you think that more intelligence is better within the range we can apprehend, then IQ not rising fast enough is sad for the same reason that falling IQ would be sad. Cf. the reversal test.
Also beware that reversed stupidity is not intelligence. The existence of the Flynn effect does not imply that “dysgenic” or “eugenic” (scare quotes because there’s no value-neutral way to say what counts as an improvement) trends aren’t worth thinking about. Suppose hypothetically that genetic trends were leading to lowered average potential intelligence, but that this effect was exactly cancelled by an environmental Flynn effect. This is only a win if you think the status quo is optimal; if you think that more intelligence is better within the range we can apprehend, then IQ not rising fast enough is sad for the same reason that falling IQ would be sad. Cf. the reversal test.