Facts are value-neutral. If you say e.g. “IQ exists”, will other people classify you as a good guy, or as a bad guy? If it’s predictably the latter, we won’t have enough “anti-eugenists”, because anyone non-autistic who cares about other people will be discouraged from studying IQ seriously.
What if the “least advantaged” e.g. dumb people actively want things that will hurt everyone (including the least advantaged people themselves, in long term)? Maybe the dumber they are, the more kids they want to have. Or maybe the dumber they are, the more they want to make decisions about scientific research. Should the biologically privileged respect them as equals (and e.g. let themselves get outvoted democratically), or should they say no?
Shortly, you can make it sound easy by ignoring how this stuff works in real world.
If you say e.g. “IQ exists”, will other people classify you as a good guy, or as a bad guy?
That’s not a criticism of Harden’s book though, right? I think she’s trying (among other things) to make it more socially acceptable to say that IQ exists.
Maybe the dumber they are, the more kids they want to have.
What if the “least advantaged” e.g. dumb people actively want things that will hurt everyone (including the least advantaged people themselves, in long term)? …Or maybe the dumber they are, the more they want to make decisions about scientific research. Should the biologically privileged respect them as equals (and e.g. let themselves get outvoted democratically), or should they say no?
I think that people of all IQs vote against their interests. I’m not even sure that the sign of the correlation is what you think it is; for example, intellectuals were disproportionately supportive of communism back in the day, even while Stalin and Mao were killing tens of millions. I’m sure you can think of many more such examples, which I won’t list right here in order to avoid getting into politics fights.
The answer to questions like “what if [group] wants [stupid thing]” is that various groups have always been wanting stupid things. We should just keep fighting the good fight to try to push things in a good direction on the margin. For example, I think prediction market legalization and normalization would be excellent, as would widespread truth-seeking AI tools, and of course plain old-fashioned “advocating for causes you believe in”, etc. If some people in society are unusually wise, then let them apply their wisdom towards crafting very effective advocacy for good causes, or towards making money and funding good things, etc.
And this whole thing is moot anyway, because I would be very surprised if the genetic makeup of any country changes more than infinitesimally (via differential fertility) before we get superintelligent AGIs making all the important decisions in the world. The idea of humans making important government and business decisions in a post-ASI world is every bit as absurd as the idea of moody 7-year-olds making important government and business decisions in today’s world. Like, you’re talking about small putative population correlations between fertility and other things. If those correlations are real at all, and if they’re robust across time and future cultural and societal and technological shifts etc., (these are very big and dubious “ifs”!), then we’re still talking about dynamics that will play out over many generations. You really think nothing is going to happen in the next century or two that makes your extrapolations inapplicable? Not ASI? Not other technologies, e.g. related to medicine and neuroscience? Seems extremely unlikely to me. Think of how much has changed in the last 100 years, and the rate of change has only accelerated since then.
I agree that intellectuals were in favor of communism when communism was a new thing. (These days, in the post-communist countries, it is the other way round.) But I still think that on average, smarter people generate more positive externalities. Basically, most useful things we see around us were invented by someone smart.
Caplan’s argument about outsourcing less challenging tasks to others has a few problem. First, smart people doing simple things is a waste of talent only because the smart people are rare (and if you let them do simple things, it means that the complicated things will not get done). In a society of Einsteins it wouldn’t matter that some of them do the dishes, because there would still be enough of them left to invent the cool stuff. Second, anecdotal evidence suggests that the division of labor works worse than advertised; a few of my friends have complained to me about horrible job that was done by various manual workers e.g. when they hired someone to build or reconstruct their houses, so they ultimately had to find some tutorials on YouTube and fix the things themselves.
I agree about the prediction markets. (However, the main argument against them seems to be that the dumb people would immediately waste lost of money there, and then go and cause social unrest.)
I get what the author wants to say, but...
Facts are value-neutral. If you say e.g. “IQ exists”, will other people classify you as a good guy, or as a bad guy? If it’s predictably the latter, we won’t have enough “anti-eugenists”, because anyone non-autistic who cares about other people will be discouraged from studying IQ seriously.
What if the “least advantaged” e.g. dumb people actively want things that will hurt everyone (including the least advantaged people themselves, in long term)? Maybe the dumber they are, the more kids they want to have. Or maybe the dumber they are, the more they want to make decisions about scientific research. Should the biologically privileged respect them as equals (and e.g. let themselves get outvoted democratically), or should they say no?
Shortly, you can make it sound easy by ignoring how this stuff works in real world.
That’s not a criticism of Harden’s book though, right? I think she’s trying (among other things) to make it more socially acceptable to say that IQ exists.
Ah, good for them! Kids are wonderful! Let us celebrate life. Here’s a Bryan Caplan post for you.
I think that people of all IQs vote against their interests. I’m not even sure that the sign of the correlation is what you think it is; for example, intellectuals were disproportionately supportive of communism back in the day, even while Stalin and Mao were killing tens of millions. I’m sure you can think of many more such examples, which I won’t list right here in order to avoid getting into politics fights.
The answer to questions like “what if [group] wants [stupid thing]” is that various groups have always been wanting stupid things. We should just keep fighting the good fight to try to push things in a good direction on the margin. For example, I think prediction market legalization and normalization would be excellent, as would widespread truth-seeking AI tools, and of course plain old-fashioned “advocating for causes you believe in”, etc. If some people in society are unusually wise, then let them apply their wisdom towards crafting very effective advocacy for good causes, or towards making money and funding good things, etc.
And this whole thing is moot anyway, because I would be very surprised if the genetic makeup of any country changes more than infinitesimally (via differential fertility) before we get superintelligent AGIs making all the important decisions in the world. The idea of humans making important government and business decisions in a post-ASI world is every bit as absurd as the idea of moody 7-year-olds making important government and business decisions in today’s world. Like, you’re talking about small putative population correlations between fertility and other things. If those correlations are real at all, and if they’re robust across time and future cultural and societal and technological shifts etc., (these are very big and dubious “ifs”!), then we’re still talking about dynamics that will play out over many generations. You really think nothing is going to happen in the next century or two that makes your extrapolations inapplicable? Not ASI? Not other technologies, e.g. related to medicine and neuroscience? Seems extremely unlikely to me. Think of how much has changed in the last 100 years, and the rate of change has only accelerated since then.
I agree that intellectuals were in favor of communism when communism was a new thing. (These days, in the post-communist countries, it is the other way round.) But I still think that on average, smarter people generate more positive externalities. Basically, most useful things we see around us were invented by someone smart.
Caplan’s argument about outsourcing less challenging tasks to others has a few problem. First, smart people doing simple things is a waste of talent only because the smart people are rare (and if you let them do simple things, it means that the complicated things will not get done). In a society of Einsteins it wouldn’t matter that some of them do the dishes, because there would still be enough of them left to invent the cool stuff. Second, anecdotal evidence suggests that the division of labor works worse than advertised; a few of my friends have complained to me about horrible job that was done by various manual workers e.g. when they hired someone to build or reconstruct their houses, so they ultimately had to find some tutorials on YouTube and fix the things themselves.
I agree about the prediction markets. (However, the main argument against them seems to be that the dumb people would immediately waste lost of money there, and then go and cause social unrest.)