From the website version, here’s the quote from Merkle that gwern alluded to:
Some Alcor members have wondered why rich Alcor members have not donated more money to Alcor. The major reason is that rich Alcor members are rich because they know how to manage money, and they know that Alcor traditionally has managed money poorly. Why give any significant amount of money to an organization that has no fiscal discipline? It will just spend it, and put itself right back into the same financial hole it’s already in.
As a case in point, consider Alcor’s efforts over the year to create an “endowment fund” to stabilize its operating budget. These efforts have always ended with Alcor spending the money on various useful activities. These range from research projects to subsidizing our existing members — raising dues and minimums is a painful thing to do, and the Board is always reluctant to do this even when the financial data is clear. While each such project is individually worthy and has merit, collectively the result has been to thwart the effort to create a lasting endowment and leave Alcor in a financially weak position.
Several commenters have pointed out that you are misuing words like “maladaptive,” when traits like aggression are often highly adaptive. And that’s a problem. But I don’t understand how you think what you’re calling evolution would even work.
What exactly are you refering to when you talk about natural selection? To invoke Sagan, the secrets of evolution are time and death. Evolutionary reasons for the way we are are made up of ancestors who passed their genes on. Your edits emphasize that this would be a voluntary process, but if the people who choose not to modify the way you want them to are still around, I’m not sure you can call that natural selection.
Are people, en mass, going to decide that their values are wrong? I don’t think anyone takes birth control with the intent to be attracted to less masculine men. The average person is not going to say “my current goals are incorrect, therefore I’m going to change my thinking so I desire the correct things.” Heck, people aren’t even doing simple self modifications that would make them more effective at the goals they currently have. Not all agreeable men are studying PUA even if they acknowledge it would help them be more attractive to the opposite sex. But some are, and I’d assume that a drug that made men even more aggressive and less empathetic would sell more than one that emphasized traits like empathy because it helps them achieve the goals they have.
(Outside of various transhumanist communities, I don’t think people would actually consider chemical or neurological self-modification. I’d be happy to be shown wrong on this though.)