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The Breeder's Equation

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Re: The Breeder's Equation

#71

Post by [deleted] »

PKop wrote: post #29
throwvirtever wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An IQ is just a number coming out of a test. Whether or not that correlates to something useful for humanity, or even the individual being tested, is a different question. Surely the majority of useful discoveries are made by people with above-average IQs, but would juicing the numbers through eugenics really make much of a difference? How many extra Isaac Newtons would it take to make controlled nuclear fusion work?…

>why would we expect an intelligence-focused eugenics program to be useful at all? Are there no uses of a having a higher population average intelligence besides "does it immediately produce nuclear fusion"? Is higher average intelligence good for many many many other things besides producing fusion? Of course it is, this is an absurd premise. Also, where did nuclear fission get invented? Are there correlated differe…

[deleted]

Re: The Breeder's Equation

#72

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

hirundo wrote: post #6

"And of course the breeder’s equation explains how average IQ potential is declining today, because of low fertility among highly educated women." In the Heinlein universe, the Howard Foundation runs a voluntary eugenics program by paying people with particularly long lived ancestors to mate with each other. Protagonist Lazarus Long is a product of this. The author is saying that this would work as expected, with off…

Here's an example of it happening: The Chinese government explicitly hooked up Yao Ming's parents. I will bet he's not the only one.

Re: The Breeder's Equation

#73

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

notahacker wrote: post #55
PKop wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>to trade career success or other personal preferences for being the baby making machine for some billionaire's experiment Why is it assumed that this isn't a more attractive proposition compared the alternative. Certainly there would be many, if not most or all, that would be willing to make this choice. The point you are implying is that "career success and personal goals minus children" > "making smart babies and…

> Why is it assumed that this isn't a more attractive proposition compared the alternative. Certainly there would be many, if not most or all, that would be willing to make this choice. I'm not sure why you're asking me this when your opening post in this exchange starts by noting low fertility amongst highly educated women. Smart women generally aren't short of offers from smart men to make babies with them (and the…

The little secret is that the highly successful do have many children. Like, Elon Musk has six kids. It's only a class of upper-middle-class workers who, like high-ranking court eunuchs, valorize work over family.

Re: The Breeder's Equation

#74

Post by daenz »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #69
daenz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The talk about heritable IQ is pointless, even dangerous, because it leads to complacency around issues around structural racism and equality in education. Can you say more about this? Why would it lead to complacency? If there is scientific merit to some ideas like IQ heritability, don't you think we need to find a way to incorporate those ideas safely into our formulation of society, rather than suppress them as h…

You never heard about the trope of African people being called genetically inferior? That one is reverberating around time and space in a million variations. And if intelligence is genetic, well, you don't need to improve their public schools to help them achieve equal grades, do you?

My understanding of IQ is that its not fully heritable... an individual's potential is maximized by their environment, up to some limit. This alone gives a strong argument for improving public schools especially where students may be falling behind. So I am still not understanding the complacency aspect fully. I suppose a bigoted person could say "well those kids are dumb, they're expected to do bad." But the counter to that is, "they can do much better than they're doing," and the science would support it.

Re: The Breeder's Equation

#75

Post by notahacker »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #73
notahacker wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it assumed that this isn't a more attractive proposition compared the alternative. Certainly there would be many, if not most or all, that would be willing to make this choice. I'm not sure why you're asking me this when your opening post in this exchange starts by noting low fertility amongst highly educated women. Smart women generally aren't short of offers from smart men to make babies with them (and the…

The little secret is that the highly successful do have many children. Like, Elon Musk has six kids. It's only a class of upper-middle-class workers who, like high-ranking court eunuchs, valorize work over family.

Some highly successful people have lots of children.

But Elon Musk is a little bit too rich to make his decisions on partners and kids based on whether some poorer billionaire offers a stipend. My point is upper middle classes intellectuals won't be interested trading those decisions for the money either

Re: The Breeder's Equation

#76

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

notahacker wrote: post #75
FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The little secret is that the highly successful do have many children. Like, Elon Musk has six kids. It's only a class of upper-middle-class workers who, like high-ranking court eunuchs, valorize work over family.

Some highly successful people have lots of children. But Elon Musk is a little bit too rich to make his decisions on partners and kids based on whether some poorer billionaire offers a stipend. My point is upper middle classes intellectuals won't be interested trading those decisions for the money either

Yeah, the billionaire stipend idea isn't realistic. I assume it wasn't supposed to be.

Seems to me that the upper middle class is motivated at least as much by prestige as they are by money, family, or anything else.

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