I have/had this conversation on OKCupid. It seemed shareworthy. I'm red, and the other person is blue. -- Your profile mentions eugenics as an interest... is that from a pro or anti stance? Or neutral? - Pro, although not like how eugenics was practiced in Europe in the 30's. Big supporter of liberal eugenics, with embryo selection being the most interesting current proposal if we don't go straight to gene-therapy. - Hm, liberal eugenics. So you don't see a problem with social stratification as the practical result? Or is my American capitalistic environment just influencing my thinking on that one? - There is already social stratification because of better genes among different groups. Indeed, this is the topic of The Bell Curve. :) Of course, in the beginning this technology will be for the rich people, who will by that have even smarter+healthier children than they already have. The same is true for better schools. But such biotech falls quickly in price (say, logarithmic speeds cf. price of genome sequencing) and will soon benefit large parts of society, in the sense that people can have smarter and more healthy kids. But even when only the rich will get it, this will also benefit the rest, since society as a whole benefits from having smarter+more healthy people (to begin with, it will give society a larger pool of potential leaders). In practice, one would start by expanding the battle against hereditary diseases for the simple reason that these are the easiest to find the genes for. For instance, screening for certain diseases during pregnancy is already widely practiced, e.g. Down's syndrome. In Denmark 99% of women who are diagnosed as being pregnant with a Down's syndrome fetus abort it. This has dramatically lowered the number of Down's syndrome people in Denmark, thus saving parents from the hassle, and saving society (=everybody) from the economic disadvantage such a person is/would be. We already know of many such genes for diseases/disease risks, while we don't know of a single well-confirmed case for intelligence. We will find them in the next few decades. The reason they are hard to find is that there are probably 1000s of genes that affect intelligence, but a single gene has only a tiny effect (positive or negative), say 0.5 IQ. This means that one needs a huge sample to spot them from statistical noise (i.e. high powered studies). Of course, USA is really fucked up in the relative wealth department. :) I particularly liked this video about that problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oOwjN9qV2ls -Emil :) - I'm curious about your interpretation of "better genes" and exactly in what way they contribute to one's social standing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your perspective sounds a bit deterministic if you're convinced that the dominant influence on where you end up in the hierarchy is genetics, especially if your interpretation of "better genes" is centered around IQ (considering IQs in the very highest ranges are actually negatively correlated with success). It also sounds like you don't believe environmental factors make much of a dent overall, am I correct? Tangent: it seems you're pretty focused on meritocracy, and while that's a noble sentiment and a nice idea (like Marxist communism), it unfortunately doesn't exist in the wild (also like Marxist communism). It's been my observation that under the facade of well-meaning plans, every large community, social structure, organization, etc. is essentially based on a Hollywood mentality: it's not what you know, it's who you know. I'm not arrogant enough to assume that my own experience is representative of the entire range of experiences, but I have yet to find a self-proclaimed "meritocracy" that truly *was* that. But back on the topic of social stratification, assuming we were able to influence the leadership potential of a given group, is it not true that when an individual or group acquires power they are unlikely to give that power up voluntarily? And will, generally speaking, restrict the ability of other individuals or groups to attain power as well? And yes, the USA is fucked up in a lot of areas, but wealth is a pretty big one. Also, sorry if I seem a bit contentious, devil's advocacy is just a beloved pastime of mine. And the better informed your conversation partner, the more fun it tends to be. I don't need attribution, but if the anonymity was bothering you, my name's ****** :) - With better genes, I just mean those that code for higher intelligence, health, and attractiveness. This is not quite what biologists mean by better genes, because they are talking about what fits with the environment. In that sense, genes for intelligence are bad genes, since there is selection for lower intelligence in most western countries (smarter people have fewer children). The movie Idiocracy is a description of what will happen in the far future unless we do something. :) I however, think that we definitely will do something to stop the dysgenic trend (as it is called).Not deterministic, stochastic/probabilistic. No one thinks that such things are deterministic (well, no serious scholar, fatalists of course do!), but the evidence is very strong that it is highly predictable, although not perfectly so. As for social stratification, yes, since IQ-tests are the best measure of intelligence (=df pure g-factor), that is what I'm referring to. :) No, shared environment has no effect on adult intelligence, unless it's an extremely bad environment (think really bad inner city black neighborhood). This was a surprise to researchers when they found it. It means that the usual sociological theories about it are all wrong. Perhaps needless to say, I think very lowly of sociology. A pity, since it's an important field of study. Only the quality of the research is so low.As for environment overall, it accounts for about ~20% of the variance. But this is non-shared environment, not shared environment (like poverty). It is currently unknown what this mysterious 20% non-shared env. consists of. Presumably, it's things like avoiding diseases in one's childhood, avoiding head injury, having good friends/teachers in school.You seem to have been inflicted with the Malcolm Gladwell myth about high IQs. It is in fact wrong, higher intelligence is always better for success. We actually do have data for >120 (90th percentile, white population), and intelligence still makes a difference, in much the same way as below whatever hypothetical threshold. See e.g. http://infoproc.blogspot.dk/2012/05/jensen-on-g-and-genius.html - You are wrong about it not existing in the wild. Many online communities are explicitly meritocratic (e.g. Mozilla). ;) Also, in a broader sense, our democracies are somewhat meritocratic. Politicians are generally well-educated compared to the population. Perhaps you have not looked hard enough? ;) I spent some time researching the issue somewhat thoroughly on Google. There isn't much academic written on the subject for some reason. Weird. However, China had clearly meritocratic policies for the selection of officials in the past. Cf. Wikipedia. - Social stratification, in theory, yes. And we also see some of that in practice. For instance, many democracies have a election threshold. The way it works is that any party that receives less than that amount of votes do not get into parliament, even if they ought to have a seat based on the math alone. This helps keeping newcomers out of the political system. It is an issue that surprisingly have not received any notable attention in the academic literature. I'm mentioning it because I did some research on that issue today. :) - Yes, I normally joke (in seriousness) that the US is the worst western country. It is not wrong. It is difficult to find a single thing the US does better than say, any north European country. Sad especially because the US is the dominant country in the world right now. Although that will change to China in the near future. Not sure that's much better. :P - That was a long message. :P Let me know if you need sources for whatever. I have sources, it is just such a hassle to insert them into OKC posts. :P Especially, if one wants to keep it 'somewhat' casual (I always fail :D). (I guess I could use end notes...) Also hi ******. - I was actually aware of the data on the impact of environmental factors on IQ. I was addressing the fact that a very high IQ quite often leads to social maladjustment, and that the ability to operate effectively in social situations is a much greater predictor of success than intelligence alone. (http://prometheussociety.org/cms/articles/the-outsiders) So to say that higher intelligence is “always” better for success as if there were a linear correlation between success and IQ is to leave out a relevant chunk of information that could potentially explain *why* instead of just *how*. Human relationships are essentially based on power dynamics, no? If success can be interpreted as the amount of power one wields in one’s social environment, then it makes sense that the scales would be tipped in the favor of the moderately intelligent, rather than the highly intelligent, who tend to relate poorly to the vast majority of people and thus have a weaker hold on them from a leadership standpoint. I am not acquainted with Malcolm Gladwell’s myth, would you care to elaborate? - I will concede your point about online communities, though with no real interaction I’m not sure they qualify as actual “communities”. And the idea that education constitutes merit may not be misguided in the Danish educational system, but it certainly is in the American system. Our difference of opinion here is very likely due to our respective environments. American “democracy” is a dog-and-pony show. I’m sure everything is wonderful and lovely in Denmark though :) - Ya wonder why there isn’t any research on what’s keeping the little guys out of power, huh? Y’know, even scientists need funding... (When in doubt, follow the money) So your idea that the technology would diffuse to those outside the upper class is on shaky ground... the precedent set by other forms of technology doesn’t necessarily apply here, since the affordability of a smartphone isn’t nearly as threatening to the controlling interests as the power shift that would come as the result of making previously scarce abilities (that translate directly into leadership potential) common. - Yes, it is sad... it’s especially frustrating to live in the dominant country in the world and then go abroad to find that everyone and their mother has a firmly entrenched opinion on your politics :P But I agree, northern Europe is generally a much better place on a number of metrics. - I am certainly curious about your sources, on principle, and because I’m just curious and like to read. So anything you’d like to pass along is appreciated. - I'll respond to this later. I read the message and was impressed. But I'm too drunk to respond intelligently right now. :p - ... drunk at 2pm on a Thursday? That's Danes for you, I suppose... :P - Today is a holy day (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_of_Jesus" target="_blank">This one</a> ), so yesterday I went drinking. And I drank so much I woke up drunk after sleeping. That's why. ;) The physics friday bar (my favorite) has this system: Open on all fridays. Every work day followed by a non-work day counts as a friday. So this means that this week there are two fridays (wednesday and friday). Also, trying to see if links in HTML works... - That's a negative apparently. Would make for easier referencing... -
Liberal eugenics and social stratification
Liberal eugenics and social stratification
Liberal eugenics and social stratification
I have/had this conversation on OKCupid. It seemed shareworthy. I'm red, and the other person is blue. -- Your profile mentions eugenics as an interest... is that from a pro or anti stance? Or neutral? - Pro, although not like how eugenics was practiced in Europe in the 30's. Big supporter of liberal eugenics, with embryo selection being the most interesting current proposal if we don't go straight to gene-therapy. - Hm, liberal eugenics. So you don't see a problem with social stratification as the practical result? Or is my American capitalistic environment just influencing my thinking on that one? - There is already social stratification because of better genes among different groups. Indeed, this is the topic of The Bell Curve. :) Of course, in the beginning this technology will be for the rich people, who will by that have even smarter+healthier children than they already have. The same is true for better schools. But such biotech falls quickly in price (say, logarithmic speeds cf. price of genome sequencing) and will soon benefit large parts of society, in the sense that people can have smarter and more healthy kids. But even when only the rich will get it, this will also benefit the rest, since society as a whole benefits from having smarter+more healthy people (to begin with, it will give society a larger pool of potential leaders). In practice, one would start by expanding the battle against hereditary diseases for the simple reason that these are the easiest to find the genes for. For instance, screening for certain diseases during pregnancy is already widely practiced, e.g. Down's syndrome. In Denmark 99% of women who are diagnosed as being pregnant with a Down's syndrome fetus abort it. This has dramatically lowered the number of Down's syndrome people in Denmark, thus saving parents from the hassle, and saving society (=everybody) from the economic disadvantage such a person is/would be. We already know of many such genes for diseases/disease risks, while we don't know of a single well-confirmed case for intelligence. We will find them in the next few decades. The reason they are hard to find is that there are probably 1000s of genes that affect intelligence, but a single gene has only a tiny effect (positive or negative), say 0.5 IQ. This means that one needs a huge sample to spot them from statistical noise (i.e. high powered studies). Of course, USA is really fucked up in the relative wealth department. :) I particularly liked this video about that problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oOwjN9qV2ls -Emil :) - I'm curious about your interpretation of "better genes" and exactly in what way they contribute to one's social standing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your perspective sounds a bit deterministic if you're convinced that the dominant influence on where you end up in the hierarchy is genetics, especially if your interpretation of "better genes" is centered around IQ (considering IQs in the very highest ranges are actually negatively correlated with success). It also sounds like you don't believe environmental factors make much of a dent overall, am I correct? Tangent: it seems you're pretty focused on meritocracy, and while that's a noble sentiment and a nice idea (like Marxist communism), it unfortunately doesn't exist in the wild (also like Marxist communism). It's been my observation that under the facade of well-meaning plans, every large community, social structure, organization, etc. is essentially based on a Hollywood mentality: it's not what you know, it's who you know. I'm not arrogant enough to assume that my own experience is representative of the entire range of experiences, but I have yet to find a self-proclaimed "meritocracy" that truly *was* that. But back on the topic of social stratification, assuming we were able to influence the leadership potential of a given group, is it not true that when an individual or group acquires power they are unlikely to give that power up voluntarily? And will, generally speaking, restrict the ability of other individuals or groups to attain power as well? And yes, the USA is fucked up in a lot of areas, but wealth is a pretty big one. Also, sorry if I seem a bit contentious, devil's advocacy is just a beloved pastime of mine. And the better informed your conversation partner, the more fun it tends to be. I don't need attribution, but if the anonymity was bothering you, my name's ****** :) - With better genes, I just mean those that code for higher intelligence, health, and attractiveness. This is not quite what biologists mean by better genes, because they are talking about what fits with the environment. In that sense, genes for intelligence are bad genes, since there is selection for lower intelligence in most western countries (smarter people have fewer children). The movie Idiocracy is a description of what will happen in the far future unless we do something. :) I however, think that we definitely will do something to stop the dysgenic trend (as it is called).Not deterministic, stochastic/probabilistic. No one thinks that such things are deterministic (well, no serious scholar, fatalists of course do!), but the evidence is very strong that it is highly predictable, although not perfectly so. As for social stratification, yes, since IQ-tests are the best measure of intelligence (=df pure g-factor), that is what I'm referring to. :) No, shared environment has no effect on adult intelligence, unless it's an extremely bad environment (think really bad inner city black neighborhood). This was a surprise to researchers when they found it. It means that the usual sociological theories about it are all wrong. Perhaps needless to say, I think very lowly of sociology. A pity, since it's an important field of study. Only the quality of the research is so low.As for environment overall, it accounts for about ~20% of the variance. But this is non-shared environment, not shared environment (like poverty). It is currently unknown what this mysterious 20% non-shared env. consists of. Presumably, it's things like avoiding diseases in one's childhood, avoiding head injury, having good friends/teachers in school.You seem to have been inflicted with the Malcolm Gladwell myth about high IQs. It is in fact wrong, higher intelligence is always better for success. We actually do have data for >120 (90th percentile, white population), and intelligence still makes a difference, in much the same way as below whatever hypothetical threshold. See e.g. http://infoproc.blogspot.dk/2012/05/jensen-on-g-and-genius.html - You are wrong about it not existing in the wild. Many online communities are explicitly meritocratic (e.g. Mozilla). ;) Also, in a broader sense, our democracies are somewhat meritocratic. Politicians are generally well-educated compared to the population. Perhaps you have not looked hard enough? ;) I spent some time researching the issue somewhat thoroughly on Google. There isn't much academic written on the subject for some reason. Weird. However, China had clearly meritocratic policies for the selection of officials in the past. Cf. Wikipedia. - Social stratification, in theory, yes. And we also see some of that in practice. For instance, many democracies have a election threshold. The way it works is that any party that receives less than that amount of votes do not get into parliament, even if they ought to have a seat based on the math alone. This helps keeping newcomers out of the political system. It is an issue that surprisingly have not received any notable attention in the academic literature. I'm mentioning it because I did some research on that issue today. :) - Yes, I normally joke (in seriousness) that the US is the worst western country. It is not wrong. It is difficult to find a single thing the US does better than say, any north European country. Sad especially because the US is the dominant country in the world right now. Although that will change to China in the near future. Not sure that's much better. :P - That was a long message. :P Let me know if you need sources for whatever. I have sources, it is just such a hassle to insert them into OKC posts. :P Especially, if one wants to keep it 'somewhat' casual (I always fail :D). (I guess I could use end notes...) Also hi ******. - I was actually aware of the data on the impact of environmental factors on IQ. I was addressing the fact that a very high IQ quite often leads to social maladjustment, and that the ability to operate effectively in social situations is a much greater predictor of success than intelligence alone. (http://prometheussociety.org/cms/articles/the-outsiders) So to say that higher intelligence is “always” better for success as if there were a linear correlation between success and IQ is to leave out a relevant chunk of information that could potentially explain *why* instead of just *how*. Human relationships are essentially based on power dynamics, no? If success can be interpreted as the amount of power one wields in one’s social environment, then it makes sense that the scales would be tipped in the favor of the moderately intelligent, rather than the highly intelligent, who tend to relate poorly to the vast majority of people and thus have a weaker hold on them from a leadership standpoint. I am not acquainted with Malcolm Gladwell’s myth, would you care to elaborate? - I will concede your point about online communities, though with no real interaction I’m not sure they qualify as actual “communities”. And the idea that education constitutes merit may not be misguided in the Danish educational system, but it certainly is in the American system. Our difference of opinion here is very likely due to our respective environments. American “democracy” is a dog-and-pony show. I’m sure everything is wonderful and lovely in Denmark though :) - Ya wonder why there isn’t any research on what’s keeping the little guys out of power, huh? Y’know, even scientists need funding... (When in doubt, follow the money) So your idea that the technology would diffuse to those outside the upper class is on shaky ground... the precedent set by other forms of technology doesn’t necessarily apply here, since the affordability of a smartphone isn’t nearly as threatening to the controlling interests as the power shift that would come as the result of making previously scarce abilities (that translate directly into leadership potential) common. - Yes, it is sad... it’s especially frustrating to live in the dominant country in the world and then go abroad to find that everyone and their mother has a firmly entrenched opinion on your politics :P But I agree, northern Europe is generally a much better place on a number of metrics. - I am certainly curious about your sources, on principle, and because I’m just curious and like to read. So anything you’d like to pass along is appreciated. - I'll respond to this later. I read the message and was impressed. But I'm too drunk to respond intelligently right now. :p - ... drunk at 2pm on a Thursday? That's Danes for you, I suppose... :P - Today is a holy day (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_of_Jesus" target="_blank">This one</a> ), so yesterday I went drinking. And I drank so much I woke up drunk after sleeping. That's why. ;) The physics friday bar (my favorite) has this system: Open on all fridays. Every work day followed by a non-work day counts as a friday. So this means that this week there are two fridays (wednesday and friday). Also, trying to see if links in HTML works... - That's a negative apparently. Would make for easier referencing... -