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yasp

Has anyone studied whether time preference might be genetically heritable?

Edit: why am I being downvoted for this?

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Yes it has been studied and like every basic human trait it is partially genetic and partially environmental.

As for why you are being downvoted there are many here on HC that are strong believers of the blank slate myth [0].

0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate

Because it's closely related to research on the genetic basis of intelligence. Poor research on these topics in the past have been used to justify rather egregious social policies (eugenics, birth control, racial discrimination, etc). Even if it is heritable, making the knowledge public can only lead to a sense of fatalism.

So rather than try to improve the science we should just ignore the question?

It can be argued that gratification delay is more psychology related than genetics. And while it can be found a pattern on genes, probably it will be falsified like happened before with these kind of experiments.

How could you possibly argue that without studying the question?

I never said to ignore the question.

Experiments require resources which are limited. And after the falsification of intelligence genes, it makes sense to find a psychological cause for delay of gratification first, and test other logical explanations second.

Edit: I was wrong. Reading Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ), it seems intelligence is related to both genes and enviroment.

I want to praise you for taking the time to admit that you were wrong about a topic you didn't know much about. It is something that is seen far too infrequently in this world.

Doesn't matter, more knowledge is always to our advantage; not being politically correct is a terrible reason for withholding information. We'll never get better by burying our heads in the sand.

Maybe key thing is to do a good research and to not use it as social policies rather than doing no research at all?

If I knew that my natural behavior is disadvantageous (given that time preference is an advantage), I could behave more consciously and do more analysis than intuition. Rather than just killing everyone suspected to be more succesful than me, if you know what I’m saying.

> Even if it is heritable, making the knowledge public can only lead to a sense of fatalism.

That's a really terrible way to look at the world, and has caused a lot of suffering. It's the very basis of the term 'heretic' that has caused so much loss throughout human history.

No human ever has the right to deny knowledge to another for their own benefit, because humans are not able to accurately determine what knowledge is or is not harmful for others to hold. Often their choice to withhold knowledge causes the most harm of all.

EDIT: Thinking about it more, 'the right' is not correct. Withholding knowledge can be a malicious or competitive activity, but can never be a beneficial one. Ie, you have the right to withhold knowledge from your enemies to harm them, or withhold knowledge from competitors to increase your chances of winning. But you need to be clear on this with yourself: you're not withholding knowledge for anyone's benefit but your own.

If I withhold knowledge of where my gun is from my angry friend who wants to kill someone, that benefits two people that are not myself (my friend who would likely go to jail, and the person he is planning to kill).

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