The Slow Frontier of Genetic Choice
kk.org
kk.org
It is crazy that we ban research on cloning, and still don't have many clones of successful scientists.
Not because these aren’t brilliant people but because brilliance isn’t the most important factor in innovation. Rather, innovation is driven by people who are exposed to a novel environment and are just smart enough to not ignore it.
Bill Gates’ highschool was the only one in the US with a computer. Albert Einstein was working in a patent office where he saw a conga-line of patents discussing how to standardize the measurement of time across vast geographies.
Both brilliant people. Both exposed to a novel societal idea. Thankfully they were smart enough to run with it.
I suspect having at least moderately wealthy parents is a huge factor. I'm sure a lot of potentially great scientists died unknown for absence of those.
I don't thik this was a relevant factor. Certainly not as much as reading Poincare's work (which anyone had access to).
Almost all solutions to actually solving environmentalism and sustainability at a long term global level involve lots of complicated policies which seemingly can only be accomplished with a higher degrees of altruism, better intelligence of multiple flavors, etc.
https://youtu.be/pRIIwJh1DDQ?t=165
We kind of NEED a general increase to intellect and ability. Also would save on rising health care costs.
Ironically, we'd need some sort of eugenics for the ruling elite to truly raise them to a point that they could then responsibly apply eugenics to the rest of the population.
The "elite" will probably start doing this in the next 50 years. Honestly I'm shocked it hasn't started in my lifetime (I'm ~50 years old)
Of course, better genes means nutrition, education and opportunity go further
The point is that the world would benefit from even one more von Neumann.
Which would also indicate the likelihood of a lot of other people achieving more than they would have under more adverse conditions.
The point is that we could have dozens of von Neumann's twin brothers helping us to speed up that process, but we choose not to for no good reason.
Even one additional Von Neumann would be great. More would be fantastic.
And would be associated with a lot of other more impactful people.
The “good” reason for not providing better conditions is we don’t have a system for that.
My vote would be that the value of all raw natural resources not created by human beings efforts be considered a joint inheritance.
The raw value of them being shared by all equally with a focus on health and education for children, and keeping adults above survival mode. We would all benefit from that investment, even the rich.
The efforts of those who extract and process them, as with any human added value, would be rewarded by the competitive marketplace as usual.
Untrue.
Can you be more specific? This kind of smug response is worthy of Twitter, incapable of starting any deeper conversation on a pretty deep topic.
I don't need to provide any references because Kelly didn't provide any of his own: what is presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. I shouldn't be held to a higher standard than he is simply because he said his claims first. He's not a geneticist or psychologist or otherwise working in this area, so there shouldn't be even a presumption here that he is probably right if he isn't going to provide any evidence or sources or more convincing arguments than 'there just can't be free lunches, there can't!'.
I am being rude here because I am fed up with decades of people making these sweeping assertions about genetic correlations while simply completely ignoring the large literature actually measuring these FUD bugaboos. Kelly, and everyone making those arguments, deserves nothing but mockery until they show any sign of catching up to the literature as of, let's say, 1990 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Genetic_correlati...), and while we're at it, I could wish that they would understand the idea of 'adding two variables before doing selection' (I mean, index selection in genetics only goes back to the 1940s or so, you can't expect people to understand such cutting-edge concepts).
And he can't provide those references because it's not true: the genetic correlations between IQ and other traits are pervasively positive, and Kelly would know that if he spent any time looking into it. In fact, you would have to go thoroughly through the list of known genetic correlations with IQ before you would find any that are bad, contrary to his assertion that there is always a strong tradeoff in a myriad of ways. (I'll save you the effort: out of hundreds of reasonably reliable genetic correlations of IQ/gf with other traits like diseases, the bad ones worth mentioning are myopia, possibly allergies (I forget if that was just phenotypic), anorexia, and autism spectrum disorder checklist self-reports. And I think the last one is probably bogus anyway due to measurement issues.)
I agree that the author acts recklessly and presents unwarranted conclusions. That said, in case of widespread genetic engineering, I would expect potential parents to make more specific choices that will result in some real tradeoffs.
For example, it seems that longevity and fertility are somewhat negatively correlated, though this is precisely a field of study that requires a lot more research, because longevity was, until recently, a very underfunded topic.
Most people, if they had a choice, would probably opt for longevity, given that you can now "outsource" reproduction to IVF and similar techniques. But over several generations, any small effects may be amplified.
I mean, a CRISPR based cure has been successfully tested in monkeys as early as 2010, but there is still nothing on the market.
CRISPR is a fairly dangerous technology and it makes sense to start applying it to serious conditions first. If you accidentally kill someone trying to cure their color blindness, the whole humanity will lose out, because the regulators will go crazy and slow down the field by 10 more years.
Satirical answer obviously. But the “right” risk level for human experimentation is such a strange problem.
I expect that just as humans generally fear air travel mishaps far more than far more dangerous activities, we have an aversion to (informed consent) human experiments that is probably too conservative.
Except when we take into account the real and damaging second order effects of outsized fear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Gelsinger
The victim was a young kid which had 50+ years of life before him, and he was able to manage his condition fairly well prior to the experiment.
Add some shady details in the informed consent process, and the reaction of the public to his death was so overwhelmingly negative that gene therapy took a massive hit.
[1]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-glow-in-th...
High rise pig farm:
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/chinas-2...
"Genetic engineering isn't progressing as quickly as I'd like. How could we solve that?...I know! Let's invent a slave race."
I could just downvote and move on, and I probably should. But I find today I can't help asking: Do you hear yourself?