The SMBC guy co-wrote a book with Bryan Caplan, is friends with Scott Aaronson and has cited Yudkowsky in his comics. I don't think he's a rationalist but he is somewhere in the sphere lol
It's a bit better in that it's about the only thing leftists agree with libertarians (at least the old school ones): people should be able to move freely between countries. Caplan is making the argument that it's a net good in economic terms
> due to the parasitic effect it has on the bargaining power of the members of the working class.
afaik this isn't supported by the evidence (lump of labor fallacy etc). I could be wrong though.
That kind of thinking is opening the door to some bullshit. I can't see how it isn't just a larger-scale version of the same problem of capitalist individualism. It'd encourage hostile competition between countries rather than individuals. Is that better?
Edit: sorry, I forgot this isn't a debate club. But it's made me very interested, in any case.
The science supporting that genetics impacts intelligence is pretty
incontrovertible and, to a point, not controversial if you stay away
from certain elements.
The idea of modifying humanity for intelligence is a very common sci
fi trope that is becoming a potential reality with advances in genetics.
We could already use IVF to pick smarter babies for ourselves if it
weren’t taboo to study, and similarly if it weren’t for the taboo we’d
be able to engineer ourselves pretty quickly, too.
It’s actually fun to think about genetically engineering humanity for
superintelligence as a viable alternative to paper clips.
A little tongue in cheek and only tangentially related to eugenics, but this isn't really the sort of place to have a conversation about actual science.
Genetic selection for intelligence isn't just controversial because it's taboo, it's also controversial [because it doesn't work.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMBriCmiTu0)
[Intelligence is heritable](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-021-01027-y), that's not in question. I didn't even discuss eugenics, but of course you posted a video about eugenics by a critical feminist thinker and self-described nerd to critique the idea that we could modify ourselves for humanity. Her arguments barely even address Dawkins' point about eugenics, let alone a comment about genetic engineering. Given her comment about how cows experience fertility problem being a negative, I also assume she is opposed to medical interventions that have reduced childhood mortality since those could also reduce fitness. Most notably nothing in that video actually addresses intelligence except for a single comment about how we actually do have evidence that intelligence is heritable.
Like, yes, your genes get extremely diluted over time on average- but
getting diluted isn’t the same as disappearing. While the impact per
individual is decreasing substantially, the number of individuals
impacted is increasing by the same factor. Not to mention that
genes are ultimately discrete, too, so they can’t split as far as the
comic suggests.
The more likely outcome, if there were a set of “smart genes” being
spread from an initial individual, is that eventually some people in the
population would have at least one of them, and some people in the
population wouldn’t, and there would be a very marginal benefit for each
of those who have one of the genes, and the marginal benefit times the
number of people benefiting would ultimately add up to a real
difference. The fact that we would have a hell of a time detecting that
difference wouldn’t make it less real, any more than it wouldn’t be real
if we tried detecting if one in every ten people became one penny richer
on average in terms of net worth.
This underestimated the possibility of the future only being a handful of individuals replicated 10^27 times by a superintelligent computer.
[deleted]
I am deeply invested in being deeply invested in things I had no control over.
4000-IQ Habsburg society speedrun
The science supporting that genetics impacts intelligence is pretty incontrovertible and, to a point, not controversial if you stay away from certain elements.
The idea of modifying humanity for intelligence is a very common sci fi trope that is becoming a potential reality with advances in genetics. We could already use IVF to pick smarter babies for ourselves if it weren’t taboo to study, and similarly if it weren’t for the taboo we’d be able to engineer ourselves pretty quickly, too.
It’s actually fun to think about genetically engineering humanity for superintelligence as a viable alternative to paper clips.
This argument seems… kind of bad?
Like, yes, your genes get extremely diluted over time on average- but getting diluted isn’t the same as disappearing. While the impact per individual is decreasing substantially, the number of individuals impacted is increasing by the same factor. Not to mention that genes are ultimately discrete, too, so they can’t split as far as the comic suggests.
The more likely outcome, if there were a set of “smart genes” being spread from an initial individual, is that eventually some people in the population would have at least one of them, and some people in the population wouldn’t, and there would be a very marginal benefit for each of those who have one of the genes, and the marginal benefit times the number of people benefiting would ultimately add up to a real difference. The fact that we would have a hell of a time detecting that difference wouldn’t make it less real, any more than it wouldn’t be real if we tried detecting if one in every ten people became one penny richer on average in terms of net worth.