Aaaaaaaaaahahahaha
I only knew of her because I called one of her takes breathtakingly stupid on Twitter a couple of years back and she set a swarm of her followers on my mentions for a week, it turns out they’re the densest people on the internet.
>an evolutionary psychology academic whose username is "primalpoly" is my own personal version of hell. but since hell is real and online he not only exists, but has a blue checkmark and 35k followers
Not mine, but I wholeheartedly endorse the sentiment
He received so many sexual harassment complains (pre metoo) that he is banned from ever having graduate students, hence he literally hasn't had a promotion in 30 years. His most notable publication is a popular press book which defends date rape under some circumstances. Plus he practices polygamy with some other IDW couple whose names I can't recall.
Anyway, a real catch!
Ive read this guy's stuff and just discovered his Twitter. How can someone be so sane on Podcasts and write normal books and then be completely insane on Twitter.
Pointing out that the Habsburg, Charles II of Spain shouldn’t have
existed because he was severely deformed by inbreeding is a eugenic
argument, actually.
Jesus christ. What is he, if not a shining example of how misguided
attempts at genetic purity lead to absolutely bizarre disasters? There’s
no telling what insane changes can be caused by a single gene, much less
the sociological impact.
But I guess eugenics is when you don’t fuck your cousins,
actually.
Like if you wanna give your children all the mutations that have been identified to increase intelligence, you'll be able to give them SNPs explaining a grand total of 11% of the variance in intelligence. They'll need [1,271 genetic modifications](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0147-3) to get that 11% of variance, though. And it won't work if they aren't European.
We had more hope for single-gene effects in the past, but that was before we learned that if you don't have at least 30,000 people in your genetic study [you're probably getting false positives](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/05/waste-1000-studies/589684/) because individual genes explain a tiny amount of any effect, and 100,000 or 1,000,000 people is even better.
Personally I can't wait for the next generation of molecularly-sculpted hypergeniuses^^(TM) to look at the list of holy genes and go "yeah, see, about half of these are for chelating lead and the other half are for clearing car exhaust. You probably should have gone for the easy solutions first?"
(Oh, and the effect sizes in that study went down by 40% when they looked at families where one sibling had a SNP and another sibling didn't. So even that 11% of variance is on the high side for reasons that they haven't completely figured out yet.)
Speaking of dashed hopes for eugenicists, 12 years ago Geoffrey Miller (husband of the woman in the OP) was [confidently predicting](https://archive.is/BeiO) that once we started doing whole-genome sequencing we would "identify the many genes that create physical and mental differences across populations" and that although there would be "outraged denial from blank-slate liberals", "The few who really understand the genetics will gain a more enlightened, live-and-let-live recognition of the biodiversity within our extraordinary species—including a clearer view of likely comparative advantages between the world's different economies."
And let's say you want to make your child into a risk-taking entrepreneur. [Good news!](https://www.thessgac.org/faqs) You can increase their risk tolerance by up to 0.02% per gene!
There's a chance that we'll find rare variants or CNV mutations in the future which aren't captured in SNP GWAS studies that have a bigger effect, but we haven't found 'em yet and all the genes that we've thought would be great candidates have turned out to have no effect whatsoever.
Yeah, that tracks.
Fits with my general belief that the boring, stupid answer is the right one. Shit happens, don’t overestimate your ability to model all of it in your own head.
That's a pretty good null hypothesis, if I may say so. Shit happens. Most of the time when we think we understand, we don't.
...I mean Bayesian prior! It's a pretty good Bayesian prior!
So, all of the genes associated found to be associated with intelligence just so happen to have only been found in people of European descent? How convenient
>How convenient
Isn't it, though?
They did the study on Europeans, and then they tested their result on other groups, and their results didn't hold up. So they assumed that other groups must have other SNPs to explain variation in intelligence.
It gets weirder, though. From what I think is a pre-publish version of the [full paper](https://academicworks.medicine.hofstra.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5038&context=articles) (hopefully that link works):
"A polygenic score for EduYears based entirely on parents’ nontransmitted alleles is approximately 30% as predictive as a polygenic score based on transmitted alleles."
In other words, genes that your parents have that they \*didn't\* pass on to you are linked to the educational analysis they're using as a proxy for intelligence.
An even more cautionary note comes from this paper published a couple of years later:
[Comparison of Adopted and Nonadopted Individuals Reveals Gene–Environment Interplay for Education in the UK Biobank](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797620904450)
"Polygenic scores now explain approximately 10% of the variation in educational attainment. However, they capture not only genetic propensity but also information about the family environment... We found that polygenic scores were twice as predictive of years of education in nonadopted individuals compared with adoptees."
In other words, that 10% power of genes gets cut in half if you look at only, y'know, the genes.
What we've mostly learned in the past 10 years is that almost no single genes other than clearly-disease-causing genes have a big impact. Even [the Satan Gene](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-satan-gene).
I mean, there’s a pretty big gulf between “don’t fuck your first cousin” and “I guess we’ve gotta go shoot all these undesirables now”.
A reasonable approach would have certainly resulted in Charles II not existing; not as a personal thing against him, but more of unintended consequence of avoiding so much interbreeding.
I can’t help but think our future is Gattaca but way stupider, where
the ability to modify genes outstrips the ability to identify which
genes should be modified* so that the rich go to fancy clinics who, for
liability reasons, tinker around with the genes least likely to cause
harm as opposed to the genes most likely to create geniuses, and then
this new breed of rich GMO humans have the best excuse possible for why
they are born to dominate but it’s all built on a convenient lie. I
guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Inverse *Gattaca*: It's too risky to modify genes that affect human brain development, but bladders and kidneys are easier. So, following the lead of coercive sterilization programs in the past, rich people pay warehouse workers to engineer *their* children to grow up to be better warehouse workers....
I feel like the primary failure of *Gattaca* was that it made class a consequence of genetic engineering, rather than the other way around. I sometimes wonder if *In Time* was Andrew Niccol’s attempt to correct that error.
IMO if it were the other way around, more people would think it's a really cool and great idea. [There are already people who think Gattaca is something to be admired](https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/11/08/132018/polygenic-score-ivf-embryo-dna-tests-genomic-prediction-gattaca/).
>I can't help but think our future is Gattaca but way stupider
Reading into her explanations, she's actually going for the Kwisatz Haderach [gambit](https://twitter.com/sentientist/status/1379549451308707843):
>DF: Here I am only saying that *some* sons and daughters of wealthy people would have the intelligence and altruistic motivation to make life better for everyone, not that everyone wealthy is moral or good.
> Rando: Perhaps a crux of disagreement is that “some”. How much is enough to ensure that such a shift would be net positive for the world?
> DF: just one person! All of us are here, essentially, because of Norman Borlaug
The spice (gene selection) must flow.
> All of us are here, essentially, because of Norman Borlaug
Wait, that's her example?? Someone who grew up on a family farm and had to work for the CCC in order to have enough money to get through college is maybe the worst example of "the wealthy creating more geniuses" I can think of. If anything, it's more a tale of how strong governmental support for public education and Federal work projects can lead to societal improvements from people who otherwise wouldn't have had that opportunity.
It's going to get really weird really fast. I was going to make a long comparison between gene modification and computer games with slider bars in their character editors, but then I imagined how Yud might influence the sort of people his (hypothetical?) children would become if he had options beyond ordinary biology and his presence in their lives. Ew.
Seems depressingly plausible. Just a 21st century take on the nobility; otherwise fuckwits who need to justify why being born to another fuckwit makes them worthy of all the power and status they wield.
Less hemophilia this time though, so there’s that.
I don't want to be the person to tell her that intelligence doesn't correlate with being a good person. It must be so cozy in the bubble she's living in.
One shortcut to equality- put lead in the drinking water of wealthy
people’s children.
It’s like they know there’s more room for productive IQ improvements
by fixing environmental factors, but their real problem is with picking
up a fuckin shovel.
>It's like they know there's more room for productive IQ improvements by fixing environmental factors
She does, but [it's not worth her time to mention](https://twitter.com/sentientist/status/1379559934891802629).
It's always hilarious how much these people are willing to throw away the "known but difficult to implement" solutions in favor of the "wild sci-fi that can be blathered about".
> [Of course there are things we could do environmentally to improve intelligence -providing school lunches, education and reducing lead exposure (based on the evidence) will probably make people somewhat smarter, but not amplify intelligence enough to improve progress radically](https://twitter.com/sentientist/status/1379545923043332112)
Ok, but, and hear me out, why not at least *try* these options, and see if they work before jumping to "let's have rich people tinker with their genes for the betterment of us all"?
The funny thing is that the kids of really rich families are often
the least competent people around. The idea that rich parents will
produce genius kids is pretty much backwards.
Ever met someone who inherited a fortune? Often they’re the best
educated morons you’ll ever meet; isolation from consequences does not
produce an adult that can think through cause and effect correctly.
I once interviewed at a company that does embryonic selection for IVF
based on genetic predictions. From what I understood, they ran the
genetics of embryos through prediction algorithms to select “the best”
ones to choose for implantation.
I ended up talking with the founder who went on to tell me that his
inspiration for his company was Gattaca. I also met with the team, and
the lead was your typical SV transhumanist type. I passed on that
company.
I found out that later they were pushing promotional material like
this: “The
world’s first Gattaca baby tests are finally here”: > According
to flyers distributed by the company, it will also warn clients about
any embryo predicted to become a person who is among the shortest 2% of
the population, or who is in the lowest 2% in intelligence.
I don’t know what my point is other than that these people exist,
they’re acting on these ideas and they’re being funded with hundreds of
millions of dollars.
Yeah, it was Laurent who I spoke with.
Also, https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4859:
> Hsu now faces possible firing, because of a social media campaign apparently started by an MSU grad student and SneerClub poster named Kevin Bird. What are the charges? Hsu appeared in 2017 on an alt-right podcast (albeit, one that Noam Chomsky has also appeared on). On Hsu’s own podcast, he interviewed Ron Unz, who despite Jewish birth has become a nutcase Holocaust denier—yet somehow that topic never came up on the podcast. Hsu said that, as a scientist, he doesn’t know whether group differences in average IQ have a genetic component, but our commitment to anti-racism should never hinge on questions of biology (a view also espoused by Peter Singer, perhaps the leading liberal moral philosopher of our time). Hsu has championed genomics research that, in addition to medical uses, might someday help enable embryo screening for traits like IQ. Finally, Hsu supports the continued use of standardized tests in university admissions (yes, that’s one of the listed charges).
I’m of the opinion that with adequate testing (EDIT: by which I mean
clinical trials like you would normally do for any new medicine) access
to enhancements should be a guarantee to all.
It’s the only realistic solution. Try to ban it and rich people will
access it on the black market.
Furthermore it would be unethical to prevent people from improving
their quality of life and those benefits aren’t just the immediate
individual benefits but also the benefits of having more intelligent,
happier, stronger people who will be more able to discover and innovate
so we can further improve quality of life. That giving enhancement to
everyone will improve everyone’s abilities also means even more
innovation than just leaving it up to whether people can afford it. The
innovation would result both from greater ability itself and the
competitiveness this will generate from having so many capable players.
If society can also move past irrarional prejudices such as racism,
sexism, and homophobia (and maybe we can edit prejudice away!) then for
the first time in history we will have made a giant leap towards true
meritocracy. With genetic enhancement where a person ends up in life
won’t be down to nature anymore. The tax monies to fund this will pay
themselves back in the good this does.
After treatments pass clinical trials we can mostly just let adults
do what they want. However to some degree we should make enhancement
mandatory for children. Not everything. There will always be some gray
area where someone can argue whether or not the enhancement improves
quality of life. But for an extreme example suppose we could gene edit
away Tay Sach’s disease and a parent was just like “nah, I’ll just let
them suffer and die.” That’s child abuse and should be unacceptable. And
sure that’s a disease but the line between having a disease and just
being relatively deprived of some trait that affects quality of life is
not a thick one and society is going to have to have a conversation
about how to draw this line not to limit when enhancement is acceptable
but to limit when parents are allowed to say no.
It seems kind of inevitable that at-will genetic screening for
fetuses will become a thing. Her assumption that children of wealthy
people will make life better is the real part to sneer at, and it’s
important, imo, not to confuse it with the actual possible benefits of
gene editing or screening.
What’s not clear is what we’ll scan fetuses *for*. We can easily scan for a variety of big-ticket genetic disorders, but we are a very, very long way away from being able to identify how intelligent a fetus might turn out to be. Heck, we don’t even have a definition of “intelligence” that isn’t culturally dependent yet.
It’s also entirely possible that you *can’t* determine this stuff from a fetus’ DNA, and big ticket genetic disorders are the best you can detect. As had been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, DNA doesn’t have enough information in it to encode all your brain’s neurons; your experiences and random luck have a massive impact on what kind of person you turn out to be.
The only thing we'll be able to scan for for a longish time will definitely be genetic disorders as you mentioned, but I do hope we get a little bit of a handle on whatever other traits may be selectable at the fetus DNA level. Maybe stuff like height, or ectomorph/endomorph propensity.
Intelligence, I doubt will really be possible until our ability to compute stuff goes up quite a few orders of magnitude, enough for simulations to actually have practical value on an individual level. And even then it won't be feasible to model social development, and even less feasible to actually cause the child to go through whatever life path would result in ideal intelligence and personality to make the baseline genetic selection "worth it".
if the rich wouldn’t want to send their current children back in time
to the middle ages because they would likely suffer, or just be bored,
it’s unconscionable to seek to modify future children to enter into a
world with all the problems ours does
like if you take money out of the picture it’s really the worst
possible move. i know Americans are individualistic but to think that
playing frankenstein with babies will somehow guarantee one of them is
smart enough to fix this mess is either underestimating how fucked
things are or overestimating human intelligence. but i suspect the first
in line are not high on the moral ladder.
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I like how she imagines that the rich would necessarily care about
the conditions of people poorer than them, when the rich already have
resources to help improve conditions for the poor and choose not to use
them altruistically. Imagine if she tweeted this:
When faced with the possibility that soon wealthy people could get
even richer, it’s fascinating that way more people are thinking “oh no!
more terrible inequality” than are thinking “oh awesome, more rich
people to give money to poor people to make life better
In all seriousness, why is EA so infested with classist bullshit like
this? I had to unfollow Rob Wiblin on Twitter after him sending out
these tweets about how we shouldn’t be taxing billionaires because it
prevents them from doing the good that Bill Gates does, and that
billionaires would spend the money better than the government. Good
lord. More and more I think that EA is really just another way for the
wealthy to launder their own reputations while retaining even more of
their own money.
Imagine thinking you can democratise this shit when you can't even democratise a country. Demonstrate your methods in (2) on ordinary healthcare first.
What if there's a better global optimum number of chromosomes to have, but we're at a local optimum at 46? Maybe we could all be amazing immortal chad geniuses but every time we finally get a baby to have +/-1 chromsomes we call it a syndrome and claim that it's genetically suboptimal.
Clearly we should be trying to get more mutations, think of the infinite amount of utility we can maybe gain!
selecting against easily identifiable genetic diseases is a little bit up the eugenicist road from selecting for wishy-washy cultural ideals like "intelligence" when we're almost clueless about how it maps to the genome and can't even adequately define it
LoL. 7 of you really like seeing human beings suffer I guess. Like what I propose is alleviation of human suffering and preventing stressful lives on family.
Would you get your panties in a wad? Over a woman aborting if she knew the kid would be born with DS?
People with physical disabilities CAN be helped. They literally are "at a disability" it's in the name. We have developed new technology that can help them and make people born certain ways to live happy able lives. That hindered them considerably before.
People with missing/deformed limbs can still comprehend and do basic tasks, albeit struggle to put on clothing, and get clean etc. Get ready before school/work etc.
But people with severe inborn intellectual disabilities.... Life is hard enough. I wouldn't blame anyone for not really liking their child/or regretting because their child can't even comprehend or be mentally equipped to handle basic tasks that as adults they must know how to do. Or also be social. It's just a very limited life. And I hate that. I want people to be able to go and be whatever they want to be. And do what makes them happy.
Like..... Fucking chill out. Eugenics is senseless killing based on race science and fake IQ Bell Curve nonsense.
If Designer babies become a thing, fuck yeah. I'm making my kid invulnerable to inherited diseases that possibly they could get. It's literally a net positive.
Sure. Absolutely. Gene edits and splicing could get ethically ambiguous. And become very slippery and questionable. But baseline for me is just ensuring health for a child. That's it. Appearance wise would not matter to me, much. That's more-so subjective.
[deleted]
Jesus christ. What is he, if not a shining example of how misguided attempts at genetic purity lead to absolutely bizarre disasters? There’s no telling what insane changes can be caused by a single gene, much less the sociological impact.
But I guess eugenics is when you don’t fuck your cousins, actually.
I can’t help but think our future is Gattaca but way stupider, where the ability to modify genes outstrips the ability to identify which genes should be modified* so that the rich go to fancy clinics who, for liability reasons, tinker around with the genes least likely to cause harm as opposed to the genes most likely to create geniuses, and then this new breed of rich GMO humans have the best excuse possible for why they are born to dominate but it’s all built on a convenient lie. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
* For complex traits like intelligence.
How’s that been working out for the past 40 years? Do we want them to be… better… at that?
“When faced with the possibility that soon wealthy people could choose to have kids educated at ‘elite’ schools, it’s fascinating that…”
Her first joke in response:
It’s like they know there’s more room for productive IQ improvements by fixing environmental factors, but their real problem is with picking up a fuckin shovel.
The funny thing is that the kids of really rich families are often the least competent people around. The idea that rich parents will produce genius kids is pretty much backwards.
Ever met someone who inherited a fortune? Often they’re the best educated morons you’ll ever meet; isolation from consequences does not produce an adult that can think through cause and effect correctly.
I once interviewed at a company that does embryonic selection for IVF based on genetic predictions. From what I understood, they ran the genetics of embryos through prediction algorithms to select “the best” ones to choose for implantation.
I ended up talking with the founder who went on to tell me that his inspiration for his company was Gattaca. I also met with the team, and the lead was your typical SV transhumanist type. I passed on that company.
I found out that later they were pushing promotional material like this: “The world’s first Gattaca baby tests are finally here”: > According to flyers distributed by the company, it will also warn clients about any embryo predicted to become a person who is among the shortest 2% of the population, or who is in the lowest 2% in intelligence.
I don’t know what my point is other than that these people exist, they’re acting on these ideas and they’re being funded with hundreds of millions of dollars.
Bold of them to think it won’t just devolve to just 1-upping penis sizes
[deleted]
pls do not disparage weed smokers thank u
edit i tried to think of a more on point sneer/joke to go with this weak joke but then i got high
More Kardashians!
I’m of the opinion that with adequate testing (EDIT: by which I mean clinical trials like you would normally do for any new medicine) access to enhancements should be a guarantee to all.
It’s the only realistic solution. Try to ban it and rich people will access it on the black market.
Furthermore it would be unethical to prevent people from improving their quality of life and those benefits aren’t just the immediate individual benefits but also the benefits of having more intelligent, happier, stronger people who will be more able to discover and innovate so we can further improve quality of life. That giving enhancement to everyone will improve everyone’s abilities also means even more innovation than just leaving it up to whether people can afford it. The innovation would result both from greater ability itself and the competitiveness this will generate from having so many capable players. If society can also move past irrarional prejudices such as racism, sexism, and homophobia (and maybe we can edit prejudice away!) then for the first time in history we will have made a giant leap towards true meritocracy. With genetic enhancement where a person ends up in life won’t be down to nature anymore. The tax monies to fund this will pay themselves back in the good this does.
After treatments pass clinical trials we can mostly just let adults do what they want. However to some degree we should make enhancement mandatory for children. Not everything. There will always be some gray area where someone can argue whether or not the enhancement improves quality of life. But for an extreme example suppose we could gene edit away Tay Sach’s disease and a parent was just like “nah, I’ll just let them suffer and die.” That’s child abuse and should be unacceptable. And sure that’s a disease but the line between having a disease and just being relatively deprived of some trait that affects quality of life is not a thick one and society is going to have to have a conversation about how to draw this line not to limit when enhancement is acceptable but to limit when parents are allowed to say no.
Yep, pretty fascinating. Couldn’t imagine why. Very tough nut to crack, this one.
It seems kind of inevitable that at-will genetic screening for fetuses will become a thing. Her assumption that children of wealthy people will make life better is the real part to sneer at, and it’s important, imo, not to confuse it with the actual possible benefits of gene editing or screening.
OP your title is just so perfect. It made me laugh out loud.
if the rich wouldn’t want to send their current children back in time to the middle ages because they would likely suffer, or just be bored, it’s unconscionable to seek to modify future children to enter into a world with all the problems ours does
like if you take money out of the picture it’s really the worst possible move. i know Americans are individualistic but to think that playing frankenstein with babies will somehow guarantee one of them is smart enough to fix this mess is either underestimating how fucked things are or overestimating human intelligence. but i suspect the first in line are not high on the moral ladder.
I like how she imagines that the rich would necessarily care about the conditions of people poorer than them, when the rich already have resources to help improve conditions for the poor and choose not to use them altruistically. Imagine if she tweeted this:
In all seriousness, why is EA so infested with classist bullshit like this? I had to unfollow Rob Wiblin on Twitter after him sending out these tweets about how we shouldn’t be taxing billionaires because it prevents them from doing the good that Bill Gates does, and that billionaires would spend the money better than the government. Good lord. More and more I think that EA is really just another way for the wealthy to launder their own reputations while retaining even more of their own money.
I don’t see any more morally ideal path than this setup.
[deleted]