5 ms·

> The average IQ is only 100 You do realize that's a tautology, right? There's no reason productivity couldn't be increased, and one potential method would be

> The average IQ is only 100 You do realize that's a tautology, right? There's no reason productivity couldn't be increased, and one potential method would be to boost human intelligence.

strictnein 10y ago
And an IQ score of 100 in 1980 is not equivalent to an IQ score of 100 in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
- w1ntermute 10y ago
  That's exactly my point.
kordless 10y ago
It's certainly not the high plasticity of the brain holding back technology. It's the average emotional intelligence of the human race in a given area combined with the average EI of another areas. Culture/areas/whatever that encourage a high amount of cognitive dissonance will give way to a "contagion" that gives rise to lower EIs through double binding communications between groups. It's better if you start out with a topic that is highly polarized, as that gives the contagion some energy to feed upon. You see this with Trump, as he is in constant disagreement with himself in what he says, which is dove tailed in behind whatever blaming remark he made when he first started talking. This gets the dissonance going in groups who are, in general, disgruntled about whatever it is they are disgruntled about. Sigh.
aaron695 10y ago
Some say China is working on this issue with selective breeding etc. You could at increasing IQ in very poor countries where lack of basic micronutrients is causing IQ issues. But I think better group intelligence, using current intelligence in poor countries better, AI, productivity increase with better tools currently makes much more sense.
- falsestprophet 10y ago
  Is there large scale government directed selective breeding in China?
  - deciplex 10y ago
    No, but some, like aaron695, say there is.
- daveguy 10y ago
  I think he might be referring to this 2013 article: http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-with-a-massive-genetic-engineering-program http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-with-a... Selective breeding in a sense of "selecting the zygote" for ideal outcome. Aka designer babies. This was referred to as "selective breeding" in the press when it came out. A misnomer in that selective breeding has meant selective pairing of parents for at least a century before this article was written. Note: this is also a company in China, not "China" although the distinction is sometimes muddled they certainly aren't regulating it like it has been in the West. Also, with the only one child policy that was recently lifted it is easy to confuse oppressive breeding requirements in China.
hammock 10y ago
I believe the point is we (HN readers) are mostly exposed to smarter than average folks in our daily lives. Our idea of an "average" person probably is smarter than the true average person. And we would do well to remember that, for example, 42% of Americans believe ghosts are real.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  you may be tooting your own horn there. its a trap to believe you and/or your community is "above average" in intelligence. the community on hacker news is more enculturated than most for a few things. 1. working with computers 2. selling technology 3. thinking about business in the medium term 4. calling ourselves very smart with little backing evidence for that claim and besides that stuff I am not particularly impressed by the level of intelligence displayed here (including my own)
  - internaut 10y ago
    Maybe intelligence is like the sausage factory. People like the product but nothing that happens to make it is elegant.
  - Houshalter 10y ago
    It's not a trap, HN definitely has a higher IQ than the general population. FWIW I have some data on IQs from a similar online community, showing the cumulative distribution of IQ compared to the general population: http://www.leijuvakaupunki.fi/images/box/lw_ssc_iq_cdf.png http://www.leijuvakaupunki.fi/images/box/lw_ssc_iq_cdf.png HN is highly correlated with technical professions and especially programmers. Those things happen to be highly correlated with and selective of IQ.
    - metaphorm 10y ago
      post I responded to said "smarter than average" which is not the same thing as IQ and conflating the two of those is also a trap.

> The average IQ is only 100 You do realize that's a tautology, right? There's no reason productivity couldn't be increased, and one potential method would be to boost human intelligence.

strictnein 10y ago

And an IQ score of 100 in 1980 is not equivalent to an IQ score of 100 in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

w1ntermute 10y ago
That's exactly my point.

kordless 10y ago

It's certainly not the high plasticity of the brain holding back technology. It's the average emotional intelligence of the human race in a given area combined with the average EI of another areas. Culture/areas/whatever that encourage a high amount of cognitive dissonance will give way to a "contagion" that gives rise to lower EIs through double binding communications between groups. It's better if you start out with a topic that is highly polarized, as that gives the contagion some energy to feed upon. You see this with Trump, as he is in constant disagreement with himself in what he says, which is dove tailed in behind whatever blaming remark he made when he first started talking. This gets the dissonance going in groups who are, in general, disgruntled about whatever it is they are disgruntled about. Sigh.

aaron695 10y ago

Some say China is working on this issue with selective breeding etc. You could at increasing IQ in very poor countries where lack of basic micronutrients is causing IQ issues. But I think better group intelligence, using current intelligence in poor countries better, AI, productivity increase with better tools currently makes much more sense.

falsestprophet 10y ago
Is there large scale government directed selective breeding in China?
- deciplex 10y ago
  No, but some, like aaron695, say there is.
daveguy 10y ago
I think he might be referring to this 2013 article: http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-with-a-massive-genetic-engineering-program http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-with-a... Selective breeding in a sense of "selecting the zygote" for ideal outcome. Aka designer babies. This was referred to as "selective breeding" in the press when it came out. A misnomer in that selective breeding has meant selective pairing of parents for at least a century before this article was written. Note: this is also a company in China, not "China" although the distinction is sometimes muddled they certainly aren't regulating it like it has been in the West. Also, with the only one child policy that was recently lifted it is easy to confuse oppressive breeding requirements in China.

hammock 10y ago

I believe the point is we (HN readers) are mostly exposed to smarter than average folks in our daily lives. Our idea of an "average" person probably is smarter than the true average person. And we would do well to remember that, for example, 42% of Americans believe ghosts are real.

metaphorm 10y ago
you may be tooting your own horn there. its a trap to believe you and/or your community is "above average" in intelligence. the community on hacker news is more enculturated than most for a few things. 1. working with computers 2. selling technology 3. thinking about business in the medium term 4. calling ourselves very smart with little backing evidence for that claim and besides that stuff I am not particularly impressed by the level of intelligence displayed here (including my own)
- internaut 10y ago
  Maybe intelligence is like the sausage factory. People like the product but nothing that happens to make it is elegant.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  It's not a trap, HN definitely has a higher IQ than the general population. FWIW I have some data on IQs from a similar online community, showing the cumulative distribution of IQ compared to the general population: http://www.leijuvakaupunki.fi/images/box/lw_ssc_iq_cdf.png http://www.leijuvakaupunki.fi/images/box/lw_ssc_iq_cdf.png HN is highly correlated with technical professions and especially programmers. Those things happen to be highly correlated with and selective of IQ.
  - metaphorm 10y ago
    post I responded to said "smarter than average" which is not the same thing as IQ and conflating the two of those is also a trap.