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Yeast can't make metaphors, can't understand that they're in a fermenting bottle with limited food and increasing amounts of excreted toxins, and couldn't imagi

Yeast can't make metaphors, can't understand that they're in a fermenting bottle with limited food and increasing amounts of excreted toxins, and couldn't imagine or implement plans to do anything about that situation even if they could comprehend it. Humans can do all of those things - except, so far, muster the collective political will to take meaningful steps. So I don't know in what sense it would be useful to make that analogy. If you don't think 20 IQ points make a significant difference, consider some questions: do you believe that the average IQ 100 person is more or less likely than the average IQ 120 person to be concerned about global climate change? What about IQ 100 vs. IQ 80? If IQ numbers have no tangible meaning to you, do you expect the average Walmart shopper to be more or less concerned about climate change than the average graduate student (in any field at all, your choice: agricultural engineering just as much as climatology or gender studies).

pasquinelli 10y ago
"Yeast can't make metaphors, can't understand that they're in a fermenting bottle with limited food and increasing amounts of excreted toxins, and couldn't imagine or implement plans to do anything about that situation even if they could comprehend it. Humans can do all of those things - except, so far, muster the collective political will to take meaningful steps." you mean the thing that allows any of those other things you listed matter at all? and with all those abilities, it may make no difference, so there's no evidence that the difference in intelligence between yeast and humans is sufficient to save us. then why would 20 more points do it? and if yeast survive but people don't, what then? the point is in both the case of the yeast in the bottle and the human case our drive for survival kills us when we move into sudden abundance. greater average intelligence would just bring that abundance on faster. since we can't seem to steer this ship, we're at the mercy of the currents. despite all our metaphors and plans and concern about global climate change we don't seem able to do anything. is there much of a difference in carbon footprint between your average walmart shopper and your average graduate student, concern notwithstanding?
- jnicholasp 10y ago
  Bridges require foundations, pier columns, truss cables, and roadways in order to function. Each is necessary to the function of the whole; none has priority, and it doesn't make sense to single out any one of them as the thing that allows any of the other things to matter at all. In particular, it doesn't make sense to point at a bridge under construction that doesn't have the final piece in place yet, sneer at it because it doesn't have that piece, and suggest that it's pretty much exactly the same as no bridge at all. 20 points on average might push enough people from "unable to genuinely perceive long-term threats as threats" to "able to genuinely perceive long-term threats as threats", that it would move us past the political tipping point of collectively caring enough about doing something meaningful to both figure out what to do (devote money and resources to research) and to do it. Individual carbon footprints are not meaningful - it doesn't matter how well an individual paddles their canoe when that canoe is in a swimming pool on a cruise liner. What matters is how the liner is piloted. If all people suddenly disappeared off the earth, except for those people who happened to be standing in Walmarts at the time, do you think that society would be better or worse at recognizing and handling abstract, long-term threats like global warming than the society composed only of graduate students would be?
alicorn 10y ago
Sorry, but you conflate IQ with individual values that are acquired mainly through culture and education. A higher IQ does not automatically mean that a person will care about global problems that have no immediate negative effect on their own life, affect everyones wellbeing in the long run and are hard to solve. Or that a society with a higher average IQ will magically create political and economical structures that reward working towards common good instead of rent seeking. Case in point - Silicon Valley has probably an average IQ around 120-130. How many truly planet-saving innovations have been created there? I mean, you fail to eradicate powerty in SF, your backyard. Because why bother if creating ever new and exciting ways to share cat pictures is infinitely more personally rewarding in the short run and who gives a f about anything else? So, my point is, higher IQ is not a solution in and of itself, since human nature - instinct to care about oneself first and foremost, will still be present. This instinct can be only tamed by education, culture and political and social structures that promote common good. The chances that a society will evolve these kinds of structures is a toss-up. It is a lot more likely that the outcome will be exactly the same as what we see now - much like adding a 1.2 multiplier to all stats for both mobs and pcs in a computer game - numbers are different, but it is still the same game. The key is culture, and education, and conscious work towards better social, economic and political structures. But I am quite sure that we will all kill ourselves a long time before any of that will happen.
- jnicholasp 10y ago
  I'm not conflating IQ with values, I'm arguing that as average IQ goes up, the percentage of the population who will recognize that certain problems of non-immediate import will inevitably become immediate, personal problems, will also go up. I agree with you that the mechanisms through which greater awareness and active concern for seemingly abstract problems will trickle into the global zeitgeist are things like education, culture, and social/political structures. But where do those come from, and what allows people to perceive their value and meaning? You can't teach people things that you don't understand, and they can't learn things that they can't understand. Better cultural and social structures are a result of better understanding; better understanding is more common with brains that are better able to perceive patterns and project consequences.

pasquinelli 10y ago

"Yeast can't make metaphors, can't understand that they're in a fermenting bottle with limited food and increasing amounts of excreted toxins, and couldn't imagine or implement plans to do anything about that situation even if they could comprehend it. Humans can do all of those things - except, so far, muster the collective political will to take meaningful steps." you mean the thing that allows any of those other things you listed matter at all? and with all those abilities, it may make no difference, so there's no evidence that the difference in intelligence between yeast and humans is sufficient to save us. then why would 20 more points do it? and if yeast survive but people don't, what then? the point is in both the case of the yeast in the bottle and the human case our drive for survival kills us when we move into sudden abundance. greater average intelligence would just bring that abundance on faster. since we can't seem to steer this ship, we're at the mercy of the currents. despite all our metaphors and plans and concern about global climate change we don't seem able to do anything. is there much of a difference in carbon footprint between your average walmart shopper and your average graduate student, concern notwithstanding?

jnicholasp 10y ago
Bridges require foundations, pier columns, truss cables, and roadways in order to function. Each is necessary to the function of the whole; none has priority, and it doesn't make sense to single out any one of them as the thing that allows any of the other things to matter at all. In particular, it doesn't make sense to point at a bridge under construction that doesn't have the final piece in place yet, sneer at it because it doesn't have that piece, and suggest that it's pretty much exactly the same as no bridge at all. 20 points on average might push enough people from "unable to genuinely perceive long-term threats as threats" to "able to genuinely perceive long-term threats as threats", that it would move us past the political tipping point of collectively caring enough about doing something meaningful to both figure out what to do (devote money and resources to research) and to do it. Individual carbon footprints are not meaningful - it doesn't matter how well an individual paddles their canoe when that canoe is in a swimming pool on a cruise liner. What matters is how the liner is piloted. If all people suddenly disappeared off the earth, except for those people who happened to be standing in Walmarts at the time, do you think that society would be better or worse at recognizing and handling abstract, long-term threats like global warming than the society composed only of graduate students would be?

alicorn 10y ago

Sorry, but you conflate IQ with individual values that are acquired mainly through culture and education. A higher IQ does not automatically mean that a person will care about global problems that have no immediate negative effect on their own life, affect everyones wellbeing in the long run and are hard to solve. Or that a society with a higher average IQ will magically create political and economical structures that reward working towards common good instead of rent seeking. Case in point - Silicon Valley has probably an average IQ around 120-130. How many truly planet-saving innovations have been created there? I mean, you fail to eradicate powerty in SF, your backyard. Because why bother if creating ever new and exciting ways to share cat pictures is infinitely more personally rewarding in the short run and who gives a f about anything else? So, my point is, higher IQ is not a solution in and of itself, since human nature - instinct to care about oneself first and foremost, will still be present. This instinct can be only tamed by education, culture and political and social structures that promote common good. The chances that a society will evolve these kinds of structures is a toss-up. It is a lot more likely that the outcome will be exactly the same as what we see now - much like adding a 1.2 multiplier to all stats for both mobs and pcs in a computer game - numbers are different, but it is still the same game. The key is culture, and education, and conscious work towards better social, economic and political structures. But I am quite sure that we will all kill ourselves a long time before any of that will happen.

jnicholasp 10y ago
I'm not conflating IQ with values, I'm arguing that as average IQ goes up, the percentage of the population who will recognize that certain problems of non-immediate import will inevitably become immediate, personal problems, will also go up. I agree with you that the mechanisms through which greater awareness and active concern for seemingly abstract problems will trickle into the global zeitgeist are things like education, culture, and social/political structures. But where do those come from, and what allows people to perceive their value and meaning? You can't teach people things that you don't understand, and they can't learn things that they can't understand. Better cultural and social structures are a result of better understanding; better understanding is more common with brains that are better able to perceive patterns and project consequences.