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The downside would be that if we modify or select only for intelligence, we may get morally worse individuals. Perhaps morality and intelligence are somewhat co

The downside would be that if we modify or select only for intelligence, we may get morally worse individuals. Perhaps morality and intelligence are somewhat correlated, but that may break down if we explicitly select only for intelligence. Imagine flooding the world with ultra-smart ultra-selfish hackers who manage to break all security systems and steal all the wealth or otherwise wreak self serving havoc.

BearGoesChirp 9y ago
Compared to the current qualities we select for? Breeding among humans is by no means random, and I think selecting for intelligence would be an improvement. I think the bigger concern is how we select for intelligence. Doing it based on a few genes that correlate strongly with intelligence can lead to an increased vulnerability to health issues related to those genes we don't know about, but I think this applies to any gene level selection based on any characteristics.
- dontreact 9y ago
  Right I guess that part of my point is that even if you resolve all those issues you would still really want to select for is intelligence and pro-social/moral behavior in order to optimize the positive impact of a person.
sbierwagen 9y ago
Your comment is phrased as if antisocial traits don't already confer greater reproductive success. http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138%2814%2900077-4/abstract http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138%2814%2900077-4/a... >Convicted criminal offenders had more children than individuals never convicted of a criminal offense. Criminal offenders also had more reproductive partners, were less often married, more likely to get remarried if ever married, and had more often contracted a sexually transmitted disease than non-offenders. Importantly, the increased reproductive success of criminals was explained by a fertility increase from having children with several different partners.
- dontreact 9y ago
  I wonder if there is a lower chance of success for children with absent fathers which offsets this. I would be surprised if there wasn't, given the long term trend of societies becoming more civil and less violent on average.
pebers 9y ago
Why would we expect to get morally worse individuals? Given that we would not be making any changes in that area (if there even is any area of the genome that corresponds to morality) you'd expect it to be unchanged overall - unless it negatively correlates with intelligence, but I don't know of anything proving that's the case.
- dontreact 9y ago
  Would be pretty surprising if there was no hereditary component to morality. If there currently is any selective pressure towards pro-social traits or morality, then selecting exclusively for intelligence would take this away and you would see a decline.
j9461701 9y ago
Crime is a really stupid way to make money. I mean objectively, the cost benefit analysis just doesn't make any sense. The only reason to do it is you have poor impulse control and can't succeed in normal financial activities. An ultra-smart ultra-selfish hacker would sit down, do the math, and spend 5 years killing it on Wall-street doing quasi-legal machine trading in total safety. Rather than risk imprisonment and permanently damaging his career prospects over a few thousand dollars from Grandma's credit card. Case in point: Carl Gugasian, graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. Got a masters in systems analysis, and was a PhD student in statistics. His intelligent, methodical approach to robbing banks let him get away with it for 30 years. He earned about 2 million dollars doing it, which is about a million less than his undergraduate engineering degree alone would have earned him during that same period if he'd just gotten a regular job. He also eventually got caught, through pure dumb chance he couldn't have planned for, and spent 20 years in prison. So not only did he make less money being a criminal, he got to go to federal pound me in the ass prison for his golden years.

BearGoesChirp 9y ago

Compared to the current qualities we select for? Breeding among humans is by no means random, and I think selecting for intelligence would be an improvement. I think the bigger concern is how we select for intelligence. Doing it based on a few genes that correlate strongly with intelligence can lead to an increased vulnerability to health issues related to those genes we don't know about, but I think this applies to any gene level selection based on any characteristics.

dontreact 9y ago
Right I guess that part of my point is that even if you resolve all those issues you would still really want to select for is intelligence and pro-social/moral behavior in order to optimize the positive impact of a person.

sbierwagen 9y ago

Your comment is phrased as if antisocial traits don't already confer greater reproductive success. http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138%2814%2900077-4/abstract http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138%2814%2900077-4/a... >Convicted criminal offenders had more children than individuals never convicted of a criminal offense. Criminal offenders also had more reproductive partners, were less often married, more likely to get remarried if ever married, and had more often contracted a sexually transmitted disease than non-offenders. Importantly, the increased reproductive success of criminals was explained by a fertility increase from having children with several different partners.

dontreact 9y ago
I wonder if there is a lower chance of success for children with absent fathers which offsets this. I would be surprised if there wasn't, given the long term trend of societies becoming more civil and less violent on average.

pebers 9y ago

Why would we expect to get morally worse individuals? Given that we would not be making any changes in that area (if there even is any area of the genome that corresponds to morality) you'd expect it to be unchanged overall - unless it negatively correlates with intelligence, but I don't know of anything proving that's the case.

dontreact 9y ago
Would be pretty surprising if there was no hereditary component to morality. If there currently is any selective pressure towards pro-social traits or morality, then selecting exclusively for intelligence would take this away and you would see a decline.

j9461701 9y ago

Crime is a really stupid way to make money. I mean objectively, the cost benefit analysis just doesn't make any sense. The only reason to do it is you have poor impulse control and can't succeed in normal financial activities. An ultra-smart ultra-selfish hacker would sit down, do the math, and spend 5 years killing it on Wall-street doing quasi-legal machine trading in total safety. Rather than risk imprisonment and permanently damaging his career prospects over a few thousand dollars from Grandma's credit card. Case in point: Carl Gugasian, graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. Got a masters in systems analysis, and was a PhD student in statistics. His intelligent, methodical approach to robbing banks let him get away with it for 30 years. He earned about 2 million dollars doing it, which is about a million less than his undergraduate engineering degree alone would have earned him during that same period if he'd just gotten a regular job. He also eventually got caught, through pure dumb chance he couldn't have planned for, and spent 20 years in prison. So not only did he make less money being a criminal, he got to go to federal pound me in the ass prison for his golden years.