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The movie idiocracy comes to mind. Apparently the flynn effect slowed down. Some people hypothesize that the wellfare state has a dysgenic effect by redistribut

The movie idiocracy comes to mind. Apparently the flynn effect slowed down. Some people hypothesize that the wellfare state has a dysgenic effect by redistributing income from high IQ (high income) people to low IQ (low income or wellfare recipients)... It effectively creates disproportionate economic incentives for having children, and some indications put heritability of IQ above 0.7

Ygg2 9y ago
Flynn effect didn't slow down. It actually reversed. https://theeconomyofmeaning.com/2015/11/12/new-study-shows-reversed-flynn-effect-no-more-rising-iqs/ https://theeconomyofmeaning.com/2015/11/12/new-study-shows-r... It's like https://xkcd.com/603/ https://xkcd.com/603/, except White Hat is is wrong on most accounts.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  In 603, White Hat flies from arguments to preserve his naive positivistic view of the world where things fix themself magically. "You arguments are wrong because Flynn effect, and if this one is reversed then your arguments are wrong just because."
matt4077 9y ago
And by "some people" you mean social darwinists advocating eugenics?
- danieltillett 9y ago
  You don’t have to be an advocate for eugenics to notice a trend. Everybody these days is a eugenicist in that they all support the idea of helping pregnant women give birth to health children by ensuring they are well nourished and given good medical support. The section of 20th C. eugenics that is controversial is the part that suggests that one section of society should have more or less children.
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    It's not been established that there is a trend to spot. Here's a recent and fairly pro-eugenics survey of all the results they could find showing a reduction in IQ: https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2016-dutton.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2016-dutton.pdf And even they basically are only at the stage of saying "maybe there's a hidden trend, that's obscured by other trends moving in the opposite direction" (they think society becoming more abstract has caused a false rise in IQ, due to IQ tests measuring that socially taught facility with abstraction rather than raw intelligence, this may have disguised an actual drop in intelligence). So maybe it does help to have a preconcieved cause to spot this hypothesised trend. Regarding their hypothesis, it's kind of a philosophical question about whether you'd rather have a society full of uneducated bumpkins (not sure there is an english word for someone with raw intelligence but no education) with sharper reflex times or ability to discern colors, than a modern post-graduate who scores slightly worse on those tests but better on IQ. It's also somewhat unlikely that the former is going to be having less children than the latter, so they whole dysgenic thing seems to be on shakey ground.
    - danieltillett 9y ago
      I think you are missing my point which is noticing a trend does not mean you are advocating for political position. Unless all the people I personally know are very unrepresentative of society in general I have a hard time believing that there is not a negative effect on IQ due to differential fertility.
- Ygg2 9y ago
  By some people he means researches mentioned in this Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Heritability_and_caveats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Heritabilit...).

Ygg2 9y ago

Flynn effect didn't slow down. It actually reversed. https://theeconomyofmeaning.com/2015/11/12/new-study-shows-reversed-flynn-effect-no-more-rising-iqs/ https://theeconomyofmeaning.com/2015/11/12/new-study-shows-r... It's like https://xkcd.com/603/ https://xkcd.com/603/, except White Hat is is wrong on most accounts.

thriftwy 9y ago
In 603, White Hat flies from arguments to preserve his naive positivistic view of the world where things fix themself magically. "You arguments are wrong because Flynn effect, and if this one is reversed then your arguments are wrong just because."

matt4077 9y ago

And by "some people" you mean social darwinists advocating eugenics?

danieltillett 9y ago
You don’t have to be an advocate for eugenics to notice a trend. Everybody these days is a eugenicist in that they all support the idea of helping pregnant women give birth to health children by ensuring they are well nourished and given good medical support. The section of 20th C. eugenics that is controversial is the part that suggests that one section of society should have more or less children.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  It's not been established that there is a trend to spot. Here's a recent and fairly pro-eugenics survey of all the results they could find showing a reduction in IQ: https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2016-dutton.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2016-dutton.pdf And even they basically are only at the stage of saying "maybe there's a hidden trend, that's obscured by other trends moving in the opposite direction" (they think society becoming more abstract has caused a false rise in IQ, due to IQ tests measuring that socially taught facility with abstraction rather than raw intelligence, this may have disguised an actual drop in intelligence). So maybe it does help to have a preconcieved cause to spot this hypothesised trend. Regarding their hypothesis, it's kind of a philosophical question about whether you'd rather have a society full of uneducated bumpkins (not sure there is an english word for someone with raw intelligence but no education) with sharper reflex times or ability to discern colors, than a modern post-graduate who scores slightly worse on those tests but better on IQ. It's also somewhat unlikely that the former is going to be having less children than the latter, so they whole dysgenic thing seems to be on shakey ground.
  - danieltillett 9y ago
    I think you are missing my point which is noticing a trend does not mean you are advocating for political position. Unless all the people I personally know are very unrepresentative of society in general I have a hard time believing that there is not a negative effect on IQ due to differential fertility.
Ygg2 9y ago
By some people he means researches mentioned in this Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Heritability_and_caveats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Heritabilit...).