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Ever since I saw Gattaca, I knew it was exactly where society would be heading. Minus all the fear-mongering and scary music. It's a very fundamental human (n

Ever since I saw Gattaca, I knew it was exactly where society would be heading. Minus all the fear-mongering and scary music. It's a very fundamental human (nay, multi-celled organism) instinct to try to pass on our strongest genes. If there was anything I could do to ensure my kids had 150 or 160 IQs (without any obvious downsides) I would do it in a heartbeat. And so would everyone else I know, if they're honest.

QAPereo 9y ago
Everyone would... who could afford to. Now ask yourself what the majority who couldn’t afford it would do to protect and advantage their offspring. Gattaca is probably a fairly tale, and a nuclear wasteland the reality.
- Danihan 9y ago
  It's sadly ironic to me that a YCombinator commentator manages to be even more hyperbolic over gene therapy fear-mongering than an already very exaggerated message film. Disparities in IQ between people and groups are already massive and it's not causing nuclear war. Disparities over how much time and effort are put into raising offspring between classes are already massive. Again, we're still not going to war over it. How would you even envision a nuclear war like that taking place, when the highest IQ people are spread among many nation states and demographics? You should really try to tone back the over-the-top exterminist rhetoric and thinking, if only for your own well-being.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    That’s a lot of ad hominem noise to seemingly no signal all. Why?
  - dang 9y ago
    Please don't get involved in ideological flamewars here. This is an ideological flamewar topic because the high ideological bit determines nearly everyone's position about it. That means the more people get into it, the more it turns into the same ideological flamewar that every other such topic leads to, and that's what we're most trying to avoid here. One can see this, for example, in how your comment begins to slide into personal disrespect and name-calling.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  Your comment seems intended to imply that parents of poor people will engage in nuclear war when rich parents engineer their children to have higher IQ scores. I doubt that scenario will come to pass.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Not quite, it was more along the lines of another order of magnitude increase in inequality, which would be amplified with each passing generation. Not something you could hope to rise out of either, you’d be 100% born into it. Now, you might argue that birth already largely determine fate, but you’re talking about issues most of the world considers to be “luck”. A few billion people who can at least dream of a better life for their kids, won’t have that dream. I can’t imagine a more potent straw for the camel’s back, than rich people being able to engineer their children for health, strength, intelligence while everyone else is still beholden to chance. You’re talking about turning an underclass made from circumstances, into a permanent underclass that will be essentially inescapable and mount with each generation.
Chathamization 9y ago
If you only care about the raw IQ score, then time will eventually take care of this. IQ points have risen by about 3 points per decade[1], but the scores keep being readjusted downward so what used to be a high score is now a medium score. [1] http://theweek.com/articles/481988/are-americans-smarter-than-ever http://theweek.com/articles/481988/are-americans-smarter-tha...
- tziki 9y ago
  The Flynn effect (the rise in IQ scores) has mostly stopped in western countries, and even reversed in some.
AlexCoventry 9y ago
> It's a very fundamental human (nay, multi-celled organism) instinct to try to pass on our strongest genes. There's nothing fundamental about it, it's just what we (and our instincts) are implicitly optimized for. I very much doubt that there's a biological basis for the drive to have kids. That involves some quite elaborate concepts which would be difficult to encode in the molecular machinery produced by DNA. A biological basis to seek pleasure, and to find pleasure in sex, though, sure.
- Danihan 9y ago
  >I very much doubt that there's a biological basis for the drive to have kids Hahaha, ok. You've never seen a woman smell a newborn.
  - AlexCoventry 9y ago
    > The researchers aren’t sure if new moms undergo a hormonal change that leads to this surge of dopamine or if their reaction is influenced by the experience of smelling their own baby, the researchers say. > “It is possible that childbirth causes hormonal changes that alter the reward circuit in the caudate nucleus, but it is also possible that experience plays a role,” Frasnelli said in a statement. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-smell-of-newborn-babies-triggers-the-same-reward-centers-as-drugs-58482/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-smell-of-newbo...

QAPereo 9y ago

Everyone would... who could afford to. Now ask yourself what the majority who couldn’t afford it would do to protect and advantage their offspring. Gattaca is probably a fairly tale, and a nuclear wasteland the reality.

Danihan 9y ago
It's sadly ironic to me that a YCombinator commentator manages to be even more hyperbolic over gene therapy fear-mongering than an already very exaggerated message film. Disparities in IQ between people and groups are already massive and it's not causing nuclear war. Disparities over how much time and effort are put into raising offspring between classes are already massive. Again, we're still not going to war over it. How would you even envision a nuclear war like that taking place, when the highest IQ people are spread among many nation states and demographics? You should really try to tone back the over-the-top exterminist rhetoric and thinking, if only for your own well-being.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  That’s a lot of ad hominem noise to seemingly no signal all. Why?
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't get involved in ideological flamewars here. This is an ideological flamewar topic because the high ideological bit determines nearly everyone's position about it. That means the more people get into it, the more it turns into the same ideological flamewar that every other such topic leads to, and that's what we're most trying to avoid here. One can see this, for example, in how your comment begins to slide into personal disrespect and name-calling.
IncRnd 9y ago
Your comment seems intended to imply that parents of poor people will engage in nuclear war when rich parents engineer their children to have higher IQ scores. I doubt that scenario will come to pass.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Not quite, it was more along the lines of another order of magnitude increase in inequality, which would be amplified with each passing generation. Not something you could hope to rise out of either, you’d be 100% born into it. Now, you might argue that birth already largely determine fate, but you’re talking about issues most of the world considers to be “luck”. A few billion people who can at least dream of a better life for their kids, won’t have that dream. I can’t imagine a more potent straw for the camel’s back, than rich people being able to engineer their children for health, strength, intelligence while everyone else is still beholden to chance. You’re talking about turning an underclass made from circumstances, into a permanent underclass that will be essentially inescapable and mount with each generation.

Chathamization 9y ago

If you only care about the raw IQ score, then time will eventually take care of this. IQ points have risen by about 3 points per decade[1], but the scores keep being readjusted downward so what used to be a high score is now a medium score. [1] http://theweek.com/articles/481988/are-americans-smarter-than-ever http://theweek.com/articles/481988/are-americans-smarter-tha...

tziki 9y ago
The Flynn effect (the rise in IQ scores) has mostly stopped in western countries, and even reversed in some.

AlexCoventry 9y ago

> It's a very fundamental human (nay, multi-celled organism) instinct to try to pass on our strongest genes. There's nothing fundamental about it, it's just what we (and our instincts) are implicitly optimized for. I very much doubt that there's a biological basis for the drive to have kids. That involves some quite elaborate concepts which would be difficult to encode in the molecular machinery produced by DNA. A biological basis to seek pleasure, and to find pleasure in sex, though, sure.

Danihan 9y ago
>I very much doubt that there's a biological basis for the drive to have kids Hahaha, ok. You've never seen a woman smell a newborn.
- AlexCoventry 9y ago
  > The researchers aren’t sure if new moms undergo a hormonal change that leads to this surge of dopamine or if their reaction is influenced by the experience of smelling their own baby, the researchers say. > “It is possible that childbirth causes hormonal changes that alter the reward circuit in the caudate nucleus, but it is also possible that experience plays a role,” Frasnelli said in a statement. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-smell-of-newborn-babies-triggers-the-same-reward-centers-as-drugs-58482/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-smell-of-newbo...