4 ms·

I think we're quite lucky as a species, and from an egalitarian perspective, that our genders and ethnicities are so similar to each other. The problems we fac

I think we're quite lucky as a species, and from an egalitarian perspective, that our genders and ethnicities are so similar to each other. The problems we face today eradicating sexism and racism are nothing compared to a world in which a human subspecies had evolved in isolation for two hundred thousand years and ended up with an average IQ of 50, or if we had much more significant sexual dimorphism and one sex was vastly more intelligent than the other.

esotericn 7y ago
Well, in some sense the question only makes sense within a narrow band. If one group of humans (sex, race, whatever) were to be _vastly_ more intelligent than the other, then we may well simply not care about the question at all. Consider animal welfare. We may care about the treatment of animals to some extent, but the idea that a cow should, say, be able to become a computer science major is laughable. It's not even on the radar.
- causality0 7y ago
  True, but I mean vast differences on the sapient being scale. What if a human subspecies was otherwise the same as us but had the life expectancy of a chimp, about forty years at best? What if the difference was as small as a thirty point difference in IQ?
  - cdirkx 7y ago
    Thirty points is about the difference between humans and chimps/gorillas/orangutan. (around 70 IQ I think, but sources are very much in disagreement on this, claiming it's more around 25-50 [1]. Taking tests on animals is hard) Last I checked they were all in the "critically endangered" category [2]. [1] https://www.quora.com/Using-human-standards-what-would-be-the-approximate-IQ-of-a-chimpanzee https://www.quora.com/Using-human-standards-what-would-be-th... [2] https://www.iucnredlist.org/ https://www.iucnredlist.org/
  - catalogia 7y ago
    I'm not sure if you tried this, but your hypothetical is quite close to a real category of people. Young adults with down syndrome (a chromosomal disorder) have an average IQ of 50 and in developed countries typically live to only 50-60. They used to be treated very poorly, sometimes exceedingly poorly. In the modern era they are generally treated with more respect than they were historically, despite almost everybody having lower expectations of them.
    - CuriouslyC 7y ago
      While people will take this as a sign of progress, I think realistically people with downs or other significant handicaps were a much greater burden on society in the past, and I think our current attitude of acceptance has more to do with our increased ability to care for such people. As cruel as it seems to us now, if you're struggling to survive and there's no social safety net, infanticide or child abandonment start to become much more attractive options in comparison with being burdened by taking care of a dysfunctional human for the rest of your life.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  ...but the idea that a cow should, say, be able to become a computer science major is laughable. However, even more, if say, not a cow but a crow (a plausibly intelligent creature) was being helped through the steps of learning computer science, I suspect the reaction would be fascination rather than the anger characteristic of racism. Indeed, the notable thing for me about racist responses is how far they are from a rational response to hypothetical situation of biological variation between types. The core racist position is overall fixated on avoiding race-mixing yet any animal breeder could tell you that a hybridized type is often a stronger individuals than either antecedent. So racist reactions might be a biological responses then but not responses that strengthens humanity but responses from a single selfish but not superior gene.
  - the8472 7y ago
    > I suspect the reaction would be fascination rather than the anger characteristic of racism. That seems quite optimistic. One crow would be a curiosity. A million crows would be seen as competition and there would be torches and pitchforks.
    - edanm 7y ago
      I mean, we've domesticated plenty of animals to do various parts of our work for us. It was a huge part in the advancement of humanity. I don't think any pitchforks were involved.
      - the8472 7y ago
        Pitchforks are definitely involved in ruminant husbandry. Pedantics aside, it still seems quite optimistic that a hypothetical crow graduating in computer science would be fine with being treated like a domesticated animal. Perhaps it is possible, but ethically that would be uncharted waters.
jlawson 7y ago
Not sure why you're so optimistic to be honest. In our world, human population groups evolved in isolation for one hundred thousand years[0]. And at least as measured, the difference between the lowest and highest IQ groups is about 35 points.[1] Men and women are closer in many respects, but it depends on the arena. Men still have double the upper body strength that women do and about seven times the testosterone. When you're talking about anything physical, it's impossible to treat men and women the same (speaking in terms of group outcomes). And even in the psychological realm where there's a lot of overlap in trait distributions - even small differences that produce a 6:4 ratio around the average, as many gender differences do, become absolutely massive at the edge of the bell curve - like 50:1. And the nature of our modern world is that it's at the edge of the curve where the big results are made - the very smartest physicists, the most capable engineers, the most dedicates CEOs are who are driving outcomes. Far from making egalatarianism easy or even, it seems like the way our world is set up makes it simply impossible. It might even be easier if the differences were bigger! They'd be impossible to deny and we'd just learn to cope with that. Right now we're in a weird place where the differences are huge and impactful, but there are just enough individual exceptions and just enough fuzziness to deny that they exist at all. I think we need some ethical framework that can be moral and evenhanded and kind without having to pretend that distinct groups are the same; a morality based on false beliefs about the physical world cannot stand. [0] The last common ancestry between the San people from southern Africa and Eurasians was roughly 100,000 thousand years ago. For Australian Aborigines, it's about 70,000 years. For the larger sub-Saharan African populations, it's about 50,000 years. In contrast, Chihuahuas and Bernese mountain dogs have perhaps 3,000 years of separation. [1] Obviously some of this is environmental, but the scientific consensus seems to be that a good chunk of it probably is not.
- Balgair 7y ago
  > And at least as measured, the difference between the lowest and highest IQ groups is about 35 points.[1] I may be very confused here, but are you saying that there are genetically separated people that have a 35 pt IQ difference? If that is true, I would love to see the source.
  - 7y ago
CuriouslyC 7y ago
Modern homo-sapiens probably eradicated/enslaved/absorbed denisovans and neanderthals, so I think that scenario has already played out.

esotericn 7y ago

Well, in some sense the question only makes sense within a narrow band. If one group of humans (sex, race, whatever) were to be _vastly_ more intelligent than the other, then we may well simply not care about the question at all. Consider animal welfare. We may care about the treatment of animals to some extent, but the idea that a cow should, say, be able to become a computer science major is laughable. It's not even on the radar.

causality0 7y ago
True, but I mean vast differences on the sapient being scale. What if a human subspecies was otherwise the same as us but had the life expectancy of a chimp, about forty years at best? What if the difference was as small as a thirty point difference in IQ?
- cdirkx 7y ago
  Thirty points is about the difference between humans and chimps/gorillas/orangutan. (around 70 IQ I think, but sources are very much in disagreement on this, claiming it's more around 25-50 [1]. Taking tests on animals is hard) Last I checked they were all in the "critically endangered" category [2]. [1] https://www.quora.com/Using-human-standards-what-would-be-the-approximate-IQ-of-a-chimpanzee https://www.quora.com/Using-human-standards-what-would-be-th... [2] https://www.iucnredlist.org/ https://www.iucnredlist.org/
- catalogia 7y ago
  I'm not sure if you tried this, but your hypothetical is quite close to a real category of people. Young adults with down syndrome (a chromosomal disorder) have an average IQ of 50 and in developed countries typically live to only 50-60. They used to be treated very poorly, sometimes exceedingly poorly. In the modern era they are generally treated with more respect than they were historically, despite almost everybody having lower expectations of them.
  - CuriouslyC 7y ago
    While people will take this as a sign of progress, I think realistically people with downs or other significant handicaps were a much greater burden on society in the past, and I think our current attitude of acceptance has more to do with our increased ability to care for such people. As cruel as it seems to us now, if you're struggling to survive and there's no social safety net, infanticide or child abandonment start to become much more attractive options in comparison with being burdened by taking care of a dysfunctional human for the rest of your life.
joe_the_user 7y ago
...but the idea that a cow should, say, be able to become a computer science major is laughable. However, even more, if say, not a cow but a crow (a plausibly intelligent creature) was being helped through the steps of learning computer science, I suspect the reaction would be fascination rather than the anger characteristic of racism. Indeed, the notable thing for me about racist responses is how far they are from a rational response to hypothetical situation of biological variation between types. The core racist position is overall fixated on avoiding race-mixing yet any animal breeder could tell you that a hybridized type is often a stronger individuals than either antecedent. So racist reactions might be a biological responses then but not responses that strengthens humanity but responses from a single selfish but not superior gene.
- the8472 7y ago
  > I suspect the reaction would be fascination rather than the anger characteristic of racism. That seems quite optimistic. One crow would be a curiosity. A million crows would be seen as competition and there would be torches and pitchforks.
  - edanm 7y ago
    I mean, we've domesticated plenty of animals to do various parts of our work for us. It was a huge part in the advancement of humanity. I don't think any pitchforks were involved.
    - the8472 7y ago
      Pitchforks are definitely involved in ruminant husbandry. Pedantics aside, it still seems quite optimistic that a hypothetical crow graduating in computer science would be fine with being treated like a domesticated animal. Perhaps it is possible, but ethically that would be uncharted waters.

jlawson 7y ago

Not sure why you're so optimistic to be honest. In our world, human population groups evolved in isolation for one hundred thousand years[0]. And at least as measured, the difference between the lowest and highest IQ groups is about 35 points.[1] Men and women are closer in many respects, but it depends on the arena. Men still have double the upper body strength that women do and about seven times the testosterone. When you're talking about anything physical, it's impossible to treat men and women the same (speaking in terms of group outcomes). And even in the psychological realm where there's a lot of overlap in trait distributions - even small differences that produce a 6:4 ratio around the average, as many gender differences do, become absolutely massive at the edge of the bell curve - like 50:1. And the nature of our modern world is that it's at the edge of the curve where the big results are made - the very smartest physicists, the most capable engineers, the most dedicates CEOs are who are driving outcomes. Far from making egalatarianism easy or even, it seems like the way our world is set up makes it simply impossible. It might even be easier if the differences were bigger! They'd be impossible to deny and we'd just learn to cope with that. Right now we're in a weird place where the differences are huge and impactful, but there are just enough individual exceptions and just enough fuzziness to deny that they exist at all. I think we need some ethical framework that can be moral and evenhanded and kind without having to pretend that distinct groups are the same; a morality based on false beliefs about the physical world cannot stand. [0] The last common ancestry between the San people from southern Africa and Eurasians was roughly 100,000 thousand years ago. For Australian Aborigines, it's about 70,000 years. For the larger sub-Saharan African populations, it's about 50,000 years. In contrast, Chihuahuas and Bernese mountain dogs have perhaps 3,000 years of separation. [1] Obviously some of this is environmental, but the scientific consensus seems to be that a good chunk of it probably is not.

Balgair 7y ago
> And at least as measured, the difference between the lowest and highest IQ groups is about 35 points.[1] I may be very confused here, but are you saying that there are genetically separated people that have a 35 pt IQ difference? If that is true, I would love to see the source.
- 7y ago

CuriouslyC 7y ago

Modern homo-sapiens probably eradicated/enslaved/absorbed denisovans and neanderthals, so I think that scenario has already played out.