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There's a natural human impulse to assert that something which is evil must also be ineffective. Often this is true, and it's great when it is, it's like gettin
by rictic 6y ago
There's a natural human impulse to assert that something which is evil must also be ineffective. Often this is true, and it's great when it is, it's like getting something for free – you can improve both the moral situation of the universe and improve efficiency – but one must be prepared for the eventuality that reality doesn't cooperate.
I don't know shit about genetics, so I don't have anything to contribute here specifically, just to bear in mind that the universe may pose challenges where good people have to actively swim against the current of efficiency.
- andrewla 6y agoOh, for sure. Environmentalists, for example, do not advocate (generally) for the direct murder of large numbers of people, which would certainly qualify as a solution to any number of environmental problems. Ethics are important. But eugenics is not only unethical, it is also incorrect, and reflects a very reductionist view of evolution. Breeding (or genetically engineering) for IQ, for example, which Dawkins has explicitly mentioned as a "positive" version of eugenics[1], is incorrect for achieving the end of increasing intelligence as a species. Regardless of moral/ethical whatevers, it just won't work. In this particular case, IQ is a fair measure of general intelligence, but not comprehensive; even its most rabid proponents admit it rarely explains more than 20% of the variance of "success", so the idea that increasing IQ over the population would have a useful effect is laughably naive. [1] https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/1112032950621659136 https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/111203295062165913...