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No, from a public policy perspective, the important question is what environment can we create that benefit as many people as possible. The current environment

by Ma8ee 5y ago

No, from a public policy perspective, the important question is what environment can we create that benefit as many people as possible. The current environment, from prenatal care to availability, cost and quality of higher education is something that is created by public policy. It is certainly not anything given.

xyzzyz 5y ago
> No, from a public policy perspective, the important question is what environment can we create that benefit as many people as possible. The problem is that since there already is substantial variance in environment that different people experience today, but nevertheless the amount of variance explained by shared environment is very, very low, this means that if we want to increase intelligence using environmental interventions, you can’t designate some environment that some (eg. well off people) already experience, and get everyone into that environment, because it simply won’t work. If it did, it would already show in the amount of variance explained by environment. Instead, what you need to do is to intervene by putting people in environments very few if any people today experience. This is the only approach that can work, as it can overcome the low amount of variance explained by environment. Suffice to say, nobody yet figured out what those unusual environments actually would be like, as you can’t simply copy whatever well off or genius people grow up like. If you do come up with something, it might end up being a hard sale too, given that this will be necessarily stranger than what people normally expect. But, if it works, you’ll improve the world massively and make history. Chances are against you though, as millions of people in the education industry worldwide have already tried almost anything you could come up with, and nothing really works.
tgv 5y ago
> what environment can we create that benefit as many people as possible That can't be researched (effectively). Policies affect the current situation, not the desired one.
- Ma8ee 5y ago
  You create the desired situation by affecting the current situation.
  - tgv 5y ago
    But you can't base the decision that should lead to the desired situation on any present knowledge, and it's in practice impossible to research. You can't know the desired outcome, let alone the path towards it.

by Ma8ee 5y ago

xyzzyz 5y ago

> No, from a public policy perspective, the important question is what environment can we create that benefit as many people as possible. The problem is that since there already is substantial variance in environment that different people experience today, but nevertheless the amount of variance explained by shared environment is very, very low, this means that if we want to increase intelligence using environmental interventions, you can’t designate some environment that some (eg. well off people) already experience, and get everyone into that environment, because it simply won’t work. If it did, it would already show in the amount of variance explained by environment. Instead, what you need to do is to intervene by putting people in environments very few if any people today experience. This is the only approach that can work, as it can overcome the low amount of variance explained by environment. Suffice to say, nobody yet figured out what those unusual environments actually would be like, as you can’t simply copy whatever well off or genius people grow up like. If you do come up with something, it might end up being a hard sale too, given that this will be necessarily stranger than what people normally expect. But, if it works, you’ll improve the world massively and make history. Chances are against you though, as millions of people in the education industry worldwide have already tried almost anything you could come up with, and nothing really works.

tgv 5y ago

> what environment can we create that benefit as many people as possible That can't be researched (effectively). Policies affect the current situation, not the desired one.

Ma8ee 5y ago
You create the desired situation by affecting the current situation.
- tgv 5y ago
  But you can't base the decision that should lead to the desired situation on any present knowledge, and it's in practice impossible to research. You can't know the desired outcome, let alone the path towards it.