7 ms·

There is a depressing # of voices here in this discussion which argue that ignorance is better than search for, however imperfect and fractional, knowledge, bec

There is a depressing # of voices here in this discussion which argue that ignorance is better than search for, however imperfect and fractional, knowledge, because humans (always some other humans) aren't capable of handling the truth. I will try to argue against them from a pragmatic point of view. The US sure is the top dog in scientific research, but far from the only dog. New competition has arisen, mostly Asian countries that do not care too much about historical Western traumas and sensibilities. The US is no more capable of blocking certain research worldwide that the Pope was, back in the Early Modern Era. By blocking intelligence research in the US, the US is basically ceding the ground to those competing countries on ideological grounds. As a result, they will get ahead and possibly discover new facts. (At this point, too many smart readers will wave the suggestion away with a bland "Intelligence is too complicated to be ever really understood." Sorry, I don't believe that. Intelligence is surely complicated, but so was atom splitting. It would be strange if there were never any results in the field, regardless of work spent.) Which means that a generation or two down the road, strategic adversaries may have tech to alter intelligence and other mental traits, because they will know what to edit and how. Perhaps not that much, but who knows how genetic and epigenetic manipulation in human beings is going to look like in 2070. Such an ability may prove even more world-changing than the atomic bomb, and the US is shooting itself in the foot by making sure that it won't be able to compete on the field early.

remarkEon 4y ago
Exactly this. What results from this field has the potential to be downright terrifying and dangerous on so many different dimensions. Which is exactly why it should be studied, especially in a society where we still ostensibly have some semblance of respect for the individual.
- thebradbain 4y ago
  The Cold War didn’t become a Nuclear War because both powers realized in some capacity that an arms race spurred by this very assumption that the other is creating ever more advanced technology which could threaten one’s power would ultimately just result in each country annihilating the other in the name of self defense/preserving power/stability/“peace”. Who benefits from those “advances” in technology in that case? To argue that dangerous/unethical/X research must be done just because a potential adversary is also doing that research is what armed the world with the nuclear option in the first place. Sure, nuclear weapons would likely have been theoretically discovered anyways, but did they need to be actually built? Did we need to execute on actually building and using nuclear weapons to understand practical use cases for nuclear energy? Because I am certain that powers today in an arms race with each other could and would, by this logic, discover and unleash entirely new man-made horrors upon this world that make nuclear weapons look elementary, if this is the path we’re going to go down. Just because some people choose to study eugenics does not mean we all have to (or should).
  - 411111111111111 4y ago
    Your argument only works if you consider eugenics to be inherently unethical, which isn't necessarily true. Previous attempts such as exterminating anyone with flawed genes was certainly unethical, but that was just an example of people drunk on power exercising it. The benefits from ethical eugenic research would be to the whole society. You'd get less genetic illnesses, improved metabolisms, better eyesight etc. In theory it's basically just improving the odds of rolling good genetics for everyone. It's certainly not going to be easy however, and to be frank: I doubt any of us will be alive by the time the research would bear fruits.
    - laverya 4y ago
      > Previous attempts such as exterminating anyone with flawed genes was certainly unethical, but that was just an example of people drunk on power exercising it. IMO it really depends on how you're doing the extermination. Killing adults/children with the relevant genes is of course hilariously unethical. Killing fetuses with the same genes is very debatably unethical - as in, a lot of people will very strongly say it's unethical, but other societies will do so at >90% rates (see Down's in Iceland as an example). I find it hard to think of a way in which editing an individual embryo to change the relevant genes is unethical besides the "changing anything is evil eugenics" objection.
  - marcusverus 4y ago
    > The Cold War didn’t become a Nuclear War because both powers realized in some capacity that an arms race spurred by this very assumption that the other is creating ever more advanced technology which could threaten one’s power would ultimately just result in each country annihilating the other in the name of self defense/preserving power/stability/“peace”. I think the Cold War stayed cold because the potential downside of using weapons outweighed the potential benefits—-the use of a single nuke could only bring marginal benefits, but at the risk of Armageddon. > To argue that dangerous/unethical/X research must be done just because a potential adversary is also doing that research is what armed the world with the nuclear option in the first place. What was the alternative? To bury our heads in the sand and hope that the Nazis, Japanese, and Soviets were too scrupulous to pursue a strategic advantage? C’mon. Unilateral disarmament isn’t moral. It’s naive and dangerous.
- mxkopy 4y ago
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SQueeeeeL 4y ago
refurb 4y ago
If I understand your argument correctly, the US should abandon attempts at preventing eugenics because other countries will do it?
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Preventing research =/= preventing eugenics. eugenics =/= unethical eugenics. If you screen your embryos for downs syndrome, you are practicing eugenics. If you screen your fetus for any genetic defects, you are practicing eugenics. If you want smart kids and want a smart spouse, you are practicing eugenics.
  - refurb 4y ago
    So all eugenics is ok? I’m confused at what point you’re making?
    - jl6 4y ago
      I thought it was pretty clear. eugenics =/= unethical eugenics
      - thebradbain 4y ago
        that’s like saying “good murder is different than bad murder” — adding an adjective doesn’t actually change what it is, nor the morality around it
        Iolaum 4y ago
        Well if I come in the middle of the night at your house with a gun, you killing me is different than me killing you.
        concordDance 4y ago
        "Eugenics" actually just means attempting to improve the genome our children will have. This does not need to involve forced sterilisation or indeed the government at all. E.g. giving all parents free genetic screening and genome correction for their fetuses if they wish it would be eugenics.
tarsinge 4y ago
The problem seems exacerbated in the US, because of the association of culture with genes and sub categories of citizens based on these crystallized association. It would be far less problematic if US society viewed and recognized only one big group of American citizens with a shared culture, with their specific history and genes being individual and private matter, like in some other countries (not to say it’s all rosy there, but at least there is that). These research could still be extrapolated but only to arbitrary group of individuals with no official existence, instead of well defined “races” like in the US. Of course it’s just an outsider reflection, I may get things wrong here.
DoctorOW 4y ago
The problem is there is no way to measure intelligence objectively. Every intelligence test ever devised either measures something else unintentionally (usually prior knowledge/communication skills), or nothing at all. Your response that it _could_ be done doesn't actually refute that it hasn't. Sending a man to walk on the sun feels as impossible now as sending a man to walk the moon 100 years ago. Do I think we're behind as a country because NASA isn't sending people to the sun now? No. I'm universally fine with waiting until there's a theoretically viable approach before throwing random innocent lives at things which have no evidence of working even in theory.
- luckylion 4y ago
  When you say "there is now way", are you saying that we don't currently have a way, or that it's impossible to do? If it's the former, more research would certainly help.
  - DoctorOW 4y ago
    I don't find it valuable to say "impossible". I've said that pretending we're at that point now is harmful.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      But the same argument that they have against research in genetics applies there too, doesn't it? Attempting to measure intellectual capacity assumes that there can be a difference and tries to make that visible. Or, as others in this thread have argued: how should the person feel that doesn't get a high score, and shouldn't we outlaw research in that area to make sure they don't feel bad?
      - DoctorOW 4y ago
        No. I don't believe we should outlaw research that makes people feel bad. I predict that there's functionally very little genetic difference in cognitive abilities because human beings are simply far too similar (this does not say "exactly the same") to each other in all other measurable attributes. Still, it's moot because we can't measure intelligence and pretending we can isn't scientific.
woodruffw 4y ago
It’s strange to see this structure of argument: it effectively admits that we ought to do anything that a less scrupulous person or country would do, because (tacitly) we have more scruples. That’s never made any sense to me. More seriously, it suggests that we ought to pursue any unethical domain so long as our perceived competitors will. Should the US have sunk billions into Lysenkoism[1] because the Soviets did, or phlogiston[2] research because there’s an off chance we’ve actually been wrong for the last 200 years? In other words: this requires us to add a perverted normative glance to science, the kind you seem keen to avoid in the first place. Is it ideal that Americans get squeamish whenever intelligence is brought up? No. But doing something that’s largely failed to meet scientific standards just because another big country might do it doesn’t pass the smell test either. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  Okay, you can have that argument with a corporation. I'm having the argument with a taxpayer funded resource under the US Federal Government and it doesn't seem like a limitation it can create or sustain, legally. It should sell it off so you can have your argument.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    This is a perfectly reasonable argument for any scientific funding, public or private. It’s arguably even more pressing in the public setting, given the civic interest in public institutions not funding junk science (or distributing private generic data). I don’t see why this situation would be unsustainable for the USG. It’s not a particularly unusual one.
  - soco 4y ago
    In WW2 you had all this "research" conducted by Dr Mengele and funded by the state. Should the US have done the same, just with taxpayer money? I know retroactively it's easy to say "no" but were you at that time presented with this dilemma?
sokoloff 4y ago
I don’t know if it will be commonplace in 50 years, but I think it will in 250. This seems like deciding to not study topics might have elements of discomfort at substantial risk of becoming the subservient population to groups with assisted tech (or even just a better understanding of developmental nutrition and environmental factors).
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  250 years is a long, long time in tech and science. 250 years ago, Watt was just coming up with the first efficient steam engine. You can actually already edit genome of living things today, using tools such as CRISPR. Granted, they are still rather primitive, but they are getting better. I am almost positive that by 2070, genetic engineering will be as ubiquitous as semiconductors are today.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I mostly agree with you, though the natural rate-limiting cycle time of edit-to-observe is much longer in human developmental genetics than in software or semiconductors.
mschuster91 4y ago
> By blocking intelligence research in the US, the US is basically ceding the ground to those competing countries on ideological grounds. As a result, they will get ahead and possibly discover new facts. Couldn't the same be said about the OG Nazis? All of their medical "experiments" on prisoners of concentration camps [1] were unethical, there wasn't even anything of note found out because they were either shit at documenting "experiments" or the "experiments" were just the personal dreams of sadistic "doctors". There are lines we damn well shouldn't cross, and where it is worth we should sanction violators. We are supposed to have learned from "historical Western traumas and sensibilities", because if not then all the suffering would have been in vain. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/ns-aerzte-experimente-an-kz-insassen-a-1080450.html https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/ns-aerzte-experimente-an-k...
- PeterStuer 4y ago
  Are you equating database queries to forced lethal and debilitating medical procedures on prisoners?
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    You do realize that database queries were an essential part of what made the foundation for the Nazi genocide [1]? Genocides always begin with data. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/hitlers-willing-business-partners/303146/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/hitlers...
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      Most genocides in history didn't rely on any data (Caesar or Genghis Khan certainly didn't run any population analysis before putting entire cities to the sword) and most databases have never been used for a genocide. The correlation is weak. What actually prevents genocides is good institutions, not deliberate ignorance.
      - mschuster91 4y ago
pannSun 4y ago
> There is a depressing # of voices here in this discussion which argue that ignorance is better than search for, however imperfect and fractional, knowledge You are being too generous. They argue for ignorance now, only because they are forced to by the starkness of the "do or do not" research question. Otherwise they would confidently claim every notion they dislike has been widely debunked (and give examples of 19th century studies getting debunked, while avoiding mention of any post-1950s research). When pressed, they would retreat to "it's complicated", and finally to "so what/you shouldn't care anyway" [1]. And when the discussion is over, they will immediately forget it, and revert to using an absolutist blank slatist assumption (with zero basis in research) to legitimize their politics, and deconstruct [2] their opponent's. [1] "I don't have a dog. And if I had a dog, it doesn't bite. And if I had a dog and it did bite, it didn't bite you. And if I had a dog and it did bite, and it bit you, then you provoked the dog." [2] Not just delegitimize, but deconstruct, i.e. "not only should you not care about those things, those things don't even exist, they are mere social constructs with no biological basis"
- josephcsible 4y ago
  > "I don't have a dog. And if I had a dog, it doesn't bite. And if I had a dog and it did bite, it didn't bite you. And if I had a dog and it did bite, and it bit you, then you provoked the dog." The name of this fallacy is "kettle logic".
mxkopy 4y ago
I'm not comfortable playing MAD/prisoners dilemma with stakes this high. If other people are, and the systems we make put those people in charge, then maybe it's for the best. Perhaps we'll destroy ourselves so thoroughly no civilization could rise from the amniotic goo, let alone one that takes wargames so seriously.
pandaman 4y ago
>By blocking intelligence research in the US, the US is basically ceding the ground to those competing countries on ideological grounds. Just in the 20th century USSR similarity banned Genetics and Cybernetics. While keeping ideological purity it had to sacrifice agriculture developments and, later, computers. The Genetics alternative, funnily enough, had been Lysenkoism, which is also something we can observe in the US nowadays.
gopher_space 4y ago
> Which means that a generation or two down the road, strategic adversaries may have tech to alter intelligence and other mental traits, because they will know what to edit and how. We know that we'd improve the intelligence of children across the board if we had free school lunches and classes started at 11am. That's pretty low hanging fruit for a country with our resources, so why haven't we accomplished this?

remarkEon 4y ago

Exactly this. What results from this field has the potential to be downright terrifying and dangerous on so many different dimensions. Which is exactly why it should be studied, especially in a society where we still ostensibly have some semblance of respect for the individual.

thebradbain 4y ago
The Cold War didn’t become a Nuclear War because both powers realized in some capacity that an arms race spurred by this very assumption that the other is creating ever more advanced technology which could threaten one’s power would ultimately just result in each country annihilating the other in the name of self defense/preserving power/stability/“peace”. Who benefits from those “advances” in technology in that case? To argue that dangerous/unethical/X research must be done just because a potential adversary is also doing that research is what armed the world with the nuclear option in the first place. Sure, nuclear weapons would likely have been theoretically discovered anyways, but did they need to be actually built? Did we need to execute on actually building and using nuclear weapons to understand practical use cases for nuclear energy? Because I am certain that powers today in an arms race with each other could and would, by this logic, discover and unleash entirely new man-made horrors upon this world that make nuclear weapons look elementary, if this is the path we’re going to go down. Just because some people choose to study eugenics does not mean we all have to (or should).
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  Your argument only works if you consider eugenics to be inherently unethical, which isn't necessarily true. Previous attempts such as exterminating anyone with flawed genes was certainly unethical, but that was just an example of people drunk on power exercising it. The benefits from ethical eugenic research would be to the whole society. You'd get less genetic illnesses, improved metabolisms, better eyesight etc. In theory it's basically just improving the odds of rolling good genetics for everyone. It's certainly not going to be easy however, and to be frank: I doubt any of us will be alive by the time the research would bear fruits.
  - laverya 4y ago
    > Previous attempts such as exterminating anyone with flawed genes was certainly unethical, but that was just an example of people drunk on power exercising it. IMO it really depends on how you're doing the extermination. Killing adults/children with the relevant genes is of course hilariously unethical. Killing fetuses with the same genes is very debatably unethical - as in, a lot of people will very strongly say it's unethical, but other societies will do so at >90% rates (see Down's in Iceland as an example). I find it hard to think of a way in which editing an individual embryo to change the relevant genes is unethical besides the "changing anything is evil eugenics" objection.
- marcusverus 4y ago
  > The Cold War didn’t become a Nuclear War because both powers realized in some capacity that an arms race spurred by this very assumption that the other is creating ever more advanced technology which could threaten one’s power would ultimately just result in each country annihilating the other in the name of self defense/preserving power/stability/“peace”. I think the Cold War stayed cold because the potential downside of using weapons outweighed the potential benefits—-the use of a single nuke could only bring marginal benefits, but at the risk of Armageddon. > To argue that dangerous/unethical/X research must be done just because a potential adversary is also doing that research is what armed the world with the nuclear option in the first place. What was the alternative? To bury our heads in the sand and hope that the Nazis, Japanese, and Soviets were too scrupulous to pursue a strategic advantage? C’mon. Unilateral disarmament isn’t moral. It’s naive and dangerous.
mxkopy 4y ago
Log in to view this page. To register, please provide a valid 8-digit biomarker. We take your privacy very seriously. I'm so grateful for our individualistic society.

SQueeeeeL 4y ago

refurb 4y ago

If I understand your argument correctly, the US should abandon attempts at preventing eugenics because other countries will do it?

s1artibartfast 4y ago
Preventing research =/= preventing eugenics. eugenics =/= unethical eugenics. If you screen your embryos for downs syndrome, you are practicing eugenics. If you screen your fetus for any genetic defects, you are practicing eugenics. If you want smart kids and want a smart spouse, you are practicing eugenics.
- refurb 4y ago
  So all eugenics is ok? I’m confused at what point you’re making?
  - jl6 4y ago
    I thought it was pretty clear. eugenics =/= unethical eugenics
    - thebradbain 4y ago
      that’s like saying “good murder is different than bad murder” — adding an adjective doesn’t actually change what it is, nor the morality around it
      - Iolaum 4y ago
        Well if I come in the middle of the night at your house with a gun, you killing me is different than me killing you.
      - concordDance 4y ago
        "Eugenics" actually just means attempting to improve the genome our children will have. This does not need to involve forced sterilisation or indeed the government at all. E.g. giving all parents free genetic screening and genome correction for their fetuses if they wish it would be eugenics.

tarsinge 4y ago

The problem seems exacerbated in the US, because of the association of culture with genes and sub categories of citizens based on these crystallized association. It would be far less problematic if US society viewed and recognized only one big group of American citizens with a shared culture, with their specific history and genes being individual and private matter, like in some other countries (not to say it’s all rosy there, but at least there is that). These research could still be extrapolated but only to arbitrary group of individuals with no official existence, instead of well defined “races” like in the US. Of course it’s just an outsider reflection, I may get things wrong here.

DoctorOW 4y ago

The problem is there is no way to measure intelligence objectively. Every intelligence test ever devised either measures something else unintentionally (usually prior knowledge/communication skills), or nothing at all. Your response that it _could_ be done doesn't actually refute that it hasn't. Sending a man to walk on the sun feels as impossible now as sending a man to walk the moon 100 years ago. Do I think we're behind as a country because NASA isn't sending people to the sun now? No. I'm universally fine with waiting until there's a theoretically viable approach before throwing random innocent lives at things which have no evidence of working even in theory.

luckylion 4y ago
When you say "there is now way", are you saying that we don't currently have a way, or that it's impossible to do? If it's the former, more research would certainly help.
- DoctorOW 4y ago
  I don't find it valuable to say "impossible". I've said that pretending we're at that point now is harmful.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    But the same argument that they have against research in genetics applies there too, doesn't it? Attempting to measure intellectual capacity assumes that there can be a difference and tries to make that visible. Or, as others in this thread have argued: how should the person feel that doesn't get a high score, and shouldn't we outlaw research in that area to make sure they don't feel bad?
    - DoctorOW 4y ago
      No. I don't believe we should outlaw research that makes people feel bad. I predict that there's functionally very little genetic difference in cognitive abilities because human beings are simply far too similar (this does not say "exactly the same") to each other in all other measurable attributes. Still, it's moot because we can't measure intelligence and pretending we can isn't scientific.

woodruffw 4y ago

It’s strange to see this structure of argument: it effectively admits that we ought to do anything that a less scrupulous person or country would do, because (tacitly) we have more scruples. That’s never made any sense to me. More seriously, it suggests that we ought to pursue any unethical domain so long as our perceived competitors will. Should the US have sunk billions into Lysenkoism[1] because the Soviets did, or phlogiston[2] research because there’s an off chance we’ve actually been wrong for the last 200 years? In other words: this requires us to add a perverted normative glance to science, the kind you seem keen to avoid in the first place. Is it ideal that Americans get squeamish whenever intelligence is brought up? No. But doing something that’s largely failed to meet scientific standards just because another big country might do it doesn’t pass the smell test either. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory

yieldcrv 4y ago
Okay, you can have that argument with a corporation. I'm having the argument with a taxpayer funded resource under the US Federal Government and it doesn't seem like a limitation it can create or sustain, legally. It should sell it off so you can have your argument.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  This is a perfectly reasonable argument for any scientific funding, public or private. It’s arguably even more pressing in the public setting, given the civic interest in public institutions not funding junk science (or distributing private generic data). I don’t see why this situation would be unsustainable for the USG. It’s not a particularly unusual one.
- soco 4y ago
  In WW2 you had all this "research" conducted by Dr Mengele and funded by the state. Should the US have done the same, just with taxpayer money? I know retroactively it's easy to say "no" but were you at that time presented with this dilemma?

sokoloff 4y ago

I don’t know if it will be commonplace in 50 years, but I think it will in 250. This seems like deciding to not study topics might have elements of discomfort at substantial risk of becoming the subservient population to groups with assisted tech (or even just a better understanding of developmental nutrition and environmental factors).

inglor_cz 4y ago
250 years is a long, long time in tech and science. 250 years ago, Watt was just coming up with the first efficient steam engine. You can actually already edit genome of living things today, using tools such as CRISPR. Granted, they are still rather primitive, but they are getting better. I am almost positive that by 2070, genetic engineering will be as ubiquitous as semiconductors are today.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I mostly agree with you, though the natural rate-limiting cycle time of edit-to-observe is much longer in human developmental genetics than in software or semiconductors.

mschuster91 4y ago

> By blocking intelligence research in the US, the US is basically ceding the ground to those competing countries on ideological grounds. As a result, they will get ahead and possibly discover new facts. Couldn't the same be said about the OG Nazis? All of their medical "experiments" on prisoners of concentration camps [1] were unethical, there wasn't even anything of note found out because they were either shit at documenting "experiments" or the "experiments" were just the personal dreams of sadistic "doctors". There are lines we damn well shouldn't cross, and where it is worth we should sanction violators. We are supposed to have learned from "historical Western traumas and sensibilities", because if not then all the suffering would have been in vain. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/ns-aerzte-experimente-an-kz-insassen-a-1080450.html https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/ns-aerzte-experimente-an-k...

PeterStuer 4y ago
Are you equating database queries to forced lethal and debilitating medical procedures on prisoners?
- mschuster91 4y ago
  You do realize that database queries were an essential part of what made the foundation for the Nazi genocide [1]? Genocides always begin with data. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/hitlers-willing-business-partners/303146/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/hitlers...
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    Most genocides in history didn't rely on any data (Caesar or Genghis Khan certainly didn't run any population analysis before putting entire cities to the sword) and most databases have never been used for a genocide. The correlation is weak. What actually prevents genocides is good institutions, not deliberate ignorance.
    - mschuster91 4y ago

pannSun 4y ago

> There is a depressing # of voices here in this discussion which argue that ignorance is better than search for, however imperfect and fractional, knowledge You are being too generous. They argue for ignorance now, only because they are forced to by the starkness of the "do or do not" research question. Otherwise they would confidently claim every notion they dislike has been widely debunked (and give examples of 19th century studies getting debunked, while avoiding mention of any post-1950s research). When pressed, they would retreat to "it's complicated", and finally to "so what/you shouldn't care anyway" [1]. And when the discussion is over, they will immediately forget it, and revert to using an absolutist blank slatist assumption (with zero basis in research) to legitimize their politics, and deconstruct [2] their opponent's. [1] "I don't have a dog. And if I had a dog, it doesn't bite. And if I had a dog and it did bite, it didn't bite you. And if I had a dog and it did bite, and it bit you, then you provoked the dog." [2] Not just delegitimize, but deconstruct, i.e. "not only should you not care about those things, those things don't even exist, they are mere social constructs with no biological basis"

josephcsible 4y ago
> "I don't have a dog. And if I had a dog, it doesn't bite. And if I had a dog and it did bite, it didn't bite you. And if I had a dog and it did bite, and it bit you, then you provoked the dog." The name of this fallacy is "kettle logic".

mxkopy 4y ago

I'm not comfortable playing MAD/prisoners dilemma with stakes this high. If other people are, and the systems we make put those people in charge, then maybe it's for the best. Perhaps we'll destroy ourselves so thoroughly no civilization could rise from the amniotic goo, let alone one that takes wargames so seriously.

pandaman 4y ago

>By blocking intelligence research in the US, the US is basically ceding the ground to those competing countries on ideological grounds. Just in the 20th century USSR similarity banned Genetics and Cybernetics. While keeping ideological purity it had to sacrifice agriculture developments and, later, computers. The Genetics alternative, funnily enough, had been Lysenkoism, which is also something we can observe in the US nowadays.

gopher_space 4y ago

> Which means that a generation or two down the road, strategic adversaries may have tech to alter intelligence and other mental traits, because they will know what to edit and how. We know that we'd improve the intelligence of children across the board if we had free school lunches and classes started at 11am. That's pretty low hanging fruit for a country with our resources, so why haven't we accomplished this?