4 ms·

The problem is that you can not ban eugenic tech long term, because the other countries will use this to get better IQ and dominate you.

by cocoto 1y ago

lm28469 1y ago
Genetical predisposition isn't anywhere close to being the bottleneck in term of geopolitical domination, even in "advanced" countries, you'd get much better results by improving education
- drjasonharrison 1y ago
  education, social environment, nutrition, dark and quiet at sleep times, clean air...
- Bluestein 1y ago
  I could be mistaken, but it's not an either/or.- What if ... both? PS. Lots of "exponential" all-or-nothing, intelligence related "arms races" around lately ... ... interesting times.-
logicchains 1y ago
Humanity doesn't have anywhere near a rigorous enough understanding of biology to engage in large scale human genetic engineering without risk. It's quite possible the society that dives in headlong will end up making some mistake that renders a large proportion of its population sick or infertile in later life. Population IQ will also matter much less in 5-10 years as AI becomes capable of doing the majority of intellectual labour.
cjbgkagh 1y ago
It's one of those arms race things, and people are already doing this but quietly for obvious reasons. Similar to putting weapons on drones, it used to be unthinkable and now it's unthinkable not to.
- Bluestein 1y ago
  > and people are already doing this but quietly for obvious reasons. Heck, for argument, "incels" would argue the females of the species have been doing this forever, at least in very broad strokes.-
  - smeej 1y ago
    In very broad strokes, people have been deciding which categories of people they think deserve to live and which deserve to die from time immemorial. This is just the earliest life stage we've been able to analyze and eliminate the "undesirables." (To be clear, I think that's an important part of what makes me so uncomfortable with it. I don't mean that as a justification for why it should be fine to do it.)
    - Bluestein 1y ago
      Point-and-click eugenics.-
Solstinox 1y ago
I’ll let them go first. I insist. We can barely manipulate simple organisms without causing negative second order effects to cascade through our systems.
- cjbgkagh 1y ago
  It would be a matter of concentrating specific SNPs that are already identifiable in human populations. There is no need to create new SNPs of unknown outcomes. There would be no difference if the SNP was put there through intervention or if it was inherited by a parent. Since these SNPs already exist the outcomes can and are being studied.
  - Solstinox 1y ago
    These are the types of assumptions and blindspots that lead to unintended negative effects. Your approach assumes that the distribution of those SNPs at the population level is immaterial. What makes an allele attractive at one frequency can expose new liabilities at a different frequency.
    - cjbgkagh 1y ago
      >> Your approach assumes that the distribution of those SNPs at the population level is immaterial. No it doesn't. >> What makes an allele attractive at one frequency can expose new liabilities at a different frequency. So there is this thing called statistics... There is a false assumption in behavioral genetics that behavior and intelligence are weakly linked to 1000s of SNPs which would make it rather difficult to stay within normal bounds, but in reality there are a few rare SNPs that dominates high intelligence. The RCCX genes of TNXB, CYP21A2, and C4 being the strongest. Of these I would focus on only two TNXB SNPs and there are many people walking around today who have them.
mmooss 1y ago
Always the techno-anarchist - or ironically, the techno-fascist - dream: Technology is somehow inevitable. But somehow we have prescription controls on drugs, many materials and tools are illegal, nuclear weapons are limited to a few countries. As a society, we have power if we want to use it. It's never perfect, but it can be very effective. Saying it's impossible is just a means - intentionally or not - of preventing people from using that power.
- unstablediffusi 1y ago
  >As a society, we have power if we want to use it you have no power over China, which is what the GP implies
throw8283933i 1y ago
[flagged]
potato3732842 1y ago
Don't even need to do that. Just engineer out the diseases that drag us down.
Balgair 1y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkKPsLxgpuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkKPsLxgpuY Veritasium had a good primer on IQ scores and what they actually mean for your life TLDW: IQ score seems to really only correlates to being too dumb to be conscripted and effective in war. Going on Derek's work there, even if other countries do somehow manage to genetically engineer their children for higher IQ scores, and even if they manage to get all the environmental hazards (lead paint, nutrition, quality sleep, etc) out of the way for those children, and even if they don't then do some other draconian nonsense to those kids in the ~19 years until they become productive, then, even then, there seems to be absolutely no guarantee that those kids will go on to do any dominating of other countries in social, political, or military contexts. Outside of being too dumb to be trusted with a firearm, IQ seems to have no real bearing on measurable life outcomes. As the current science stands, from my understanding of it, it would be incredibly foolish to pursue genetic engineering/breeding as a method of international relations.
ch4s3 1y ago
There are some 530 genes associated with intelligence and they are mostly small contributor. There’s also a large environmental component that is poorly understood. I’m not sure that gene edited super intelligence is in the near future.
smeej 1y ago
Sincere question: Is there any societal change you wouldn't want to survive? I don't have any trouble saying this is a race I'm fine with "losing" because I refused to play, because the prospect of living in such a world sounds horrible to me. From my perspective, it's not that different from the reason I don't own a remote bunker anywhere. I wouldn't want to survive a nuclear holocaust, because living in a post-nuclear-holocaust world sounds horrible. The fact that other people might do things I would find terrible, and that I might rather let them kill me than willingly participate in the world their activity created, seems obvious to me, but I can at least imagine how someone else might see it differently. Perhaps it's that many things seem worse to me than death?

The problem is that you can not ban eugenic tech long term, because the other countries will use this to get better IQ and dominate you.

by cocoto 1y ago

The problem is that you can not ban eugenic tech long term, because the other countries will use this to get better IQ and dominate you.

lm28469 1y ago

Genetical predisposition isn't anywhere close to being the bottleneck in term of geopolitical domination, even in "advanced" countries, you'd get much better results by improving education

drjasonharrison 1y ago
education, social environment, nutrition, dark and quiet at sleep times, clean air...
Bluestein 1y ago
I could be mistaken, but it's not an either/or.- What if ... both? PS. Lots of "exponential" all-or-nothing, intelligence related "arms races" around lately ... ... interesting times.-

logicchains 1y ago

Humanity doesn't have anywhere near a rigorous enough understanding of biology to engage in large scale human genetic engineering without risk. It's quite possible the society that dives in headlong will end up making some mistake that renders a large proportion of its population sick or infertile in later life. Population IQ will also matter much less in 5-10 years as AI becomes capable of doing the majority of intellectual labour.

cjbgkagh 1y ago

It's one of those arms race things, and people are already doing this but quietly for obvious reasons. Similar to putting weapons on drones, it used to be unthinkable and now it's unthinkable not to.

Bluestein 1y ago
> and people are already doing this but quietly for obvious reasons. Heck, for argument, "incels" would argue the females of the species have been doing this forever, at least in very broad strokes.-
- smeej 1y ago
  In very broad strokes, people have been deciding which categories of people they think deserve to live and which deserve to die from time immemorial. This is just the earliest life stage we've been able to analyze and eliminate the "undesirables." (To be clear, I think that's an important part of what makes me so uncomfortable with it. I don't mean that as a justification for why it should be fine to do it.)
  - Bluestein 1y ago
    Point-and-click eugenics.-

Solstinox 1y ago

I’ll let them go first. I insist. We can barely manipulate simple organisms without causing negative second order effects to cascade through our systems.

cjbgkagh 1y ago
It would be a matter of concentrating specific SNPs that are already identifiable in human populations. There is no need to create new SNPs of unknown outcomes. There would be no difference if the SNP was put there through intervention or if it was inherited by a parent. Since these SNPs already exist the outcomes can and are being studied.
- Solstinox 1y ago
  These are the types of assumptions and blindspots that lead to unintended negative effects. Your approach assumes that the distribution of those SNPs at the population level is immaterial. What makes an allele attractive at one frequency can expose new liabilities at a different frequency.
  - cjbgkagh 1y ago
    >> Your approach assumes that the distribution of those SNPs at the population level is immaterial. No it doesn't. >> What makes an allele attractive at one frequency can expose new liabilities at a different frequency. So there is this thing called statistics... There is a false assumption in behavioral genetics that behavior and intelligence are weakly linked to 1000s of SNPs which would make it rather difficult to stay within normal bounds, but in reality there are a few rare SNPs that dominates high intelligence. The RCCX genes of TNXB, CYP21A2, and C4 being the strongest. Of these I would focus on only two TNXB SNPs and there are many people walking around today who have them.

mmooss 1y ago

Always the techno-anarchist - or ironically, the techno-fascist - dream: Technology is somehow inevitable. But somehow we have prescription controls on drugs, many materials and tools are illegal, nuclear weapons are limited to a few countries. As a society, we have power if we want to use it. It's never perfect, but it can be very effective. Saying it's impossible is just a means - intentionally or not - of preventing people from using that power.

unstablediffusi 1y ago
>As a society, we have power if we want to use it you have no power over China, which is what the GP implies

throw8283933i 1y ago

[flagged]

potato3732842 1y ago

Don't even need to do that. Just engineer out the diseases that drag us down.

Balgair 1y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkKPsLxgpuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkKPsLxgpuY Veritasium had a good primer on IQ scores and what they actually mean for your life TLDW: IQ score seems to really only correlates to being too dumb to be conscripted and effective in war. Going on Derek's work there, even if other countries do somehow manage to genetically engineer their children for higher IQ scores, and even if they manage to get all the environmental hazards (lead paint, nutrition, quality sleep, etc) out of the way for those children, and even if they don't then do some other draconian nonsense to those kids in the ~19 years until they become productive, then, even then, there seems to be absolutely no guarantee that those kids will go on to do any dominating of other countries in social, political, or military contexts. Outside of being too dumb to be trusted with a firearm, IQ seems to have no real bearing on measurable life outcomes. As the current science stands, from my understanding of it, it would be incredibly foolish to pursue genetic engineering/breeding as a method of international relations.

ch4s3 1y ago

There are some 530 genes associated with intelligence and they are mostly small contributor. There’s also a large environmental component that is poorly understood. I’m not sure that gene edited super intelligence is in the near future.

smeej 1y ago

Sincere question: Is there any societal change you wouldn't want to survive? I don't have any trouble saying this is a race I'm fine with "losing" because I refused to play, because the prospect of living in such a world sounds horrible to me. From my perspective, it's not that different from the reason I don't own a remote bunker anywhere. I wouldn't want to survive a nuclear holocaust, because living in a post-nuclear-holocaust world sounds horrible. The fact that other people might do things I would find terrible, and that I might rather let them kill me than willingly participate in the world their activity created, seems obvious to me, but I can at least imagine how someone else might see it differently. Perhaps it's that many things seem worse to me than death?