3 ms·

Don't miss the end (pp. 41-43), where he calculates that the net economic benefit of mating between "systematizers" as very positive, modeling the resulting hig

by zach 14y ago

Don't miss the end (pp. 41-43), where he calculates that the net economic benefit of mating between "systematizers" as very positive, modeling the resulting higher wages compared with the cost of autism (as 3-SD systematizing behavior) and Asperger's syndrome (as a 2.5-sigma trait). In this model, net economic result is still very positive, even if the lifetime economic cost for a case of autism is $5 million, and the presence of Asperger's cancels out any benefit in earning (not likely!) This is a nice result for the ever-growing industry of online and offline forums for assortative mating, particularly in this field of interest. So here's the upshot for economic development organizations: support your local geek conventions!

gwern 14y ago
I thought the net calculation was a little lame. There's an interesting literature on the relationships between IQ and economics on both individual and national levels (I've compiled some links in http://lesswrong.com/lw/7e1/rationality_quotes_september_2011/4r01 http://lesswrong.com/lw/7e1/rationality_quotes_september_201... ), but one of the key factors making it difficult is that while it's easy to observe correlations between IQ measured at some point and later income, it's not easy to figure out the additional wealth created! Much of IQ's economic benefits seem to be related to zero-sum or positional games (only a few thousand students can be let into Harvard each year). However, an additional marginal case of autism is not zero-sum where one case of autism saves you $5m on, I dunno, Alzheimer's somewhere. It just makes everyone $5m worse off. So, it's possible that most of that 'net benefit' is only the 'net benefit' as considered for the specific person, and a net loss on a society-wide scale (because while that person may be internalizing the benefit of hundreds of thousands of dollars, they're not externalizing any of the cost by paying for that extra autistic kid a few houses over, whose treatment is going to be subsidized to some degree by other people as well). Calculating the society-wide gains and losses is much harder, and it seems he didn't even try.

by zach 14y ago

gwern 14y ago

I thought the net calculation was a little lame. There's an interesting literature on the relationships between IQ and economics on both individual and national levels (I've compiled some links in http://lesswrong.com/lw/7e1/rationality_quotes_september_2011/4r01 http://lesswrong.com/lw/7e1/rationality_quotes_september_201... ), but one of the key factors making it difficult is that while it's easy to observe correlations between IQ measured at some point and later income, it's not easy to figure out the additional wealth created! Much of IQ's economic benefits seem to be related to zero-sum or positional games (only a few thousand students can be let into Harvard each year). However, an additional marginal case of autism is not zero-sum where one case of autism saves you $5m on, I dunno, Alzheimer's somewhere. It just makes everyone $5m worse off. So, it's possible that most of that 'net benefit' is only the 'net benefit' as considered for the specific person, and a net loss on a society-wide scale (because while that person may be internalizing the benefit of hundreds of thousands of dollars, they're not externalizing any of the cost by paying for that extra autistic kid a few houses over, whose treatment is going to be subsidized to some degree by other people as well). Calculating the society-wide gains and losses is much harder, and it seems he didn't even try.