3 ms·
> We have not ended up with "humans which aren't as strong, aren't as smart, aren't as well adapted to a changing environment, etc." Haven't we?
by qsera 4mo ago
> We have not ended up with "humans which aren't as strong, aren't as smart, aren't as well adapted to a changing environment, etc."
Haven't we?
- throwaway173738 4mo agoThis line of reasoning leads to “some people are weak and unworthy of life because they are impure.” I don’t think rolling back our work to end infant mortality to prevent weak people from living is the right answer.
- buran77 4mo ago> This line of reasoning leads to It doesn't "lead to". Supporting a wrong conclusion even with a valid argument is as old as time. Fans of eugenics don't need an excuse to go down that path. Our natural and artificial environments shape us for better or worse. We're bigger and more intelligent as a direct outcome of better nutrition. But we also have far more people with deadly allergies because we're so good at managing them now.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4mo agoObjectively we’ve only become smarter (IQs have increased), stronger (fitness records continue to be broken), etc. since infant mortality shrank. If you believe otherwise please provide evidence.
- qsera 4mo agoSo it depends on how you want to measure it.
- amanaplanacanal 4mo agoHow would you measure it?
- qsera 4mo agoI would not use individual IQs. Instead I would look at how smart/dumb the general population behaves.
- oneshtein 4mo agoIf continuously sample range [0..inf), then average will grow with time.
- antasvara 4mo agoIs there a reason you expect IQ to be unbounded? Feels like there are physical constraints, at which point you're sampling from a truncated normal distribution (or similar).