7 ms·

What should we be worried about?

34 points by bra-ket 13y ago

thebear 13y ago
What I find interesting is how many respondents name worries that are in or related to their own profession or field of study. Note that the question is "What should we be worried about?" So now I am worried that nobody can see past the edges of their own little world anymore.
- teh 13y ago
  That was my first thought. But why ask people from different fields if you want a generic answer? I believe the implied question is "tell us something worrisome you know that the average person doesn't know".
  - thebear 13y ago
    Good point. I missed that way of interpreting the question, but it is probably how it was really meant.
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    Exactly. Would it have been as interesting if they all said "global warming"?
    - bobsy 13y ago
      I think it would have been more interesting and more scary if there was a trend amongst people in completely different fields.
bcoates 13y ago
Did a little Googling about issue #1, found this great response taking it apart: http://eastasiastudent.net/china/edge-org-chinese-eugenics-rubbish/ http://eastasiastudent.net/china/edge-org-chinese-eugenics-r...
- isaacn 13y ago
  Thanks for finding that link to the rebuttal. The original article certainly was sensationalizing every little point.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- spitx 13y ago
  The critique is really porous and rife with contradictions. I won't even bother paring them down. One example: The other thing that Miller totally glosses over (or is just ignorant of) is that the one-child policy is a) very badly implemented in many places and b) has had all sorts of terrible side-effects (other than the top-heavy population issue). The first point is that the one-child policy is not evenly implemented, and is very vulnerable to corruption, loop-holes, mismanagement etc. etc. "Very badly implemented" or implemented to allow for exceptions to the elites and the affluent, who can pay a nominal fee, for their multiple child transgressions.
EllaMentry 13y ago
The site appears to be having some issues: here is the Google Cache version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NHUs-7uYTaUJ:www.edge.org/responses/q2013 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NHUs-7...
cinquemb 13y ago
"Given the Mendelian genetic lottery, the kids produced by any one couple typically differ by 5 to 15 IQ points. So this method of "preimplantation embryo selection" might allow IQ within every Chinese family to increase by 5 to 15 IQ points per generation. After a couple of generations, it would be game over for Western global competitiveness." So raise the IQ (didn't the western world "invent" this notion?) of a population so they can be replaced by machines (after all, what use does a government have for highly intelligent people but to put them to work)? Because evidently, this is happening in the western world as noted BI, hollywood, and the technologists of our day. In a couple generations (60+ years), I think humanity might not be constrained by resources on this planent alone… after all, I think Elon and his partners/competitors are going to want to achieve 10x in a fraction of that time…
- coldtea 13y ago
  >So raise the IQ (didn't the western world "invent" this notion?) of a population so they can be replaced by machines (after all, what use does a government have for highly intelligent people but to put them to work)? Em, the government is not (necessarily) some "enemy". The government is the representatives of the people and the country. So the use the government has for "highly intelligent people" is to strengthen the country.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    I didn't mean for that to come across as the government as an "enemy" (I didn't mention an enemy of any sort). >So the use the government has for "highly intelligent people" is to strengthen the country. You wouldn't call that work (the effort applied to produce a deliverable or accomplish a task, which in this case is whatever it takes to "strengthen the country")?
    - coldtea 13y ago
      Well, if you put it that way, yes. But then again, what is NOT work?
michaelochurch 13y ago
Conclusion: "smart people" (I'm not debating that they are smart, merely criticizing the institution of "smart people" in this context) don't have any more of a clue than anyone else.
- reaclmbs 13y ago
  NNT calls them nerds. IQ tests invented by nerds so they could call each other intelligent.
spitx 13y ago
"When I learned about Chinese eugenics this summer, I was astonished that its population policies had received so little attention. China makes no secret of its eugenic ambitions, in either its cultural history or its government policies." So little attention indeed. Why is this so little known or debated in the West? We make a huge deal of the human rights abuses in the rest of the world every chance we get. Calling the amount of attention that this issue gets in Western public discourse, scant, is indeed overstating it. There is no discussion at all. "The most likely response, given Euro-American ideological biases, would be a bioethical panic that leads to criticism of Chinese population policy with the same self-righteous hypocrisy that we have shown in criticizing various Chinese socio-cultural policies." Why do the Chinese get a pass in the respect that the Germans didn't? American film makers churn out documentaries and feature films about the Third Reich by the dozen every year. Yet I haven't seen even a single Frontline doc cover this. Chinese execute thousands of their "lower classes" every year. This is nothing but the "cleansing" of the intellectually deficient and the ungainful. At the very least Western intellectuals and universities should condemn this and refuse to collaborate or issue professorships and research positions to Chinese academics in a wholesale fashion (since, as the author put it, "there is a unusually close cooperation in China between government, academia, medicine, education, media, parents, and consumerism in promoting a utopian Han ethno-state.") However we see nothing of that sort. Western academics are quick to boycott their Israeli counterparts for the slightest infractions of voicing support for their Zionist state. Where is the uproar here? Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment#Global_distribution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment#Global_distr... http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/sep/12/boycott-israeli-academics-justified http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/sep/12/boycott-i... Edit: Clean-up
- adamauckland 13y ago
  I'm guessing because it's not our fight. I don't know your location, but guessing US? American film makers may churn out documentaries about the Third Reich, but many Germans don't really dwell on what happened (and why would they?) In the same way that in Europe, we get a lot more objective news about the wars the US is waging in other countries around the world which probably don't get on Fox News or CNN. I don't know if it's a good thing, but there seems to be an apathy towards human rights in Asia from the West. It's like child-labour-sweatshops are almost a joke.
coldtea 13y ago
>After a couple of generations, it would be game over for Western global competitiveness. That's nice. Speaking as a westerner, fuck "western global competitiveness". Why West should have the upper hand? It's not even 1/5 of the global population, and it has done the most horrible crimes, from the Holocaust, to Slavery, to exploiting and colonising the rest 4/5, including fighting China for the "god given right" to sell opium to its citizens. Time for some payback.
GnarfGnarf 13y ago
What should we be worried about? Peak Oil.
diego 13y ago
The answer would probably be "nothing" or "how should I know?" if that question was asked without context. Who's "we" anyway? But then Edge expands the premise for the writers: "Tell us something that worries you (for scientific reasons), but doesn't seem to be on the popular radar yet—and why it should be. Or tell us something that you have stopped worrying about, even if others do, and why it should be taken off the radar." I find it silly and vague. They might as well have said "step on your soapbox and preach, brother/sister."
- waterlesscloud 13y ago
  'They might as well have said "step on your soapbox and preach, brother/sister."' What's wrong with that? It brought out some interesting issues to think about. People without soapboxes would (and did, actually) have dull responses.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  As you note: the context (it's a bit hard to grasp from the link without prior knowledge): this is a question that was asked numerous leading intellectuals, as 2013's "Annual Question" by The Edge. The essays are their responses to the question (I'd initially read the Chinese genocide response as the only response to the question). I find the presentation a bit difficult to follow as the full essays are presented on a single page (useful for long reads, difficult to follow if you want to quickly survey the topics). Without even a table of contents. Even the overview page only lists contributors, without specifying their topic or title: http://www.edge.org/contributors/what-should-we-be-worried-about http://www.edge.org/contributors/what-should-we-be-worried-a... I rather agree with your soapbox preacher assessment. I'm underwhelmed by most of the responses.
- d23 13y ago
  > I find it silly and vague. They might as well have said "step on your soapbox and preach, brother/sister." Cool, so you don't want to discuss it at all? Or you want to discuss how we shouldn't be discussing anything? We should just refactor HN and have a single thread where all the really smart people can list all of the links on HN they think are stupid.
azatris 13y ago
I think what we actually should worry about is what is the underlying reason for all this international development. I am not implying it is wrong, but this is what most of us seem to be aspiring after - "making the world a better place" (without giving it any further thought). But why? Is this really most important? How would we go about finding what is most important?

34 points by bra-ket 13y ago

What I find interesting is how many respondents name worries that are in or related to their own profession or field of study. Note that the question is "What should we be worried about?" So now I am worried that nobody can see past the edges of their own little world anymore.

teh 13y ago
That was my first thought. But why ask people from different fields if you want a generic answer? I believe the implied question is "tell us something worrisome you know that the average person doesn't know".
- thebear 13y ago
  Good point. I missed that way of interpreting the question, but it is probably how it was really meant.
- StavrosK 13y ago
  Exactly. Would it have been as interesting if they all said "global warming"?
  - bobsy 13y ago
    I think it would have been more interesting and more scary if there was a trend amongst people in completely different fields.

bcoates 13y ago

Did a little Googling about issue #1, found this great response taking it apart: http://eastasiastudent.net/china/edge-org-chinese-eugenics-rubbish/ http://eastasiastudent.net/china/edge-org-chinese-eugenics-r...

isaacn 13y ago
Thanks for finding that link to the rebuttal. The original article certainly was sensationalizing every little point.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
spitx 13y ago
The critique is really porous and rife with contradictions. I won't even bother paring them down. One example: The other thing that Miller totally glosses over (or is just ignorant of) is that the one-child policy is a) very badly implemented in many places and b) has had all sorts of terrible side-effects (other than the top-heavy population issue). The first point is that the one-child policy is not evenly implemented, and is very vulnerable to corruption, loop-holes, mismanagement etc. etc. "Very badly implemented" or implemented to allow for exceptions to the elites and the affluent, who can pay a nominal fee, for their multiple child transgressions.

EllaMentry 13y ago

The site appears to be having some issues: here is the Google Cache version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NHUs-7uYTaUJ:www.edge.org/responses/q2013 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NHUs-7...

cinquemb 13y ago

"Given the Mendelian genetic lottery, the kids produced by any one couple typically differ by 5 to 15 IQ points. So this method of "preimplantation embryo selection" might allow IQ within every Chinese family to increase by 5 to 15 IQ points per generation. After a couple of generations, it would be game over for Western global competitiveness." So raise the IQ (didn't the western world "invent" this notion?) of a population so they can be replaced by machines (after all, what use does a government have for highly intelligent people but to put them to work)? Because evidently, this is happening in the western world as noted BI, hollywood, and the technologists of our day. In a couple generations (60+ years), I think humanity might not be constrained by resources on this planent alone… after all, I think Elon and his partners/competitors are going to want to achieve 10x in a fraction of that time…

coldtea 13y ago
>So raise the IQ (didn't the western world "invent" this notion?) of a population so they can be replaced by machines (after all, what use does a government have for highly intelligent people but to put them to work)? Em, the government is not (necessarily) some "enemy". The government is the representatives of the people and the country. So the use the government has for "highly intelligent people" is to strengthen the country.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  I didn't mean for that to come across as the government as an "enemy" (I didn't mention an enemy of any sort). >So the use the government has for "highly intelligent people" is to strengthen the country. You wouldn't call that work (the effort applied to produce a deliverable or accomplish a task, which in this case is whatever it takes to "strengthen the country")?
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Well, if you put it that way, yes. But then again, what is NOT work?

michaelochurch 13y ago

Conclusion: "smart people" (I'm not debating that they are smart, merely criticizing the institution of "smart people" in this context) don't have any more of a clue than anyone else.

reaclmbs 13y ago
NNT calls them nerds. IQ tests invented by nerds so they could call each other intelligent.

spitx 13y ago

"When I learned about Chinese eugenics this summer, I was astonished that its population policies had received so little attention. China makes no secret of its eugenic ambitions, in either its cultural history or its government policies." So little attention indeed. Why is this so little known or debated in the West? We make a huge deal of the human rights abuses in the rest of the world every chance we get. Calling the amount of attention that this issue gets in Western public discourse, scant, is indeed overstating it. There is no discussion at all. "The most likely response, given Euro-American ideological biases, would be a bioethical panic that leads to criticism of Chinese population policy with the same self-righteous hypocrisy that we have shown in criticizing various Chinese socio-cultural policies." Why do the Chinese get a pass in the respect that the Germans didn't? American film makers churn out documentaries and feature films about the Third Reich by the dozen every year. Yet I haven't seen even a single Frontline doc cover this. Chinese execute thousands of their "lower classes" every year. This is nothing but the "cleansing" of the intellectually deficient and the ungainful. At the very least Western intellectuals and universities should condemn this and refuse to collaborate or issue professorships and research positions to Chinese academics in a wholesale fashion (since, as the author put it, "there is a unusually close cooperation in China between government, academia, medicine, education, media, parents, and consumerism in promoting a utopian Han ethno-state.") However we see nothing of that sort. Western academics are quick to boycott their Israeli counterparts for the slightest infractions of voicing support for their Zionist state. Where is the uproar here? Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment#Global_distribution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment#Global_distr... http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/sep/12/boycott-israeli-academics-justified http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/sep/12/boycott-i... Edit: Clean-up

adamauckland 13y ago
I'm guessing because it's not our fight. I don't know your location, but guessing US? American film makers may churn out documentaries about the Third Reich, but many Germans don't really dwell on what happened (and why would they?) In the same way that in Europe, we get a lot more objective news about the wars the US is waging in other countries around the world which probably don't get on Fox News or CNN. I don't know if it's a good thing, but there seems to be an apathy towards human rights in Asia from the West. It's like child-labour-sweatshops are almost a joke.

coldtea 13y ago

>After a couple of generations, it would be game over for Western global competitiveness. That's nice. Speaking as a westerner, fuck "western global competitiveness". Why West should have the upper hand? It's not even 1/5 of the global population, and it has done the most horrible crimes, from the Holocaust, to Slavery, to exploiting and colonising the rest 4/5, including fighting China for the "god given right" to sell opium to its citizens. Time for some payback.

GnarfGnarf 13y ago

What should we be worried about? Peak Oil.

diego 13y ago

The answer would probably be "nothing" or "how should I know?" if that question was asked without context. Who's "we" anyway? But then Edge expands the premise for the writers: "Tell us something that worries you (for scientific reasons), but doesn't seem to be on the popular radar yet—and why it should be. Or tell us something that you have stopped worrying about, even if others do, and why it should be taken off the radar." I find it silly and vague. They might as well have said "step on your soapbox and preach, brother/sister."

waterlesscloud 13y ago
'They might as well have said "step on your soapbox and preach, brother/sister."' What's wrong with that? It brought out some interesting issues to think about. People without soapboxes would (and did, actually) have dull responses.
dredmorbius 13y ago
As you note: the context (it's a bit hard to grasp from the link without prior knowledge): this is a question that was asked numerous leading intellectuals, as 2013's "Annual Question" by The Edge. The essays are their responses to the question (I'd initially read the Chinese genocide response as the only response to the question). I find the presentation a bit difficult to follow as the full essays are presented on a single page (useful for long reads, difficult to follow if you want to quickly survey the topics). Without even a table of contents. Even the overview page only lists contributors, without specifying their topic or title: http://www.edge.org/contributors/what-should-we-be-worried-about http://www.edge.org/contributors/what-should-we-be-worried-a... I rather agree with your soapbox preacher assessment. I'm underwhelmed by most of the responses.
d23 13y ago
> I find it silly and vague. They might as well have said "step on your soapbox and preach, brother/sister." Cool, so you don't want to discuss it at all? Or you want to discuss how we shouldn't be discussing anything? We should just refactor HN and have a single thread where all the really smart people can list all of the links on HN they think are stupid.

azatris 13y ago

I think what we actually should worry about is what is the underlying reason for all this international development. I am not implying it is wrong, but this is what most of us seem to be aspiring after - "making the world a better place" (without giving it any further thought). But why? Is this really most important? How would we go about finding what is most important?