Natural selection got us to our highest IQ scores in the 18th century. IQ has been sliding down ever since the introduction of the industrial and medical revolutions of the 18th century. Infant mortality decreasing means anyone and everyone is having children and sadly with the pressures of modernity they smartest and brightest are not having children. Nature will realign this imbalance in good time. That is ethical.
Research in embryo selection and gene enhancement to increase positive human traits (not just intelligence) is dear to my heart. This would be a great benefit to all nations and races. I am a big supporter of psychometric research on human traits as a step toward determining genetic influence.
Thanks for the article; I hope to see more in this vein.
There's a lot of potential here, in theory, but using gene-editing to resolve human capital disparities would require our technocrat management caste to acknowledge that these problems were genetic to begin with. The blank-slate position has become the state religion across the OECD at this point, and the main contender for replacing it are more conventional flavours of religious fundamentalism. A lot of people from that background are leery of biotech for a number of reasons, some of them understandable IMO. Squaring that circle could take quite a while.
As much as I hate to say it, there are also ethnic or national populations that could conceivably become a lot more dangerous to their neighbours if their IQs went up 20 points and they didn't give up their historical grievance narratives first, although it seems likely that wealthier/more civilised nations would broadly be likely to get access to the tech before others do. Your mileage may vary regarding who is 'civilised', of course.
"There's a lot of potential here, in theory, but using gene-editing to resolve human capital disparities would require our technocrat management caste to acknowledge that these problems were genetic to begin with."
My intention in the value is gene editing is in no way aimed at resolving human capital disparities. My desire is for the improvement of the human condition in all aspects.
"As much as I hate to say it, there are also ethnic or national populations that could conceivably become a lot more dangerous to their neighbours if their IQs went up 20 points..."
That is possibly true, which is why I am a big supporter of psychometric research on human traits as a step toward determining genetic influence. That would include integrity as well as many other positive traits.
Whatever your intention is, my point is that there's going to be no serious move toward human gene-editing/neo-eugenics until the political landscape changes radically, and that will create its own risks.
Russia may well be dying as a nation, and I don't think China's leadership have much of a coherent plan for anything right now. It's sad, but on the plus side there's less risk of an AI arms race.
Once we have crossed the Rubicon of acknowledging genetics and inequality, why do we have to keep the egalitarian baggage of thinking that inequality is a bad thing or that it is our duty to help "less-privileged" nations and peoples? Why would we use our knowledge of genetics to create a race of highly intelligent, sexually aggressive Bantoids?
As I said in the article, it would drastically improve human welfare, which is good. I do not think equality is good for its own sake, but raising up the developing world's living conditions would be very good.
Do you think if Bantus were as much greater in intelligence compared to us, as we actually are compared to them, they would do us this favor and genetically engineer us to be as smart as them?
I don't think that is in their nature.
Why would we waste our knowledge of genetic engineering just to create a powerful and sexually voracious enemy?
I was not aware that the average IQs in Subsaharan Africa were 70 or less. It seems criminal to not discuss this and keep dumping money into the region.
Even hardcore hereditarians will allow that as much as half the IQ gap in SSA is due to environmental factors, and GDP per capita in the region has gone up enormously over the last century. I wouldn't assume that all environmental interventions are doomed to futility.
GDP has gone up in the region because before they weren’t functioning in a monetized economy and now they are. It doesn’t mean things have actually improved, on average.
You can look at data on a wide variety of other measures, such as literacy, child mortality and absolute poverty, and those have all also improved dramatically. Merely having better record-keeping can't account for this.
Also, I specifically said "GDP per capita", not just "GDP".
If you go from living in huts eating wild game and local crops, wearing clothes you bartered for, to living in huts with an electric bill and eating processed food from the market that bought with money you earned from picking through scrap metal your GDP has exploded in a way that doesn’t correspond to progress.
Likewise if your literacy rate increases from 20% to 40% that sounds great as a percentage growth, never mind that they changed how they evaluate literacy.
“Specifically, the task force recommended that the minimum proficiency level that should be achieved – and thus count as progress towards SDG indicator 4.6.1 – should be the literacy and numeracy skills level associated with PIAAC Level 1 for high-income countries, and below PIAAC Level 1 (at the sentence-processing level) for middle- and low-income countries (UIS 2018).Footnote 9
These recommendations were based on results of a global consultation as well as analyses of existing population data on skills such as PIAAC and the World Bank’s Skills Towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) study. Empirical data have revealed that approximately 50 per cent of adult populations living in middle-income countries, such as, for example, Turkey and Chile, are at or below PIAAC Level 1 on the literacy scale (OECD 2017).Footnote 10 Therefore, a common benchmark for global reporting purposes could lead to a majority of countries having a large percentage of their adult population classified as being below target levels of literacy proficiency. “
The GDP figures I quoted are adjusted for purchasing parity power, which not only includes inflation but also the relative cost of local goods. And lifespan and child mortality are also not subjective measures.
"they changed how they evaluate literacy"
When did they change it? Wouldn't that result in a rather large spike in the graph that should be easily detectable? Otherwise it's beside the point- the trendline is obviously up.
There is a rather large spike in the graph, actually. And they are the ones making the graphs. They set the rules, they collect the data, they make the reports, they spend the money, they decide if they did a good job, they change the rules, they do it again.
And yes I see now that your chart is PPP. It shows an increase in per capita GDP of $2k in 32 years. You’ve got a law of small numbers thing happening here.
"Even hardcore hereditarians will allow that as much as half the IQ gap in SSA is due to environmental factors..."
That is contradictory; if they were hardcore hereditarians, they would not say 'as much as half the IQ gap in SSA is due to environmental factors'. But I would like a citation.
It was Rushton's opinion, IIRC, and even Lynn allowed that about 13 points of the gap could be due to environmental factors. No sane scholar thinks that no conceivable level of poverty, disease and hunger will have any impact on cognitive development.
"It was Rushton's opinion, IIRC, and even Lynn allowed that about 13 points of the gap could be due to environmental factors."
Then, they are not hardcore hereditarians.
"No sane scholar thinks that no conceivable level of poverty, disease and hunger will have any impact on cognitive development."
You are the second one in these comments to use double negatives...what the hell is with that?
You set up a strawman, then knock it down. Yes, there is a level of poverty, disease, and hunger that negatively affects cognitive development, but it is not fifty percent of the IQ difference.
"How, specifically?"
This sentence here:
Even hardcore hereditarians will allow that as much as half the IQ gap in SSA is due to environmental factors, and GDP per capita in the region has gone up enormously over the last century.
I was responding to ReadingRainbow's insinuation that the low IQ of the region made humanitarian investment in the region pointless. I pointed out there have been immense improvements in living standards in SSA over the past century, ergo interventions are not intrinsically futile.
"Then, they are not hardcore hereditarians"
No, it's just that the default egalitarian position is insane and the most extreme position on the hereditarian side is still more realistic/reasonable than the status quo.
"it is not fifty percent of the IQ difference"
How do you know this? Do we have extensive data from transracial adoption studies looking specifically at children from SSA adopted into western households?
"How do you know this? Do we have extensive data from transracial adoption studies looking specifically at children from SSA adopted into western households?"
What we do have is lots of data on US blacks, whose ultimate origin was SSA, and even though many have admixture with whites, there is nothing near a 50% IQ difference when compared to whites. There are studies of blacks raised by high-income blacks and whites and studies of blacks raised by low-income blacks and whites. No differences anywhere near 50% are found.
Fascinating. I'll take the science on trust (not competent to check it) and confine my thoughts to how hard it would be to even talk to friends about it. I'm imagining that elites in the developing world would take up these options, possibly accelerating improvements in overall NIQ over time. But I can't see the UN adopting it as a development objective.
It's kind of on a social par with being sexually attracted to children as a dinner party conversation topic.
China imprisoned the first person to edit the human genome in an embryo.
I think people overestimate the "hard nosed pragmatic realist" aspects of the Chinese leadership. They seems ideological and error prone, even if they have improved relatively compared to Maoism.
China is paternalistic and is corruption-prone but the population themselves, constituents are more task-oriented, outcome-oriented than their Western counterparts to a significant detriment (i.e. cheating in life means winning; interchanging processes to produce fake products, foods, buildings, lying in reports, cheating in games, high copy-catting endeavors) -- so if they see even an advantage such as 10-15 IQ points when most of them are hammering down 24/7 days for the 'Gaokao' where even a small subsection of the population is adopting IVF and having better intergenerational outcomes, then environmental fixation will follow The Chinese and the Indians do not have moral repulsion against increasing the status, ability or aptitudes of their offspring -- all of them have disposition towards a ''show-off or peacocking inclination'' where material objects, wealth, power or status is something to be seen as good, having many women who fawn over you, etc.
The West might have undergone evolutionary changes that made them race-blind or agnostic, and more ''humanitarian'' or altruistic, a more contract-based oriented ethos of reciprocity that hinders them from making pragmatic choices since they follow a different trajectory of evolution. Since religion enhances the fidelity of certain beliefs, and keeps a stickiness quality to these beliefs through the transmission line of hereditary and the circumstantial environments associated with those have synergistic effects such as being communitarian in famines and whatnot -- and the indigenous constituents of those descendants may have become more irreligious with penalties to fertility -- the core psychosocial development integrated in the genetic architecture may still condition them towards moral condemnation of ''outsiders'' or ''superiority'' like mentality by dragging down and downplaying such qualities in preference of the individualistic but allocentric ''guilt'' social mechanisms.
Hence, the better quality of life with shorter-working hours, lower conscientiousness, and less willingness to ''peacock'' with more integrity but this also hinders them by blocking them access to utilitarian measures or metrics of reality. However, since the Chinese overall focus more on results or outcomes -- they tend to not see the larger principles behind what shapes and leads to changes in results or outcomes which causes them to experiment with more local-level policies than take a global or holistic assessment. (i.e. suppression of trans-disciplinary type of thinking and high focus on narrow high aptitudes of spatial g, etc). Hence reverse engineering and disintegrative/involuntary analysis is of greater notable interest. The elites reflect the dispositional traits of the native birthright populations through their actions and policies.
Realpolitik triumphs posturing/P&R. Given the existence of biolabs everywhere from Australia to Canada to Ukraine, and the military funding of BCI (Brain-Control interfaces)-- I wouldn't put it behind the nature of kinds of thinking associated with pragmatics first over ethics when it comes to the international sphere of power. AI/Genetic Enhancement likely tops the list. Followed by the virtual/cybernetic-scape thereafter.
UN is currently adopting the ''race-migration homogenize the planet'' policy but also has entire PDF dedicated to genomic enhancement
I wouldn't put it behind for world leaders to accumulate the bioinformatic data from populations behind tech-front corporations to engineer populations or test traits through clandestine operations or political decisions (i.e. MAID being a stand-behind for negative eugenics and removing the fraction of old people due to long-life expectancies hindering the younger populations' ability to reproduce/quantity of resources utilized on pensions/etc).
make a transhuman race of controllable descendants and the universalism of globalists -- it is in fact their nature and doctrine to embrace such technologies.
In their ''simulation'' futures they have the ''government-pound care'' CDBC and schedule for your ''unborns'' today. Given the nature of their subtext speaking inclinations, they are actually fully on board and their long line of eugenicists, with the LGBTA123/etc and inflationary macroeconomic policies, they succeeded in implementing most of those listed in
Given the public support was low in the past, they simply rebranded. That is the parsimonious opinion that I hold given all the circumstantial lines of evidence.
I'm just going to say that the Chinese need to start reproducing again before they can have designer babies. Ditto for most of the OECD, but especially China.
"China imprisoned the first person to edit the human genome in an embryo."
So the story goes. That story was, most likely, for public consumption. The Chinese leadership is pragmatic and sees the value of increasing the positive traits of their people.
To me, it seems that much of Western Civilization has become ideological and error-prone.
"Despite concerted efforts" [to end poverty in Africa] should really read "despite pointless efforts". Or even "worsened by well-meaning but counterproductive efforts". I believe some African intellectuals are also of this view.
Your essay was interesting and well-researched but I (and many others) still say that the only useful and realistic thing for wealthy majority-white societies to do about Africa (apart from robustly controlling their own borders) is nothing. To entirely leave it to sort itself out in its own way.
That's a naive view. Prosperous kingdoms that have growing populations desire more resources for their upkeep. This includes energy.
On this planet, military excursions are done routinely to extract resources from other countries and keep places in a subsistence-like state. Everyone wants a more powerful and resourceful society with greater technological advancement.
It's true in Africa they are struggling now with keeping their lights on and a mass-famine would happen with non-interventionist policies. But you know there's strategic ports, and large swathes of arable land and raw materials and minerals you need to explore space. Practical considerations always take place first and foremost. Available energy per capita is correlated with GDP and population capacity. With sufficient technology and energy you could break down any material into its constituents and re-make it again without entropic loss making the reaction irreversible or causing a degradation of the quality of the material. Just like the Gaza strip containing so and so much amount of natural gas and oil and the US strategic reserves being at its lowest point. Tough times call for tough measures. A panicking population, is an uncontrollable population. Food dumping made them dependent (since farmers can't compete) -- though I'm not sure why they keep bringing UN ships over other than attempting to secure land or densifying populations by forcible migration of native populations. In realpolitik, human life is worth nothing. If you can use a resource, even an idiot ape monkey, then you will use it.
On the contrary, it is a clear view. An uncluttered view. No society has ever become dynamic and enterprising as a result of the philanthropy of a more successful society. Once one gets that simple, unassailable fact into clear focus all the complicated arguments (such as those in your long response) amount to zero. The gigantic, self-deluding, 'foreign aid' vanities of Western liberals may have made those liberals feel good but their overall effect on the recipient pre-industrial tribal cultures has been more harm than good. Sapping. Infantilising. (plus of course a huge jamboree for weapons manufacturers).
I don't think aid necessarily needs to succeed in making the target society 'dynamic and enterprising'- if you're dealing with a very low-IQ population then that objective is probably unrealistic. You can succeed in reducing suffering, promoting a certain modest level of economic development and maybe engineering sustainable fertility levels, I think.
A failure to reach equality of outcome isn't, by itself, evidence that a given set of policies are either insufficient or counterproductive. Certain conservatives use this to rationalise inaction/indifference/cheapness, I think.
Once again: foreign intervention (whether it be exploitative or philanthropic) WILL NOT help the target society to enter any kind of civilisational virtuous-circle advance. Western intelligentsias (of both Left and Right) have been hopelessly muddled about this for so many decades... hence I find myself, on my third comment, still having to re-state what should be blindingly obvious. (I have read African intellectuals who have made the same point ....can't recall names unfortunately).
'Indifference' to an another civilisation's success or failure is the historical norm and indeed the sanest attitude.
GDP per capita in Africa has tripled since the late 90s and the vast majority of their food is grown locally, albeit in many cases with imported fertilisers and/or agricultural tools. The continent also receives less funding in aid than it loses due to capital flight and debt repayments, so the idea that Africa has seen no significant development or would be subject to "mass famine" without external intervention is basically hogwash.
(There could be still mass famine, to be clear, but if so it will be due to population growth outstripping local food supply, not withdrawal of aid.)
The argument has a legitimate point, but the author really needs to touch some grass. 😁
The reason such proposals don't and won't fly isn't our stinginess about the role of genetics in determining intelligence. It's the much simpler fact that a whole population is never going to forego "organic" reproduction for mass IVF.
It's just insane to think this will ever be feasible, as long as you're dealing with people.
'...a whole population is never going to forego "organic" reproduction for mass IVF.'
A whole population foregoing organic reproduction is not necessary. There is reason to think that a sizeable portion of a country using IVF could have an enormous impact. And it is reasonable to think many people would use IVF, if it was as simple as a blood draw and provided enormous benefits for the future child.
"Although a complex array of factors influences the wealth and success of nations, national intelligence stands out as a critical explanatory variable."
Many factors influence the economic success of countries. I never said it was attributable to only intelligence.
I'm sorry but we are in competition with other races. To make them better able to compete with us will eventually lead to our demise when they take our nations. White people are pathologically helpful.
I’m a bit disappointed that the article doesn’t compare existing public health interventions and their impact on IQ. I’d imagine lead abatement, pollution reduction, iodine deficiency intervention, and parasite treatment to be massively (perhaps 100x) more cost effective. Embryo selection (with current IVF tech) would likely cost many multiples of annual income for an African.
The genetic correlation is only around 0.2, which should allow plenty of room for picking out gene combinations that raise IQ without causing autism. (I've also seen people arguing the converse- "if you select for social skills you'll deprive the world of kooky autist know-it-alls, REEEEE"- so I'm not sure what side we're supposed to take here.)
In theory, possible. In practice autism genomics are poorly characterised (as are IQ). We know it's genetic from familial patterns of inheritance but very few SNPs have actually been identified. I did GWS on both my kids from a company that purports to report a score for autism risk and the neurotypical one came out as higher risk for autism than my autistic one did. This is not terribly surprising given the weak power of the variants they report on but rather demonstrative of the issue... if I had done IVF I would have been told to select the autistic one.
I agree, current PGS scores have fairly constrained predictive value. There are no guarantees, but you could say that for any other method of conception.
OMG if you can't see this is what the next level up from genocide. The "civilized west" has adopted the Nazi's education system and this is what it has lead too. A system that has forgotten its humanity and is serving a small group that intends to enslave the rest. This would get rid of genius. This would prevent the most sensitive and brilliant from every being born. You say this in the name of health. But I am in profoundly gifted groups with people and none of us would never be born if this was put into action. We have a purpose and it is to bring humanity back to its senses. The savants and neurodivergent contain natural gifts that restore our population to healthy. This is insanity and you are insane or just too stupid to see it.
You seem unaware the Profoundly Gifted are all neurodivergent. Most have autism. I have all of all the learning differences. I am also a prodigious savant. I can't see what I write when write because I write from my subconscious. But you would not understand this because you are nothing like me.
Dude you spooky af. I wish I could bring you up to same level I see the world but I that is impossible. I wondered if you were the stalker type thanks for taking the bait and confirming it. Now it's time for you go back under the rock you crawled out of.
"This would get rid of genius. This would prevent the most sensitive and brilliant from every being born."
One of the main purposes of embryo selection would be to do the exact opposite. Negative pleiotropy exists for certain traits but this tends to be the exception more than the norm.
There are benefits to PGT for detecting ASD susceptibility genes within fetuses, as it can provide information to parents regarding their unborn children's risks for ASDs and facilitate informed decision-making.
I am glad you have so much faith in our systems. But you obviously autistic and probably don't have family members who were math savants and force institutionalized or lobotomized, diagnosed as schizophrenic because they could do advanced math in their heads. You can not trust our systems.
I wouldn't go jumping to conclusions here, but if, as you assert, autism is related to an aptitude for math or other STEM subjects, then... this should be expected to show up in GWAS research, and polygenic selection for analytic intelligence would increase the frequency of the trait rather than reducing it. By this logic you should be in favour of embryo selection, rather than against it. (There is literally a commenter on this article who brought up this exact finding.)
As a counterpoint, I would mention that there are also plenty of brilliant, gifted people in the world who don't especially seem to be on the spectrum or suffer its negative side-effects.
I mean, sure, there's an argument to be made for preserving a certain diversity of aptitudes and temperaments in a population so individuals can specialise in solving different economic and social problems. But genetic recombination will always create variation, and this idea that we can just abdicate all standards of judgment and escape selection pressures is delusional- the genetically neutral human society doesn't exist and we can't ban deleterious mutations. You either select for something civilisation-compatible or entropy will prevail.
I didn't assert it over STEM. I meant it over sensitivity. My family is 1/3 STEM but the other 2/3 is music and emotions/people savants. So I don't know what you talking about here.
You are so wrong on this I simply can't engage with you until you doing a deep dive into profound giftedness, creative intelligence and it's oppression. Honestly from my perspective you are psychopath who is saying what the system parrots without knowing how complex this issue is.
This is like you telling someone who is minority their population is not important and they should be ok with it.
"My family is 1/3 STEM but the other 2/3 is music and emotions/people savants"
Okay, but then shouldn't selection for musical ability or emotional intelligence preserve autism-related genes? And again, as a counterpoint, there are plenty of people with high EQ who don't seem to be autistic (if anything, social blindness is a typical symptom of autism.)
You're implicitly arguing "we should preserve autism because autism produces Trait X, which is good", and I keep pointing out that embryo selection could also produce Trait X, and might not even need to induce autism to do it.
"This is like you telling someone who is minority their population is not important and they should be ok with it."
I would be curious as to what specific aspect of a minority group's genetics or culture they are trying to preserve, and why it is important to them. If racial diversity is taken as important for it's own sake, then I would point out that population-level genetic diversity can only be maintained over long time-periods through reproductive segregation (otherwise populations will eventually merge into eachother through marriage/interbreeding and cease to exist as distinct groups.)
If they wish to remain distinct, they will ultimately have to separate, then implement their own internal eugenics programs to maintain their capacity for civilisation. If they do not wish to separate, then they will gradually lose their distinct biological identity regardless, over the same timescales where a eugenics program would operate. Neither scenario is an argument against eugenics.
Make Natural Selection great again
Not only is this form of selection unnatural, it is greater in it's power and more ethical.
Natural selection got us to our highest IQ scores in the 18th century. IQ has been sliding down ever since the introduction of the industrial and medical revolutions of the 18th century. Infant mortality decreasing means anyone and everyone is having children and sadly with the pressures of modernity they smartest and brightest are not having children. Nature will realign this imbalance in good time. That is ethical.
Research in embryo selection and gene enhancement to increase positive human traits (not just intelligence) is dear to my heart. This would be a great benefit to all nations and races. I am a big supporter of psychometric research on human traits as a step toward determining genetic influence.
Thanks for the article; I hope to see more in this vein.
There's a lot of potential here, in theory, but using gene-editing to resolve human capital disparities would require our technocrat management caste to acknowledge that these problems were genetic to begin with. The blank-slate position has become the state religion across the OECD at this point, and the main contender for replacing it are more conventional flavours of religious fundamentalism. A lot of people from that background are leery of biotech for a number of reasons, some of them understandable IMO. Squaring that circle could take quite a while.
As much as I hate to say it, there are also ethnic or national populations that could conceivably become a lot more dangerous to their neighbours if their IQs went up 20 points and they didn't give up their historical grievance narratives first, although it seems likely that wealthier/more civilised nations would broadly be likely to get access to the tech before others do. Your mileage may vary regarding who is 'civilised', of course.
"There's a lot of potential here, in theory, but using gene-editing to resolve human capital disparities would require our technocrat management caste to acknowledge that these problems were genetic to begin with."
My intention in the value is gene editing is in no way aimed at resolving human capital disparities. My desire is for the improvement of the human condition in all aspects.
"As much as I hate to say it, there are also ethnic or national populations that could conceivably become a lot more dangerous to their neighbours if their IQs went up 20 points..."
That is possibly true, which is why I am a big supporter of psychometric research on human traits as a step toward determining genetic influence. That would include integrity as well as many other positive traits.
I agree with your supposition...thanks.
Whatever your intention is, my point is that there's going to be no serious move toward human gene-editing/neo-eugenics until the political landscape changes radically, and that will create its own risks.
And that is unfortunate with the situation in the world; we can use more people of intelligence and integrity, plus other positive traits.
China and Russia may be involved in genetic research along these lines but wish to keep it private.
Russia may well be dying as a nation, and I don't think China's leadership have much of a coherent plan for anything right now. It's sad, but on the plus side there's less risk of an AI arms race.
I think you are too pessimistic about Russia and China and perhaps too optimistic about the United States.
Once we have crossed the Rubicon of acknowledging genetics and inequality, why do we have to keep the egalitarian baggage of thinking that inequality is a bad thing or that it is our duty to help "less-privileged" nations and peoples? Why would we use our knowledge of genetics to create a race of highly intelligent, sexually aggressive Bantoids?
As I said in the article, it would drastically improve human welfare, which is good. I do not think equality is good for its own sake, but raising up the developing world's living conditions would be very good.
Do you think if Bantus were as much greater in intelligence compared to us, as we actually are compared to them, they would do us this favor and genetically engineer us to be as smart as them?
I don't think that is in their nature.
Why would we waste our knowledge of genetic engineering just to create a powerful and sexually voracious enemy?
A major contributor to perpetrating violence is low IQ. Simply fixing the IQ issue would drastically reduce criminality of many groups.
Polygenic screening for prosocial behavior could get rid of any remaining non-IQ-related proclivity to violence.
I was not aware that the average IQs in Subsaharan Africa were 70 or less. It seems criminal to not discuss this and keep dumping money into the region.
Even hardcore hereditarians will allow that as much as half the IQ gap in SSA is due to environmental factors, and GDP per capita in the region has gone up enormously over the last century. I wouldn't assume that all environmental interventions are doomed to futility.
GDP has gone up in the region because before they weren’t functioning in a monetized economy and now they are. It doesn’t mean things have actually improved, on average.
You can look at data on a wide variety of other measures, such as literacy, child mortality and absolute poverty, and those have all also improved dramatically. Merely having better record-keeping can't account for this.
Also, I specifically said "GDP per capita", not just "GDP".
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=ZG
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT?locations=ZG
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.ZS?locations=ZG
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.LMIC.GP?locations=ZG
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=ZG
If you go from living in huts eating wild game and local crops, wearing clothes you bartered for, to living in huts with an electric bill and eating processed food from the market that bought with money you earned from picking through scrap metal your GDP has exploded in a way that doesn’t correspond to progress.
Likewise if your literacy rate increases from 20% to 40% that sounds great as a percentage growth, never mind that they changed how they evaluate literacy.
“Specifically, the task force recommended that the minimum proficiency level that should be achieved – and thus count as progress towards SDG indicator 4.6.1 – should be the literacy and numeracy skills level associated with PIAAC Level 1 for high-income countries, and below PIAAC Level 1 (at the sentence-processing level) for middle- and low-income countries (UIS 2018).Footnote 9
These recommendations were based on results of a global consultation as well as analyses of existing population data on skills such as PIAAC and the World Bank’s Skills Towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) study. Empirical data have revealed that approximately 50 per cent of adult populations living in middle-income countries, such as, for example, Turkey and Chile, are at or below PIAAC Level 1 on the literacy scale (OECD 2017).Footnote 10 Therefore, a common benchmark for global reporting purposes could lead to a majority of countries having a large percentage of their adult population classified as being below target levels of literacy proficiency. “
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11159-020-09854-x
Similar problems exist with most of your progress indicators. The GDP numbers you posted don’t even seem to account for inflation, for instance.
At any rate, these numbers are only being collected by organizations with direct conflicts of interest and millions of dollars on the line.
None of this really addresses IQ which is shown (with multiple sources in the post above) to be mostly heritable and resistant to intervention.
The GDP figures I quoted are adjusted for purchasing parity power, which not only includes inflation but also the relative cost of local goods. And lifespan and child mortality are also not subjective measures.
"they changed how they evaluate literacy"
When did they change it? Wouldn't that result in a rather large spike in the graph that should be easily detectable? Otherwise it's beside the point- the trendline is obviously up.
There is a rather large spike in the graph, actually. And they are the ones making the graphs. They set the rules, they collect the data, they make the reports, they spend the money, they decide if they did a good job, they change the rules, they do it again.
And yes I see now that your chart is PPP. It shows an increase in per capita GDP of $2k in 32 years. You’ve got a law of small numbers thing happening here.
"Even hardcore hereditarians will allow that as much as half the IQ gap in SSA is due to environmental factors..."
That is contradictory; if they were hardcore hereditarians, they would not say 'as much as half the IQ gap in SSA is due to environmental factors'. But I would like a citation.
You are conflating wealth and IQ.
It was Rushton's opinion, IIRC, and even Lynn allowed that about 13 points of the gap could be due to environmental factors. No sane scholar thinks that no conceivable level of poverty, disease and hunger will have any impact on cognitive development.
"You are conflating wealth and IQ"
How, specifically?
"It was Rushton's opinion, IIRC, and even Lynn allowed that about 13 points of the gap could be due to environmental factors."
Then, they are not hardcore hereditarians.
"No sane scholar thinks that no conceivable level of poverty, disease and hunger will have any impact on cognitive development."
You are the second one in these comments to use double negatives...what the hell is with that?
You set up a strawman, then knock it down. Yes, there is a level of poverty, disease, and hunger that negatively affects cognitive development, but it is not fifty percent of the IQ difference.
"How, specifically?"
This sentence here:
Even hardcore hereditarians will allow that as much as half the IQ gap in SSA is due to environmental factors, and GDP per capita in the region has gone up enormously over the last century.
"This sentence here"
I was responding to ReadingRainbow's insinuation that the low IQ of the region made humanitarian investment in the region pointless. I pointed out there have been immense improvements in living standards in SSA over the past century, ergo interventions are not intrinsically futile.
"Then, they are not hardcore hereditarians"
No, it's just that the default egalitarian position is insane and the most extreme position on the hereditarian side is still more realistic/reasonable than the status quo.
"it is not fifty percent of the IQ difference"
How do you know this? Do we have extensive data from transracial adoption studies looking specifically at children from SSA adopted into western households?
"How do you know this? Do we have extensive data from transracial adoption studies looking specifically at children from SSA adopted into western households?"
What we do have is lots of data on US blacks, whose ultimate origin was SSA, and even though many have admixture with whites, there is nothing near a 50% IQ difference when compared to whites. There are studies of blacks raised by high-income blacks and whites and studies of blacks raised by low-income blacks and whites. No differences anywhere near 50% are found.
Who funds you dystopian transhumanist ghouls?
Our lovely, ghoulish readers.
LOL
Fascinating. I'll take the science on trust (not competent to check it) and confine my thoughts to how hard it would be to even talk to friends about it. I'm imagining that elites in the developing world would take up these options, possibly accelerating improvements in overall NIQ over time. But I can't see the UN adopting it as a development objective.
It's kind of on a social par with being sexually attracted to children as a dinner party conversation topic.
Maybe we'll just wait until China does it and see what happens.
It seems like China isn't doing it. They actually believe their communism.
I think China is most likely very involved in this type of research and understands the benefits to be incurred.
China imprisoned the first person to edit the human genome in an embryo.
I think people overestimate the "hard nosed pragmatic realist" aspects of the Chinese leadership. They seems ideological and error prone, even if they have improved relatively compared to Maoism.
China is paternalistic and is corruption-prone but the population themselves, constituents are more task-oriented, outcome-oriented than their Western counterparts to a significant detriment (i.e. cheating in life means winning; interchanging processes to produce fake products, foods, buildings, lying in reports, cheating in games, high copy-catting endeavors) -- so if they see even an advantage such as 10-15 IQ points when most of them are hammering down 24/7 days for the 'Gaokao' where even a small subsection of the population is adopting IVF and having better intergenerational outcomes, then environmental fixation will follow The Chinese and the Indians do not have moral repulsion against increasing the status, ability or aptitudes of their offspring -- all of them have disposition towards a ''show-off or peacocking inclination'' where material objects, wealth, power or status is something to be seen as good, having many women who fawn over you, etc.
The West might have undergone evolutionary changes that made them race-blind or agnostic, and more ''humanitarian'' or altruistic, a more contract-based oriented ethos of reciprocity that hinders them from making pragmatic choices since they follow a different trajectory of evolution. Since religion enhances the fidelity of certain beliefs, and keeps a stickiness quality to these beliefs through the transmission line of hereditary and the circumstantial environments associated with those have synergistic effects such as being communitarian in famines and whatnot -- and the indigenous constituents of those descendants may have become more irreligious with penalties to fertility -- the core psychosocial development integrated in the genetic architecture may still condition them towards moral condemnation of ''outsiders'' or ''superiority'' like mentality by dragging down and downplaying such qualities in preference of the individualistic but allocentric ''guilt'' social mechanisms.
Hence, the better quality of life with shorter-working hours, lower conscientiousness, and less willingness to ''peacock'' with more integrity but this also hinders them by blocking them access to utilitarian measures or metrics of reality. However, since the Chinese overall focus more on results or outcomes -- they tend to not see the larger principles behind what shapes and leads to changes in results or outcomes which causes them to experiment with more local-level policies than take a global or holistic assessment. (i.e. suppression of trans-disciplinary type of thinking and high focus on narrow high aptitudes of spatial g, etc). Hence reverse engineering and disintegrative/involuntary analysis is of greater notable interest. The elites reflect the dispositional traits of the native birthright populations through their actions and policies.
Realpolitik triumphs posturing/P&R. Given the existence of biolabs everywhere from Australia to Canada to Ukraine, and the military funding of BCI (Brain-Control interfaces)-- I wouldn't put it behind the nature of kinds of thinking associated with pragmatics first over ethics when it comes to the international sphere of power. AI/Genetic Enhancement likely tops the list. Followed by the virtual/cybernetic-scape thereafter.
UN is currently adopting the ''race-migration homogenize the planet'' policy but also has entire PDF dedicated to genomic enhancement
https://www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/9789240030060
I wouldn't put it behind for world leaders to accumulate the bioinformatic data from populations behind tech-front corporations to engineer populations or test traits through clandestine operations or political decisions (i.e. MAID being a stand-behind for negative eugenics and removing the fraction of old people due to long-life expectancies hindering the younger populations' ability to reproduce/quantity of resources utilized on pensions/etc).
Given the euthanism of the elites to
https://horizons.gc.ca/en/2020/02/11/exploring-biodigital-convergence/
make a transhuman race of controllable descendants and the universalism of globalists -- it is in fact their nature and doctrine to embrace such technologies.
In their ''simulation'' futures they have the ''government-pound care'' CDBC and schedule for your ''unborns'' today. Given the nature of their subtext speaking inclinations, they are actually fully on board and their long line of eugenicists, with the LGBTA123/etc and inflationary macroeconomic policies, they succeeded in implementing most of those listed in
https://www.catholicsistas.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Screen-shot-2011-10-25-at-8.16.13-PM-1024x792.png
Given the public support was low in the past, they simply rebranded. That is the parsimonious opinion that I hold given all the circumstantial lines of evidence.
Too long, didn't read.
I'm just going to say that the Chinese need to start reproducing again before they can have designer babies. Ditto for most of the OECD, but especially China.
"China imprisoned the first person to edit the human genome in an embryo."
So the story goes. That story was, most likely, for public consumption. The Chinese leadership is pragmatic and sees the value of increasing the positive traits of their people.
To me, it seems that much of Western Civilization has become ideological and error-prone.
Dude the most ideologically retarded thing anyone did in the last few years was china’s Zero Covid. There was nothing pragmatic about that.
I’m not impressed with the CCP.
Jonathan Anomaly predicts that a lot of people will disavow the use of this technology publicly while using when they have children.
The sooner the social stigma is removed, the better.
"Despite concerted efforts" [to end poverty in Africa] should really read "despite pointless efforts". Or even "worsened by well-meaning but counterproductive efforts". I believe some African intellectuals are also of this view.
Your essay was interesting and well-researched but I (and many others) still say that the only useful and realistic thing for wealthy majority-white societies to do about Africa (apart from robustly controlling their own borders) is nothing. To entirely leave it to sort itself out in its own way.
That's a naive view. Prosperous kingdoms that have growing populations desire more resources for their upkeep. This includes energy.
On this planet, military excursions are done routinely to extract resources from other countries and keep places in a subsistence-like state. Everyone wants a more powerful and resourceful society with greater technological advancement.
It's true in Africa they are struggling now with keeping their lights on and a mass-famine would happen with non-interventionist policies. But you know there's strategic ports, and large swathes of arable land and raw materials and minerals you need to explore space. Practical considerations always take place first and foremost. Available energy per capita is correlated with GDP and population capacity. With sufficient technology and energy you could break down any material into its constituents and re-make it again without entropic loss making the reaction irreversible or causing a degradation of the quality of the material. Just like the Gaza strip containing so and so much amount of natural gas and oil and the US strategic reserves being at its lowest point. Tough times call for tough measures. A panicking population, is an uncontrollable population. Food dumping made them dependent (since farmers can't compete) -- though I'm not sure why they keep bringing UN ships over other than attempting to secure land or densifying populations by forcible migration of native populations. In realpolitik, human life is worth nothing. If you can use a resource, even an idiot ape monkey, then you will use it.
On the contrary, it is a clear view. An uncluttered view. No society has ever become dynamic and enterprising as a result of the philanthropy of a more successful society. Once one gets that simple, unassailable fact into clear focus all the complicated arguments (such as those in your long response) amount to zero. The gigantic, self-deluding, 'foreign aid' vanities of Western liberals may have made those liberals feel good but their overall effect on the recipient pre-industrial tribal cultures has been more harm than good. Sapping. Infantilising. (plus of course a huge jamboree for weapons manufacturers).
I don't think aid necessarily needs to succeed in making the target society 'dynamic and enterprising'- if you're dealing with a very low-IQ population then that objective is probably unrealistic. You can succeed in reducing suffering, promoting a certain modest level of economic development and maybe engineering sustainable fertility levels, I think.
A failure to reach equality of outcome isn't, by itself, evidence that a given set of policies are either insufficient or counterproductive. Certain conservatives use this to rationalise inaction/indifference/cheapness, I think.
Once again: foreign intervention (whether it be exploitative or philanthropic) WILL NOT help the target society to enter any kind of civilisational virtuous-circle advance. Western intelligentsias (of both Left and Right) have been hopelessly muddled about this for so many decades... hence I find myself, on my third comment, still having to re-state what should be blindingly obvious. (I have read African intellectuals who have made the same point ....can't recall names unfortunately).
'Indifference' to an another civilisation's success or failure is the historical norm and indeed the sanest attitude.
This is a blind restatement of ideological certainties not founded in evidence.
https://www.givedirectly.org/research-at-give-directly/
https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/our-criteria/cost-effectiveness/cost-effectiveness-models
GDP per capita in Africa has tripled since the late 90s and the vast majority of their food is grown locally, albeit in many cases with imported fertilisers and/or agricultural tools. The continent also receives less funding in aid than it loses due to capital flight and debt repayments, so the idea that Africa has seen no significant development or would be subject to "mass famine" without external intervention is basically hogwash.
(There could be still mass famine, to be clear, but if so it will be due to population growth outstripping local food supply, not withdrawal of aid.)
The argument has a legitimate point, but the author really needs to touch some grass. 😁
The reason such proposals don't and won't fly isn't our stinginess about the role of genetics in determining intelligence. It's the much simpler fact that a whole population is never going to forego "organic" reproduction for mass IVF.
It's just insane to think this will ever be feasible, as long as you're dealing with people.
'...a whole population is never going to forego "organic" reproduction for mass IVF.'
A whole population foregoing organic reproduction is not necessary. There is reason to think that a sizeable portion of a country using IVF could have an enormous impact. And it is reasonable to think many people would use IVF, if it was as simple as a blood draw and provided enormous benefits for the future child.
Truly brilliant. This could be the biggest thing ever.
Hmm, so China & India did so poorly for decades because they have low IQ?
"Although a complex array of factors influences the wealth and success of nations, national intelligence stands out as a critical explanatory variable."
Many factors influence the economic success of countries. I never said it was attributable to only intelligence.
Western envy of African fertility rates is leaking out in very odd directions. I’m adding this strange proposition to the list.
Turn all Africans into lab rats? Odd way to deal with poverty.
When you frame it in a ridiculous and misleading way, it does seem odd.
How is my comment misleading based on the article responded to?
I'm sorry but we are in competition with other races. To make them better able to compete with us will eventually lead to our demise when they take our nations. White people are pathologically helpful.
I’m a bit disappointed that the article doesn’t compare existing public health interventions and their impact on IQ. I’d imagine lead abatement, pollution reduction, iodine deficiency intervention, and parasite treatment to be massively (perhaps 100x) more cost effective. Embryo selection (with current IVF tech) would likely cost many multiples of annual income for an African.
You'd also be selecting for autism as the genes for autism are correlated with IQ. Very unwise.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/13/autism-and-intelligence-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/
The genetic correlation is only around 0.2, which should allow plenty of room for picking out gene combinations that raise IQ without causing autism. (I've also seen people arguing the converse- "if you select for social skills you'll deprive the world of kooky autist know-it-alls, REEEEE"- so I'm not sure what side we're supposed to take here.)
In theory, possible. In practice autism genomics are poorly characterised (as are IQ). We know it's genetic from familial patterns of inheritance but very few SNPs have actually been identified. I did GWS on both my kids from a company that purports to report a score for autism risk and the neurotypical one came out as higher risk for autism than my autistic one did. This is not terribly surprising given the weak power of the variants they report on but rather demonstrative of the issue... if I had done IVF I would have been told to select the autistic one.
I agree, current PGS scores have fairly constrained predictive value. There are no guarantees, but you could say that for any other method of conception.
OMG if you can't see this is what the next level up from genocide. The "civilized west" has adopted the Nazi's education system and this is what it has lead too. A system that has forgotten its humanity and is serving a small group that intends to enslave the rest. This would get rid of genius. This would prevent the most sensitive and brilliant from every being born. You say this in the name of health. But I am in profoundly gifted groups with people and none of us would never be born if this was put into action. We have a purpose and it is to bring humanity back to its senses. The savants and neurodivergent contain natural gifts that restore our population to healthy. This is insanity and you are insane or just too stupid to see it.
"But I am in profoundly gifted groups with people and none of us would never be born if this was put into action."
Your use of a double negative and sentence structure is a testament to your gifted cognition.
You seem unaware the Profoundly Gifted are all neurodivergent. Most have autism. I have all of all the learning differences. I am also a prodigious savant. I can't see what I write when write because I write from my subconscious. But you would not understand this because you are nothing like me.
You wrote a silly, self-gratulatory diatribe about your purpose to bring humanity back to its senses.
The purpose of gene manipulation would be to advance positive traits for the betterment of humanity.
You are living an illusion.
Dude you spooky af. I wish I could bring you up to same level I see the world but I that is impossible. I wondered if you were the stalker type thanks for taking the bait and confirming it. Now it's time for you go back under the rock you crawled out of.
You are a pretentious, insolent weirdo.
"This would get rid of genius. This would prevent the most sensitive and brilliant from every being born."
One of the main purposes of embryo selection would be to do the exact opposite. Negative pleiotropy exists for certain traits but this tends to be the exception more than the norm.
There are benefits to PGT for detecting ASD susceptibility genes within fetuses, as it can provide information to parents regarding their unborn children's risks for ASDs and facilitate informed decision-making.
I am glad you have so much faith in our systems. But you obviously autistic and probably don't have family members who were math savants and force institutionalized or lobotomized, diagnosed as schizophrenic because they could do advanced math in their heads. You can not trust our systems.
"you are obviously not autistic"
I wouldn't go jumping to conclusions here, but if, as you assert, autism is related to an aptitude for math or other STEM subjects, then... this should be expected to show up in GWAS research, and polygenic selection for analytic intelligence would increase the frequency of the trait rather than reducing it. By this logic you should be in favour of embryo selection, rather than against it. (There is literally a commenter on this article who brought up this exact finding.)
As a counterpoint, I would mention that there are also plenty of brilliant, gifted people in the world who don't especially seem to be on the spectrum or suffer its negative side-effects.
I mean, sure, there's an argument to be made for preserving a certain diversity of aptitudes and temperaments in a population so individuals can specialise in solving different economic and social problems. But genetic recombination will always create variation, and this idea that we can just abdicate all standards of judgment and escape selection pressures is delusional- the genetically neutral human society doesn't exist and we can't ban deleterious mutations. You either select for something civilisation-compatible or entropy will prevail.
I didn't assert it over STEM. I meant it over sensitivity. My family is 1/3 STEM but the other 2/3 is music and emotions/people savants. So I don't know what you talking about here.
You are so wrong on this I simply can't engage with you until you doing a deep dive into profound giftedness, creative intelligence and it's oppression. Honestly from my perspective you are psychopath who is saying what the system parrots without knowing how complex this issue is.
This is like you telling someone who is minority their population is not important and they should be ok with it.
"My family is 1/3 STEM but the other 2/3 is music and emotions/people savants"
Okay, but then shouldn't selection for musical ability or emotional intelligence preserve autism-related genes? And again, as a counterpoint, there are plenty of people with high EQ who don't seem to be autistic (if anything, social blindness is a typical symptom of autism.)
You're implicitly arguing "we should preserve autism because autism produces Trait X, which is good", and I keep pointing out that embryo selection could also produce Trait X, and might not even need to induce autism to do it.
"This is like you telling someone who is minority their population is not important and they should be ok with it."
I would be curious as to what specific aspect of a minority group's genetics or culture they are trying to preserve, and why it is important to them. If racial diversity is taken as important for it's own sake, then I would point out that population-level genetic diversity can only be maintained over long time-periods through reproductive segregation (otherwise populations will eventually merge into eachother through marriage/interbreeding and cease to exist as distinct groups.)
If they wish to remain distinct, they will ultimately have to separate, then implement their own internal eugenics programs to maintain their capacity for civilisation. If they do not wish to separate, then they will gradually lose their distinct biological identity regardless, over the same timescales where a eugenics program would operate. Neither scenario is an argument against eugenics.
*Obviously not autistic.