Originally Posted by
Mordan
Dysgenics lol.
Excellent! Some people want to talk about dysgenics!
Or at least to mock the very concept and its mention.
.....Good enough for me! Let's dive in!
Guys, genes don't care. As long as you live and make children, your genes are happy.
Right! Exactly right! That is what we, or at least I, am concerned about. My fundamental understanding of this fact about genes leads to my concern.
Allow me to post a brief excerpt from a book. People may not read books any more, but we can at least find the time to read paragraphs, right? Come on, please. Just humor me.
THE TRIUMPH OF THE FUNDAMENTALISTS
There is no God but Allah. —The Quran
Imagine a society where epidemic diseases are common and most children die before the age of five, and yet the birth-rate is so high that only famine keeps the population in check. Women are illiterate and confined to the home, their sexuality rigidly controlled. They can be beaten or even killed at the whim of their menfolk. Many gain little pleasure from sex as a result of genital mutilation in childhood. Life for everyone is a grinding struggle for survival, with much of the slender agricultural surplus taken by the rapacious tax agents of an alien and hated power. Religion and tradition are all-pervasive.
This is the traditional culture of the Middle East and it is arguably the most advanced culture on Earth. Most advanced not in terms of technology or wealth but in its ability to endure and reproduce. It is the end product of thousands of years of cultural evolution. In the future, it may well be our world as well.
You see, we may look at the Mohommedans and laugh at them. They are hopelessly backward. They are unbelievably impoverished. They seem utterly incapable of being convinced of the virtues of high technology such as, say, toilet paper. Ha, ha, ha! We are so far superior to them! They are not the most advanced culture, but one of the least advanced! Right?
Right?
It would seem so from our perspective. But genes don't really care how many cars you have. Genes are remarkably non-avaricious. Your Ferrari is only a plus factor from nature's perspective if you are using it to make more babies.
Well, or using it to run over would-be competitors.
Other than that, it's evolutionarily irrelevant.
The West has a lot of money. Whoopie! Are we using it to out-breed everybody else and "take our rightful place as the top dogs of the world?" No? The percentage of Europeans in the world is going down, not up?
Wait, what, you say? Even the absolute number is going down? But the West rules the world! We are the Big King Daddies! The Phat Enchiladas! We have all the best toys. We totally the best, dawg! And don'chu fogetit!
Mother Nature needs to sit us down and have a little Talk with us. A little heart-to-heart. "I'm sorry son, but your toys just are not interesting to Mommy. What is important to me is that you have lots and lots of children, who in turn have lots and lots of children, in perpetuity. That is how to win my favor and my graces. That is how to play my game."
Originally Posted by
Mordan
AI and genetic engineering will solve that anyways.
This is an optimistic view. I would welcome it coming true. I cannot share in your optimism, though. I wonder if you have seriously thought it through. A few questions:
1. What percentage of people do you think would be comfortable having children they knew were significantly smarter than they are?
2. What percentage of people do you think are even comfortable with the idea that a significant number of people anywhere might be much smarter than they are, much less in their own homes? The problem is much worse than the ~100% of drivers who are above-average. Our society has fetishized intelligence to such a degree, it's now considered the apex quality, and the one people are the most sensitive and defensive about by far. No one is comfortable thinking of themselves as of below-average intelligence. No one. Even though 50% of people most assuredly are.
So how, again, exactly, is genetic engineering going to solve this? The below-average 50% are the ones having kids right now. The above average 50% don't need genetic engineering. They already have what it takes. All they need to do is stop using contraception and voila! Their kin will be kenned, san high-tech helix rend.
So how are you going to convince the bottom 50% that a) they are kind of stupid, and b) they should spend the next 25 years with a couple insufferable brats with IQs 20 points higher than theirs and who know it? That's gonna be a tough row to hoe. You're paddling uphill against a lot of very strong human nature. People fundamentally want offspring that are what? Like them! Especially in today's over-the-top narcissistic world, people are going to use genetic engineering (assume it all works perfectly and is wonderful and predictable, etc., etc.) for one thing: to make babies who are more like them. Because.... they are awesome. I mean, what could be greater than wonderful, glorious me? Break out the photocopier and let's bless the world.
In sum:
Genetic engineering does not solve nor even address the problem of the top 50%, which is: disinterest in and indeed antipathy towards the idea of reproducing themselves.
Genetic engineering seems highly unlikely to catch hold among the hispanic and black welfare mothers of the world as a wonderful way to give them a bunch of kids to whom they can't relate and can't understand. Instead of kids they can understand and love and who will love them, they'll get some arrogant jerks who will probably resent and look down on them. Great. What a deal!
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