My personal thesis is the US is probably doomed - it has enough people on both sides of the political aisle that are against genetic explanations and *definitely* against gengineering, that it's extremely unlikely to adopt broad-scale gengineering fast enough to compete with countries like Russia or China that will embrace it wholeheartedly.
I've always assumed I'd need to travel to Estonia or Thailand or Singapore (or maybe somewhere like Prospera) to get my kids gengineered. If I have to give up US citizenship to do it (which seems a fairly likely reactive bipartisan Schelling point to gengineering existing for the rich and being actually effective), I'll do that happily and with zero hesitation.
I mean, the problem is that aside from gengineering, "you can't fix stupid." Well, what if "stupid" outlaws gengineering? Whichever countries do that are going to lose on a massive economic and human capital scale over the next few decades.
When embryo selection for health and IQ becomes more prevalent in Asia (and yes, it will happen there first because most people there actually believe in eugenics), the Western countries will be forced to offer this as well. So if you want to see this happen in the US/Europe sooner, you should try to popularize this in China first.
Let's say we do a bunch more GWAS and come up with a pretty definitive study that suggests the genetic inputs into intelligence, and there are thousands of genes involved. That's a pretty good chunk of the entire genome! And let's say for each of those genes there's considered to be one "good" allele. If we offer parents the chance to IQ-max through editing each of those genes in an embryo to the "good" allele, will they not generally choose to edit all of them to do so? And then, are we not a good chunk of the way down the path to cloning? Do not height and symmetry also involve huge numbers of genes? How about moral character? Does this not move us further down the path towards standardisation? I see a future where humans may vary by skin, hair and eye appearance, but are generally pretty similar. Is this the desired outcome, or do you think we need mechanisms to ensure greater diversity?
The move towards a more individualistic/market based economy is a major reason why realistic discussion around heritability has been driven underground imo.
Hereditarianism is always going to be a difficult sell in a society with major inequality, and where personal traits have major effects on people's social status. The weaker the link between personal traits and social status the more relaxed and open discussion around the causes of those traits can be.
Eugenics would also be much more palatable if it could be framed as a benefit to society at as a whole and not just a way for elites to advantage their own kids.
The classical progressive position among many intellectuals before WW2 was planned economies + eugenics. There's probably no way something along those lines would be politically viable now, but it's probably be more viable than hereditarianism on its own. Being more conventionally progressive in other areas would definitely soften heridiatiism public image at least.
What’s your evidence for PGS in this role “polygenic embryo screening actually gives more control to the parent and facilitates better-informed reproductive decisions that produce children that live better lives.”
Most government expenditures are based on the concept of ROI. Why does my district spend 24k/kid/year k-12? Supposedly it has high ROI.
If it doesn’t have high ROI then why are we doing it. Wouldn’t we just cut that out?
What exactly do the poor “deserve” if we cut it? Should we give them 24k in UBI per kid?
If some people are genetically pre-disposed to addiction, should better off people give up drugs so as not to tempt them?
What should immigration policy be in a country that acknowledges genetics?
If I were to design a eugenic egalitarian system from the bottom up, it would probably look like Singapore. There would be some safety net but Government would shrink overall and social policy would be based on order and realism.
Would most progressives accept Singapore? It’s Gini coefficient after taxes and transfers is around the us level, and much higher then the European socialist countries like Denmark or France. Still, the poor appear to have a good life.
You can have both belief in genetic influence on behavior and belief that socioeconomic differences are the product of the unjust treatment of marginalized people by the oppressor groups. You just blame rich people for being predisposed to predation and exploitation instead of poor people for being predisposed to laziness and high time preference. Honestly this isn't hypothetical to me either, I think "the most successful members of a predatory species engage in more/more effective intra species predation" is a no-brainer and probably accounts for a larger amount of social problems than the conservative evopsych takes. The people who have the most impact on society probably have the most negative impact as well. That also seems like a no-brainer.
My personal thesis is the US is probably doomed - it has enough people on both sides of the political aisle that are against genetic explanations and *definitely* against gengineering, that it's extremely unlikely to adopt broad-scale gengineering fast enough to compete with countries like Russia or China that will embrace it wholeheartedly.
I've always assumed I'd need to travel to Estonia or Thailand or Singapore (or maybe somewhere like Prospera) to get my kids gengineered. If I have to give up US citizenship to do it (which seems a fairly likely reactive bipartisan Schelling point to gengineering existing for the rich and being actually effective), I'll do that happily and with zero hesitation.
I mean, the problem is that aside from gengineering, "you can't fix stupid." Well, what if "stupid" outlaws gengineering? Whichever countries do that are going to lose on a massive economic and human capital scale over the next few decades.
Wonderful article! My view is basically compassionate or beneficentrist libertarian capitalism. https://rychappell.substack.com/p/beneficentrism
God bless all of us!
When embryo selection for health and IQ becomes more prevalent in Asia (and yes, it will happen there first because most people there actually believe in eugenics), the Western countries will be forced to offer this as well. So if you want to see this happen in the US/Europe sooner, you should try to popularize this in China first.
Let's say we do a bunch more GWAS and come up with a pretty definitive study that suggests the genetic inputs into intelligence, and there are thousands of genes involved. That's a pretty good chunk of the entire genome! And let's say for each of those genes there's considered to be one "good" allele. If we offer parents the chance to IQ-max through editing each of those genes in an embryo to the "good" allele, will they not generally choose to edit all of them to do so? And then, are we not a good chunk of the way down the path to cloning? Do not height and symmetry also involve huge numbers of genes? How about moral character? Does this not move us further down the path towards standardisation? I see a future where humans may vary by skin, hair and eye appearance, but are generally pretty similar. Is this the desired outcome, or do you think we need mechanisms to ensure greater diversity?
15 years and basically same "the case for liberal race realism" arguments that were being made by then.
Of course the main difference now is that technology will force the issue.
The move towards a more individualistic/market based economy is a major reason why realistic discussion around heritability has been driven underground imo.
Hereditarianism is always going to be a difficult sell in a society with major inequality, and where personal traits have major effects on people's social status. The weaker the link between personal traits and social status the more relaxed and open discussion around the causes of those traits can be.
Eugenics would also be much more palatable if it could be framed as a benefit to society at as a whole and not just a way for elites to advantage their own kids.
The classical progressive position among many intellectuals before WW2 was planned economies + eugenics. There's probably no way something along those lines would be politically viable now, but it's probably be more viable than hereditarianism on its own. Being more conventionally progressive in other areas would definitely soften heridiatiism public image at least.
What’s your evidence for PGS in this role “polygenic embryo screening actually gives more control to the parent and facilitates better-informed reproductive decisions that produce children that live better lives.”
Most government expenditures are based on the concept of ROI. Why does my district spend 24k/kid/year k-12? Supposedly it has high ROI.
If it doesn’t have high ROI then why are we doing it. Wouldn’t we just cut that out?
What exactly do the poor “deserve” if we cut it? Should we give them 24k in UBI per kid?
If some people are genetically pre-disposed to addiction, should better off people give up drugs so as not to tempt them?
What should immigration policy be in a country that acknowledges genetics?
If I were to design a eugenic egalitarian system from the bottom up, it would probably look like Singapore. There would be some safety net but Government would shrink overall and social policy would be based on order and realism.
Would most progressives accept Singapore? It’s Gini coefficient after taxes and transfers is around the us level, and much higher then the European socialist countries like Denmark or France. Still, the poor appear to have a good life.
You can have both belief in genetic influence on behavior and belief that socioeconomic differences are the product of the unjust treatment of marginalized people by the oppressor groups. You just blame rich people for being predisposed to predation and exploitation instead of poor people for being predisposed to laziness and high time preference. Honestly this isn't hypothetical to me either, I think "the most successful members of a predatory species engage in more/more effective intra species predation" is a no-brainer and probably accounts for a larger amount of social problems than the conservative evopsych takes. The people who have the most impact on society probably have the most negative impact as well. That also seems like a no-brainer.