My fav account on LW is tukabel

What branch of math, out of curiosity?

^Stop, NT. Don't interrupt knyte and me when we are having a nice scholarly conversation.

Using NT as an insult is irrational. Punish yourself at once.

Mind to explain what that is? Your PM really didnt help me understand, also Math is not my strength.

Ooh, what are you researching in abstract algebra?

You do realize that, on a species level, maximizing diversity makes a hell of a lot more sense than artificially inducing selective pressure, right? The more biodiversity we have, the more likely we are to survive low-probability near-extinction events (or other cataclysmic changes in selective pressure).

Adaptability is not the greatest measure of superiority, otherwise the human species is outclassed by organisms such as bacteria. It is because of our complexity and our intelligence that we are superior. Experimentation in higher thought and action is the greatest human achievement, not a perpetual, ever-advancing cycle of evolution. If humans "evolve" into mindless idiots that exist only to reproduce, they would be better off extinct.

Edited 9/7/2017 19:39:21

Adaptability is not the greatest measure of superiority, otherwise the human species is outclassed by organisms such as bacteria. It is because of our complexity and our intelligence that we are superior. Experimentation in higher thought and action is the greatest human achievement, not a perpetual, ever-advancing cycle of evolution. If humans "evolve" into mindless idiots that exist only to reproduce, they would be better off extinct.

Its depends on what you mean by "Superiority", but in my opinion bacteria are superior to us. For example, bacteria could wipe us out, but we could never wipe them out. Sometimes the simpliest way is the best way.

If you're interested in 'optimizing' human genetics, obviously you have to make some normative claims in the process. The point is that you can't just claim to be objective when you're assigning some particular values to some particular traits.

I'd still contend that for most people, artificially inducing selective pressure is a waste of time. If there's some hard resource limits, then the selective pressure's already there- humanity is optimizing for whatever resource limitations it's dealing with in that environment (and even if we lose intelligence in the process, it'll be because intellect is a detrimental or wasteful trait with regard to survival in those circumstances). And if there aren't any hard resource limits, well, now you just have a bunch of extra people on top of all the people your eugenics program wasn't going to target- no harm, just a safety net in the form of biodiversity that will increase the expected lifespan of something at least genetically very similar to what you want to optimize for (even if all the desirable people die out, it's preferable to have their closest relatives survive so that the probability of their traits re-emerging is significantly higher).

Then again, if you were truly interested in the topic, there's been decades if not centuries of discussion on eugenics and why it's a terrible and wasteful idea. I have a hard time believing you want to discuss this in good faith, because if you really cared you wouldn't be making these half-assed arguments that have been addressed literally lifetimes ago. It's hard to be more charitable toward your stance than if you were instead regurgitating arguments for geocentrism from Copernicus' time.

At the end of the day, sure, intelligence and a lot of other traits follow the bell curve. Lots of us have genetic traits that may not seem like they're worth retaining- I, for example, have some energy-inefficient mutations in my red blood cells (they stuck around because they also make me very malaria resistant, but malaria's not a threat in Texas these days). But the value of these traits with regard to survival ability is entirely contextual, entirely contingent on the environment you live in. Hell, if I'd been born 200-300 years ago, I might have died at an early age due to traits that are today merely minor inconveniences.

If you want optimal life-forms, just let selective pressure do its own work.

It just baffles me that you're pissed because our species' survival rate is high.

There is no "species" in a political sense. There are different populations opposed to one another. If my enemies die, then my chances of survival can only increase. Your conclusion is wrong simply because it assumed the "human species" is one political force.

Cata, intelligence, IS the most superior trait. The greater our ability to observe reality the more substance there is to it.

The tech elite is full of your political adversaries unfortunately.

Edited 9/8/2017 03:31:53

I don't derive my interests from whatever political constructs I happen to be associated with. So astute observation, I don't take states or whatever into account when figuring out what I care about. Government interests are based on citizens' individual interests, not the other way around.

I think anyone who places the state or the collective over the individual needs to take a good, hard look at how badly they're wasting their own life.

Edited 9/8/2017 03:30:43

I'm already too smart to reproduce.

Tabby, I'm not happy. I'm corrupt and evil and my mind is rotting away because the only stimulation I gets comes in small bursts. My options are limited because I cannot integrate into a society from a completely different century. The only thing that matters is my will-to-power.

will-to-power

I love how Nietzsche's work has lived up to his prophecy that it will be latched onto by idiots. A book for all and none, indeed.

Well, all work is latched onto by idiots. Something would have to be super unknown and obscure for it to not have idiots citing it as inspiration.

Yeah, but this guy's work got latched onto by Nazis and other sorts of people he directly attacks in the first few parts. It very closely parallels segments from his work where the narrator attempts to explain the concept of the Ubermensch only for the crowd to misinterpret him and think he was hyping up the tightrope walker.

Nietzsche wrote about superior (Ubermensch) and inferior (the Last Men) types of people, and hilariously enough it's the people who exhibit the traits Nietzsche ascribed to the Last Men that picked up his work and thought they were the Ubermenschen. It's similar to how most of the people who pick up Ayn Rand really don't have anything in common with John Galt or Howard Roark.

The wealthy have more children. I have anecdotal evidence of this, and there seems to be reliable statistics which bear this out.

Bryan Caplan reporting for the Journal of Economics and Liberty speaks to the subject:

The simplest story is that the elite values typical of the well-educated depress fertility - but regardless of your values, the higher your income, the more kids you want.

Caplan also says the following:

If you're prone to futurist speculation, trying re-imagining Idiocracy. The twist: in the real world, the most fertile people aren't those with low IQ; they're people who counter-stereotypically combine low education with high income. Plumbers shall inherit the earth!

There are those who assume that low education correlates with low intelligence. Bill Gates might have something to say on this subject. And the plumbers I have know have been reasonably witty folk.

Link: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/kids_are_normal.html

Conclusion is wrong because the first premise that we're "Nazis" is wrong.