On a different note, I don't understand how anyone can consider equality of outcome desirable, regardless of whether it's achievable or not. If your outcome is guaranteed to be equal to that of others then it by definition doesn't depend on your own choices. If it's not the ultimate unhuman antiutopian existence I don't know what is.
No. Why would that be the case? In your moral framework that equates moral desert with technological progression, sure. But not in mine, where technological progression is antithetical to social progression.
Ok, that was pretty facetious (especially the last sentence); there's utility in rewarding progress, but as another commenter mentioned, fairness is entirely subjective.
If you argue that fairness is subjective and utility is king you've already rejected the entire argument about genetic advantage. I would point out though that to define utility you'd still need a definition of what's "good" and with it, very likely, what's "fair" and we are back to square one.
the good gene is like a natural lottery. do you insist your neighbor to share his lottery money with you because he does nothing to get that money? because he's lucky, he may share with you 10%, but never share 50-50
"Bevin left school at 11 to take a job as a farm boy, and was subsequently a kitchen boy, a grocer's errand boy, a van boy, a tram conductor and a drayman before, at the age of 29, he became active locally in Bristol in the Dock Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers' union."
And was Foreign Minister in the Atlee government, ardent ant-Soviet, arguably one of the founders of the Atlantic alliance and many other achievements. That route is pretty much closed these days.
My own personal favourite is William Robertson - who was Chief of the Imperial General Staff from 1916-1918. He went from a private soldier to that lofty position. Richard Holmes points out that an equivalent rise would be impossible today - even with much smaller forces to command.
These people were successful because they were good - not on "merit" as is usually defined.
Most people, if they would be paid based on merit, couldn't survive in our society, because they produce so little of value on its own.
Fighting for "meritocracy" therefore becomes fight for attribution, how big piece of resulting pie you deserve. But this deserve has not much to do with merit of your work, it has to do with your ability to fight for it, imperfect information, and kindness of other people.
A sufficiently low-friction market already resolves a lot of the attribution issues, and we're already seeing that happen - as transaction costs shrink it becomes more and more practical to outsource more of a business. What if it reached the point where every company was <50 people - small enough that everyone knew everyone? Or even the point where everyone was a freelancer?
Externalities are of course a thing. But technology is improving to the point where we can track them and build them into the market. What if e.g. for every gram of pollution, you were charged in real time?
> *sufficiently low-friction market*
If I were to solve it, I would just give people democratic rights (pretty much everyone the same vote) to decide how economic resources are allocated. But lots (if not most) of people are against that idea.
Just as a universal basic income is presented as one antidote to wealth inequality, the idea of universal genetic enhancement is presented, specifically of intelligence (whatever that is). If we assume it's a fait accompli that members of our elites will pursue genetic enhancement of intelligence for their children or themselves, what are the strongest consequentialist objections to the idea of free, universally-provided genetic enhancement, assuming such therapies are actually effective, practical, and safe?
One obvious objection is of a "Brave New World" variety: we have yet no idea how systematic selection to increase "g" (or any trait, for that matter), could stunt or enhance other traits, deplete valuable kinds of cognitive diversity we can't yet measure, or twist our values in some immeasurable and negative way.
Worse still, it's easy to imagine government scientists in more authoritarian societies stumbling on allele combinations that enhanced political docility, consumption-oriented behavior, thriftiness, and so on, and selecting for those in the next generation to solve demographic, economic, or political problems.
On the flip side of that fear is the hope that we could select for propensities that help us solve the daunting list of global co-ordination problems that now face us, climate change and dangerous AI being the two most generic ones. The consequences of failure there are so dire that we may even have reason to see such enhancement as necessary -- the equivalent of a species-level adrenaline shot to get us through an existential crisis.
And what if we could make ourselves less dishonest, manipulative, cynical, and tribalistic? What if we could design our values to be different from what they are, to be what we wished they were? That's much scarier for me, for reasons that are harder to explain. And it mirrors a bit the problems of building an self-enhancing AI that doesn't "diverge to evil".
I'm sure there's a rich seam of blogosphere material out there on these topics, maybe even some academic papers, would be very interested if someone is willing to share some links to specific arguments or discussions.
Check out the reference to SSC posts I linked downthread, and since you mentioned coordination problems, definitely check out Meditations on Moloch.
Anyone care to comment on that? I thought that taking "The Bell Curve" seriously was a big red flag?
To whom? Certainly not to most scientists..
Follow links from there and the idea that "most scientists" agree with that book looks like a big stretch.
People could be misled into thinking that the left and right are having a disagreement about some neutral science findings the way you phrased it, like e.g. "The right-wing hates climate science" (and where they also heavily fund "scientists" that are prepared to write books full of nonsense that suits their goals that "the left" "hate").
edit: and as, luck would have it, as someone else just pointed out, the most recent article on this site is about climate denial:
"This raises the matter of what we now routinely refer to as “climate change” – catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW), to use one of the climateers’ favoured and emotionally laden descriptors.
Tony Abbott, speaking frankly, once conceded that “climate change is crap”
It struck me recently that the crank-like approach to climate change may have helped some big businesses in the short term, but may well cause blowback for their goals as reality sets in.
Luckily, we who have studied computer science and know a thing or two about completeness and complexity and therefore the limits of reason, can easily call the bluff. After all, when human beings are concerned a solution to a problem may involve nothing more than swaying the minds of people, something people with high intelligence often seem comically unable to do.
So while I could easily think of a few qualities humanity is in urgent need of more than intelligence — charisma, empathy, good looks and a sense of humor — I believe that this particular piece would have been much better if the author’s eugenics plan had been in effect prior to his birth.
> we who have studied computer science and know a thing or two about completeness and complexity and therefore the limits of reason, can easily call the bluff
It seems that even with that, there are many people in the second group who belong to the first group.
To me, humans are not actually that different in their inborn intelligence. The bell curve actually falls of quite quickly besides the mean. The most difference is specialized training.
So you're advocating that we select for charismatic, persuasive people of average intelligence? Seems like a rather short-sighted plan, considering this would describe most used car salesmen.
Edit: Oh no! I am getting downvoted by HN users who didn't get the reference and/or have completely no idea what I believe with regard to the issues at hand in the article.
IQ, and all the other "objective" measures he leaves as an exercise to the reader to define, mostly measure how well-adapted a person is to society such as it currently works right now.
If you believe we've arrived at the society we have now due to "human nature" or some other kind of natural settling, and not, to just pick one alternate hypothesis, an unimaginable amount of violence and plunder carried out across the globe over the last few centuries, then the conclusions in this article make sense.
Otherwise, it probably has some holes.
It really makes me wonder about the author IQ.
It also dismisses the existence of mismatched IQ couples, and highly intelligent men with a hot air head isn't unheard off, and nowadays women have their toy boys too...
Arguments from etymology aren't productive.
So, yeah, I'm thinking troll. That or "articulate nutcase." But probably troll.
That does seem to suggest that the basic premise is flawed.
"(b) creating opportunities for those born on the wrong side of the tracks, so if you start with very little that doesn’t mean you’ll end up with very little, or that your children will"
And you see immediately why meritocracy is a sham. No one wants their stupid and lazy kids to end up "with little", and the rich have the means to ensure this happens.
Of course, like many things to do with rich vs poor, this applies on the national scale too. And generally not even those on the wrong side of the tracks think that people on the wrong side of the border, regardless of merit, should be allowed to cross it to get a better life.
http://www.salon.com/2015/08/09/meritocracy_is_a_massive_lie...
Sorry. Nope. Too much other stuff to read to be giving time to an article that employs such a fallacious and/or naive opening to be bothered.
Sorry if I'm wrong, but this has immediately marked itself out as a propaganda piece, and I note it has been deservedly flagged.
Next ... !