>This has profound implications for the ability of the movement to work in the interests of all humanity. For example, EAs who believe it is important that the human population expand but who think that African people are likely to be stupider than the human average may divert resources away from them. EAs making hiring decisions may prioritise applications from people whom they have not subconsciously assigned to the schema “stupider than me.”
Let’s say that it is true that not only are africans today lower in cognitive ability than whites on average, but that this gap is also mostly heritable (the latter is debatable but there is strong evidence to support it—the former is indisputable unless you think literally every single measure of cognitive ability that has strong predictive validity is radically and fatally flawed) .
Should this be acknoledged? Should this affect how we view the world?
Assuming it’s true, do you believe, as a rationalist, that ignoring fundmental characteristics of human ity that explain more about society than almost any other factors will lead you towards making better decisions?
Speaking only for myself here, I think the answer is an unqualified hell no.
If you assume African Americans are congitive equivlanet to Asian Americans on average, then you will assume that sending more of them to college (in excess of those who can get in on the basis of academic merit alone currently) will result in improved socioeconomic outcomes (even if no affirmative action in hiring existed). But the real result is that many black people will have wasted 2-4 years of their life accumulating debt and forgoing earnings to gain an “education” that did nothing to close the cognitive gaps between themselves and asian americans. The debt, loss of income and wasting of time that could have been used developing valuable skills will hurt these graduates.
If instead, given that we know that intelligence varies between people, and we’re interested in maximising the earning potential of black kids from low income families, we had identified their IQ early on and put our effort into getting them onto the optimal career track for their specific level of cognitive ability.
(The same is true for kids of any race—the difference is people are generally much more accepting of the fact that some white kids are just plain less intelligent than other white kids and can’t have the same careers, and much more of acepting income inequality within than between races. And so there is a much bigger push to get black people specifically into college rather than low income/IQ kids generally, which is why it makes sense to think along racial lines here).
The same logic applies to entire countries. If you assume that Nigerians are no less intelligent than Chinese people, then you’re likely to expect that Nigeria is going to follow the same development path as China once some threshold is passed for e.g. education health and so on. This is almost certainly not going to happen, and expecting it to will mean you will make suboptimal decisions when thinking about how to help countries in Africa.
More controversially, it also would mean that people in Africa are likely going to be of much lower instrumental value to humanity than people in Japan. But choosing to ignore this is actually the decision that is being made on the basis of race. Choosing to factor this into your worldview and decisions means you’re acting on the basis of utility alone and not making decisions aimed at helping people because of their race more than you would of.
Liberal americans obviously aren’t categorically opposed to helping low income black americans more than low income white americans in rural areas/the south, and it’s likely this is because they think that black americans are better people and have more to offer the country, whereas white americans are just dumb and ignorant and cannot be reformed (not everyone believes this entirely, but I think some implicit form of this belief colors much of liberal thought in this area). All I’m saying is this type of thinking also applies more generally, except in this case the difference is based on data rather than intution and in-group favoratism.
If you, as you say, care about “working in the interests of humanity”, you need to think about the interests of humanity collectively. Maximixing the interests of humanity will necessarily involve not helping all groups equally.
Lamentably I am unable to tell you what I think of your comments without breaking the site’s TOS, so instead I will offer that, if I WERE to respond to the substance of what you’ve written, my focus would be upon your reasoning skills and ability to parse empirical evidence :)
I’m a charitable woman, so I won’t mention your spelling—except to note that in the context of this attempt to flex your intellectual bona fides, “congitive equivlanet” is delicious. Have a lovely day.
>This has profound implications for the ability of the movement to work in the interests of all humanity. For example, EAs who believe it is important that the human population expand but who think that African people are likely to be stupider than the human average may divert resources away from them. EAs making hiring decisions may prioritise applications from people whom they have not subconsciously assigned to the schema “stupider than me.”
Let’s say that it is true that not only are africans today lower in cognitive ability than whites on average, but that this gap is also mostly heritable (the latter is debatable but there is strong evidence to support it—the former is indisputable unless you think literally every single measure of cognitive ability that has strong predictive validity is radically and fatally flawed) .
Should this be acknoledged? Should this affect how we view the world?
Assuming it’s true, do you believe, as a rationalist, that ignoring fundmental characteristics of human ity that explain more about society than almost any other factors will lead you towards making better decisions?
Speaking only for myself here, I think the answer is an unqualified hell no.
If you assume African Americans are congitive equivlanet to Asian Americans on average, then you will assume that sending more of them to college (in excess of those who can get in on the basis of academic merit alone currently) will result in improved socioeconomic outcomes (even if no affirmative action in hiring existed). But the real result is that many black people will have wasted 2-4 years of their life accumulating debt and forgoing earnings to gain an “education” that did nothing to close the cognitive gaps between themselves and asian americans. The debt, loss of income and wasting of time that could have been used developing valuable skills will hurt these graduates.
If instead, given that we know that intelligence varies between people, and we’re interested in maximising the earning potential of black kids from low income families, we had identified their IQ early on and put our effort into getting them onto the optimal career track for their specific level of cognitive ability.
(The same is true for kids of any race—the difference is people are generally much more accepting of the fact that some white kids are just plain less intelligent than other white kids and can’t have the same careers, and much more of acepting income inequality within than between races. And so there is a much bigger push to get black people specifically into college rather than low income/IQ kids generally, which is why it makes sense to think along racial lines here).
The same logic applies to entire countries. If you assume that Nigerians are no less intelligent than Chinese people, then you’re likely to expect that Nigeria is going to follow the same development path as China once some threshold is passed for e.g. education health and so on. This is almost certainly not going to happen, and expecting it to will mean you will make suboptimal decisions when thinking about how to help countries in Africa.
More controversially, it also would mean that people in Africa are likely going to be of much lower instrumental value to humanity than people in Japan. But choosing to ignore this is actually the decision that is being made on the basis of race. Choosing to factor this into your worldview and decisions means you’re acting on the basis of utility alone and not making decisions aimed at helping people because of their race more than you would of.
Liberal americans obviously aren’t categorically opposed to helping low income black americans more than low income white americans in rural areas/the south, and it’s likely this is because they think that black americans are better people and have more to offer the country, whereas white americans are just dumb and ignorant and cannot be reformed (not everyone believes this entirely, but I think some implicit form of this belief colors much of liberal thought in this area). All I’m saying is this type of thinking also applies more generally, except in this case the difference is based on data rather than intution and in-group favoratism.
If you, as you say, care about “working in the interests of humanity”, you need to think about the interests of humanity collectively. Maximixing the interests of humanity will necessarily involve not helping all groups equally.
Lamentably I am unable to tell you what I think of your comments without breaking the site’s TOS, so instead I will offer that, if I WERE to respond to the substance of what you’ve written, my focus would be upon your reasoning skills and ability to parse empirical evidence :)
I’m a charitable woman, so I won’t mention your spelling—except to note that in the context of this attempt to flex your intellectual bona fides, “congitive equivlanet” is delicious. Have a lovely day.