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Bob Jacobs Oct 28, 2023, 11:45 PM
107 points
26 ∶ 15

For example, Francis and Kirkegaard (2022) employ the use of instrumental variables
I can view an astonishing amount of publications for free through my university, but they haven’t opted to include this one, weird… So should I pay money to see this “Mankind Quarterly” publication?
When I googled it I found that Mankind Quarterly includes among its founders Henry Garrett an American psychologist who testified in favor of segregated schools during Brown versus Board of Education, Corrado Gini who was president of the Italian genetics and eugenics Society in fascist Italy and Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer who was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of anthropology human heredity and eugenics in Nazi Germany. He was a member of the Nazi Party and the mentor of Josef Mengele, the physician at the Auschwitz concentration camp infamous for performing human experimentation on the prisoners during World War 2. Mengele provided for Verschuer with human remains from Auschwitz to use in his research into eugenics.
It’s funded by the Pioneer Fund which according to wikipedia:
The Pioneer Fund is an American non-profit foundation established in 1937 “to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences”. The organization has been classified as a hate group and has been described as racist and white supremacist in nature.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] One of its first projects was to fund the distribution in US churches and schools of Erbkrank, a Nazi propaganda film about eugenics.^[6]
Something tells me it wouldn’t be very EA to give money to these people.
So what about the second source?
For example, if a high GDP caused higher IQ, we would expect oil-rich nations like Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait to score closer to nations like the USA, UK, and Japan in NIQ. However, they score more in line with their geographic neighbors, suggesting, but not proving, that NIQ causes prosperity rather than vice versa (Christainsen, 2013).
I can check Christainsen’s work since it’s in a reputable journal and thus available through my university. He himself says in the paper:
While differences in average scores worldwide can thus be plausibly viewed as being influenced
by genetic differences across world regions, it is also possible that score differences are influenced by regional differences in culture that are independent of genetic factors.
Cultural factors are harder to measure and thus get neglected in research thanks to the streetlight effect. Still we might sample a subsection of more easily measurable cultural interventions like eduction and see which way they point. We can use the education index to compare the mentioned countries. Countries like the USA, UK and Japan score high on it (0.9, 0.948, 0.851 respectively) while countries like Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait score lower (0.659, 0.802, 0.638 respectively). That seems like a promising indication, but can education actually increase IQ?
You cited Ritchie in this post, but he and his colleagues also have a later meta-analysis showing that education can greatly increase intelligence:
Across 142 effect sizes from 42 data sets involving over 600,000 participants, we found consistent evidence for beneficial effects of education on cognitive abilities of approximately 1 to 5 IQ points for an additional year of education. Moderator analyses indicated that the effects persisted across the life span and were present on all broad categories of cognitive ability studied. Education appears to be the most consistent, robust, and durable method yet to be identified for raising intelligence.
Now you might worry that this is not “true intelligence/g-factor” and a “hollow” gain, but I fear that here we run into the issue that there’s no consensus on what the “true intelligence” actually is. It may be hollow according to your definition but not mine. Even if there was consensus we might disagree about what IQ actually measures. The debate about what aspects of “true intelligence” IQ actually captured is summarized on wikipedia as:
While IQ tests are generally considered to measure some forms of intelligence, they may fail to serve as an accurate measure of broader definitions of human intelligence inclusive of, for example, creativity and social intelligence. For this reason, psychologist Wayne Weiten argues that their construct validity must be carefully qualified, and not be overstated.^[84] According to Weiten, “IQ tests are valid measures of the kind of intelligence necessary to do well in academic work. But if the purpose is to assess intelligence in a broader sense, the validity of IQ tests is questionable.”^[84]
Some scientists have disputed the value of IQ as a measure of intelligence altogether. In The Mismeasure of Man (1981, expanded edition 1996), evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould compared IQ testing with the now-discredited practice of determining intelligence via craniometry, arguing that both are based on the fallacy of reification, “our tendency to convert abstract concepts into entities”.^[90] Gould’s argument sparked a great deal of debate,^[91]^[92] and the book is listed as one of Discover Magazine’s “25 Greatest Science Books of All Time”.^[93]
Along these same lines, critics such as Keith Stanovich do not dispute the capacity of IQ test scores to predict some kinds of achievement, but argue that basing a concept of intelligence on IQ test scores alone neglects other important aspects of mental ability.^[15]^[94] Robert Sternberg, another significant critic of IQ as the main measure of human cognitive abilities, argued that reducing the concept of intelligence to the measure of g does not fully account for the different skills and knowledge types that produce success in human society.^[95]
_______
In 2002, psychologist Richard Lynn and political scientist Tatu Vanhanen published their seminal book in the field of national intelligence entitled IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Their starting assumption was that since IQ and earnings had a positive correlation, the relationship should persist when comparing nations, meaning that nations with higher average IQ should be more economically productive (Lynn & Vanhanen, p. 4).
Yeah, I really wouldn’t trust how that book picks its data. As stated in “A systematic literature review of the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans”:
For instance, Lynn and Vanhanen (2006) accorded a national IQ of 69 to Nigeria on the basis of three samples (Fahrmeier, 1975; Ferron, 1965; Wober, 1969), but they did not consider other relevant published studies that indicated that average IQ in Nigeria is considerably higher than 70 (Maqsud, 1980a, b; Nenty & Dinero, 1981; Okunrotifa, 1976). As Lynn rightly remarked during the 2006 conference of the International Society for Intelligence Research (ISIR), performing a literature review involves making a lot of choices. Nonetheless, an important drawback of Lynn (and Vanhanen)’s reviews of the literature is that they are unsystematic.
They’re not the only one who find Lynn’s choice of data selection suspect. Wikipedia describes him as:
Richard Lynn (20 February 1930 – July 2023) was a controversial English psychologist and self-described “scientific racist”^[1][2][3] who advocated for a genetic relationship between race and intelligence. He was a professor emeritus of psychology at Ulster University, but had the title withdrawn by the university in 2018.^[4] He was the editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly, which is commonly described as a white supremacist journal.^[a] Lynn was lecturer in psychology at the University of Exeter and professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, and at the University of Ulster at Coleraine.
Many scientists criticised Lynn’s work for lacking scientific rigour, misrepresenting data, and for promoting a racialist political agenda.^[b] A number of scholars and intellectuals have said that Lynn is associated with a network of academics and organisations that promote scientific racism.^[c] He has also advocated fringe positions regarding sexual differences in intelligence.^[26]
____
Lynn and Vanhanen collected IQ scores from various studies and made corrections, such as adjusting for the FLynn Effect
I suggest you remove the capital L typo, otherwise people might erroneously think Lynn had something to do with its discovery.
_______
The case for the importance of IQ for numerous real-world outcomes was made in the controversial book The Bell Curve (1994) by psychologist Richard Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray. They cogently argued that cognitive ability was playing a more important role than socioeconomic status in influencing various socioeconomic outcomes such as being in poverty, finishing high school, finishing college, being unemployed, having an illegitimate first birth, having a low-weight baby, committing a crime, and other significant outcomes (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994, pp. 127-268).
That book has so many problems that instead of typing it all out I would like to direct people to this video which points out a lot of them. (It also goes over a lot of Lynn’s other scientific malpractices)
______
Even if one embraces the 100% environmental explanation for national differences in IQ, one can still consider the possibility of environmental interventions being less cost-effective or more limited in magnitude relative to what could be called “genetic interventions.”
I don’t think anyone thinks the environment explains 100%, but given that it’s much larger and has many more variables it seems reasonable to assume it can explain more of it. Since we profess ourselves to be effective altruists I would also like to see a price comparison between the interventions. This post doesn’t really discuss how high the prices for “genetic interventions” are, while environmental interventions like giving iodine are really cheap. Giving iodine used to be one of GiveWell’s top charities:
We have limited data on the costs of iodization, but estimates range from $0.05-$0.10 per person per year. Salt iodization appears to be within the range of cost-effectiveness of our priority programs.
Iodine deficiency causes an average drop of 13 IQ points, which means we can gain much more than the estimated 9 IQ points of embryo selection at a tiny fraction of the cost.
________
This is fortunate, considering the most likely scenario is that elites adopt the technology more rapidly than the population at large. Government subsidies and low costs would ameliorate the issue of inequality.
I think the real worry here is that the elites will use their (increased) power to ensure that the government doesn’t give subsidies to the poor so they can keep their relative power in society. A similar dynamic is already happening in education with the money for public schools vs private schools so I suspect this would also happen with other ‘intelligence-increasing interventions’.
_______
Intellectuals today, even geneticists, continue to take a firm stance against “eugenics” (see Harden, 2021; Rutherford, 2022). Opponents of practices such as screening embryos know that the accusation of “eugenics” is an effective tool because it so widely elicits repugnance. Whether or not a practice like embryo screening qualifies as actual “eugenics” is a fact about the English language rather than morality. The Chinese equivalent, “yousheng,” is used almost exclusively in a positive manner when referring to preimplantation diagnosis (Cyranoski, 2017). Furthermore, the mere accusation of eugenics is insufficient evidence of the practice being repugnant since most people endorse some form of “eugenics.” Even if some practices are eugenic, there are surely morally defensible forms of eugenics (see Weit et al., 2021).
I would argue that’s a good thing. Like @titotal commented on the ‘most people endorse some form of “eugenics”’ post:
I think it’s a good thing that most people have a revulsion towards the Nazi version of eugenics. I think trying to rehabilitate the word “eugenics” could plausibly lead to a lessening of that revulsion and and increase in support for their version. Just use a different word for the thing that’s okay, and that all goes away.
[...]
Trying to rehabilitate the word “eugenics” is like someone trying to rehabilitate the swastika symbol by waving a sanksrit version it around and insisting it means prosperity and good luck. It’s not gonna work, it’s going to offend and upset people, and people are gonna think you’re a Nazi.
____
I do feel some amount of warped-mirror empathy for the fact that you clearly spend a lot of time writing a long post with lots of citations on a politically unpopular position that doesn’t get a lot of karma. A similar thing happened to me albeit from the polar opposite side of the political spectrum, which is why part of me wanted to spend time giving you something I didn’t get, a rigorous reply. But another part of me remembers that the last time I spend time arguing IQ and genetics on this forum a bunch of HBD-proponents brigaded me and I lost karma and voting power.
So I obviously did end up writing this comment ~~because I’m an idiot,~~ but I think I will leave it at that.
Feel free to reply to this comment but I now feel exhausted and fear a back and forth will get me brigaded, sorry :/
What links here?
- nemeryxu's comment on The Effective Altruist Case for Using Genetic Enhancement to End Poverty by 1mkl32j201091 (Oct 29, 2023, 9:15 PM; 8 points)
- 1mkl32j201091 Oct 29, 2023, 3:48 PM
  24 points
  11 ∶ 7
  Parent
  
  1. Regarding Mankind Quarterly and the Pioneer Fund: The relationship between genes, IQ, race, and GDP is very controversial. Prestigious journals are hesitant to publish articles about these topics. Using the beliefs of the founding members in the 1930s to dismiss an article published in 2022 is an extremely weak heuristic. The US government funds a lot of research but it committed unethical acts in the name of eugenics. Sam Bankman-Fried, a fraudster, funded a lot of EA projects. If I linked to some research that was performed using FTX money, I would not consider it worthy of dismissal. Furthermore, bad people can fund and conduct good research. I cited a lot of more mainstream journals for less controversial claims. I don’t consider instrumental variables that strong of evidence, but it felt worth mentioning. I will email you the PDF if you are interested.
  2. Regarding cultural factors: If there are national differences in genotypic IQ, then measures of quality of education and culture will be genetically confounded. I do not doubt that schooling increases scores on tests of mental ability, but the gains appear “hollow.” Hollow is a technical term meaning it is not increasing g. I am not concerned about what “true intelligence” is because “intelligence” is an ordinary term without a precise definition. We can call what IQ scores are trying to measure “GMA” and not care that it’s not “intelligence” but still care that GMA is correlated with good outcomes and we have a means of increasing GMA. The benefits of increases in general mental ability generalize to other areas (career, academic success, good life choices), whereas non-general gains will be limited. As an extreme example, it is obvious why giving children Raven Progressive Matrices is not going to make them drive better. But evidence suggests having higher IQ, reduces risk of traffic accident.
  3. Regarding Richard Lynn: I address this within the article. Until his death, Lynn and colleagues where updating the NIQ scores. Looking at the most recent version on ViewOnIQ from Becker, I see that Lynn has excluded all those samples for the Nigerian estimate and incorporated the Maqsud estimates. He has also included several other more recent estimates, but arrived at a similar estimate still. You can view the samples used and estimates here if you download the file. More importantly, focusing on Lynn is a mistake as I mention in the article. Other less controversial researchers estimate “universal basic skills” or “harmonized learning outcomes” and produce estimates which correlate highly with the NIQ estimates. See the chart from Warne 2023. A side point, but Wikipedia is politically biased. I intentionally capitalized the L to give credit as Richard Lynn’s discovery preceeded Flynn’s first publication. Although, his discovery was preceeded by Runquist.
  4. On The Bell Curve: You say “That book has so many problems that instead of typing it all out I would like to direct people to this video which points out a lot of them.” I don’t plan on watching the 2 hour 39 minute video just to respond to you. At the time, a large number of claims (like the one I make) was not particularly controversial among intelligence researchers (see Gottfredson and APA response). I discuss this in the article. Furthermore, the more recent Rindermann et al. (2020) found in a survey among intelligence experts that many believed SES was substantially explained by intelligence (see in the article). I am also going to make a point about isolated demands for rigor. You are dismissive of some the researchers and journals for lack of academic quality, but in response to a book co-authored by a Harvard psychologist, you give me a YouTube video with a psuedonymous guy with a skull avatar that is part of LeftTube or “Bread Tube”. I am not suggesting this means that I can merely dismiss anything that he’s saying, but I will admit that this feels like a double standard given the Mankind Quarterly critique.
  5. On environmental influence: You say “I don’t think anyone thinks the environment explains 100%, but given that it’s much larger and has many more variables it seems reasonable to assume it can explain more of it.” That doesn’t make sense as an argument in my view. We don’t know that it is larger. Within the USA, the heritability is over 50% in adulthood indicating that genetic differences are the largest driving force among all known influence. Whether that is true of international differences is not entirely clear. The existence of more possible environmental explanations doesn’t mean that it has more explanatory variables. Analogously, this argument would be wrong: There are over a billion base pairs in the genome, therefore genetic explanations are better. The issue is that the environmental influence largely, although not entirely, consists of unsystematic differences. Iodine is an exception and should be given in areas with deprivation. But the gains from embryo selection in large batches is beyond 9 points, and could be used on the non-iodine deficient population.
  I have responded. I don’t know if you will be brigaded. I have not personally downvoted you.
  - Bob Jacobs Oct 30, 2023, 8:57 AM
    14 points
    4 ∶ 3
    Parent
    
    It seems I didn’t get brigaded [tap on wood], but I still feel uneasy answering this. You got some downvotes on this comment initially which means the karma system pushes you to not reply, in the same way it pushed me to not reply to the HBD-proponents I was debating. This voting-power-by-popularity system doesn’t incentivize having conversations, so feel free to answer in the comment section on your substack instead. I will edit in a link to it at the end of this comment if you do so. This comment is going to be shorter anyway.
    Firstly, I wanted to say that I also didn’t downvote your post because while I disagree I do sympathize with the amount of effort that went into it, and this karma system would punish future unrelated posts and comments in a guilt-by-association-fashion, not just this post (although I did give it a disagreement vote since that influences nothing):
    Secondly, to clear up any confusion I don’t think a journal being made by horrible people allows you to conclude that their conclusions are false, but I do think it allows you to not give them any money.
    Thirdly, I think we run into the same issue with g as we do with intelligence. If g is just correlation between different cognitive tasks, then the natural question is, which tasks? And which tasks are considered ‘cognitive tasks’? Because the results will differ based on what you choose.
    Fourthly, I think the difference with linking a video and linking the mankind quarterly is primarily money, one costs 75 dollar and the other is free. For the record I have watched the video in it’s entirety and am not just throwing something at you while I myself don’t know of any counterarguments. I could’ve typed them out, but I just don’t think I have much to add both in terms of information nor presentation. For those who are familiar with the subject you can skip to 1:02:11 of the video at which point he really starts diving into their methodology instead of giving a general overview. Which ties into...
    Fifthly, I think the video points out a general pattern of Lynn and his colleagues using a clearly cherrypicked dataset then being called out on it, at which point they switch to another slightly less clearly cherrypicked dataset which people then call them out on etc. Now maybe this latest dataset they use is genuinely good but I think this is a ‘boy who cried wolf’ scenario where I just no longer think it’s prudent to trust them or trust that reading their work is a productive use of time.
    Lastly, maybe at some point we run out of good environmental interventions (like iodine) and maybe then (assuming some premises) it becomes prudent to switch to genetic interventions. But until that time we should focus on those environmental interventions, not just because of their immediate cost effectiveness but also because of one of my points you didn’t address, namely that those environmental interventions are way more egalitarian/emancipatory, which produces better results in the longterm.
    - 1mkl32j201091 Oct 31, 2023, 2:13 AM
      24 points
      9 ∶ 4
      Parent
      
      I will respond here because it’s important for everyone to see.
      You don’t need to give the journal money. I am offering to email you the pdf if you are that interested.
      Cognitively demanding tasks. These require puzzle-solving, reasoning, drawing on past knowledge, connecting ideas, etc. As long as the test has a wide range of tasks like this, estimates will be similar. Provided they are cognitively demanding and diverse, results are not particularly sensitive to the actual content of the test for native speakers. Spearman called this the “indifference of the indicator.” You can read more in Chapter 7 of Rusell Warne’s book In The Know.
      Another interpretation of what Lynn is doing is improving his estimates when people critique him. As I mentioned in the article, many other researchers estimating national averages on mental ability tests produce moderate to highly correlated estimates with Lynn’s. Why do you think that is? And who do you think has more accurate estimates? If you have a specific objection to the scores, I can respond with estimates of correlations after making adjustments. Ee can use the ViewOnIQ data to drop scores/samples from countries you find are bad. Or we can Winsorize the scores and check the strength of the relationship. Or we can look at Rindermann’s estimates.
      What do you think, in your view, is the correlation between average cognitive ability and log(GDP/c)? What are you basing this estimate on, and why is it better than Lynn, Becker, Rindermann, Angrist, etc?
      Iodine deficiency will not work for everyone, only those who are iodine-deprived. Where people are iodine deficient, we should try to help them. I focus on genetic enhancement because it is under-considered. The possible returns from genetic enhancement will be unevenly distributed but have the potential to be absolutely massive. Since parents will adopt it voluntarily and IVF is largely legal worldwide (and hopefully IVG will be), there is a plausible means of improving humanity immensely merely through funding research in a narrow area to accelerate certain discoveries.
- Fergus Fettes Oct 29, 2023, 9:29 AM
  2 points
  4 ∶ 3
  Parent
  
  This comment makes me sad, I’m sorry you got brigaded and I’m sorry you have had such bad experiences with this topic. It is a truly difficult and painful area to read about.
  
  But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Even if you are right on every point and all of this was made up by a bunch of evil racists, it should be very easy to prove them wrong, just by eg. doing any of these studies carefully.
  
  Otoh, if this material reflects something true about the world, it has significant implications and needs to be faced with an open heart at some point.
nemeryxu Oct 28, 2023, 7:56 PM
23 points
6 ∶ 10

Not an expert in the area, but the data on National IQ seems shoddy at best, fraudulent at worst. Due to the number of potential confounds, I don’t put much stock in cross-country regression analyses, especially when run on such poor data.
- 1mkl32j201091 Oct 28, 2023, 8:24 PM
  24 points
  9 ∶ 1
  Parent
  
  Can you point me to a measure of cognitive ability that is both better and does not show a moderate-strong correlation with NIQ scores? From the article, I provided several studies that use testing data like PISA to create scores of mental ability (some calling it “harmonized learning outcomes” or “universal basic skills”), but these have a moderate to strong correlation with NIQ scores anyway. What other good data on cognitive ability are you using to inform your beliefs? I provided an estimate of NIQxlog(GDP/c) at 0.82. What do you think the actual value is and how do you reach that number?
- nemeryxu Oct 29, 2023, 9:15 PM
  8 points
  2 ∶ 2
  Parent
  
  I refer to Bob Jacobs’ excellent reply for covering some of my concerns in more depth (and adding many I didn’t know about).
- Fergus Fettes Oct 28, 2023, 8:59 PM
  5 points
  5 ∶ 0
  Parent
  
  Would you at least concede that the topic is worthy of open-minded study? It seems like the potential is huge if there is any truth to it.
  And furthermore
  - if it is true, it seems like no amount of burying ones head in the sand is going to help
  - and if it is not true, further research should show this.
  Seems like the only reason not to do the research would be to hide from uncomfortable facts—facts which could be used to hugely improve human welfare, and which will not go away if they are not faced.
  - nemeryxu Oct 29, 2023, 9:12 PM
    −4 points
    2 ∶ 8
    Parent
    
    In principle any topic is worthy of further study. However, given the cost of information processing and amount of biased noise written on the topic by the likes of Charles Murray, I would need studies far stronger than ones done on interpolated national IQ values to update my beliefs about the topic’s importance.
    - 1mkl32j201091 Oct 31, 2023, 4:56 AM
      8 points
      8 ∶ 2
      Parent
      
      What have you read from Murray that you found biased? What views do you think he holds that are out of line with mainstream opinion of intelligence researchers?
Dzoldzaya Nov 5, 2023, 1:48 PM
6 points
2 ∶ 0

I agree with your general case, and I’m interested in the role that genetics can play in improving educational and socio-economic outcomes across the world. In the case of a world where biological intelligence remains relevant (not my default scenario, but plausible), this will become an increasingly interesting question.

However, I’m unconvinced that an EA should want to invest in any of the suggested donation interventions at the minute—they seem to be examples where existing research and market incentives would probably be sufficient. I’m not sure that more charitable support would have a strong counterfactual impact at the margins. (Note: I know very little about funding for genetics research—it seems expensive and already quite well-funded, but please correct me if I’m wrong here).

In terms of whether we should promote/ talk about it more, I think EA has limited “controversy points” that should be used sparingly for high-impact cause areas or interventions. I don’t feel that improving NIQ through genetic interventions scores well on the “EV vs. controversy” trade-off. There are other genetic enhancement interventions (e.g. reducing extreme suffering, in humans or farmed animals), that seem to give you more EV for less controversy.

Also, if we do make this case, I think that mentioning Lynn/ Vanhanen is probably unwise, and that you could make the case equally well without the more controversial figures/ references.

Finally, I’d like to see a plausible pathway or theory of change for a more explicitly EA-framed case for genetic enhancement. For example, we expect this technology to develop anyway, but people with an EA framing could:

1. Promote the use of embryo screening to avert strongly negative cognitive outcomes
2. If this technology is proven to be cost-effective in rich countries, remove barriers to rolling it out in countries where it could have a greater counterfactual impact
Fergus Fettes Oct 28, 2023, 8:59 PM
6 points
4 ∶ 2

Great post! I’m not sure how this proposal will fare, given the politics surrounding it, but I think you have done justice to the topic.
I think the reproductive choice angle has the highest potential traction, and in general I agree that democratizing this technology is better than trying to ban it. (I gave a talk at a digital humanities conference in Germany this year on the topic, just trying to raise awareness and encourage discussion.)
Another angle that you don’t seem to cover is surrogacy. In Full Surrogacy Now Sophie Lewis makes the case for radically expanding surrogacy—which implicitly includes IVF and pre-implantation screening, so it might be the quickest way to start accelerating progress in this area. As she points out in the book, population from the global south is often used for surrogacy by those who can afford it, since it was banned in wealthier countries. So some of them should already have some experience with the technology.
Nathan Young Apr 16, 2024, 6:45 PM
4 points
2 ∶ 2

In general I think large changes shouldn’t happen without consent. Seems a pretty bad idea to push onto poor nations when rich nations don’t allow this. Note how this is different from vaccinations and cash transfers which are both legal and desired by those receiving them.
If westerners want to genetically enhance their kids they can, and if we give money to those in poverty and they decide to use it for genetic enhancement (unlikely), fair enough. But trialling things that we in the west find deeply controversial in poorer nations seems probably awful, whether it’s on an individual or national level.
The case seems more interesting to remove the ban on voluntary genetic enhancement in the West and see how that goes. I’d read estimates of impact there.
Also this article is really long on a difficult topic. I can empathise with people who guessed they’d disagree and so downvoted without reading closely.
- 1mkl32j201091 Apr 17, 2024, 12:16 AM
  −4 points
  2 ∶ 0
  Parent
  
  I can empathise with people who guessed they’d disagree and so downvoted without reading closely.
  It seems unfair to me that people are downvoting me without reading my article. What function does the downvote serve except to suppress ideas if those using it are not even reading the article? This seems out of line with EA virtues.
  At one point (no longer it appears), it appeared my article was not even searchable with the EA forum search function and the analytics suggested that the average person who viewed it was reading about 10% (4-5 minutes/40 minutes) of it. Perhaps they are reading it but not “closely”, I cannot be certain. Maybe it’s inflated by people who are responding to comments or just looking again.
  But I have responded in a respectful manner to constructive comments. If someone has constructive thoughts, they can share them in the comments. I think that would contribute more to the EA community and improve people’s ability to think clearly about the issue than merely downvoting.
  I have also asked how to better advocate for my cause, and still received many downvotes. What can I do and what should I do to avoid being downvoted by people who are (most likely) not even reading my article?
  In general I think large changes shouldn’t happen without consent.
  In this article, I am not advocating for violating consent. Why do you think otherwise? I said:
  The era of “new eugenics” characterized by the use of reprogenetic technology will be morally incomparable to the atrocities of the past because this form will not only be harmless but actually be consensual and improve human welfare. An irony of the “eugenics” objection to some forms of reprogenetic technology is that the new eugenics facilitates better-informed consensual reproductive decisions, while those who want to ban such technology are advocating coercion in reproduction. [...]
  New eugenics, characterized by reprogenetic technology and voluntary choice, …
  In my policy proposal, I am not advocating for forcing this on people. I do say:
  In governments with restrictions on selection on the basis of cognitive traits, advocates for genetic enhancement should lobby for reproductive autonomy.
  None of the policy proposals involve forcing this on anyone. I want to make the technology available for voluntary use, and I think that should be EAs aim.
  Seems a pretty bad idea to push onto poor nations when rich nations don’t allow this. Note how this is different from vaccinations and cash transfers which are both legal and desired by those receiving them.
  The technologies that I mention are emerging technologies and most have them have yet to be created. I want EA to accelerate the advances so people can voluntarily use the technology. I am not advocating violating consent.
  The use of PGT is not entirely legal for cosmetic/IQ in all countries (for example prohibited in Germany), but it is legal in the US and some others. IVF is legal almost all over the world. Besides, restricting people from making voluntary reproductive choices is actually coercion, not lifting legal restrictions. Letting women have reproductive autonomy is not forcing this on poor nations.
  If westerners want to genetically enhance their kids they can, and if we give money to those in poverty and they decide to use it for genetic enhancement (unlikely), fair enough. But trialling things that we in the west find deeply controversial in poorer nations seems probably awful, whether it’s on an individual or national level.
  See my recommendations in the conclusion. My argument is that people will voluntarily adopt it if the technology is available. No direct spending on subsidizing or “trialling” on poorer nations is necessary.
  The case seems more interesting to remove the ban on voluntary genetic enhancement in the West and see how that goes. I’d read estimates of impact there.
  Polygenic screening is available in the US and currently practiced. Research is being done to improve gene editing. Start ups and researchers are working on IVG. For example, research is underway on iterated meiotric selection and sperm selection. I don’t believe any of that is illegal, at least not now. I think legalizing gene-editing of embryos is probably not a good idea right now because the tech isn’t ready yet. But most of my focus was on accelerating the technology. I want it to be safe.
  I did provide a discussion of the expected impact. One of the publicly available companies, Genomic Prediction, investigated the impact as measured in DALYs. I mentioned this in the article:
  There are worthwhile benefits to PGT-P. Widen et al. (2022) constructed a health index that led to a gain of roughly 4 DALYs among individuals of European ancestry. The benefits of selection among siblings of European ancestry would be between 3 and 4 DALYs.
  I also discussed the expected return from selection for IQ among currently available batches in section IV. And I discussed why IQ was important and what the expected impact could look like.
  It seems that I am failing in communicating my message through my article, so please help me to be better. What more can I do to be persuasive or better present my message in a way that aligns with EA virtues? I genuinely believe this is an important cause area and I want to help humanity.
  - Nathan Young Apr 17, 2024, 9:00 AM
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    I don’t enjoy responses that are 3x as long as the message I wrote.
    It seems unfair to me that people are downvoting me without reading my article. What function does the downvote serve except to suppress ideas if those using it are not even reading the article?
    I think it’s fine to vote on expectation. I did, then reread your article and I endorse my vote, so mainly I’d have saved the time reading it.
    In my policy proposal, I am not advocating for forcing this on people. I do say:
    In governments with restrictions on selection on the basis of cognitive traits, advocates for genetic enhancement should lobby for reproductive autonomy.
    So I think another issues is that you don’t really make clear what your policy proposal is. Or like I read about half the article and skimmed the rest. So I assumed given the title you wanted to trial it in the developing world, was I wrong?
    I want to make the technology available for voluntary use, and I think that should be EAs aim.
    Sure then write that article. I think “lets legalise genetic testing in the west” is a much less controversial article. Are you deliberately framing your ideas in a way that they can be misinterpreted?
    It seems that I am failing in communicating my message through my article, so please help me to be better. What more can I do to be persuasive or better present my message in a way that aligns with EA virtues?
    Write shorter pieces where your recommendations are really clear and definitely not awful stuff. If this piece was “I think we should run genetic engineering companies in israel, where it’s both legal and desired” I think it could have a better reaction.
    - 1mkl32j201091 Apr 17, 2024, 1:26 PM
      2 points
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      I don’t enjoy responses that are 3x as long as the message I wrote.
      I don’t know how to respond to this.
      So I think another issues is that you don’t really make clear what your policy proposal is.
      It’s clearly laid out in a list at the end of 8 points in the conclusion. I am not advocating for awful stuff, nor illegal stuff, nor coercive stuff. I don’t want to trial it there—but I want the developing world to have access to this technology so couples can voluntarily use it.
      Are you deliberately framing your ideas in a way that they can be misinterpreted?
      No. I think people are either not reading it or being deliberately dishonest and I don’t think it’s because of the title.
      - Nathan Young Apr 19, 2024, 2:36 PM
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        Well I have spend like an hour on your post and only just found the policy proposals. Why not put them at the top? Or with a heading?
        Also I don’t really see what your policies have to do with ending poverty—seems like if successful these would be taken up in the west and then there would still be huge amounts of poverty.
        I agree that many people will downvote your piece without reading it (though many will upvote for the same reason, and it seems there is some of both going on here) but I really did try and read it and it was soooooo long and very unclear. Maybe my thoughts don’t matter to you, but if you want my advice, clear writing involves the audience taking away what you intended from the piece. I don’t think you’ve succeed with me, despite my spending 30 − 60 minutes on it.
John Salter Oct 28, 2023, 8:15 PM
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Lets assume human genetic engineering is wholy morally permissable for sake of discussion.

Wouldn’t it be more effective to clone scientific geniuses? It seems like you could do a lot more good with a lot less effort this way.
- 1mkl32j201091 Oct 28, 2023, 8:29 PM
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  If we have an extremely good understanding of the human genome and we achieve genetic engineering with little to no off-target mutations or we achieve in vitro gametogenesis, then returns will be far larger through genetic enhancement. The major benefit will be that children will be related to their parents rather than some stranger. This will help with widespread adoption.
Roko Nov 4, 2023, 10:01 PM
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Long post on eugenics, −1 points right now and lots of comments disagreeing.

Looks like this is a political battle; I’ll skip actually reading it and note that these kinds of issues are not decided rationally but politically, EA is a left-wing movement so eugenics is axiomatically bad.

From a right-wing point of view one can even see it as a good thing that the left is irrational about this kind of thing, it means that they will be late adopters of the technology and fall behind.