EA forum users are making false claims about me. Do not believe everything you read here.
Offline.
EA forum users are making false claims about me. Do not believe everything you read here.
Offline.
In my view, Bostrom was making a point about offensive language and decided to use actually offensive examples. I think the appropriateness of this depends on context. I don’t know the attitudes of the email group but I if nobody was particularly offended or only a few people, it seems like minimal harm.
However, whoever was looking back through old emails was going to deliberately spread to an audience thousands of times larger which increases the number of offended persons by orders of magnitude.
If this were about offense then either the person rummaging through old emails or 2023-Bostrom is the most morally blameworthy. I think the actual issue is that Bostrom harbors politically incorrect views and people want to lower his status, this was just the best way of doing so.
I think honestly that if people are extremely upset by the text, they should not discuss the text and avoid it for their own mental well-being.
Embryo selection for cognitive ability would have plenty of positive downstream consequences. If in vitro gametogenesis enables selection from large batches, there could be large gains from selection. If smart fraction theory is true, then widespread cognitive genetic enhancement even among a small portion of the population may have disproportionately large downstream positive consequences. Not discussing cognitive ability might be deterimental considering the benefits are so large. This is one cause area that I think is drastically underconsidered due in part to stigma.
Population geneticists tend to use the term “populations” from what I understand rather than race. Race is an imprecise term. However, people of the white race, black race, and Asian race tend to have different allele frequencies. That is why 23andMe is able to determine a persons ancestry. People of a shared ancestry tend to be more related to one another.
I’m not sure if IQ is particularly mysterious. There was a rise in average IQ score across several decades in the 20th century. IQ tends to be the determiner of social position rather than the other way around.
Regardless of the cause, Bostroms statement about the relative scores of whites and blacks was accurate. I do not think it is “bad” in the moral sense. His view was not out of line with mainstream intelligence researchers at the time. It is still not inaccurate to recognize there exists a disparity. Progress minded people still speak about college entrance exam disparities which are rather highly correlated with IQ.
I do not like the above fact. I would rather it not true. But I do not think I am bad for believing it because I think it is true and believing the truth is morally good. If I have been duped by the intelligence research community, then I have made an error in reasoning, but I still do not think I am immoral for doing so.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Do you think there are absolutely no differences between races in how they score on IQ tests?
Do you believe in race science?
Edit: Comment below was deleted so I am posting what prompted me to ask this question.
My point is that “IQ differences between races = race science” is such a low qualifying bar that you might fall under it. It appears the author of this post acknowledges the existence of IQ differences. Many people do not dispute that there are disparities in IQ scores, as well as SAT, ACT, MCAT, etc.
I believe there exist gaps on these tests. And yet, I wish they did not exist. Many come to these conclusions not because they are “trying to prove the superiority of one race over another race” but because they are persuaded by the evidence. The people willing to discuss this are extraordinarily atypical due to extreme selection pressure from social stigma. This probably makes most sane people “in the know” avoid discussing the topic entirely.
Again, if there are no differences then open inquiry will reveal the truth and we should pursue these questions. If there are differences and its infohazardous, we ought to want to prepare by inoculating people from the idea that anything heinous follows from these facts. Eventually genetic researchers will demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt what is true. They will talk about ancestral populations when they do rather than races. Researching the genetic architecture of cognitive ability will inadvertently point to population differences if they exist.
If we hide data and do not expand datasets on cognitive ability and other culturally sensitive traits of diverse non-European populations, parents from those populations will have less ability to accurately select embryos with those desired traits. The sensitivity around these questions creates an unwillingness to do GWAS of IQ and even prevents scientists from accessing NIH data.
Since I am a strong proponent of cognitive enhancement and think IQ is a major driving force in inter- and intranational socioeconomic outcomes, I think stigmatizing and delaying research into these topics is extaordinarily harmful. Slight delays could mean the differences between global catestrophe and a longterm future. Massive cognitive enhancement would be extraordinarly important.
I think this is generally true, but might benefit from some examples or more specifics.
I think [April Fools] added to the title might be a good addition since the tag is hard to see.
In response to the drama over Bostroms apology for an old email, the original email has been universally condemned from all sides.
I do not condemn Bostrom.
And if the content is so offensive as to be upsetting and harmful to the movement, it must also be harmful to continue posting and discussing its contents.
I think he discussed eugenics because he was preemptively addressing potential attacks that he suspected where coming.
What follows from a belief about differences depends on a persons moral framework. Most people have reasonable moral frameworks and so nothing heinous follows. And most people without henous beliefs do not want to be lumped in with people with heinous beliefs (as is extremely common). So they just do not talk about this stuff, further skewing the public impression of your average believer in differences.
What I think happens is that some people think that since it would be unjust for genetic disparities to exist, then genetic disparities do not exist. That’s mixing up is and ought. We have no strong reason to think that the world is just. In tons of other domains, the world is incredibly unjust.
The current taboos are not really chesterton’s fense. People used to say all sorts of wildly offensive things not that long ago. Think of how rapidly our culture has come to accept transgenderism and how recently it was acceptable to mock cross-dressing.
If you have the belief that groups are the same, then disparity in representation points to someone putting their finger on the scale (intentional racial discrimination).
If you have the belief that groups are different, then equality in representation points to someone putting their finger on the scale (intentional racial discrimination).
Obviously these points of view are completely at odds with any sort of fair and inclusive community or organization
A person who believes in disparities would expect a fair organization to have disparity. Many would like college admissions to be race-blind, but in doing so, many suspect this would produce disparate represenation seeing as there are different averages for SAT/ACT/GPA.
I highly doubt you’re a bad person. In fact, I would suspect that even if you believed in HBD, you would still care about the welfare of others of all races. I don’t think you should feel so guilty.
I think that social justice norms are sometimes harmful from a consequentialist viewpoint. The social justice project largely consists of highlighting disparities between oppressor groups and oppressed groups and attributing disparities to immoral action on the part of oppressor groups. I think that most of these beliefs are actually false and the proposed solutions are harmful in that they will not actually solve the problem because the belief is false. I think that they make social relations worse.
More egregious is social justice advocates propensity for censorship in the name of emotional harm-avoidance, and the willingness to attack the character of people who disagree with their viewpoint as bigots of various types. And most egregious is the small minority who actively causes reputational damage, firings, and ostracism.
I think that various harmful social views and policies persist because many social justice advocates think they’re so right they don’t need particularly good truth-seeking behavior.
Great thoughts
I meant to link to Gottfredson’s statement. Do you think that black people and other racial groups scored equally on IQ tests in 1996? I don’t. My point is that there was a good number of people who had this belief and if Bostrom formulated a true belief, it seems odd that he should face criticism for this. If you think it is false, we can discuss more.
I don’t know whether exactly it is a “poor choice” but the reason people talk about genetics and race is because they believe that the social categories have different gene variant frequencies resulting in phenotypic differences on socially relevant traits.
The Tuu are an unusual case. I fully grant that many would see a Tuu and not recognize that they are genetically much more distant. But most Americans have probably never even met a Bushman (I think this is the more respectful term than San).I do not think that these categories are perfectly defined and unambiguous, and yet I think they can have genetic differences.
This may not apply to you in particular, but I feel there is often isolated demands for semantic precision. People don’t object as often to arguments about race in this way in other contexts. For example, “black people are abused by the police more” doesn’t get the response of “what do you mean by black? Is a mixed race person black? What if they look mostly white? What is a police? Does that include security guards? What if a police officer abused a black person but it turned out it was actually a rather dark skinned Sri Lankan? Do Bushmen count as black?” I understand what progressives are talking about when they say Black people even if there is not a platonic ideal definition. And although you can find some counter examples, I think it is generally true that black people tend to be more related to eachother than white people.
You call “whiteness in EA” an “issue.” You say that being asked to get to the EA part of your point “by men and white folks is widespread in EA. And it makes [your] blood boil.” You consider my post on the EA forum to be a bad experience, saying you are disappointed in “posts like this by white people on eugenics in poor, non-white countries.”
The entire purpose of my post was to provide a plan to uplift the poor of the world, something every EA advocates for. I did so in a respectful manner, and I did not attack any race or say anything hateful whatsoever. Did you read it? I tried to argue my case in an extremely non-inflammatory manner citing a huge number of studies. Now it’s at −26 karma. You criticize me explicitly for my race. You make it a salient aspect of my argument when it is not relevant whatsoever and I’m being penalized for it. You also just assumed I’m white. Based on what? My picture? My name? Would you find me more reasonable or moral if I was a different race? If not, then why does it matter. If so, then how is this not racist/biased?
You on the other hand are especially disgusted bothered by things that white people do by your own admission. You are especially concerned when white folks do something or post something. Also, you consider whiteness a problem.
This is a disappointing trend in EA that will drive out interesting thinking. Do you want more data analysis or anecdotes and appeals to emotion? Do we want to be trying to find the most effective ways to maximize human welfare (for all races) or do we want to be engaging in identity politics where non-white opinions and welfare are less important?
Well, I think Bostrom is doing damage control rather than feeling guilty, so I largely agree with that.
Your first post on the Forum was, in my mind, rather dismissive of objections to the infamous Bostrom listserv, and suggested we instead criticize whoever brought this information to light (even though there is zero reason to believe they are a member of this community or an adjacent community). That’s not a good way to start signaling good faith.
You may disagree with my argument, but it was made in good faith. I’m not trolling or lying in that article. The reason I wrote that was because I felt that I could contribute a perspective which the majority of EA was overlooking. Similarly for the case for genetic enhancement. It is not discussed very much, so I felt I could make a unique contribution. Whereas, in other areas like animal welfare—I did not feel like I had a particularly important insight. If someone’s first post was about veganism and a later posts were about veganism, it would not be a good reason to think the person is arguing in bad faith.
I think the reason you might think what I am doing might be bad faith is because you attribute nefarious intentions to people interested in genetic enhancement. Perhaps the base rate of people talking about “eugenics” is higher for being bad faith, but it is much simpler to just consider the content of the message they are sending at the moment. Besides, if someone writes a 10K word well-argued article (in my opinion) for topic X that is attempting to be grounded in reality and extensively cited, it seems weird to call it “bad faith” if it is not trollish or highly deceptive.
Much of your prior engagement in comments on the Forum has related to race, genetics, eugenics, and intelligence, although it has started to broaden as of late. That’s not a good way to show that you are not seeking to “inject a discussion about race, genetics, eugenics, and intelligence in EA circles” either.
When I see that EAs are making wrong statements about something I know about, I feel like I am in a position to correct them. These not mostly responses to EAs who are already discussing these topics. Moreover, if a discussion of intelligence, genes, genetic enhancement (or even race) could improve human welfare then it is worth having. My work is not merely an effort to “inject” these topics needlessly into EA.
Single-focus posters are not going to get the same presumption of good faith on topics like this that a more balanced poster might. Maybe you are a balanced EA in other areas, but I can only go by what you have posted here, in your substack, and (presumably) elsewhere as Ives Parr. I understand why you might prefer a pseudonym, but some of us have a consistent pseudonym under which we post on a variety of topics. So I’m not going to count the pseudonym against you, but I’m going to base my starting point on “Ives Parr” as known to me without assuming more well-rounded contributions elsewhere.
If I was a single-issue poster on veganism, would you assume I am bad faith? If you want to have a prior of suspiciousness based being somewhat single-issue, I suppose you can. But you should have a posterior belief based on the actual content of the posts. I’ll further add here that I have been thinking about EA generally and considered myself an EA for a long time:
“Should Effective Altruists make Risky Investments?” (Dec 9, 2021)
“What We Owe The Future” book review (Sep 28, 2022)
Defending EA against a critique by Bryan Caplan (Aug 4, 2023)
I could use further evidence of my participation in the EA community, but you have to understand my hesitation as people are suggesting I’m basically a Nazi and parsing over my past work—something I consider immoral and malicious in this context.
But ultimately, I don’t think this matters too much because you can just literally read the content. Arguing like this is kind of silly. It involves a type of reputation destruction based on past comments that is quite unvirtuous intellectually. And once we have the content of the post, it no longer seems relevant. We should just majorly update on whether I seem good faith in the post or not.
I must commend you for actually engaging with the content. Thank you.
A Surprising Conclusion
As far as the environmental/iodine issues, let me set for a metaphor to explain one problem in a less ideologically charged context. Let’s suppose I was writing an article on improving life expectancy in developing countries. Someone with a passing knowledge of public health in developing countries, and the principles of EA. might expect that the proposed solution would be bednets or other anti-infectious disease technologies. Some might assign a decent probability to better funding for primary care, a pitch for anti-alcohol campaigns, or sodium reduction work. Almost no one would have standing up quaternary-care cancer facilities in developing countriesusing yet-to-be-developed drugs on their radar list. If someone wrote a long post suggesting that was the way, I would suspect they might have recently lost a loved one to cancer or might have some other external reason for reaching that conclusion.
I reject this analogy and I substitute my own which I think is more fitting. If someone was discussing alleviating the impact of malaria with bed nets, and someone came along with a special interest in gene drives and suggested it could have a huge impact—perhaps a much larger impact that bed nets—then it would seem this is a reasonable point of discussion that is not necessarily motivated by some ulterior motive. I used this analogy in the article as well. Whether or not gene drives are better is an empirical question. If someone made an extended argument why they think it could be high impact, then it is questionable to think it’s bad faith. Especially if there is not trollish or rude or highly deceptive comments.
I think that’s a fair analogy of your recommendation here—you’re proposing technology that doesn’t exist and wouldn’t be affordable to the majority of people in the most developed countries in the world if it did. The fact that your chosen conclusion is an at least somewhat speculative, very expensive technology should have struck you as pretty anomalous and thrown up some caution flags. Yours could be the first EA cause area that would justify massive per-person individual expenditures of this sort, but the base rate of that being true seems rather low. And in light of your prior comments, it is a bit suspicious that your chosen intervention is one that is rather adjacent to the confluence of “race, genetics, eugenics, and intelligence in EA circles.”
Some of the technology currently exists. We can perform polygenic embryo screening and gene-editing is in its early stages but not yet safe. We have also achieved IVG in mice, and there are start ups that are working on it currently. That breakthrough would bring very large returns in terms of health, intelligence, and happiness. Metaculus estimated that IVG was ~10 years away.
My argument is not for “massive per-person individual expenditures of this sort.” This is wrong. I gave 8 policy proposals and give a bunch of money to people to use this technology was not on the list. I was mostly advocating accelerating the research and allowing voluntary adoption. If EA accelerates the breakthroughs, people would use it voluntarily.
A Really Concerning Miss in Your Post
Turning to your post itself, the coverage of possible environmental interventions in developing countries in the text (in the latter portions of Part III) strikes me as rather skimpy. You acknowledge that environmental and nutritional factors could play a role, but despite spending 100+ hours on the post, and despite food fortification being at least a second-tier candidate intervention in EA global health for a long time, you don’t seem to have caught the massive effect of cheap iodine supplementation in the original article. None of the citations for the four paragraphs after “The extent to which the failure of interventions in wealthy nations is applicable to developing nations is unclear” seem to be about environmental or nutritional effects or interventions in developing countries.
While I can’t tell if you didn’t know about iodine or merely chose not to cite any study about nutritional or environmental intervention in developing countries, either way Bob’s reference to a 13-point drop in IQ from iodine deficiency should have significantly updated you that your original analysis had either overlooked or seriously undersold the possibility for these interventions. Indeed, much relevant information was in a Wikipedia article you linked on the Flynn effect, which notes possible explanations such as stimulating environment, nutrition, infectious diseases, and removal of lead from gasoline [also a moderately well-known EA initiative]. Given that you are someone who has obviously studied intelligence a great deal, I am pretty confident you would know all of this, so it seems implausible that this was a miss in research.
On a single Google search (“effects of malnutrition in children on iq”), one of the top articles was a study in JAMA Pediatrics describing a stable 15.3-point drop in IQ from malnutrition that was stable over an eight-year time period. This was in Mauritius in the 1970s, which had much lower GDP per capita at the time than now but I believe was still better in adjusted terms than many places are in 2024. The percentage deemed malnourished was about 22%, so this was not a study about statistically extreme malnutrition. And none of the four measures were described as reflecting iodine deficiency. That was the first result I pulled, as it was in a JAMA journal. A Wikipedia article on “Impact of Health on Intelligence” was also on the front page, which would have clued you into a variety of relevant findings.
We should be giving people iodine where they are deficient and preventing starvation. Bob raised this objection and I addressed it in the comments. It is worth mentioning. I did say that environmental conditions can depress IQ in the original article, especially at the extremes. The part about heritability that I mentioned undermines the impactfulness to some extent because the environmentality of IQ is low and the sources of variation are not particularly clear. But heritability is not well estimated between developing and developed nations, so I expressed some hesistancy about reaching a strong conclusion there.
There is a lot of work on preventing starvation and malnutrition already, so the aim was to be neglected, tractable, and important. The benefit of accelerating enhancement is that people can voluntarily use it without the need for spending money in each case. Moreover, the gains from enhancement would be very very large for certain forms of technology and there we can embrace both types of intervention where the environmental interventions are effective. Here is what I said in the original article:
The extent to which the failure of interventions in wealthy nations is applicable to developing nations is unclear. If interventions are largely ineffective, this is evidence that they may be ineffective in the developing world. However, there is a plausible case to be made for certain threshold effects or influences unique to the conditions of poor nations. In some countries, children suffer from extreme levels of malnutrition and exposure to parasites. Extremely few children in the developed world face such obstacles. An intervention that prevents extreme malnutrition might appear ineffective in the United States but shows gains in Yemen or South Sudan. When nutrient deprivation is so great that it disrupts proper brain formation, it is likely to depress not only IQ scores but also cognitive ability. Similarly, when groups are wholly unexposed to logical reasoning, they are likely to score lower on IQ tests. Such issues are not wholly uncommon, and interventions would play an important role in such instances. Furthermore, for populations unexposed to academic tests, IQ scores will likely underestimate ability.
The extent to which we can expect environmental interventions to work as a means of improving NIQ largely depends on the extent to which we think environmental differences are driving international differences. If we suspect that NIQ differences are driven entirely by environmental differences, then improvements in nutrition and education may equalize scores. If genetic differences are playing a causal role, equalizing environments will not equalize NIQ scores. A reasonable prior assumption is non-trivial levels of influence from both. Various lines of evidence point to the prospect of zero genetic influence globally being exceptionally unlikely. For example, interventions are largely ineffective in the USA, with an average IQ of approximately 97-99, and the US still lags behind Singapore with an NIQ of approximately 106-107 (Becker, 2019). While some dismiss the genetic influence of genes on NIQ as “not interesting,” it is extremely relevant to the near future of humanity, especially considering that countries with lower NIQ typically have higher fertility (Francis, 2022).
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.” Furthermore, since there are little to no means of permanently boosting IQ in more developed countries, there may be stagnation once a country reaches beyond a certain threshold of average nutrition and education.
Looking toward genetic interventions may be more fruitful, even if we accept that environmental interventions are important to some extent. IQ gains without diminishing marginal returns are implausible, given that adults in academic institutions or pursuing academic interests do not continue to add IQ points cumulatively until they achieve superintelligence. Some forms of genetic enhancement would not suffer from this problem of diminishing returns, and could in fact create superintelligent humans. Also importantly, if a genetic intervention could be administered at birth and reduce the need for additional years of schooling, it could save a tremendous amount of a student’s time.
This is a really bad miss in my mind, and is really hard for me to square with the post being written by a curious investigator who is following the data and arguments where they lead toward the stated goal of effectively ending poverty through improving intelligence. If readily-available data suggest a significant increase in intelligence from extremely to fairly cheap, well-studied environmental interventions like vitamin/mineral supplementation, lead exposure prevention, etc., then I would expect an author on this Forum pitching a much more speculative, controversial, and expensive proposal to openly acknowledge and cite that. As far as I can see, there is not even a nod toward achieving the low-hanging environmental/nutritional fruit in your conclusion and recommendations. This certainly gives the impression that you were pre-committed to “genetic enhancement” rather than a search for effective, achievable solutions to increase intelligence in developed countries and end poverty. Although I do not expect posts to be perfectly balanced, I don’t think the dismissal of environmental interventions here supports a conclusion of good-faith participation in the Forum.
I’ve addressed this above and in the original article I compared environmental with genetic, providing some evidence to think that the potential gains are limited in a way that genetic enhancement is not. Much of the effort to prevent the causes that depress IQ are widely understood as problems and addressed by global health initiatives.
I can understand if someone disagrees, but does this really seem like a bad faith argument? It seems like this accusation is considered more intuitively plausible because what I am arguing elicits feelings of moral disgust.
Conclusion
That is not intended as an exhaustive list of reasons I find your posts to be concerning and below the standards I would expect for good-faith participation in the Forum. The heavy reliance on certain sources and authors described in the original post above is not exactly a plus, for instance. The sheer practical implausibility of offering widespread, very expensive medical services in impoverished countries—both from a financial and a cultural standpoint—makes the post come across as a thought experiment (again: one that focuses on certain topics that certain groups would like to discuss for various reasons despite tenuous connections to EA).
The technology will be adopted voluntarily without EA funds if the tech is there. I am not advocating for spending on individuals.
EAs seem generally fine with speculation and “thought experiments” generally if they have a plausible aim of improving human flouring, which my argument does. That should be the central focus of critiques.
Also, this is the EA Forum, not a criminal trial. We tend to think probabilistically here, which is why I said things like it being “difficult to believe that any suggestion . . . is both informed and offered in good faith” (emphasis added). The flipside of that is that posters are not entitled to a trial prior to Forum users choosing to dismiss their posts as not reflecting good-faith participation in the Forum, nor are they entitled to have their entire 42-minute article read before people downvote those posts (cf. your concern about an average read time of five minutes).
I understand it’s not a criminal trial. But expecting someone to read an article before downvoting or attacking stawman arguments seems quite reasonable as a standard for the forum. This EA forum post we are commenting on suggests that I am supporting Nazi ideology (which I am not!). How can someone recognize this without actually reading?
This incentivizes these sorts of critiques and creates a culture of fear to discuss important but taboo ideas. If an idea where to rise that was actually important, it may end up neglected if people don’t give it a fair chance.
Thank you for grappling with the actual content of the article. I’ll state that I do feel your characterization of me being in bad faith feels quite unfair. It seems strange that I would go through all this effort to respond if I was just trolling or trying to mess with the EA forum users.
The only meta-ethical justification we should care about is our ethical theory being true. We should only care about a ethical theory being aesthetically pleasing, “fit for a the modern age”, easily explainable, future-proofed, or having other qualities to the extent that it correlates with truthfulness. I see the future-proof goal as misguided. To me, it feels as though you may have selected this meta-ethical principle with the idea of justifying your ethical theory rather than having this meta-ethical theory and using it to find an ethical there which coheres to it.
I could be a Christian and use the meta-ethical justification “I want an ethical theory uncorrupted by 21st century societal norms!” But like the utilitarian, this would seem selected in a biased way to reach my conclusion. I could have a number of variables like aesthetically pleasing, easily communicable, looked upon favorably by future humans and so forth, but the only variable I’m maximizing on is truth.
Your goal is to select an ethical theory that will be looked upon favorably by future humans. You want this because you believe in moral progress. You believe in moral progress because you look down on past humans as less moral than more recent humans. You look down on past humans as less moral because they don’t fit your ethical theory. This is circular; your method for selecting an ethical theory uses an ethical theory to determine it is a good method.
That is: simply going with our intuitions and societal norms has, in the past, meant endorsing all kinds of insanity.
The irony is that this can be presented as insanity and horrible without justification. There is no need to say why lynching and burning humans at picnics is bad. Karnofsky does not even try to apply a utility analysis to dissuading crimes via lynch mobs or discuss the effectiveness of waterboardining or the consequences of the female vote. He doesn’t need to do this because these things are intuitively immoral. Ironically, it goes without saying because of intuition.
Once again, we can flip the argument. I could take someone from 1400 and tell him that homosexuality is legalized and openly practiced. In some places, teenage boys are encouraged to openly express their homosexuality by wearing flag pins. A great deal of homosexuals actually have sex with many men. Every adult, and unfortunately many minors, has access to a massive video library of sexual acts which illicit feelings of disgust in even the most open minded. If this man from 1400 saw the future as a bleak and immoral place which we should avoid becoming, how would you convince him he was wrong. Why are your intuitions right and his intuitions wrong? What objective measure are you using? If he formulated a meta-ethical principle that “We should not become like the future”, what would be wrong with that?
My take is that intuitions are imperfect, but they are what we have. I think that the people who hung homosexuals probably had an intuitive sense that it was immoral, but religious ferver was overwhelming. There are evil and wicked people that existed in the past, but there were also people who saw these things as immoral. I’m sure many saw burning and lynching humans as repugnant. Intuitions are the only tool we have for determining right from wrong. The fact that people were wrong in the past is not a good reason to say that we can’t use intuition whatsoever.
Very intelligent people of a past era used the scientific method, deduction and inductive inference to reach conclusions that were terribly wrong. These people were often motivated by their ideological desires or influenced by their peers and culture. People thought the earth was at the center of the solar system and they had elaborate theories. I don’t think Karnofsky is arguing we should throw out intuitions entirely, but for those who don’t believe in intuitions: we can’t throw out intuitions like we can’t throw out the scientific method, deduction and induction because people of a past era were wrong.
The most credible candidate for a future-proof ethical system, to my knowledge, rests on three basic pillars:
Systemization: seeking an ethical system based on consistently applying fundamental principles, rather than handling each decision with case-specific intuitions. More
Thin utilitarianism: prioritizing the “greatest good for the greatest number,” while not necessarily buying into all the views traditionally associated with utilitarianism. More
Sentientism: counting anyone or anything with the capacity for pleasure and suffering—whether an animal, a reinforcement learner (a type of AI), etc. - as a “person” for ethical purposes. More
How do we know the people of the future won’t be non-systemitizing, non-utilitarian and not care about AI or animals quite as much? I think in order to think they will, we must believe in moral progress. In order to believe moral progress results in these beliefs, we must believe that our moral theory is the actually correct one.
I just think that you can flip these things around so easily and apply them to stuff that isn’t utilitarianism and sentientism. I think that Roman Catholicism would be a good example of a future proofed ethical system. They laid out a system of rules and took it where it goes. Even if it seems unintuitive to modern Catholics to oppose homosexuality or if in the past it felt okay to commit infanticide or abortion, we should just follow the deep truths of the doctrine. I don’t think we can just say “well Catholicism is wrong.” I think the Catholic ethical code is wrong, but I think it meets your systematizing heuristic.
Let’s start with a basic, appealing-seeming principle for ethics: that it should be other-centered. That is, my ethical system should be based as much as possible on the needs and wants of others, rather than on my personal preferences and personal goals.
Once again, I’ll just flip this and say that ethics should be God centered. It should be based as much as possible on the needs and wants of others. Why is the God centered principle false and your principle true? Intuition? How do we know the future will be other centered ethics?
In general, I’m committed to some non-utilitarian personal codes of ethics, such as (to simplify) “deceiving people is bad” and “keeping my word is good.” I’m only interested in applying utilitarianism within particular domains (such as “where should I donate?”) where it doesn’t challenge these codes.
I’m confused. How are you getting these principles? Why are you not following precisely the system you just argued for.
Many progressive institutions spend a great deal of time highlighting racial differences. I really wish they would not. Even worse, they go on to attribute these gaps to discrimination and nefariousness on the part of oppressor groups. If gaps are not due to discrimination, then it is immoral to place blame on a the designated oppressor group for discrimination. In other contexts, this is common sense. It is wrong to attribute Jewish success to coordinated conspiracies and exploitation because their success is largely attributable to higher average cognitive ability and intellectual culture.
There are successful minority groups throughout the world who are resented because their higher socioeconomic status is attributed to exploitation. I think this is an unfortunate situation. If anything, attributing socioeconomic outcomes to exploitation leaves a group open to violence moreso than attributing socioeconomic gaps to average cognitive ability differences.
Few people think it is moral to commit acts of violence against less intelligent people. Even fewer probably think it is acceptable to commit acts of violence against a group because they are a member of a groups with a lower than average level of cognitive ability. I really never see these attitudes. Eventually whatever is true about differences will come to light. The truth cannot be supressed for ever. It is best to argue now that nothing like violence comes from the existence of non-negligable gaps. What does follow is that a certain way of thinking about politics in mostly egalitarian societies, namely as race and class conflict, needs to be less dominant.
We ought to move back to the attitude that it is an ideal to not care about race, sex, gender, sexual orientation etc rather than that we need to always be thinking about these things. It is hard to pushback against this narrative without touching on extraordinarily tabboo topics because absolute fairness creates disparity and mentioning the better explanations will get you regarded as a “bad person” and in some cases fired from your job.