I don’t think this is the case. It seems like we keep running into problems that are more based on our biological heritage rather than our personal intelligence: For example, limitations in our ability to accept evidence that goes against ‘sacred’ beliefs of a group, the idea that a belief told to you by a trusted peer or authority figure is more valid than something with reputable evidence. This might have been valuable to ancient societies to maintain cohesion, but less so in a world that is increasing piles of uncomfortable evidence against some sets of beliefs.
I think many aspects of our biology seem to stack the deck against us in solving the Big Problems. Conspicuous manipulation in terms of eugenics as they implemented is a horrible crime I couldn’t condone, of course, but it may have been a solution that worked if it brought us more intelligent (not in the terms of high IQ but all-around-intelligent) people. Imagine a curve of capability that increases as our knowledge increases; Having a higher baseline means we reach that much higher in the present, possibly to the necessary critical mass to reach the tumbling cascade of solutions so many people hope to see.
On the last statement, intelligence is certainly not the problem, nor is ‘intelligence’ responsible for the large part of problems that confront us in the first place. Intelligence is just a measure of capability, and we should hope to increase our capability even though it means also increasing the risk inherent in each individual. To hope that our intelligence would stagnate at around the current level is completely defeatist—We aren’t going to solve the problems we’ve created without the intelligence to deal with them.
I don’t think this is the case. It seems like we keep running into problems that are more based on our biological heritage rather than our personal intelligence: For example, limitations in our ability to accept evidence that goes against ‘sacred’ beliefs of a group, the idea that a belief told to you by a trusted peer or authority figure is more valid than something with reputable evidence. This might have been valuable to ancient societies to maintain cohesion, but less so in a world that is increasing piles of uncomfortable evidence against some sets of beliefs.
I think many aspects of our biology seem to stack the deck against us in solving the Big Problems. Conspicuous manipulation in terms of eugenics as they implemented is a horrible crime I couldn’t condone, of course, but it may have been a solution that worked if it brought us more intelligent (not in the terms of high IQ but all-around-intelligent) people. Imagine a curve of capability that increases as our knowledge increases; Having a higher baseline means we reach that much higher in the present, possibly to the necessary critical mass to reach the tumbling cascade of solutions so many people hope to see.
On the last statement, intelligence is certainly not the problem, nor is ‘intelligence’ responsible for the large part of problems that confront us in the first place. Intelligence is just a measure of capability, and we should hope to increase our capability even though it means also increasing the risk inherent in each individual. To hope that our intelligence would stagnate at around the current level is completely defeatist—We aren’t going to solve the problems we’ve created without the intelligence to deal with them.