This reads to me as a good faith effort to engage, but I think there’s a lot of background assumptions/positions that you’re not aware of that leave this comment talking past most readers here. I’ll just mention one.
Your first two critiques are about elites getting access to advanced tech sooner, and inequality being inconsitent with altruism. I don’t see either as a problem, and my sense is it’s pretty standardly accepted around these parts by most that inequality is fine, and that overall free trade and scientific innovation have risen the life outcomes of all people. The quality of medical care, food, access to knowledge, life expectancy, access to technology, has risen massively over the last 300 years for all people. Other than untouched hunter-gatherer tribes there are no people living in the conditions of 1700, and in most developed countries even the lowliest people today have access to better healthcare than the Kings of that time.
I bring it up not as a knockdown response, but simply because you spent a lot of time engaging with an idea without being aware of the counterposition that is common in these waters, which suggests you may wish to read more before pouring such effort into a long comment as this one.
Thank you for your kind advice (I made some edits to my previous comment in consequence). I must have expressed myself poorly because I am in no way questioning the idea that science and technology have greatly contributed to improving the condition of humanity. My remark was about inequality. Scientific development is not inherently linked to the increase in inequalities. On the contrary, many scientific and technological advances are likely to benefit everyone. For instance, in many countries, both the rich and the poor use the same tap water, of good quality. That’s even true for many digital devices (a poor can have a cellphone not that different from the one the rich possesses). Even the poor populations of underdeveloped countries benefit, to some degree, from these advances. There are fewer food-shortage and better healthcare even in these countries, although much remains to be done.
However, on this subject I stand by my arguments reformuled as above :
that too great inequality is a major source of
suffering and social instability (many revolutions came from that) ;
concerning the risk that (contrary to tap water and cellphones) the author’s project could increase inequalities in a sense never seen in history (the difference between a “happy few” rich having a IQ artificially increased and the standard layman will be like the difference between a Sapiens and a Neanderthal, or maybe an Erectus) with a perspective of a partition in human kind or speciation in a short time.
I must say that I am surprised to read that it is common knowledge on this forum that there is no problem with inequalities. If that’s so, I still really disagree on this point, at the risk of being disregarded. Too much inequality is definitely a concern. It is maybe not a big deal for the rich minority (as long as they’re not overthroned, Marie-Antoinette had some trouble), but it is for the poor majority. I could rely on the international publications of the United Nations (https://www.un.org/fr/un75/inequality-bridging-divide) and on numerous authors, such as Amartya Sen (Nobel Prize in Economics) or Thomas Piketty for instance, who are particularly engaged with this issue (and of course Marx in older times, but don’t tag me as marxist please). I also recommend reading James C. Scott’s Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, which demonstrates how early civilizations based on inequality have historically been fragile and subject to brutal collapse (inequality being one main factor, epidemics another).
Edit : I would add that denying the concern of inequalities amounts dismissing most of the work of experts of the subject, that is to say researchers in social sciences, an inclination that may appear as a bias (possibly common among “hard” scientists).
This reads to me as a good faith effort to engage, but I think there’s a lot of background assumptions/positions that you’re not aware of that leave this comment talking past most readers here. I’ll just mention one.
Your first two critiques are about elites getting access to advanced tech sooner, and inequality being inconsitent with altruism. I don’t see either as a problem, and my sense is it’s pretty standardly accepted around these parts by most that inequality is fine, and that overall free trade and scientific innovation have risen the life outcomes of all people. The quality of medical care, food, access to knowledge, life expectancy, access to technology, has risen massively over the last 300 years for all people. Other than untouched hunter-gatherer tribes there are no people living in the conditions of 1700, and in most developed countries even the lowliest people today have access to better healthcare than the Kings of that time.
I bring it up not as a knockdown response, but simply because you spent a lot of time engaging with an idea without being aware of the counterposition that is common in these waters, which suggests you may wish to read more before pouring such effort into a long comment as this one.
I can recommend looking through the tagged posts in economics, moloch, industrial revolution, or incentives, for more on this particular topic.
Thank you for your kind advice (I made some edits to my previous comment in consequence). I must have expressed myself poorly because I am in no way questioning the idea that science and technology have greatly contributed to improving the condition of humanity. My remark was about inequality. Scientific development is not inherently linked to the increase in inequalities. On the contrary, many scientific and technological advances are likely to benefit everyone. For instance, in many countries, both the rich and the poor use the same tap water, of good quality. That’s even true for many digital devices (a poor can have a cellphone not that different from the one the rich possesses). Even the poor populations of underdeveloped countries benefit, to some degree, from these advances. There are fewer food-shortage and better healthcare even in these countries, although much remains to be done.
However, on this subject I stand by my arguments reformuled as above :
that too great inequality is a major source of suffering and social instability (many revolutions came from that) ;
concerning the risk that (contrary to tap water and cellphones) the author’s project could increase inequalities in a sense never seen in history (the difference between a “happy few” rich having a IQ artificially increased and the standard layman will be like the difference between a Sapiens and a Neanderthal, or maybe an Erectus) with a perspective of a partition in human kind or speciation in a short time.
I must say that I am surprised to read that it is common knowledge on this forum that there is no problem with inequalities. If that’s so, I still really disagree on this point, at the risk of being disregarded. Too much inequality is definitely a concern. It is maybe not a big deal for the rich minority (as long as they’re not overthroned, Marie-Antoinette had some trouble), but it is for the poor majority. I could rely on the international publications of the United Nations (https://www.un.org/fr/un75/inequality-bridging-divide) and on numerous authors, such as Amartya Sen (Nobel Prize in Economics) or Thomas Piketty for instance, who are particularly engaged with this issue (and of course Marx in older times, but don’t tag me as marxist please). I also recommend reading James C. Scott’s Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, which demonstrates how early civilizations based on inequality have historically been fragile and subject to brutal collapse (inequality being one main factor, epidemics another).
Edit : I would add that denying the concern of inequalities amounts dismissing most of the work of experts of the subject, that is to say researchers in social sciences, an inclination that may appear as a bias (possibly common among “hard” scientists).