You don’t think someone with a new 140 IQ could do something useful to you with that intelligence level? I wasn’t thinking so much “cures aging in one fell swoop”. I’d settle for “works with a team on a cancer treatment that might save my life one day”. Or even something fairly tiny, like “reduces my odds of dying in a traffic accident by becoming a traffic light timer, using the IQ boost to do some research, and extending yellow lights”.
I’m sure they could do something useful. I say that.
But I don’t think they’ll do so much for me that it’d make up for it. As I said, consider the job market. This pill would put me into the bottom 30% of the population IQ-wise (I’m guessing, does anyone have the actual numbers? The only people I would still be above would be the 110-130 range.). Have you looked at how well the current bottom 30% does? From what I remember of the job statistics in The Bell Curve, the prospects are absolutely dismal, and seem likely to get worse over time thanks to automation.
This pill would put me into the bottom 30% of the population IQ-wise (I’m guessing, does anyone have the actual numbers?
In the scenario as specified, I think you’re in the 72nd percentile. The half of the population originally with <100 IQ jumps up to <130 IQ (still below you), and you’re still above the people in the 110-130 group who were also denied the drug.
Have you looked at how well the current bottom 30% does?
In the scenario as specified, I think you’re in the 72nd percentile.
Hm… OK, I think you’re right about that. Being in the 72nd percentile is not nearly as bad as dropping down into the 30s. Rereading the original formulation I see that I assumed that the <110 population would jump up past me, while as specified they would just have a 30 point boost which would put them much nearer me but not past.
On an absolute scale, they’re doing fine.
Unfortunately, real humans (such as myself) do not live on absolute scales. This is why we are happier to see our neighbor’s salary cut than the both of us receive a raise but his much larger, and this is why self-assessed happiness of nations is only weakly correlated with wealth & not perfectly correlated.
My understanding is that people lose jobs to automation because they can’t do the jobs which can’t be automated. If you can still do a job which can’t be effectively automated, you might experience short-term troubles (or you might not, assuming you already have the job), but jobs can be created which it will be economical to pay you to do.
Economical to pay me to do is likely not the same thing as what I or other people in my situation are/would-otherwise earn. I remember reading an expatriate remarking that one of the best things about living in Africa was that human labor was so cheap that he could do any bizarre thing that came to mind; a job just existing doesn’t say much.
(I’m interpreting your last line as saying that the market would create a job for me if I were rendered superfluous or no longer worth employing at my current job; if you mean by ‘can’ that something like the goverment could create make-work jobs using the wealth surplus, I’ll refer you to my reply to Alicorn—we haven’t done a great job in the past with helping people rendered redundant by progress or creating a ‘leisure society’, so I am pessimistic that this might change in the drug scenario.)
Yes, I agree. As I said, my better instincts tell me that for the good of humanity, if maybe not my own long-term interests (as I said, it’s plausible the drug would do me more harm than good), to be happy; but the rest of me dislikes being lowered in relative status & potential. Other people may incline more firmly one way or the other.
You don’t think someone with a new 140 IQ could do something useful to you with that intelligence level? I wasn’t thinking so much “cures aging in one fell swoop”. I’d settle for “works with a team on a cancer treatment that might save my life one day”. Or even something fairly tiny, like “reduces my odds of dying in a traffic accident by becoming a traffic light timer, using the IQ boost to do some research, and extending yellow lights”.
I’m sure they could do something useful. I say that.
But I don’t think they’ll do so much for me that it’d make up for it. As I said, consider the job market. This pill would put me into the bottom 30% of the population IQ-wise (I’m guessing, does anyone have the actual numbers? The only people I would still be above would be the 110-130 range.). Have you looked at how well the current bottom 30% does? From what I remember of the job statistics in The Bell Curve, the prospects are absolutely dismal, and seem likely to get worse over time thanks to automation.
Maybe smart people will build robots to do the crap jobs and move towards a leisure-oriented economy. Then you wouldn’t need to do an awful job.
Well, you’re certainly half-right...
In the scenario as specified, I think you’re in the 72nd percentile. The half of the population originally with <100 IQ jumps up to <130 IQ (still below you), and you’re still above the people in the 110-130 group who were also denied the drug.
On an absolute scale, they’re doing fine.
Hm… OK, I think you’re right about that. Being in the 72nd percentile is not nearly as bad as dropping down into the 30s. Rereading the original formulation I see that I assumed that the <110 population would jump up past me, while as specified they would just have a 30 point boost which would put them much nearer me but not past.
Unfortunately, real humans (such as myself) do not live on absolute scales. This is why we are happier to see our neighbor’s salary cut than the both of us receive a raise but his much larger, and this is why self-assessed happiness of nations is only weakly correlated with wealth & not perfectly correlated.
My understanding is that people lose jobs to automation because they can’t do the jobs which can’t be automated. If you can still do a job which can’t be effectively automated, you might experience short-term troubles (or you might not, assuming you already have the job), but jobs can be created which it will be economical to pay you to do.
Economical to pay me to do is likely not the same thing as what I or other people in my situation are/would-otherwise earn. I remember reading an expatriate remarking that one of the best things about living in Africa was that human labor was so cheap that he could do any bizarre thing that came to mind; a job just existing doesn’t say much.
(I’m interpreting your last line as saying that the market would create a job for me if I were rendered superfluous or no longer worth employing at my current job; if you mean by ‘can’ that something like the goverment could create make-work jobs using the wealth surplus, I’ll refer you to my reply to Alicorn—we haven’t done a great job in the past with helping people rendered redundant by progress or creating a ‘leisure society’, so I am pessimistic that this might change in the drug scenario.)
All that is quite fair enough—I expect the rest of our disagreement amounts to conflicting intuitions.
Yes, I agree. As I said, my better instincts tell me that for the good of humanity, if maybe not my own long-term interests (as I said, it’s plausible the drug would do me more harm than good), to be happy; but the rest of me dislikes being lowered in relative status & potential. Other people may incline more firmly one way or the other.