It’s funny, I am totally sympathetic to everything you wrote here, yet all I can think is, “my daily life is chock full of people incapable of grappling with trolley problems or discussing torture concretely, why are you trying to make LessWrong more like real life?”
This encourages me to think more about just what I was proposing....
A lot of what I was trying to do was demonstrate that I think the writer of the original link has a point. This is not quite the same thing as a call for action, even though I’d be happier without the trolley problems.
Another angle I was taking was that LW is theoretically open-minded, but is actually much more hospitable to some sorts of radical low-empathy ideas than others.
What I think is more feasible than changing LW (which is not to say very feasible) would be an empathy-tilted rationalist blog. It might be an independent development or started by disaffected LWers.
Have a probably empathic idea: HBD focuses on IQ, but there’s little or no discussion of the possibility of tech for raising IQ from 90 or so to 110, even though that would make a large positive difference.
Meanwhile, I’ll mention Hillary Rettig, a progressive who’s good on instrumental rationality.
Are you talking about raising the IQ of a person, or the average IQ of a population? There’s little discussion of the former because decades of failed interventions has made “you can’t raise an existing person’s IQ reliably” the default hypothesis. Once you’ve got past the easy childhood stuff like nutrition, lead paint and iodine deficiencies, there’s not a lot you can do. Aside from some kind of Black Swan like a pill that raises you up a standard deviation, there’s not much room for hope.
Raising the IQ of the next generations though, there’s discussion on that since all the theory deems it totally possible. See here for example.
But yes, in absolute terms there’s little discussion on how to solve the problem. Many writers assume the problem is politically intractable.
There’s a good amount of interest in eg r/nootropics and Gwern has written about the possible benefits of supplementing local water supplies and whatnot. Part of the problem is that the solutions are political complex since they involve A) convincing sufficient people IQ is really a thing and then B) getting large groups of people to admit they’re dumb and want their children to be smarter. In terms of technical solutions we’re just not there cybernetically yet I don’t think. Genetic solutions have the whole eugenics problem to contend with though china seems to be working on it regardless.
Have a probably empathic idea: HBD focuses on IQ, but there’s little or no discussion of the possibility of tech for raising IQ from 90 or so to 110, even though that would make a large positive difference.
What do you mean by this? Technology that raises IQ in the next generation or the existing people. The latter is far from our abilities, the former would not help us at all when it comes to the perception of eugenics friendliness.
Have a probably empathic idea: HBD focuses on IQ, but there’s little or no discussion of the possibility of tech for raising IQ from 90 or so to 110, even though that would make a large positive difference.
It’s funny, I am totally sympathetic to everything you wrote here, yet all I can think is, “my daily life is chock full of people incapable of grappling with trolley problems or discussing torture concretely, why are you trying to make LessWrong more like real life?”
This encourages me to think more about just what I was proposing....
A lot of what I was trying to do was demonstrate that I think the writer of the original link has a point. This is not quite the same thing as a call for action, even though I’d be happier without the trolley problems.
Another angle I was taking was that LW is theoretically open-minded, but is actually much more hospitable to some sorts of radical low-empathy ideas than others.
What I think is more feasible than changing LW (which is not to say very feasible) would be an empathy-tilted rationalist blog. It might be an independent development or started by disaffected LWers.
Have a probably empathic idea: HBD focuses on IQ, but there’s little or no discussion of the possibility of tech for raising IQ from 90 or so to 110, even though that would make a large positive difference.
Meanwhile, I’ll mention Hillary Rettig, a progressive who’s good on instrumental rationality.
Are you talking about raising the IQ of a person, or the average IQ of a population? There’s little discussion of the former because decades of failed interventions has made “you can’t raise an existing person’s IQ reliably” the default hypothesis. Once you’ve got past the easy childhood stuff like nutrition, lead paint and iodine deficiencies, there’s not a lot you can do. Aside from some kind of Black Swan like a pill that raises you up a standard deviation, there’s not much room for hope.
Raising the IQ of the next generations though, there’s discussion on that since all the theory deems it totally possible. See here for example.
But yes, in absolute terms there’s little discussion on how to solve the problem. Many writers assume the problem is politically intractable.
I was talking about raising the IQs of large numbers of existing people.
My impression is that there just isn’t much interest is looking for physical solutions.
Compare the amount of interest in combating obesity to the amount of interest in becoming more intelligent.
There’s a good amount of interest in eg r/nootropics and Gwern has written about the possible benefits of supplementing local water supplies and whatnot. Part of the problem is that the solutions are political complex since they involve A) convincing sufficient people IQ is really a thing and then B) getting large groups of people to admit they’re dumb and want their children to be smarter. In terms of technical solutions we’re just not there cybernetically yet I don’t think. Genetic solutions have the whole eugenics problem to contend with though china seems to be working on it regardless.
What do you mean by this? Technology that raises IQ in the next generation or the existing people. The latter is far from our abilities, the former would not help us at all when it comes to the perception of eugenics friendliness.
What does [Edit: raising IQ] have to do with HBD?
If IQs can be raised then one aspect of HBD becomes less important.
Depends on how hard it is and whether how far they can be raised depends on their “natural” value.