You wouldn’t want to pass “maladaptive differences” to your children, if it was a possibility, would you?
Would you like to get rid of them themselves?
That’s the intended meaning, I think. Although, once the technical possibility is there, one cannot exclude the probability that some states take firmer control over the genetic code of their citizen than other.
You wouldn’t want to pass “maladaptive differences” to your children, if it was a possibility, would you?
It depends on which differences we’re talking about. In the modern environment, fertility and intelligence are inversely correlated. But I wouldn’t want to get more grandkids by making my kids stupider.
I am mildly frustrated that both you and the original poster seem to be using the word “maladaptive” as if it were a synonym for “bad” with a convenient veneer of scientific objectivity, like saying “see, evolution agrees with me that such-and-such qualities are morally undesirable!” Ha ha. Evolution, including human evolution, can be horrible. A week ago we had a discussion post about how an actual population of humans regressed to chimp-level intelligence due to evolution.
It continually amazes me that people can read EY’s Azathoth metaphor comparison or sort of understand how evolution works and still end up basically falling for the naturalistic fallacy!
I shared a link to that post since I hoped it would spark the same kind of gut feeling that no evolution really isn’t your friend in others.
Adaptive is a technical term with a precise definition.
There are plenty of maladaptive traits that I wouldn’t want eliminated. For example I think people are currently maladaptivley altruistic and evolution is selecting against that because the benefits of kin selection are much reduced in our atomized society.
I agree that the wording could be better. What word would you replace “adaptive” and “maladaptive” with, so that they still put across the basic idea (traits that might have once been useful, but that we no longer want in this/future society, either for the individual, or for society as a whole)?
If you suggest something that works better, I will happily edit!
I see you mention “bad” and “unwanted”. Would either of those terms be acceptable replacements?
You wouldn’t want to pass “maladaptive differences” to your children, if it was a possibility, would you?
Would you like to get rid of them themselves?
That’s the intended meaning, I think. Although, once the technical possibility is there, one cannot exclude the probability that some states take firmer control over the genetic code of their citizen than other.
It depends on which differences we’re talking about. In the modern environment, fertility and intelligence are inversely correlated. But I wouldn’t want to get more grandkids by making my kids stupider.
I am mildly frustrated that both you and the original poster seem to be using the word “maladaptive” as if it were a synonym for “bad” with a convenient veneer of scientific objectivity, like saying “see, evolution agrees with me that such-and-such qualities are morally undesirable!” Ha ha. Evolution, including human evolution, can be horrible. A week ago we had a discussion post about how an actual population of humans regressed to chimp-level intelligence due to evolution.
Maybe related: You’ll get more than pretty butterflies.
It continually amazes me that people can read EY’s Azathoth metaphor comparison or sort of understand how evolution works and still end up basically falling for the naturalistic fallacy!
I shared a link to that post since I hoped it would spark the same kind of gut feeling that no evolution really isn’t your friend in others.
Maladaptive =/= unwanted
Adaptive is a technical term with a precise definition.
There are plenty of maladaptive traits that I wouldn’t want eliminated. For example I think people are currently maladaptivley altruistic and evolution is selecting against that because the benefits of kin selection are much reduced in our atomized society.
I agree that the wording could be better. What word would you replace “adaptive” and “maladaptive” with, so that they still put across the basic idea (traits that might have once been useful, but that we no longer want in this/future society, either for the individual, or for society as a whole)?
If you suggest something that works better, I will happily edit!
I see you mention “bad” and “unwanted”. Would either of those terms be acceptable replacements?
It is indeed a hard word to replace. Perhaps optimal and suboptimal, because this is basically a value judgement? I’m not sure.
Or maybe throwing in some utility speak. That’s always popular with the LW crowd. :)
Optimal and Suboptimal it is!
Thank you! Post edited :)