International Math Olympiad Hall Of Fame Winners
These are basically the world's best supercomputers that we let walk around unprotected, and that we choose not to mass-reproduce. Many people on this list are well under 30, great for sperm and egg banking, and for reproductive cloning (in terms of the youth of their cells). A more agressive approach to sperm and egg banking, and test tube babies with surrogate mothers 25 years ago, and we would be much richer, much more secure position today, it seems to me.
I remember the folks at GNXP looking at this stuff, but it was mostly just to see how smart Iran or India were.
You said earlier that it was applied mathematicians we should focus the most on. How important do you think mathematical theorists are relative to them?
Posted by: TGGP | July 05, 2008 at 11:21 PM
HA: in the unlikely event you haven't seen it already then you might be interested in the recent post at GNXP:
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/07/genes-underlying-cognitive-ability.php
I am looking forward to having a child with my girlfriend in the next few years, but definitely don't want to be the genetic father since I have a heritable disease affecting quality of life.
I haven't raised the issue with her yet. It could be a fast way to end the relationship... Still, I can't help but wonder about the feasibility of acquiring sperm from one of the guys on this list.
TGGP: Which area of mathematics do you consider not to be practically applicable?
Posted by: spindizzy | July 06, 2008 at 12:28 AM
Spindizzy, sounds like a great idea to me. I think it's feasible: if you contact enough of them, at least 1 will say yes. But I encourage you to go one better, seek both sperm and egg, and have your girlfriend be the surrogate and adoptive mother. Still apparently completely legal.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | July 06, 2008 at 01:00 AM
Funnily enough, I'm more stuck on having her genes in the child than my own. I guess I'm a real sucker. :P
Anyway, it's not much of a compromise. She's got to be > 120. I don't have time for dumb girls.
Posted by: spindizzy | July 06, 2008 at 02:16 AM
go for it. do it through a family lawyer with some experience with this stuff.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | July 06, 2008 at 02:27 AM
spindizzy, it's hard to say whether some math theory will be applicable. There have been some surprises before. However, when HA used the term "applied mathematicians" it implied a distinction, which I would take to mean those who are currently applying math to real-world problems.
Posted by: TGGP | July 06, 2008 at 04:10 PM
hey tggp, sorry to not respond earlier. I think the two skill sets are similar, and there's not a distinct "applied math" talent measure at that young age group at the level of the IMO, it seems to me.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | July 07, 2008 at 06:50 AM
Remember when you asked "if you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C48agMtV7I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis
Those links from a commenter at Marginal Revolution
Posted by: TGGP | July 08, 2008 at 04:30 PM
Elements of his story seem exagerated with today's knowledge of how the brain and human development works. But it's an interesting story. Why he would choose to be interested in anonymous treatises instead of mastering wall street is a mystery to me, but one in which I'd like insight.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | July 08, 2008 at 07:55 PM
The links refer to two different people, so which one were you referring to? My guess is Sidis, but I'd rather not assume when I can ask.
Posted by: TGGP | July 09, 2008 at 12:53 AM
2nd link (Sidis), I don't watch random youtube links (I have a busy day job). If you want me to watch one, provide more detail on it.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | July 09, 2008 at 01:33 AM
I think you are overrating the IMO as a measure of cognitive merit. While it is a good measure of one particular ability, I know I wouldn't want to put too large a share of society's eggs in that basket (pun intended).
(I say this as someone who is currently on page 4 of that Hall of Fame, and all too aware of some of his deficiencies.)
Posted by: Dog of Justice | July 16, 2008 at 12:16 PM
Dog of Justice:
(1) There are 6 billion people. With a legal sperm and egg banking program, there's no way that we'd be able to "put too large a share of society's eggs in that basket" even if we wanted to. But you're better at math than me so let me know if I'm missing something. ;) In principle though I do believe in strategy diversification, an so agree with you that this should be some Ender's Game/Idlewild risk everything on one strategy approach.
(2) To what degree do you think IMO should measure cognitive merit of people young enough to be ideal for sperm and egg banking? Clearly Fields and Nobel Prize may be better measures, but the former is a small group (with no women?) and the latter for the most part I think may be too old for legal sperm and egg banking.
(3) Spindizzy, meet Dog of Justice.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | July 16, 2008 at 01:28 PM
By the way, Dog, you have a truly fantastic blog (in it's open-minded exploration of important topics, and it's clear, intelligent writing and analysis).
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | July 16, 2008 at 01:34 PM
Imagine if sperm and egg banking was done for young chess masters. Would this yield a high level of intellectual ability? Yes. But what fraction of this ability would be spent on solving humanity's real problems, versus being focused on games and other diversions? You want to select for the right sort of personality, too, and focusing on chess masters would select against it.
Math contests are half intellectual sport. The results would be better than if you had focused on chess masters, but nevertheless you would get many extreme introverts that aren't reliably motivated.
If you can figure out how to take IMO raw material and make or select more Terence Taos and less Grigori Perelmans (yes, he was also an IMO gold medalist back in the day) and noname slackers like myself out of it, then you'll be on to something. As is, while I do want to have my own kids at some point, I would redirect all sperm banking inquiries to Tao and other consistently productive researchers and innovators like him.
Posted by: Dog of Justice | July 16, 2008 at 05:00 PM
DOJ, I think I anticipated your concerns in some of my earlier posts. with a google search of this blog you'll probably find them. Also drop the false modesty. We may not be as smart as you (me and my general readership) but we're smart enough to see through your modesty performance. An honest self-appraisal will endear you to us more than that kabukified nonsense.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | July 16, 2008 at 05:33 PM
An honest self-appraisal will endear you to us more than that kabukified nonsense.
I'm a 29 year old who's been in a math PhD program for 4 years yet hasn't published a paper, and not because I have some big ideas that I just haven't gotten around to publishing. Before that, I was fired from Microsoft since I simply didn't get enough work done. I have spent far more time on things like optimizing a Civilization IV game than I have on anything that might improve your persistence odds.
My modesty is not false. While I intend to be a solid contributor to society, I think it's clear that I won't be in the top 0.0001%. The IMO does overrate me, and my former advisor, who has been on the problem committees for several similar contests, informed me that I'm very far from alone in this.
Posted by: Dog of Justice | July 16, 2008 at 06:39 PM
DOJ, I don't care that much. I have no problem turning this discussion to all about you, so share your ideas and we'll discuss them. There was no claim here that IMO hall of fame is a perfect rating of genetic potential to solve existential risk problems. The claim is that it may be the best available rater of a substantial population of those young enough to sperm and egg bank within existing legal and ethical norms. But you knew this already. So let's move the discussion into a practical area: after all, in a few decades you'll probably be dead if we don't solve this shit.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | July 17, 2008 at 12:05 AM
DOJ,
Thanks for your comments. I feel pretty honoured and it isn't even my blog. :)
If you would be interested in sperm donation, let me know and we can establish contact via e-mail.
Posted by: spindizzy | July 17, 2008 at 09:34 AM
So let's move the discussion into a practical area: after all, in a few decades you'll probably be dead if we don't solve this shit.
I should clarify that I don't particularly fear death -- I'm content with the lossy forms of immortality that my ancestors had to make do with (children and ideas). Indeed, it seems pretty clear to me that it's a good thing that we hadn't figured out the immortality thing before, because there have been plenty of ruthless figures in history (Qin Shi Huang and Stalin come to mind) who could plausibly have used it to become The Boot Stomping On A Human Face Forever. Paradoxically, immortality tech is itself a sort of existential risk if human society isn't sufficiently resistant to tyranny.
But in this day and age, where even Putin isn't choosing to be dictator for life, the benefits may finally outweigh the drawbacks. So I'll offer what I can.
For starters, you may want to consider the game-theoretic consequences of being openly single-mindedly focused on maximizing your persistence odds. I estimate that 99.9%+ of the people who'd be able to help you would find at least your justification for sperm and egg banking repulsive, even if they agree it should be done! (You're certainly not going to get any opposition to sperm and egg banking from me, seeing as how I once had a crush on Daughter #1 of the "Nobel Prize Sperm Bank", and I still regret not having asked her out.) It's one thing to seed the population with many more smart people; it's quite another to compel them to work on the problems you want them to solve, rather than letting the chips fall where they may and accept the risk that all of them squander their instrumental potential and do other things with their lives. Being openly willing to do the latter signals that you're the rare person who would plausibly be an existential risk with immortality tech. This cripples the pool of people willing to help you. My guess is that "eccentric but harmless" is the best diplomatic strategy, and that you should only be ruthless when it doesn't ruin this image. The last thing you want is for many people to be opposed to you when you finally start getting somewhere.
Posted by: Dog of Justice | July 17, 2008 at 10:33 AM
> the game-theoretic consequences of being
> openly single-mindedly
Personally, I only express my views on the internet and I believe HA follows the same strategy.
> it's quite another to compel them
I don't know about HA but I have no intention to compel anyone.
I do not want a genius child in order to achieve immortality. However, given that I do want a (preferably female) child, I naturally want her to have a good quality of life. As such, I recognise that the prime determinant in that is genetic.
So (possibly unlike HA) I also place an emphasis on personality, beauty and health. Intelligence would still come first, however, because that is what's most empowering.
Posted by: spindizzy | July 17, 2008 at 11:07 AM
Personally, I only express my views on the internet and I believe HA follows the same strategy.
I should have written that sentence to put more emphasis on "single-mindedly" than "openly".
Anyway, I don't think it's optimal to appear as selfish as HA has, even on the internet. Turning off potential supporters, which pseudonymity doesn't protect you from, is at least as much of a problem as real world retaliation, one of the few things pseudonymity does grant partial protection from.
Posted by: Dog of Justice | July 17, 2008 at 11:43 AM
I don't think selfishness turns people off. Nobody is really disgusted by greed, are they? Our own culture is unrestrainedly hedonistic, after all.
I think what disgusts people is to see others have what they themselves cannot.
That is why eugenic breeding is considered immoral; because the benefit accrues to society, and to the offspring, but not to the practitioner.
To promote HA's ideas, we will require a purely selfish incentive, comprehensible to people with a relatively low time horizon. I don't know what that could be though.
Posted by: spindizzy | July 17, 2008 at 01:05 PM
DOJ, you make good points.
Offline, my public persona is quite different. I understand the Ewww bias veto, probably personified these days in Leon Kass.
I'd like to write more but I'm constrained by time.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | July 17, 2008 at 03:22 PM
It's entirely possible that HA has another pseudonym which is less transparently egoistic, thus accruing the benefits that DOJ thinks he is missing out on.
Posted by: TGGP | July 17, 2008 at 08:45 PM