From Discussion Thread On Dysgenics/Socialism
Posted on: 8-Jul 2007, 07:01 AM
My post: The scariest thing in this thread is people excited about the singularity -if it actuallyy happens any time soon, it seems to me that it'll be our #1 existential threat: a rapidly expanding intelligence that will probably see the housing of our subjective consciousness (human brains) as more like silicon sand to be repurposed to more productive ends than as a fellow intelligence to altruistically sustain.
I don't think we have much control over it, but if we're lucky, we'll solve SENS and some other problems well before we create entities smarter than us and that have incentives to expand their computational resources at speeds approaching the speed of light.
As for eugenics/dysgenics -I don't think relatively dumb people are any more of a problem than all the other relatively dumb life on planet earth. In fact, if they are getting less intelligent, then they'll be easier to manage: think of the relative ease in managing a pet hamster as oppposed to a pet monkey.
But, since our best resources at solving difficult problems are still very smart people, and since intelligence seems to have a substantial hereditary component, I'd like to see a more aggressive and rational version of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank reinstated. Specifically, I think we should provide financial incentives (so there's no coercive element) and moral encouragement for the men and women living today who demonstrate the best aptitude at solving the most difficult existential problems humanity faces to donate their sperm and egg, for us to create embryos in vitro with them, for us to recruit surrogate mothers to carry them to term in healthy environments and for us to recruit adopting parents to give them healthy formative environments.
We can then create trusts that will provide the children with positive financial incentives to complete advanced education in fields that will facilitate their ability to solve the existential threats we face.
What I like about this approach is that it's completely legal under current law and it violates no existing social norms about human dignity, life, and autonomy.
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