Does will be ethical to artificialy be means of genetic engineering to increase human IQ

[peadar1987]

Well certainly, we can make the retroviral gene therapy free. But what if people don't take it? There would still be haves and have-nots.

And as I said before, we can make vaccinations free, and some people will still refuse to take them. That's an argument against idiots, not an argument against the morality of universal vaccinations.

Good education should be free.

Education should be free, and education should be good. Neither of these is enough in itself.

[Wesreidau]

So you would force people to take vaccinations they would otherwise refuse, and would force gene therapy as well? Seems rash. Perhaps we could more subtlety go about this, assigning marriage partners by a fixed lottery to ensure the intelligent breed with the intelligent. Maybe limit immigration from lower-IQ countries. Sterilize the feeble-minded. I wonder if anyone has considered these things before...

[peadar1987]

So you would force people to take vaccinations they would otherwise refuse, and would force gene therapy as well? Seems rash. Perhaps we could more subtlety go about this, assigning marriage partners by a fixed lottery to ensure the intelligent breed with the intelligent. Maybe limit immigration from lower-IQ countries. Sterilize the feeble-minded. I wonder if anyone has considered these things before...

Yes, because that's exactly what I suggested. Go back and read my post again.

[Wesreidau]

Then what is a 'universal vaccination' and what is its genetic-engineering analogue?

[Skyler4856]

Class based differences in IQ are already present; if someone has the means to ensure that their children live happier, more successful lives, then that is their prerogative to use it.

[Darnok]

If it were unethical to enhance IQs genetically because it would further the rich-poor IQ gap, we might as well throw all of those universities, homework assignments and books away. Its not fair to the children who's parents are working four jobs and can't read a book to them at night.

... http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/new-family-values/6437058

World's going crazy.

What? So if you would stalking two packs of lions and take part of meat from the one pack that was successful at their hunting and give it to second one, that was unable to kill animals on their own. Is that fair or simple going against evolution?

I do agree rich people abuse their status to become more powerful, but that should be solved on law making and society making level by teaching proper values - greed is not one of them.

You just can't go and talk you got more money than I do, but I deserve to have same amount of money, now give it to me... isn't that what thieves do?

Which is why education should be free. Like genetic technology if it ever becomes safe and mainstream. It is absolutely unethical to allow the rich access to higher education when the poor are completely priced out of the equation.

Education can never be free, books can never be free, unless you want to become teacher and writer and work 24h/day FOR FREE!

Both education and book have to cost, so all people would value educated people, that is proper value system for me. If something is for free we do not care about it and we wouldn't care about people that had good grades because they got it for free.

Just because something is mainstream or because someone call it "safe" it doesn't mean it is safe! Look at cars, they are mainstream, but they aren't safer than those produced 80 years ago. Of course you can say, but today car can reach 2 or 3 time greater speed, sure and that is why driving it is 2 or 3 time more dangerous it was 80 years ago.

Yet people are still using it, why?

And as I said before, we can make vaccinations free, and some people will still refuse to take them. That's an argument against idiots, not an argument against the morality of universal vaccinations.

Education should be free, and education should be good. Neither of these is enough in itself.

Calling idiots people that refuse share your views isn't very good example of how we should promote vaccines

As for free vaccines, nope I am against it, it will just create market for low quality products that could become harmful.

[Godot]

Twin studies have shown that there are both, genetical as well as en vironmental influences on intelligence

(which also is confirmed by intelligence studies on other animals (rats for example, which develope a higher intelligence when they are in a cage with lots of toys than if they are kept in a dull cage with not much to do than eat and sleep))

Therefore, principially, we already now have ways to promote intelligence, by taking care that human children grow up in intellectually stimulating environments and have teachers that mediate their knowledge in interesting and understandable ways.

It also means that a pure biological approach (i.e. altering genes) might only work if we also care for the environmental component (else we have kids with a high intelligence potential who are hampered to reach it due to the environent)

[Hary R]

Twin studies have shown that there are both, genetical as well as en vironmental influences on intelligence

(which also is confirmed by intelligence studies on other animals (rats for example, which develope a higher intelligence when they are in a cage with lots of toys than if they are kept in a dull cage with not much to do than eat and sleep))

Therefore, principially, we already now have ways to promote intelligence, by taking care that human children grow up in intellectually stimulating environments and have teachers that mediate their knowledge in interesting and understandable ways.

It also means that a pure biological approach (i.e. altering genes) might only work if we also care for the environmental component (else we have kids with a high intelligence potential who are hampered to reach it due to the environent)

Ironically, in today environment (internet... but also sometime school, family etc.) we are doing the opposite...Actually, we have done exactly this: "high intelligence potential people who are hampered to reach it due to the environent". I mean just read the facepalm thread, With the high level of misinformation we have today, thank you internet, what will giving human higher genetic potential will change.

Edited July 23, 2015 by Hary R
misread somethning

[Kinglet]

Ironically, in today environment (internet... but also sometime school, family etc.) we are doing the opposite...Actually, we have done exactly this: "high intelligence potential people who are hampered to reach it due to the environent". I mean just read the facepalm thread, With the high level of misinformation we have today, thank you internet, what will giving human higher genetic potential will change.

Actually social networks are making people socially inadept and stupid. People spend massive amounts of time only caring about the curated and edited "lives" and opinions that others have. Also, being social just becomes a contest. In the end many people end up unable to think critically.

[peadar1987]

Then what is a 'universal vaccination' and what is its genetic-engineering analogue?

It's vaccination that is offered to all people, free of charge (as opposed to compulsory vaccination, in which people do not have a option).

Same as "universal healthcare" doesn't mean that doctors come into your home as you sleep and give you appendectomies and aortal stents.

That said, I do think that denying children potentially lifesaving vaccines is tantamount to child abuse, and no religious or other reasons are justification for it.

What? So if you would stalking two packs of lions and take part of meat from the one pack that was successful at their hunting and give it to second one, that was unable to kill animals on their own. Is that fair or simple going against evolution?

I do agree rich people abuse their status to become more powerful, but that should be solved on law making and society making level by teaching proper values - greed is not one of them.

You just can't go and talk you got more money than I do, but I deserve to have same amount of money, now give it to me... isn't that what thieves do?

You're not going to change human nature by telling people that greed is bad.

Also, you seem to be misunderstanding what social democracy is. It's not that everybody gets the same amount of money, it's a means of redressing the imbalance caused by the fact that the rich and powerful have control over the means to make themselves more rich and powerful, and cannot be trusted to use them fairly.

Education can never be free, books can never be free, unless you want to become teacher and writer and work 24h/day FOR FREE!

Both education and book have to cost, so all people would value educated people, that is proper value system for me. If something is for free we do not care about it and we wouldn't care about people that had good grades because they got it for free.

Free at the point of use, paid for by general taxation.

Your argument doesn't really hold up in the face of the facts. Countries with free third-level education (like most western European nations) are not outperformed by the US, which does not. Additionally, people who go to university are not saddled with crippling debt, which can only be a benefit.

"We wouldn't care about people that had good grades because they got it for free"? Again, anecdotally, but I come from a country with a mixed system. Third-level education is free, but there are a limited number of places. If you don't get one of them, you can pay an independent university to study there. Guess which ones are by far more highly-regarded.

Just because something is mainstream or because someone call it "safe" it doesn't mean it is safe! Look at cars, they are mainstream, but they aren't safer than those produced 80 years ago. Of course you can say, but today car can reach 2 or 3 time greater speed, sure and that is why driving it is 2 or 3 time more dangerous it was 80 years ago.

Yet people are still using it, why?

Where did you get this idea from? Cars are far safer than they were 80 years ago:

Calling idiots people that refuse share your views isn't very good example of how we should promote vaccines

At some point you have to just call a spade a spade. Anti-vaxxers are idiots (or have been duped by idiots, which isn't much better). If someone chooses to ignore the vast majority of qualified medical and scientific opinion in favour of celebrities and quacks, they are an idiot.

As for free vaccines, nope I am against it, it will just create market for low quality products that could become harmful.

If vaccines were for-profit, the driving factor would be to push the manufacturing costs as low, and the price as high as the market would tolerate. This would almost certainly price out a large segment of the population, taking away from herd immunity as well as putting the unvaccinated at risk.

Look at the example of general healthcare. Countries in which it is free at the point of use, Canada, the UK, etc. spend less per person on healthcare and have better results (quality-adjusted life years) than the US, which is only just starting to come around to the idea. There has certainly been no explosion in low-quality, harmful healthcare just because people don't have to pay when they take a trip to the hospital or GP.

[Darnok]

You're not going to change human nature by telling people that greed is bad.

Also, you seem to be misunderstanding what social democracy is. It's not that everybody gets the same amount of money, it's a means of redressing the imbalance caused by the fact that the rich and powerful have control over the means to make themselves more rich and powerful, and cannot be trusted to use them fairly.

Greed is not human nature, we didn't get this evolving, we created greed trading with each other and by putting great value on items made of paper, but far lesser value on knowledge.

Social democracy is socialism, and just look how this is working very well all over the world

Free at the point of use, paid for by general taxation.

So it is NOT FREE if price is hidden in taxes.

So why you think it is fair for example for 20 years old guy to pay taxes for free studies of very rich people?

Your argument doesn't really hold up in the face of the facts. Countries with free third-level education (like most western European nations) are not outperformed by the US, which does not. Additionally, people who go to university are not saddled with crippling debt, which can only be a benefit.

"We wouldn't care about people that had good grades because they got it for free"? Again, anecdotally, but I come from a country with a mixed system. Third-level education is free, but there are a limited number of places. If you don't get one of them, you can pay an independent university to study there. Guess which ones are by far more highly-regarded.

You don't understand human motivation. If you work as teacher and you are paid for results and for inventions of new and better methods of teaching, you will be motivated to do so. But if you get 100 teachers and pay them for how many hours they spend teaching, they will be motivated to work longer, but not better.

As for education system, your free third-level education is not free, because someone have to pay tax for that!

Where did you get this idea from? Cars are far safer than they were 80 years ago:

http://images.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/04/110404-fatality-rate-per-100-million-vehicle-miles-traveled.jpg

Explain this chart please.

At some point you have to just call a spade a spade. Anti-vaxxers are idiots (or have been duped by idiots, which isn't much better). If someone chooses to ignore the vast majority of qualified medical and scientific opinion in favour of celebrities and quacks, they are an idiot.

No, you don't have only 0 and 1 as option, don't put all people into boxes like that.

You can't force people to do what you think is best for them, that kind of ideology is unethical and it was "tested" in Europe some time ago.

It doesn't matter what you think about vaccine or any other issue, free will of other person is something you can't break because you have different views.

You can educate them, but you can't order them to do as you want, just because that will make you feel more comfortable.

Each one of us has right to decide on our own future and faith, anyone who is forcing you to do something you don't want to is committing a crime!

And doesn't matter how much scientific experiments and knowledge he can show.

You also can't predict what will be result of your experiment on such large scale and how it will change our brains.

Just like we didn't predicted what invention of fire will do with fossil fuels, how you can predict what will happen after genetic engineering of our IQ?

How this will alter our evolution?

You should care about your evolution same as you care about global warming. IMO we even should care about our bodies more than about trees

Yet people panic about global warming and have opposite views on genetic modifications... why? and how this is logical?

If vaccines were for-profit, the driving factor would be to push the manufacturing costs as low, and the price as high as the market would tolerate. This would almost certainly price out a large segment of the population, taking away from herd immunity as well as putting the unvaccinated at risk.

Look at the example of general healthcare. Countries in which it is free at the point of use, Canada, the UK, etc. spend less per person on healthcare and have better results (quality-adjusted life years) than the US, which is only just starting to come around to the idea. There has certainly been no explosion in low-quality, harmful healthcare just because people don't have to pay when they take a trip to the hospital or GP.

You still have to leave "control group" in society, you can't use any medicine on all people and claim it is science and it will be ok!!!

You have to somehow have ability to measure results of your experiment. It doesn't matter if you think it will put "control group" in danger if they are willing to take it.

There is low-quality and harmful healthcare just in countries that have lower development level than Canada or UK.

Did anyone thought what would it be if we actually do this and all people on Earth would have IQ 200?

For normal society IQ or grades in schools can be presented by Gaussian function, but you want to make flat line chart with value 200

It is very interesting who would woke up at 5-6am and take my garbage?

Who would like to put products on markets shelves?

Or do other things right now are done by those who have lower social status and had lower grades?

I bet your first thought was machines... ok, but we don't need 10 billions of office workers and office workers are not making our race go any further...

designers, developers, scientists, we don't even need 200 millions of plane constructors do we?

If everyone of us would have few robots to do boring work for us, we would waste millions of tons of resources, not mentioning energy usage.

How this would make us go anyway further than we are today?

Edited July 23, 2015 by Darnok

[peadar1987]

Greed is not human nature, we didn't get this evolving, we created greed trading with each other and by putting great value on items made of paper, but far lesser value on knowledge.

We evolved in small family and tribal groups of a few hundred members maximum. Our evolution has done very little to prepare us for living in a modern nation state with several tens of millions of people. Tens of thousands of years of natural selection have conditioned us to care primarily for a very small circle around us.

Social democracy is socialism, and just look how this is working very well all over the world

I'm looking, and I'm seeing Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand... All of the countries with the highest standards of living are social democracies.

So it is NOT FREE if price is hidden in taxes.

It is free at the point of use. If somebody offers you a free bar of chocolate, do you complain that the chocolate bar is not free, because somebody had to grow the cocoa, farm the cows to make the milk, transport the ingredients to a factory, etc. etc.?

So why you think it is fair for example for 20 years old guy to pay taxes for free studies of very rich people?

The majority of the tax burden in a functioning social democracy falls on the wealthier members of society, and there is a generous tax free allowance.

This is the first time I've ever seen someone arguing that free education subsidises the rich at the expense of the poor.

You don't understand human motivation. If you work as teacher and you are paid for results and for inventions of new and better methods of teaching, you will be motivated to do so. But if you get 100 teachers and pay them for how many hours they spend teaching, they will be motivated to work longer, but not better.

Funnily enough, both of my parents are teachers. They get paid for each hour they work, and if they are good, they get paid bonuses. You're presenting a false dichotomy here, people can be incentivised to work both hard and work smart.

As for education system, your free third-level education is not free, because someone have to pay tax for that!

"Free education" is pretty much universally understood to mean "free at the point of use". Nobody is claiming that it doesn't incur a cost somewhere along the line. I get the impression English isn't your first language. It is mine, so just trust me on this one.

Explain this chart please.

It's the number of road deaths per 100 million vehicle miles travelled. In 1921, for every 100 million miles people collectively drove, 24.1 people died. In 2011, for every 100 million miles people drive, 1.1 million people died.

In real terms, it means that if you hop in your car and drive 10 miles, you are 24 times less likely to die in 2011 as you would have been had you done it in 1921.

No, you don't have only 0 and 1 as option, don't put all people into boxes like that.

I'm sticking by my guns on this one. Anti-vaxxers are idiots. Not that all other people aren't idiots, but anti-vaxxers definitely are.

You can't force people to do what you think is best for them, that kind of ideology is unethical and it was "tested" in Europe some time ago.

It doesn't matter what you think about vaccine or any other issue, free will of other person is something you can't break because you have different views.

You can educate them, but you can't order them to do as you want, just because that will make you feel more comfortable.

Each one of us has right to decide on our own future and faith, anyone who is forcing you to do something you don't want to is committing a crime!

And doesn't matter how much scientific experiments and knowledge he can show.

I never mentioned forcing somebody to do anything, people are free to be idiots if they want.

You also can't predict what will be result of your experiment on such large scale and how it will change our brains.

Just like we didn't predicted what invention of fire will do with fossil fuels, how you can predict what will happen after genetic engineering of our IQ?

How this will alter our evolution?

You should care about your evolution same as you care about global warming. IMO we even should care about our bodies more than about trees

Yet people panic about global warming and have opposite views on genetic modifications... why? and how this is logical?

I don't think anybody is advocating rolling out large-scale genetic modification without a rigorous standard of testing.

You still have to leave "control group" in society, you can't use any medicine on all people and claim it is science and it will be ok!!!

You have to somehow have ability to measure results of your experiment. It doesn't matter if you think it will put "control group" in danger if they are willing to take it.

Control groups are for clinical trials. If something passes clinical trials successfully, it no longer needs a control group.

There is low-quality and harmful healthcare just in countries that have lower development level than Canada or UK.

And you are blaming this on the fact that developed countries offer healthcare free at the point of use?

Did anyone thought what would it be if we actually do this and all people on Earth would have IQ 200?

For normal society IQ or grades in schools can be presented by Gaussian function, but you want to make flat line chart with value 200

It is very interesting who would woke up at 5-6am and take my garbage?

Who would like to put products on markets shelves?

Or do other things right now are done by those who have lower social status and had lower grades?

I bet your first thought was machines... ok, but we don't need 10 billions of office workers and office workers are not making our race go any further...

designers, developers, scientists, we don't even need 200 millions of plane constructors do we?

If everyone of us would have few robots to do boring work for us, we would waste millions of tons of resources, not mentioning energy usage.

How this would make us go anyway further than we are today?

So you're advocating keeping a socially and genetically disadvantaged underclass that exists solely to do the dirty work of their genetic Ubermensch? And you are implying that I am some sort of a ....!

People make the same sort of argument every time some new innovation comes around, whether it's computers, assembly lines, or the steam engine. Society adapts.

[Mazon Del]

The argument of "but you are messing with human evolution!" is foolish. We have been messing with our evolution for thousands of years. Healthcare, dietary changes, altered habitats, etc. Tweaking genes may not just be the right move, it might be the necessary move. While unlikely to be a situation we actually have to deal with, what if the much vaunted 'human evolution' starts to break down the genes responsible for whatever trick of our brains arose sentience? At this time, we don't really know what brought it about and so we wouldn't know what to do to fix it if this was the case.

The better we are at altering our genes intentionally, the better prepared we are for the future. And historically speaking, as humans have developed new capabilities they WILL use them. This is the ultimate weakness in making laws to ban a technology. Not everybody plays along. If all of a sudden North Korea proved that it had created a gene therapy to increase human IQ, all of a sudden you are going to see (or rather, you won't) rich people swinging by with their kids.

[Darnok]

We evolved in small family and tribal groups of a few hundred members maximum. Our evolution has done very little to prepare us for living in a modern nation state with several tens of millions of people. Tens of thousands of years of natural selection have conditioned us to care primarily for a very small circle around us.

True, but greed comes from trade directly, look at animals pack of lions is also creating "tribe", yet they don't gather more than they need to eat today. For us problem is that we want some spare gold/silver/printed paper/virtual numbers on account in case when things go bad. And that is also main cause why we gather and exploit environment, we want to have more and more for future needs.

I'm looking, and I'm seeing Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand... All of the countries with the highest standards of living are social democracies.

You see you are now using words that have meaning for you only, because "highest standards" for me means justice and freedom (do not confuse with anarchy) not lies about what is free and what is not.

Also in those countries common citizen have to pay taxes for criminals put in jails, so those criminals would have something to eat, clean sheets and health care. For me that is simply not right.

It is free at the point of use. If somebody offers you a free bar of chocolate, do you complain that the chocolate bar is not free, because somebody had to grow the cocoa, farm the cows to make the milk, transport the ingredients to a factory, etc. etc.?

You're trying to twist some things.

If someone offers me "free" bar of chocolate, but I had to pay taxes for it it is not free it doesn't matter if you call it "free at point of use" those are just pretty words or common lie, depends how you look at it.

If we would live in society that offers you "free food" it would be problem, because you can be honorable and you will take only 1 bar of chocolate, but that doesn't mean every citizen is honorable. For every criminal that would took more than single bar we would have one starving person.

There is another problem with that system, what if I don't want bar of chocolate today? Why someone is forcing me to take things I don't want and don't need today?

If I would be able to spend my money on my own I would get popcorn not bar of chocolate

I like freedom and that kind of system reminds me of slavery, because slaves also had "free meals", but first they had to pay taxes... I mean work for them.

All those social system works just like slavery system, with only one difference you get paid, but that is illusion because later you are forced to give away part of your money on things you don't need.

The majority of the tax burden in a functioning social democracy falls on the wealthier members of society, and there is a generous tax free allowance.

Your parents are paying larger taxes per year than president of Oracle, because his payment is 1$ per year

You should check definition of wealth. Wealth is not your monthly payment, things that you own makes you wealth.

House, land, car, private plane, corporation, from old time village or town if you own any of those things you can say you have some wealth, but today we doesn't pay taxes for things we own, we pay taxes for how much we earn per month!

If you were looking main cause of disproportion in society this is it, taxes are paid by people that are poor, but are hard working to accumulate enough saving they can buy and own real wealth. Current tax burden in social democracy falls on largest part of society and largest part are people on middle, you, me and your parents.

This is the first time I've ever seen someone arguing that free education subsidises the rich at the expense of the poor.

If you are 20 years old poor guy who went to work to earn money for your own education you are paying taxes to fund FREE studies for children of corporation owners, not fair I would say.

And artificial increase of IQ won't help to solve it, we have to solve it before we start to make people smarter, because imagine guy with 200 IQ taking your garbage, how would he feel like?

Funnily enough, both of my parents are teachers. They get paid for each hour they work, and if they are good, they get paid bonuses. You're presenting a false dichotomy here, people can be incentivised to work both hard and work smart.

You didn't said how those paid bonuses work, there can be huge flaw in that mechanic.

Look how corporations are working if they employ common office worker he get $ as payment, but if shareholders employ new chairman he is becoming shareholder.

Not only to trick tax system, but also to motivate him for better work. Maybe your parents are honorable and hard working people, but that doesn't mean every teacher is like that. We need to be sure education is working as good as possible, because without it your IQ gene tweak is worthless.

It's the number of road deaths per 100 million vehicle miles travelled. In 1921, for every 100 million miles people collectively drove, 24.1 people died. In 2011, for every 100 million miles people drive, 1.1 million people died.

In real terms, it means that if you hop in your car and drive 10 miles, you are 24 times less likely to die in 2011 as you would have been had you done it in 1921.

This is just common manipulation exploiting statistics, you can't compare 24 people to 1100000 people. That kind of manipulations we should avoid in high IQ society?

What you measure in that chart is deaths per mile, not car safety.

To measure car safety we would need number of cars in 1920 and 2015 and we would need number of road traffic participants and number of deaths.

That should allow us to calculate car safety in 1920 and today.

I'm sticking by my guns on this one. Anti-vaxxers are idiots. Not that all other people aren't idiots, but anti-vaxxers definitely are.

I never mentioned forcing somebody to do anything, people are free to be idiots if they want.

Right because people that have different views are wrong

I can agree with second sentence, but still insulting people just because they disagree with you looks childish.

I don't think anybody is advocating rolling out large-scale genetic modification without a rigorous standard of testing.

Control groups are for clinical trials. If something passes clinical trials successfully, it no longer needs a control group.

This is another good example how our civilization is going in wrong direction.

In my country I have to make car checks every year because companies are not sure how long car will be able to work as intended. There is a LAW that forces me to do this.

You are saying that clinical trials are enough to be sure that medicine is safe and is working as it should without checks? But what with the changes caused by the environment, what with mutations, or with evolution, each of us is different?

We care more about things than about our bodies and our lives.

So you're advocating keeping a socially and genetically disadvantaged underclass that exists solely to do the dirty work of their genetic Ubermensch? And you are implying that I am some sort of a ....!

I am advocating to give each person in society equal chance to become smarter and wealthier. While making artificial laws forbids them to do so.

If you are trying to make every one equal it is wrong, just look how nature works... one lion have longer claws other doesn't.

Would it be fair to disallow using claws during fights?

Then those with shorter claws would have same evolutionary chance to win, but that would be not fair.

If one person is smarter than other, this is his evolutionary advantage and now if laws and societies are going to force him to do not use this advantage or are going to artificially increase IQ of those that had less luck and got lower IQ, it doesn't make things fair. It is harmful.

People make the same sort of argument every time some new innovation comes around, whether it's computers, assembly lines, or the steam engine. Society adapts.

But if people are against something and this "bad idea" is getting pushed anyway, so who is making decision about what is good for us and what is bad?

The argument of "but you are messing with human evolution!" is foolish. We have been messing with our evolution for thousands of years. Healthcare, dietary changes, altered habitats, etc.

But this is how life and evolution works and we have proof it works great, because we are here using internet and communicating without cave drawings.

While DNA modifications can be harmful, imagine what would child inherit if both parents would have exact same code in part of DNA responsible for IQ?

Maybe your generation could be equally smart, thanks to DNA modifications, but next generation would be equally dumb and totally dependent on artificial methods of increasing IQ.

Tweaking genes may not just be the right move, it might be the necessary move.

Necessary for what? Did we hit wall where none of us can solve harder puzzle?

We can't advance without it?

If all of a sudden North Korea proved that it had created a gene therapy to increase human IQ, all of a sudden you are going to see (or rather, you won't) rich people swinging by with their kids.

Then North Korea would have very smart, very poor and very uneducated people.

Changing IQ doesn't make you smarter it only gives you ability to become smarter, but you still need to improve process of education.

It is like with computers, you can have lots of RAM memory, but that doesn't mean your software is going to run any faster if it is not designed to do so.

[WestAir]

I think the argument for genetic engineering will become a lot easier to get behind once artificial intelligence begins to overtake us in the workforce, sports, politics, philosophy and engineering. We'll have the simple choice of letting AI take the helm, or, advancing ourselves to stay competitive.

I imagine it to be analogous to an arms race; and personally I wish I could still be alive to watch it unfold.

[Darnok]

I think the argument for genetic engineering will become a lot easier to get behind once artificial intelligence begins to overtake us in the workforce, sports, politics, philosophy and engineering. We'll have the simple choice of letting AI take the helm, or, advancing ourselves to stay competitive.

I imagine it to be analogous to an arms race; and personally I wish I could still be alive to watch it unfold.

You are mixing here few things.

There is no us or we, Earth is shared by many countries and cultures and I doubt it everyone will get same conclusions and try to solve issue in same way. It would be very stupid and unnatural if they would be forced to do same thing.

We have AI today... it is basically common person with smartphone. It is in some way artificial intelligence... they are using intelligent apps more than their own brains and I am not scared by them in any way

Yet another thing why we shouldn't improve our IQ by DNA modifications... people are making selfies instead of solving real issues.

We have billions of people using facebook and twitter and they prefer to share photos of their face from different angles... instead of write something smart, share observations or studies, educate each other or share views to improve things and advance as entire species

Why would anyone want to give them higher IQ?

[SciMan]

Maybe, just maybe... If they had higher IQ, they would be intelligent enough to realize that facebook and twitter are tools, not toys. They might start using them to contact other people of similar intelligence and start collaborating on projects that will actually help to better the human race.

... Oh wait, people already use them for that.

Facebook and twitter aren't just "time wasters". They only become that if the person was trying to waste time anyways. That's a problem of lack of will, not lack of intelligence.

I will admit there is indeed a lot of "lack of intelligence" out there. I'm not questioning that at all.

(George Carlin joke: Take the average human being. Now realize that half of the human race is stupider than that.)

Regarding the "free at point of use" versus "free" argument, I think it's mostly semantics, and immaterial to this discussion.

Freedom isn't free. In every case, one's own freedom comes at a cost. That cost may be paid by yourself, others, or a combination, but it always has a cost. Determining if that cost is acceptable is something only oneself can decide.

I think genetic modification research should be done, and it should be getting a lot more funding than it does now. The tools to cure many thousands of crippling diseases and deformities are there for the taking. We just need the willpower to figure out how to use them.

A common argument against using genetic engineering for that purpose is "Why would we stop there?" Of course there's a few logical fallacies in that argument, but I think I have relevant counter-arguments despite that.

The argument's logical fallacy is the "slippery slope".

I hope I'm avoiding the Straw-Man logical fallacy, because I'm deliberately not using the fact that this argument has a logical fallacy as a counter argument.

\Now that that's out of the way:

Truth is, we probably won't stop at curing genetic diseases. We'll probably have cosmetic and performance modifications well researched and available as well.

That's not a bad thing.

Firstly, it's reversible. If we understand an organism's genome well enough to modify it, we by definition have a baseline genome that we can use to return that organism's genome to it's unmodified state, or at least close enough to not make a difference unless you're looking at the DNA and comparing it to the copy from before the modifications.

That goes for ALL of the modifications. Even the ones in the GMO crops produced and grown today. Of course, it gets more complex if the organism in question has an inheritable modification from previous generations, but there's still a baseline.

Secondly, forcing another human being to undergo genetic modification would be a severe violation of their human rights. Preventing another human being from undergoing genetic modifications of their choice would be a similarly severe violation.

Either way, I don't think a lack of intelligence is the reason for a lot of problems in the world not being solved.

Instead, I think the reason is that too many people in a position able to do something about these problems are overly risk-averse and/or seemingly can't think past the next election cycle.

I'm not talking about being unwilling to take a 1-way trip to Mars, either. I'm talking about BIG stuff, the kind of stuff that takes 10-50 years to start paying off, but the benefits are something that would truly change the world for the better of all, and not always just humans, either.

Examples of things on the scale I'm thinking of:

• An aqueduct from the Great Lakes to California. (entirely underground)
  
• Large scale implementation of active carbon sequestration tech. (we changed the climate, we can at least slow down further change)
  
• Solar PV / Solar Thermal and wind power farms in the world's deserts. (Helps get rid of coal power plants, there's not exactly a lot of life in the deserts, and most deserts get a lot of sun and wind pretty constantly)
  
• Grid Energy storage, and a "smart" power grid. (needed for solar/wind power, even with large-area adoption of both)
  
• Infrastructure to support large-scale adoption of electric cars. (standardized charge ports and batteries, allowing electric "filling stations" and battery swapping, also possibly allowing cars to act as grid energy storage batteries)
  
• And of course, Genetic engineering. (detailed above)
  

Every one of those ideas has a large monetary price tag, and will almost certainly require at least 10 years to show useful benefits. Additionally, most of them face a large amount of social/political inertia.

This makes them very hard tasks indeed, and their benefits may not be well quantified, but they are well defined (we know it's "better", but not "how much better").

Does that mean they shouldn't be done? No, not in the slightest.

JFK had it almost right. We do not do these things because they are easy. We do them despite the fact that they are hard.

Anything that has the potential to benefit the human race, merits inquiry.

Anything that has theoretical benefit to the human race, merits further research.

Anything that has proven benefit to the human race, demands action.

Edited August 9, 2015 by SciMan

[magnemoe]

You are mixing here few things.

There is no us or we, Earth is shared by many countries and cultures and I doubt it everyone will get same conclusions and try to solve issue in same way. It would be very stupid and unnatural if they would be forced to do same thing.

We have AI today... it is basically common person with smartphone. It is in some way artificial intelligence... they are using intelligent apps more than their own brains and I am not scared by them in any way

Yet another thing why we shouldn't improve our IQ by DNA modifications... people are making selfies instead of solving real issues.

We have billions of people using facebook and twitter and they prefer to share photos of their face from different angles... instead of write something smart, share observations or studies, educate each other or share views to improve things and advance as entire species

Why would anyone want to give them higher IQ?

I agree, very differentiated cultures, main driver behind increasing IQ looks like being China as its an popular idea there.

I do not see any issues myself outside of the bugs who will show up, we have some idea of how genes who might affect IQ, now say the downside is high chance of extreme paranoia combined with sociopath behavior.

Play with animals for an generation or two then start with humans.

I would not be surprised if humans are multiple species in some hundred years.

Next I don't agree with an smartphone is an tool, benefit over an pc is that you can carry it in your pocket, I have had smartphones since the Nokia communicator in previous century, yes its also an toy, my main use for them was books.

One the other hand google in it self is scary OP for someone who grew up before Internet.

Most people talk .... and boost on Facebook, 100 years ago they did the same on the pub, 1000 years ago around the well. 10.000 years ago around an campfire. Wake me up then something new is happening.

Selfies are an stupid fad, recommend everybody to help splat it. Take picture of yourself against an bluescreen or other surface who can be removed.

Now start to add pictures of yourself at tourist traps around the world. This is plausible but require an big budget and lots of time. Next up is together with stars rapid followed by major politicians like Obama. For fun add an young version of yourself with Reagan. No you broken the limit so just go ape...., on mars next to an rover, moon, use various movies as backdrops, bonus point for stuff like death star wally run.

If lots of people do stuff like this it will kill the trend hard, for me I use facebook as cheap entertainment, you get loads of fail and cat videos making it more fun than tv.

[WestAir]

There is no us or we, Earth is shared by many countries and cultures and I doubt it everyone will get same conclusions and try to solve issue in same way. It would be very stupid and unnatural if they would be forced to do same thing.

Not really the point here. I'm specifically talking about the big picture. Whether or not Uganda or Turkey decide to follow the hypothetical trend of making an AI head of state, or if they decide to follow the hypothetical trend of supporting bio-engineered leadership instead is completely 100% irrelevant if the worlds leading superpowers (China, US, EU) all sway the same way.

We have AI today... it is basically common person with smartphone.

Not the type of AI I'm referring to. I think that's very clear here.

We have billions of people using facebook and twitter and they prefer to share photos of their face from different angles... instead of write something smart, share observations or studies, educate each other or share views to improve things and advance as entire species

Take the average person like you or I. Now realize that about half of the population is smarter than us. We cannot judge our species based on the lowest common denominator. There are still Issac Newtons and Albert Einsteins in the world today. In fact, since the population is exponentially higher than it was even 50 years ago, there are dozens more Einsteins and Newtons around today. Facebook does not change this.

Why would anyone want to give them higher IQ?

While I don't think I or anyone here was suggesting we bioengineer the entire population, doing so would increase the average global IQ, and that can only be a good thing. I think the phrase goes "Surround yourself with capable people - it challenges you to stay ahead."

As an aside, I always find the "most people are dumb, but I'm not" argument to be rather arrogant. Out of the 7+ billion people in this world and I can openly admit at least 4 billion of them are smarter than me. If I could bio engineer myself smarter, believe me when I say I would. I'd also wager the majority of people would as well.

[Mazon Del]

Really the question of this all ends up being quite moot. Some countries, like the US, have decided (for now) that genetic engineering and cloning of humans is unethical. Fine, that research is slowed or effectively stalled. But what about countries that don't care? The usual silly example is North Korea. What happens when some frustrated scientist wants to make super smart humans and convinces the current leader of NK to fund his research? Genetic Engineering hardware isn't very hard to come by, it's just expensive. So let's say 5-10 years later, this scientist has cracked it and is able to apply a treatment to a pregnant woman such that her children will have IQs of 180 or something similarly ridiculous. People WILL buy it if it can be proven to work, medical tourism is already a thing today. Suddenly the rest of the world has a problem on their hands with enforcing this ban. What are you going to do to someone who did this to their child? Especially since they are likely rich enough to not care about your punishments. Sure, you could take away the child perhaps, but then what? It's still got the super-DNA. It WILL be smart (if you take the erroneous assumption that DNA truly does define such intelligence). You cannot apply a bout of genetic engineering to the child to undo the changes without engaging (and thus having researched) in the very act you wanted to suppress. And once the rich start abusing it, you'll find some enterprising soul that is willing to sell the treatments more cheaply to the masses. Cracking down on illicit genetic engineering is likely to be the futures "war on drugs", I have spouted off many times already how the designs for about 95% of the lab equipment needed for GE experimentation is available online in an open source format. Once we start having trouble with people dealing in such treatments, you'll have legitimate commercial enterprises begin pushing for more freedom to research and commercialize.

In the end, tech bans WILL always fail. If something can be used for massive gain over others, someone WILL use it. Unless of course you actually have an ability to force EVERYONE to not engage in such acts.

[peadar1987]

True, but greed comes from trade directly, look at animals pack of lions is also creating "tribe", yet they don't gather more than they need to eat today. For us problem is that we want some spare gold/silver/printed paper/virtual numbers on account in case when things go bad. And that is also main cause why we gather and exploit environment, we want to have more and more for future needs.

Which is an innate part of our nature due to evolution, which I have been saying all along. We're risk averse. The humans who planned for their future passed on their genes better than those who did not.

You see you are now using words that have meaning for you only, because "highest standards" for me means justice and freedom (do not confuse with anarchy) not lies about what is free and what is not.

No, I am using objective measures, like social mobility, level of education, healthy life expectancy, median wage, press freedom, crime rate. All of which are highest in social democracies than right-wing, laissez-faire corporatist states.

Also in those countries common citizen have to pay taxes for criminals put in jails, so those criminals would have something to eat, clean sheets and health care. For me that is simply not right.

And guess what, crime rates, and reoffending rates, are lower in these countries. Maybe you'd execute shoplifters so taxes didn't have to go on prisons, but most rational people disagree.

You're trying to twist some things.

If someone offers me "free" bar of chocolate, but I had to pay taxes for it it is not free it doesn't matter if you call it "free at point of use" those are just pretty words or common lie, depends how you look at it.

If we would live in society that offers you "free food" it would be problem, because you can be honorable and you will take only 1 bar of chocolate, but that doesn't mean every citizen is honorable. For every criminal that would took more than single bar we would have one starving person.

Countries who have socialised healthcare and education spend less per capita on health and education than those who do not, which achieving better results. This is a direct result of not trying to squeeze a profit out of sick or uneducated people, which leads to a model where you charge as high as you can for something as cheap as you can get away with.

There is another problem with that system, what if I don't want bar of chocolate today? Why someone is forcing me to take things I don't want and don't need today?

If I would be able to spend my money on my own I would get popcorn not bar of chocolate

Socialism doesn't force people to spend their money in a certain way. If I am sick, I have the option of going to the NHS. If I am not sick, I don't get forced to go to hospital just because somebody has paid for it. Your analogy is wide of the mark.

I like freedom and that kind of system reminds me of slavery, because slaves also had "free meals", but first they had to pay taxes... I mean work for them.

All those social system works just like slavery system, with only one difference you get paid, but that is illusion because later you are forced to give away part of your money on things you don't need.

You think paying less than half your wages in tax is slavery? You should probably read up a bit more about history.

You know what's more like slavery? Being forced to work back-breaking hours because the market has decreed that your time and skills aren't valuable enough to support your family on less than 60 hours a week.

Being a slave to market forces is not freedom. The working population of western Europe have far more free time and disposable income than their brethren in the United States precisely because there is redistribution of wealth and progressive labour laws.

Your parents are paying larger taxes per year than president of Oracle, because his payment is 1$ per year

Which is a symbol of a broken tax system. Fix it, don't abolish tax systems altogether.

You should check definition of wealth. Wealth is not your monthly payment, things that you own makes you wealth.

House, land, car, private plane, corporation, from old time village or town if you own any of those things you can say you have some wealth, but today we doesn't pay taxes for things we own, we pay taxes for how much we earn per month!

We pay taxes on earnings.

We also pay sales tax, which is related to consumption

Council tax is related to the value of your property

Inheritance tax is related to the value of assets passed on.

In some social democracies, notably Norway, France, and the Netherlands, a tax is levied on your wealth.

If you were looking main cause of disproportion in society this is it, taxes are paid by people that are poor, but are hard working to accumulate enough saving they can buy and own real wealth. Current tax burden in social democracy falls on largest part of society and largest part are people on middle, you, me and your parents.

Cool story. Then why is inequality, in fact, greater in countries with far lower tax rates? Surely if taxes were the main cause of inequality, Norway would be one of the most unequal countries on earth? The exact opposite is actually true.

If you are 20 years old poor guy who went to work to earn money for your own education you are paying taxes to fund FREE studies for children of corporation owners, not fair I would say.

If you are a 20 year old poor guy, the vast majority of your earnings will fall within the tax-free allowance.

Besides, you are totally misrepresenting the system here. It's not an elaborate scheme whereby call-centre workers are robbed at gunpoint to fund an extensive system of scholarships purely for the ultra-rich. Your hypothetical poor guy, if he is on £14,000 a year, will pay £1,000 in tax. This entitles him to free healthcare, free education up to the age of 18 (or the end of university, if he lives in Scotland), use of an extensive train and road network, and unemployment benefit if he ever falls on hard times. That's a pretty good deal.

And artificial increase of IQ won't help to solve it, we have to solve it before we start to make people smarter, because imagine guy with 200 IQ taking your garbage, how would he feel like?

Again, you're advocating we keep a section of society genetically disadvantaged to they can do our menial jobs. Would somebody with an IQ of 80 feel any better about cleaning toilets or collecting rubbish than somebody with an IQ of 200?

You didn't said how those paid bonuses work, there can be huge flaw in that mechanic.

Look how corporations are working if they employ common office worker he get $ as payment, but if shareholders employ new chairman he is becoming shareholder.

Not only to trick tax system, but also to motivate him for better work. Maybe your parents are honorable and hard working people, but that doesn't mean every teacher is like that. We need to be sure education is working as good as possible, because without it your IQ gene tweak is worthless.

And the solution to that is not to make it for-profit. For-profit education limits education to the rich, not the intelligent. If you want the intelligent to get a good education, you have to offer equal opportunities to all.

This is just common manipulation exploiting statistics, you can't compare 24 people to 1100000 people. That kind of manipulations we should avoid in high IQ society?

What you measure in that chart is deaths per mile, not car safety.

If cars are killing fewer people for every mile they are driven, then they are safer. That's pretty much the definition of car safety.

To measure car safety we would need number of cars in 1920 and 2015 and we would need number of road traffic participants and number of deaths.

That should allow us to calculate car safety in 1920 and today.

No, because that wouldn't allow us to adjust for how much people drive. If there were 1 million cars in 1920, driven by 1 million people, who only used them to drive to the shops once a week, that's an unfair comparison to 1 million cars driven by 1 million people who commute for an hour each way to get to their job every day.

Right because people that have different views are wrong

No, people who are wrong are wrong. People can hold different opinions to me on a huge variety of subjects, and I will respect that opinion. The set-in-stone, incontrovertible science behind vaccines is not one of those subjects.

I can agree with second sentence, but still insulting people just because they disagree with you looks childish.

No, I insult those people because their opinions are at best moronic, and at worst, harmful.

This is another good example how our civilization is going in wrong direction.

In my country I have to make car checks every year because companies are not sure how long car will be able to work as intended. There is a LAW that forces me to do this.

You are saying that clinical trials are enough to be sure that medicine is safe and is working as it should without checks? But what with the changes caused by the environment, what with mutations, or with evolution, each of us is different?

We care more about things than about our bodies and our lives.

You said that you can't give medicine to a group of people without deliberately keeping some people untreated, as a control group. I fail to see what this has to do with automobile maintenance.

I am advocating to give each person in society equal chance to become smarter and wealthier. While making artificial laws forbids them to do so.

Running everything for profit and excluding the poor simply because they don't have enough money is a funny way of going about that.

If you are trying to make every one equal it is wrong, just look how nature works... one lion have longer claws other doesn't.

Would it be fair to disallow using claws during fights?

Then those with shorter claws would have same evolutionary chance to win, but that would be not fair.

If one person is smarter than other, this is his evolutionary advantage and now if laws and societies are going to force him to do not use this advantage or are going to artificially increase IQ of those that had less luck and got lower IQ, it doesn't make things fair. It is harmful.

No, socialism isn't about making everybody equal, it's about giving everybody equal opportunities and making sure those with wealth and power don't abuse it for their own benefit.

But if people are against something and this "bad idea" is getting pushed anyway, so who is making decision about what is good for us and what is bad?

Elected representatives with a mandate from the population.