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should stupid people be allowed to Breed.
"Intelligence is hereditary," said Professor Helmuth Nyborg, the dean of the psychology institute at Aarhus University.
"The 15 to 20 per cent of those at the lower levels of society - those who are not able to manage even the simplest tasks and often not their children - should be dissuaded from having children. "The fact is that they are having more children and the intelligent ones are having fewer."
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/01/1064988267009.html
Is this guy talking sense, with the Liberal Elite squashing the obvious to further their ideals?
Personally, the idea seems pure evil to me.
Natural selection seems to be working in the opposite direction. As so many geeks have lamented, it is difficult for an intelligent male to find breeding opportunities.
Ged Byrne
Friday, October 3, 2003
> Natural selection seems to be working in the opposite direction.
That's because the downside is currently reduced, if not removed. Right now, many societies chooses to look after those who, given a more 'natural' environment would probably perish if left alone. So now we have natural selection with feelings ;)
Natural selection will still win out, but it's playing the long game.
Len Holgate (www.lenholgate.com)
Friday, October 3, 2003
I was thinking more of Natural Selection as in females selecting a male.
Intelligence does not seem to be a high priority for the majority of females.
Is failing to recognise geeks as attractive a clear sign of low intelligence, and therefore criteria for steralisation?
Ged Byrne
Friday, October 3, 2003
> I was thinking more of Natural Selection as in females selecting a male.
Ah, I know even less about that topic ;)
Len Holgate (www.lenholgate.com)
Friday, October 3, 2003
Re the idea, I'd like to hear the author's opinion if someone considered one of his loved ones belonged to that 15%-20% group.
Re natural selection, according to a couple of biologists I know, the fate of every species is extinction. What I believe is our unique feature is that we seem to be actively working to expedite our own extinction :)
To tell the truth, the planet would probably be better off without us, anyway.
One thing we should probably be thinking about is why are the "intelligent people" having fewer children. But, of course, it's better not to open "Baldrick's Trousers" (if you never saw the Blackadder series, you may call it "Pandora's Box")
--
"Suravye ninto manshima taishite (Peace favor your sword)" (Shienaran salute)
"Life is a dream from which we all must wake before we can dream again" (Amys, Aiel Wise One)
Paulo Caetano
Friday, October 3, 2003
We may be on the way out anyway:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2003/09/06/2003066731
Mark
----
Author of "Comprehensive VB .NET Debugging"
http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=128
Mark Pearce
Friday, October 3, 2003
---"should stupid people be allowed to Breed. "---
At least while they're breeding they not posting stupid questions on this foirum:)
Stephen Jones
Friday, October 3, 2003
> Personally, the idea seems pure evil to me.
Here in Denmark where the professor lives and works, his ideas have woken unpleasant memories about "racial hygiene" which was practised here in DK in the 1930's, where eg. mentally retarded people where forcefully sterilized.
Apart from being stupid, his ideas are also repulsive.
I smell the foul stench of The Third Reich in this way of thinking. Putting a value stamp on human beings simply is wrong.
What if Ms Clever wants to have children with Mr Stupid? Should it be allowed, thus allowing Mr Stupid to breed, or disallowed, prohibiting Ms Clever to breed? Who should decide cases like that?
Can clever people have stupid children? Vice versa? Was Albert Einstein more intelligent than his parents? Are his children more intelligent than he was?
There is no evidence that intelligence is 100% inheritable. There is no way of forcing people not to have children, without violating their human rights.
The Naizis had ideas like this, and they failed miserably in proving their own superiority.
To me it looks like extreme lack of intelligence to start walking down that path again...
Martin A. Boegelund
Friday, October 3, 2003
In ,my experience we all have the ability to be 'stupid'.
Some of the most stupid people I have actually met are the ones with a very high level of academic achievement as they have little real life experience and very little common sense.
The ability to adapt and survive is a very human character and applies to all levels ( whatever that is) of humanity and nature.
Roger Parker
Friday, October 3, 2003
[Natural selection seems to be working in the opposite direction. As so many geeks have lamented, it is difficult for an intelligent male to find breeding opportunities.]
Natural selection hasn't applied to the human race for quite some time now. In a large part, our society is all about negating natural selection.
anon
Friday, October 3, 2003
Hmm... The planet would be roughly the same without us, not really better. Probably less species would meet their destined extinction in the shorter frame if we weren't around. I fail to see how that is necessarily a good or bad thing from the point of view of a bubble/rock floating through space, but hey.
As for stupid people breeding, there would be no good way of coming up with standardized tests and practices for this without tromping all over people's aforementioned 'human rights' - which may be a consesual illusion, but is a cozy one. A better practice might be the wholesale limiting of the number of offspring any couple is allowed to have to two, making the curve a lot less steep and taking care of the oft-mentioned over-population problem. Random grants would be given to healthy people who did not want to raise children at the time to provide for a pool of adoptive children from semi-stable genetic lines. Enforcing this would be difficult, but merely having the policy in place and educating people about it would go a long way. Maybe some sort of fine for more children. Not unsurmountable, but it would help a little.
And then maybe some classes on dealing with social situations for geeks :)
AT
Friday, October 3, 2003
AT suggest, "Maybe some sort of fine for more children."
So, you prefer making it easy for rich people to breed, and not poor people?
The Pedant, Brent P. Newhall
Friday, October 3, 2003
In the United States of America, intelligence is measured by wealth. :-)
Devil's Advocate
Friday, October 3, 2003
"As so many geeks have lamented, it is difficult for an intelligent male to find breeding opportunities."
I humbly submit that being an intelligent male is not correlated with finding breeding opportunities.
And further submit that viewing relationships as breeding opportunities has a high correlation with lack thereof.
Scot
Friday, October 3, 2003
> In the United States of America,
> intelligence is measured by wealth. :-)
And where doesn't this rule apply? :)
Paulo Caetano
Friday, October 3, 2003
Most rich people have less kids anyway. Even so, I would say that having successful people breed is preferable to having unsuccessful ones breed. They can at least take care of their children, which isn't always the case for the less advantaged. However, the point of the law, rule, whatever would be to prevent people from having over two children. Poorer people could still have those two. Preventing rich people from having more would be harder, but the law could be escalated. The fine was just one suggested way of enforcing it.
AT
Friday, October 3, 2003
Following the lead of the most logical, and therefore best, race in the galaxy, we shall now limit mating to once every seven years. For some of you, this will mean considerably less, for others, considerably more
worst. thread. ever
Friday, October 3, 2003
Coincidentally, I was just reading a book on Jaime Escalante. Most of his calculus students came from those who would apparently be classed among "stupid people who shouldn't be allowed to breed."
Kyralessa
Friday, October 3, 2003
Humans aren't getting more intelligent from an evolutionary standpoint. At least not in the way that created "human" intelligence in the first place. Human intelligence was made possible by being born with successively bigger brains. But brain size can't increase any more because of the size of the birth canal. So if we want to jump-start evolution, I guess we should be dissuading women with narrow hips from breeding.
Ken
Friday, October 3, 2003
Most of the brain isn't used. The majority of people use about 11% of their brain and with genuises it increases to 15%.
John Topley (www.johntopley.com)
Friday, October 3, 2003
I had the same problem regarding finding a suitable (i.e., intelligent) female. After fruitless years of dating, I finally tried and succeeded in joining Mensa (the high-IQ club). I went to one meeting and found the woman that I eventually married. In retrospect, it was the most successful plan that I ever designed and executed.
However, seeing all of those 98th percentile geniuses at the meeting convinced me that I don't want the smart people breeding either. ;-)
StickyWicket
Friday, October 3, 2003
"Most of the brain isn't used. The majority of people use about 11% of their brain and with genuises it increases to 15%. "
People always say stuff like this- but how can it be true? Isn't like half of our brain dedicated to vision? Maybe it's more like software- 90% of processing time is spent in 10% of the code. Who said that by the way?
Ken
Friday, October 3, 2003
I was waiting for the old 'you only use 10% of your brain' quote - the Scientologists usually claim Albert Einstein said it.
It's false.
All that grey matter is there for a reason.
AJS
Friday, October 3, 2003
If you didn't have stupid people who would do, and be satisfied with, all the mundane crap jobs?
I'm kind of in favour of a 'breeding licence'.
If you want to have children I think you should prove that you're able financially and pratically to bring them up.
In the UK we have council estates full of wasters who over-populate with more wasters who all get housed at the taxpayers expense. And bugger me, before you know it, they're having more children. Often because children gives you priority on council housing lists.
Personally I think that people who take advantage of government sponsored accomodation should not be allowed to have children until they themselves are not a drain on society. And if they do? Boot them out! Unfortunately we're a little civilised for such things but the issue should be addressed
A UK taxpayer
Friday, October 3, 2003
Oh you're right. I guess I was only using 1% of my brain when I posted that!
Most of our brains are made of water though, right?
John Topley (www.johntopley.com)
Friday, October 3, 2003
Stupid people die faster anyway. They usually die after saying :
"Hey look at me !"
"I don't need all those safety to do my work"
"It's safe it's a gun"
"My plan is flawless"
Application Specialist
Friday, October 3, 2003
> Natural selection seems to be working in the
> opposite direction.
This is because natural selection doesn't happen for humans anymore. This started a long way ago, when we learned to treat diseases and protect our weak.
Whether this is good or bad, only the future, 1000 years from now, can tell.
> As so many geeks have lamented, it is difficult
> for an intelligent male to find breeding
> opportunities.
So, there are some geeks that are intelligent but can't date.
What you are saying now is that a geek is highly intelligent at programming + logic + maths, but very dumb in the "relations between people" department.
So, in the matter that's important for mating, they are dumb as a post.
DevX
Friday, October 3, 2003
[Stupid people die faster anyway. They usually die after saying :
"Hey look at me !"
"I don't need all those safety to do my work"
"It's safe it's a gun"
"My plan is flawless" ]
Think of it as evolution in action.
anon
Friday, October 3, 2003
The 10% myth:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html
Mark
Mark Pearce
Friday, October 3, 2003
Wrong Question, (and an abhorrent idea as well).
A better idea would be to stop penalising successful (and typically intelligent) people who want more children.
If parents on Welfare want more children, they go right ahead. It just means more money for them.
For other parents, it means *less* money, as their income is largely unchanged.
What we need is a tax credit for every child you support. If you have more children, you pay less tax because you need your money to support your own children. Basically, extend the idea of your own tax allowance to the children in your family as well.
I don't mind paying to help out those in poorer circumstances than my own, but I don't see why my children should be penalised in the process.
Incidentally, here in the U.K. there is a small allowance called Child Benefit payable per child, but yes, you guessed, it's taxable. So in effect, my children don't get the full amount.
David B. Wildgoose
Friday, October 3, 2003
read daniel dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea". Too many people are way confused over what "natural selection" really means.
rz
Friday, October 3, 2003
--
Human intelligence was made possible by being born with successively bigger brains. But brain size can't increase any more because of the size of the birth canal. So if we want to jump-start evolution, I guess we should be dissuading women with narrow hips from breeding.
--
Partially true. Brain sizes increased as our ancestors bodies became more efficient. This efficiency let them spend less time gathering food or gave them more calories to support a bigger brain with the same amount of food (a bigger brain probably helped gather more food too).
Supposedly human evolution made the "final" step thousands of years ago when a major dry period hit the African continent. After many years of harsh conditions only the smartest of the human species remained. Once the climate became more favorable our population exploded.
NathanJ
Friday, October 3, 2003
No, but i don't think anyone is smart enough to
know if someone else is stupid.
somebody
Friday, October 3, 2003
Ged,
>> Natural selection seems to be working in the opposite direction. <<
There is a good argument that says that natural selection has no direction. Recent advances in evolutionary theory (such as the theory of punctuated equilibrium) and observation of evolutionary phenomena seem to indicate that evolution is a largely unpredictable, chaotic and contingent series of events, where small fluctuations may lead to major catastrophes that change the future course of development.
Fitness to survive is a relative notion: what is fit in one type of environment may no longer be fit in another environment. Thus, the inexorable increase of fitness only holds in invariant environments (which seem wholly atypical). For example, the evolution from hairless elephant to woolly mammoth is likely to be a result of a cooling climate. If the climate becomes warmer again, the woolly variant will lose its fitness relative to the hairless one, and the trend will be reversed.
>> As so many geeks have lamented, it is difficult for an intelligent male to find breeding opportunities. <<
There isn't any evidence that intelligence has much survival value, at least in the long-term. Dinosaurs survived for over 100 million years without much intelligence. So far, we're about 1 million years and counting...
Mark
Mark Pearce
Friday, October 3, 2003
AT,
>> Preventing rich people from having more would be harder, but the law could be escalated. The fine was just one suggested way of enforcing it. <<
Perhaps you could forcibly abort fetuses unlucky enough to be third (or more) in a line. What a fine idea! I wonder how many people would vote for it?
Or perhaps you could have something like the notorious Chinese "killing rooms" where the third-born could be left alone in a room, fed properly, but left to die of emotional starvation. Yes, the Chinese really still do this. They did this in the Soviet gulags too.
Another fine idea! If it's good enough for the Chinese and the Russians...
Mark
PS You know, AT, when you make it so easy, it's almost not fun.
Mark Pearce
Friday, October 3, 2003
A big misunderstanding of what "natural selection".
"Natural selection" is the success of the of an individual to replicate their DNA.
If the members of the lower part scale are having more children, then high intellegences is not necessarily a trait that benefits the species.
njkayaker
Friday, October 3, 2003
For what and whose purpose should we try and control ourselves. Has humanity some kind of hidden mission?
Is it to reach the heights of science fiction into reality?
Is intellignece related to power, historically every society has at one time been rulers of the world, the big cycle of power, what once were barbarians are tomorrows rulers.
Go for it, put his ideas into action, all it will cause is pain and struggle, eventually it will be slapped down and overthrown by some inferior culture.
We will stay predictable as ever.
History is just a story.
aku beg
Friday, October 3, 2003
njkayaker hits the nail on the head IMO.
Allowing myself a little dry humor: if only "smart people" were permitted to breed, in a few generations we'd have nothing but cappuchino-sipping dilettantes too proud to clean up after themselves. The human race would soon choke to death on its own waste.
A bit more seriously: the original source's theory could be shot down simply by shooting down the premise that intelligence is hereditary. It might be, to an extent, but I've seen wayyyyy too many examples of dumb parents with smart kids and vice versa.
Paul Brinkley
Friday, October 3, 2003
I know a bit about chinese infantacide, and that was hardly what I was suggesting by using the word 'escalate'. I simply meant coming up with a scaled tax or some such.
I should have used the term dissuade in my first post, rather than talking about strict enforcement. I don't believe that such a law would be possible to fairly and strictly enforce. Creating a law or social policy would be aimed at decreasing the amount of excessive breeding, rather than eliminating it. I'm not suggesting an iron rule wherein they drag the infants out of the womb and dash their heads on rocks. Give me more credit than that.
Intelligence is to some degree heriditary, and the reinforcement of that heridity through exposure to the intelligence of the parent exacerbates that. Still, spending money on improving the education system and resources for self-education are probably easier and more socially friendly ways to rebalance the groups. Higher literacy rates, higher self esteem, removing language barriers, all of these things would be more effective in the long run. The proliferation of the unintelligent could be eliminated within a few generations of good education, as the unintelligent would then become educated, and that education would foster an increased rationality - improving their ability to make intelligent decisions. The world doesn't so much have a problem with a lack of intelligence as a problem with a habit of stupidity. I know quite a few people with decent brains who don't use them, simply because they have never had to, and/or have never learned how.
Now that I think more deeply on the issue, the enforced breeding idea is a rather inelegant solution to the problem, since it doesn't address the social factors inherent in stupidity, which is a social phenomenon as much as a personal one.
As for the argument that intelligence is not necessarily a survival trait, that is much more interesting. In the absence of social interaction intelligence may very well have proven to be a drawback. Curiosity probably lead to the deaths of many tribal members of our species. The... 'I wonder what that creature will do if I poke it with a stick' syndrome.
We did not, however, develop in a vacuum. I think that the introduction of language and the advancements it allowed for the species speaks for its usefulness as far as evolution is concerned. Intelligence allows for a much more responsive evolution over the lifetime of an individual of the species, and language allows us to pass some of those advancements down to our offspring.
Intelligence is just an experiment by nature, and is proving to be a two edged sword. The very intellect that allows us to build wondrous things will allow us to destroy them in shorter and shorter spans of time as technology advances. It may be a self terminating evolutionary trait with only short term benefits. So in the long term, it may not have much survival value. That remains to be seen...
Mosquitos are not all that bright, after all, and their age as a species dwarfs that of ours OR the dinosaurs. And rocks have everything beat.
On the other hand, intelligence provides for the potential to survive much longer than a species without it, with the possiblility of eventually being able to stave off disasters like that which wiped out the dinosaurs.
AT
Friday, October 3, 2003
Maybe stupid people should not be allowed to breed, but it all depends on what the goal is. If the goal is a world with none of the big dumb jocks who picked on you in high school, then sure. But just because that's /your/ goal doesn't mean it should be /everyone's/ goal. People dictating their personal goals onto society is one of the great sources of evil in the world.
Foolish Jordan
Friday, October 3, 2003
Robots are the answer. I've often wondered what less intelligent people will do once robots and machines are performing all manual labor.
Anonymous
Friday, October 3, 2003
http://www.darwinawards.com/
Marcus Zetterquist
Friday, October 3, 2003
There must be something about the turn of a century that scrapes up eugenics again. Eugenics was very popular in the US and most of Europe at the turn of the 20th century. At the turn of the 19th century there were all those debates about racism and humanism which ended up with slavery being abolished (ooops apart from in the US).
There's as much evidence that intelligence isn't inherited as there is that it is. Since the majority of children of intelligent parents will be raised either by those same parents or within a secure and encouraging environment its not all that surprising that they also show evidence of intelligence.
Similarly, if the human brain is neglected in the first few days, weeks, months it can take years for that brain to catch up in its development. There are genetic conditions that can cripple one or more functions of the brain, this is entirely different to making the assumption that brains are advantaged or disadvantaged with everything else being equal when inherited from a heritage of other brains.
There is though some slight comfort in this spurious statistical musing, and that's that there is no real correlation between having a large or efficient brain and a small willy (in the case of men).
Indeed given the nature of the majority of spam it might appear that it is those brains that have been environmentally disadvantaged that have the willies in need of permanent extension.
Simon Lucy
Friday, October 3, 2003
This argument has been floating around in one form or another for at least 100 years. (Remember that America had mass sterlizations of so-called "morons" during the early years of thisi century.)
The definitive refutation to this argument is in Stephen J. Gould's book, "The Mismeasure of Man," which i strongly recommend.
Robert Jacobson
Friday, October 3, 2003
That's why we have this:
http://www.darwinawards.com/
Mark T A W .com
Friday, October 3, 2003
How in the hell can intelligence not be inherited? Monkeys don't just become intelligent. It certainly has something to do with genetics whether left-wingish people want to acknowledge it or not...the question is to what measurable degree.
Richard Kuo
Friday, October 3, 2003
It is probably one of those traits that is 'somewhat heritable if...'. Obviously a lot of the capacities are inherited. The question is how many of those capacities are present in every man, versus the select few that show superior intelligence ?
AT
Friday, October 3, 2003
who is more intelligent:
a kid whose mom is a crackhead and has no dad, who hustles phone cards on the street until he has enough money to buy a DJ mixer. then has house parties to pay his rent, and ends up owning a barber shop, then a convenience store?
or a kid whose mom is a lawyer and whose dad is a doctor, who sleeps through prep school, goes to swarthmore, majors in sociology, and becomes a middle manager for Fidelity Investments, spending most of the day in meetings, and posting stuff to various online dating sites?
rz
Friday, October 3, 2003
It's probably the smart people that shouldn't be allowed to breed. What good do they do? Nuclear bombs, chemical weapons, computers that put honest folks out of work. And usually quite uppity about themselves, expecting a living without doing any hard manual labor.
What we need is more people of average and below average intelligence -- people who are willing to cook for themselves and clean their own homes and to do their jobs pleasantly and entusiastically without causing too much trouble.
The reason women stay away from geeks is that the geeks are the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Dennis Atkins
Friday, October 3, 2003
"The reason women stay away from geeks is that the geeks are the first against the wall when the revolution comes. "
Fine because I refuse to live in a world where the lawyers are not the first against the wall.
Application Specialist
Friday, October 3, 2003
One of the assumptions that no one has questioned is totally wrong. Everyone here assumes that more intelligent people is better. Better for whom. "Natural Selection" does not really care how smart you are. You just need to be able to breed to keep the game running.
I think it was in a book by Stephen Gould where he talks about how nature prefers variety, not one specific trait. Will intelligence help you survive? How the hell could we know? It may be what kills us all when the brain sucking aliens land.
If there are lots of different types of people, or bacteria, or bears, when the next disaster hits, maybe some of them will survive. Diversity is the true species wide advantage.
Doug Withau
Friday, October 3, 2003
The lawyers will not be the first against the wall.
Look at the Russian revolution, the various Peoples resolutions, and so forth.
The lawyers are never shot. They are the ones that are positioning themselves to be in control with maximum power when the 'new' system is in place. Hence, most politicians and judges were formerly lawyers in every country.
China, Russia, Cambodia, the Third Reich -- the teachers, engineers, academics and researchers are the ones blamed for troubles. Those who build the economy and start the new businesses are the ones killed. Why? Because they are the ones they know will not fight back. They will post treatises and have symposiums and make excuses about why fighting is not the answer while the lawyers==party officials==revolutionaries kill and/or enslave them.
Dennis Atkins
Friday, October 3, 2003
The ugly thing is that the good professor is not really advocating measures against the less intelligent, but against the less successful, in economic terms.
In that sense, an intelligent analysis would start by assessing the role of social and economic institutions in creating the conditions the good professor wishes to alleviate.
That is, maybe the single Mum with five children has five children because she never got the chance to finish school and, for her, having five children is actually a good decision. Rather than condemn her, society should give her support for the enormous difficulties in raising that many children.
We could start by requiring university professors to spend certain amounts of time as parents' helpers. Problem solved.
.
Friday, October 3, 2003
Anonymous says that Robots are the answer, he wonders what stupid people will do one Robots do all the manual labour.
I've heard this sentiment a lot, and it always puzzles me, because on the whole computers/robots seem better at replacing intelligent people than stupid people.
For example, maths, reciting shakespear and playing chess are all activities considered to be highly intelligent. These are all things that a computer can do better.
On the other hand, any idiot can drive a car. In fact, highly intelligent people tend to make bad drivers. I now of a few very clever people who could never handle a manual (stick shift) and were forced to use an Automatic. (Here in the uk almost everybody uses manual gears, I understand it is the other way round in the states)
Ged Byrne
Saturday, October 4, 2003
rz,
I think your exactly right. It seems to me that when people starting talking about those valuable to society it is compliance rather than cleverness that is most desirable.
Ged Byrne
Saturday, October 4, 2003
"How in the hell can intelligence not be inherited? Monkeys don't just become intelligent. "
Actually, pretty much they do. If by monkeys you actually mean apes that is, and likely chimpanzees or bonobos.
All of the ape family members (including us) use culture and family groupings, both local and extended to extend their technology and knowledge of how to do stuff.
Now is there some adaptation that means that more intelligent people/apes are likely to breed and so pass on their 'intelligence' gene? It appears not.
Putting aside Lamarckian theories of inheritance of skill as well as the admixture of parental genes, the demographics of human population is generally that those seen or perceived as more intelligent have less children than those that aren't (though these are really economic and social measures and not a real indication of intelligence).
It might seem a left wing or god forbid socialist fantasy but its just a reasonable fact that if you give any embryo a reasonable start and a stimulating and perceptually rich environment they will turn out smart.
Amongst poorer families or those families without that stimulus rich environment it might well be a complete random accident that a specific child o'erleaps that environment and is recognised as being brighter than their contemporaries.
Or maybe its all just fish oil.
Simon Lucy
Saturday, October 4, 2003
The question of the inheritability of intelligence is one that has been debated to death.
The truth is that in primates it is normally impossible to split the effect of nature from nurture. Anyway the average IQ score of the American populace jumped siomething like 15 points in a period of fourty years, whether as a result of better schooling or better diet being a moot point, so it would be more productive to try and improve everybody's intelligence than to argue over eugenics.
Incidentally the concept of the rich breeding less than the poor is unknown before the 20th century, and has been a basically Western phenomenum until the beginning of the 21st .
Stephen Jones
Saturday, October 4, 2003
Should you be allowed to breed?
Saturday, October 4, 2003
I'm kind of stupid, but I've hit a bit of a dry spell lately. I would love to at least get some more practice with the act of breeding. So If anyone can recommend a good dating site for singles in the Boston area, let me know. :)
rz
Saturday, October 4, 2003
Skip the dating. It's for mugs. Just glance down the end of your arm. That thing on the end is all you need. Mrs Palm and her five lovely daughters.
Gwyn
Monday, October 6, 2003
I guess an argument could be made to prevent smart people from breeding, since that way we save their potentially intelligent children from the agony of knowing that this species will overpopulate this planet into oblivion in a long winded dreadfull Bosh'ian endplay long before we could offer any means of escape.
Just me (Sir to you)
Monday, October 6, 2003
You realise that intelligence is all relative right?
There will always be a stupider 50% of the population.
missing
Saturday, April 3, 2004
I have actually given this topic a lot of thought. I agree that there is a problem and I try not to comment on topics such as this without some sort of a solution. I am going to extend this example a bit more and possibly stir up some more ideas.
I wear glasses and have problems seeing things far away. At one point in time I would have been disadvantaged when hunting for food or defending myself. This over time would cause societies eyesight to improve. With the development of glasses eyesight is no longer evolving genetically. If we develop technologies to channel information directly into the brain sight may no longer be of any importance. They would breed with others and eventually everyone would see worse then they do now.
This is an example of what could happen with intelligence, but maybe we can use technology to our advantage to solve this problem in a way that doesn't mistreat or discriminate unfairly.
I'm going to give a bit about my family background so you understand I am part of what I believe is a typical family. After my intelligent mother had my brother and I she got a divorce from our father. She then had another child with an illiterate boxer who had nothing to do with the upbringing of the child. She then had a girl with a man of slightly lower then normal intelligence who himself already had 3 children from a previous marriage. We grew up living poor in America.
We are grown now. I am CEO of a game development company. Although I was a highschool dropout I have gotten a ged and attended a few years of college no degree. I am married, but decided not to have children until my wife got her masters degree. My full brother is a talented programmer who has worked for my company several years in the past. He is also very active in the church.
My half sister of average intelligence has had 3 kids starting at 15 with guys who are not very intelligent.
My half brother is who I wish to talk about most as he had the least intelligent father. He failed kindergarden twice due to being unable to learn more then 5 letters of the alphabet on the first shot. We worked with him several hours a day all summer to try and keep him from forgetting what he had learned previously. He now can read, but it is slow. He has spent much of his life in jail from about the age of 14. He doesn't learn from mistakes very rapidly and almost never learns from the mistakes or advice of others. He has been out of jail for at least a year now, tried to join the army but couldn't pass the intrance exam. I frequently think about how unfair this world is for him. Although he doesn't fit in our ideal world he is funny, charming, and good looking, he is probably the most sexually active member of the family. We don't know if he has any kids, but he's not paying child support to anyone.
In finding a solution the first thing we have to realize is that our children are not our own. They belong to the society we live in when we have them. As such when someone has any genetic traits which harm society it would be best if they not reproduce.
I believe our most realistic option is revising our court system. Individuals with Intelligence in the lower 20% who commit a crime should be sterilized. Individuals who continually show tendencies towards violence and commit a violent crime should be sterilized. You may be thinking what if these children aren't like that when they get older or show that they are capable of having and raising children. I believe this is where technology comes in. Many of our most intelligent citizens aren't having children, it would make sense to have an agency that pays the most intelligent 5% for eggs or semen. Government funding would be used to help these people give birth to our geniuses of tomorrow.
If you think this is a costly solution you are only right in the short term. The cost of such a program would prove it's value a dozen times over in only a couple of generations. The first nations that implement such a policy and organization will quickly discover that the average intelligence of their citizens make their nation much wealthier then their neighbors.
Yes iq is relative, but I would prefer for my iq to drop because our society is getting smarter.
If there is anyone out there who believes we could not dramatically increase the intelligence of our society by choosing who breeds you need to do more research into how animal breeding works. Can you believe every breed of dog intelligent or stupid, passive or agressive, orignally came from 1 type of wolf?
I would prefer a world with fewer violent idiots. Before I finish this email I want to say a response to what I heard someone mention earlier about how this idea is compared to the Nazi movement. The big difference to me is the level of science of each time and the humanity used in implementing the new system. Noone is being gassed or killed. The children from this breeding effort is being raised by real members of our society not in a large corporation. The traits targeted for breeding isn't things such as hair color, eye color, or race. They are traits which will truely be a benefit to our society and allow our society to have more intelligent, better educated, and more compassionate individuals voting on who will make other decisions to further the movement long into the future.
Myrik
Saturday, May 1, 2004
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