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parrhesia  1yr ago (parrhesia.substack.com)   2428 thread views

Making Cognitive Enhancement Palatable

parrhesia.substack.com

SS: I think that cognitive genetic enhancement is important for ensuring we have a better and lasting future. Many people have an intuitive dislike for the idea of using genetic enhancement to make a baby smarter but have little issue with in vitro fertilization (IVF). I try to build from a foundation of the acceptable practice of IVF to PGT-P for IQ.

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Thing is, this is going to be for middle-class and upwards of that. Nobody cares about making the kids of the underclass all IQ 120 at minimum, because they're still going to live in crappy single-parent homes in crime-riddled shitholes and go to schools where metal detectors and armed security guards are needed because the little darlings shoot each other

So...they'd be in the same situation as a variety of Asian immigrant groups? High IQ children, poor parents, bad schools, sounds like the Hmong a generation ago. Recall that for a while, "what about the Hmong" was often used as an argument proving Asians aren't a model minority.

As of 2019, Hmong household income ($68k/year) was higher than average ($65.7k).

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/asian-americans-hmong-in-the-u-s/

If they have the same IQ as poor Asian kids, they might also have the same crime rate and out of wedlock birth rates as poor Asian kids. That would solve the problems of going to schools full of stabby kids pretty quickly and the problem of single parent homes in a generation or so.

Once you solve the problem of "poor people are terrible to be around" by raising their IQ, poverty in America isn't actually a big deal. If you disagree, try to name a good or service you think poor Americans lack.

They are always going to be at the bottom of the ladder, because great now you're IQ 120. Meanwhile, the rungs above you are making sure their embryos are selected to be IQ 130-140

You seem to be assuming that technology for embryo selection will develop along the lines of cars (where the 10x more expensive car is perhaps 2x as good as a Corolla) as opposed to along the lines of cell phones (where even Elon Musk uses an iPhone). Why do you believe this?

I can see one plausible story: regulators prevent poor parents from accessing the technology while the rich get it done in Macau.

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