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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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gwern had an interesting post on the economics of different eugenics methods; embryo selection is the most practicable in the short and medium term, and possibly net positive today depending on the estimate of an IQ point's economic value and discount rates.

If AI fizzles out one way or another, it's one of the less appreciated levers we have to improve the world.

Well, political/cultural and physical practicality are two different things! Non-iterated embryo selection, already done today (but not for IQ), is definitely less effective (for IQ or similar) than "be a surrogate/hire a surrogate for two extreme outlier parents" and i'm pretty sure less effective than "normal egg + donated sperm from one extreme outlier", and the latter has been doable for centuries! (And sorta is already done with sperm donation, but "college / graduate educated" is much much coarser than 'extreme outlier in iq/achievement'). But most people want kids who "are really their kids" and look like them, so embryo selection is better for that.

... for an infertile couple/lesbian couple who wants to adopt, this might already be both physically and culturally viable, if you can find willing donors?