…and if so, what does it say about social welfare policies? Thoughts from Sarah Hoyt.
25 thoughts on “Are Productive People Mutants?”
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…and if so, what does it say about social welfare policies? Thoughts from Sarah Hoyt.
Comments are closed.
Makes you think about and wonder what the most widely desired genetics will be in a Gattaca future. Especially if you can both (1) select the best both parents have to offer, and (2) selectively patch the DNA from a common pool of genes.
Think about the Ashkenazim. They have been selectively bred in Europe for intellectual professions for centuries now, and look at what its got us – Jews running the banks, law firms, movie studios, government, etc. and winning nearly half our Nobel Prizes. And that’s only with a small percentage of their population expressing the high-IQ genes. What if the rest of humanity gets their dirty little mitts on those genetics?
Add in the productive work ethic genes and we have an interesting future on our hands.
The most widely desired genes, Brock, will be those that give you such secondary sex characteristics and pheromones that everyone else will work themselves to death to service your slightest desire.
“You will always have the poor”
When I was a kid I supervised a road crew in NY (actually Brooklyn and the Bronx.) The crew was getting paid piecework and I increased their daily pay 325%.
They were not happy since they already had sufficient beer money.
I really don’t understand the mountains of cases of beer you see every friday at the local quicky marts.
Nothing has changed in the last 30 years and I suspect has not changed in the last 5000.
A friend of mine got a house built on the property next to his home. He used neighbors. It cost him a six pack a day plus his own labor and materials.
Their outlook is the same as that of Old West cowboys who worked until payday, then rode into town and blew all their money on women and drink — then rode back out to the ranch to work for another month.
Then when they were let go for the winter they wondered what they did with their summer’s wages, and rode the “grub line” to keep from starving.
The characteristics that most people find attractive are good things to have anyway – health, intelligence, charisma, musical skill, genial personality, etc. And beauty of course.
The one characteristic I’d be worried about getting out of hand is male height. Height much beyond 6′ is definitely a “peacock’s tail”.
Brock, I couldn’t agree more — seeing as how I’m 5’11½” tall…
This brings to mind the book: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, by Gregory Clark.
Dr. Clark studied birth records in England advances the argument that the industrial revolution was the result of a generic change in human behavior. Basically the clustering of individuals in cities caused the rapid spread of disease. Those that were more successful, richer, were able to escape the slums and so more of their children reached maturity, and passed on their behavior patterns to their offspring.
Thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work replaced spendthrift, impulsive, violent and leisure loving. Those that engaged in those unproductive behaviors failed to contribute to the future gene pool and so the shift in mean behavior was towards more productivity.
Note – those behaviors didn’t go extinct, merely their percentage relative to productive behaviors shifted triggering the Industrial Revolution.
It’s a controversial theory because it recalls the ideas of Social Darwinism, but he makes a good case for it based on his empirical research.
“Thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work replaced spendthrift, impulsive, violent and leisure loving. ”
have you looked at britain lately?
I really don’t understand the mountains of cases of beer you see every friday at the local quicky marts.
Ken, most of those are probably 3.2 “light”. Imagine if they weren’t available and the space was filled with cheap plastic gallon bottles of vodka or bourbon. I don’t know the history of 3.2 beer but I do know the difference in the effect it has compared to a mass-market micro or a gin & tonic. 30 years ago weak beer was nowhere near as available, let alone ubiquitous. I guess I see it as positive trend, “societally” speaking.
My favorite solution is we do nothing or intervene only when people who can’t possibly know better – the young or handicapped – are at the point of starvation.
So we allow any excess population beyond the carrying capacity of a given region to die via starvation (or perhaps more likely, war).
Society has invested all this time and energy in educating and supporting these people to maturity only to then let those with poor survival performance die. What about the children? Presumably they will be the first to be let go, so to speak.
While I appreciate this degree of real world no BS feedback, is this necessarily the most efficient approach for society? This problem is fundamental to entitlement cultures, and I see no pretty solutions.
Ultimately I suspect without the hard reality of death evolutionary selection starts believing its own peacock feathers and a species starts heading towards total extinction. However, are there any other solutions possible with better quantity and quality of life outcomes? Or more morally acceptable solutions that perhaps avoid the deaths of so many people? Hybrid solutions perhaps that still ultimately hand out Darwin awards when necessary?
I would note here that letting people die at the hand of evolution leaves them no less dead. For better and worse, we, as a society, make a moral choice to let these people die. I am not sure that many entirely appreciate this decision that we directly and indirectly make.
For example, a person with a severe mental handicap can often take the productive output of a few healthy lives to support. In effect, a few healthy lives are sacrificed for an unhealthy one, and this is a moral choice that society often makes. This is not a moral choice I suspect our hunter gather for-bearers would necessarily appreciate – evolutionary times have changed. Have we grown soft?
Pete, natural selection doesn’t come with an “off” switch. It goes on all the time, regardless of circumstances. Civilization doesn’t turn it off — it just changes the criteria. In a primitive tribal society, for example, the criteria for fitness and reproductive success may be physical strength, beauty, leadership, intelligence, or fastidiousness (to avoid disease). In the modern society it may be demagoguery, playing the victim, being good at doublethink, whatever. It doesn’t matter.
The point is that as a society we are always applying the pressure of natural selection to individuals. The only question is what the definition of fitness has become. Have a look around you, and ask yourselves which creeds and genetic subgroups are growing in population, and which shrinking. That tells you where to find the modern definition of fitness. As Mark Steyn says, the future belongs to those who show up for it.
The point is that as a society we are always applying the pressure of natural selection to individuals. The only question is what the definition of fitness has become.
Exactly. However evolutionary selection pressures also operate at the societal level. Those societies that directly and indirectly define individual fitness poorly will not get to show up for the future. Stronger societies will win out. Western societies currently seem to be defining individual fitness poorly…
Societies, if they are to have a future, need to be very careful how they directly and indirectly define individual fitness. Further, those societies that can define individual fitness well and select for it in an efficient manner that results in little death or wasted resources, will likely have a happier, more productive and more successful society – with better odds of showing up for the future.
“So we allow any excess population beyond the carrying capacity of a given region to die via starvation (or perhaps more likely, war).”
Most people live in urban areas and urban areas are “excess population beyond the carrying capacity of a given region”.
So, yeah we shouldn’t outlaw cities.
Nor should there be any attempt to limit any population in any city.
Without any planning any city would reach a limit to it’s growth, city planning should be all about systems that allow “unlimited” population growth in a city- parks, highways, etc.
Who are the most prolific breeders? My observation is it’s not the tall and handsome… it’s the irresponsible.
Also, who does the choosing? In the west, I’d say the choice is dominated by women. In the middle east, probably by men. What influence might that have?
Idiocracy might be a better future than some of the possible alternatives. Gattica seems far worse and more likely. I doubt that guided selective breeding would know what attributes are best to breed for. The choices I see many woman make seems to support that thought in my mind.
I doubt that guided selective breeding would know what attributes are best to breed for.
At the moment society operates a guided selective breeding program where it actively pays those of limited means to breed more than others – this is already happening.
It seems better than the alternative. At the very least we can select against stupidity, low-impulse control and known diseases.
The one thing that a Gattaca-future government ought to mandate via regulation however is random selection in immune system function. There is no “optimal” immune system because bugs evolve too. As bad as the Spanish Flu was, it would have really sucked if everyone had the exact same (fatal) immune response, rather than a variety of responses.
I think we’ll blow past Gattica and get to a custom 24th pair quickly. Pack it with what is known at the time (permanent fixes for common diseases) and maybe some benign “facial symmetry” stuff and a market would naturally ensue.
Pete Says:
“In effect, a few healthy lives are sacrificed for an unhealthy one, and this is a moral choice that society often makes. This is not a moral choice I suspect our hunter gather for-bearers would necessarily appreciate – evolutionary times have changed. Have we grown soft?”
Some of the earliest Archeological evidence shows that humans have been making that decision for a long long long time.
One of the tipping points in the debate of how evolved Neanderthals were, was the discovery of a skeleton of an elderly person that showed signs that the person had suffered debilitating injuries, meaning that the person was taken care of for an extended period of time.
Thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work replaced spendthrift, impulsive, violent and leisure loving. Those that engaged in those unproductive behaviors failed to contribute to the future gene pool and so the shift in mean behavior was towards more productivity.
Note – those behaviors didn’t go extinct, merely their percentage relative to productive behaviors shifted triggering the Industrial Revolution.
Nope, today we call them liberals. (for the most part)
🙂
One of the tipping points in the debate of how evolved Neanderthals were, was the discovery of a skeleton of an elderly person that showed signs that the person had suffered debilitating injuries, meaning that the person was taken care of for an extended period of time.
Here is an interesting brief summary with regard to Inuit practices – a lot of assisted suicide but only during times of famine:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2160/did-eskimos-put-their-elderly-on-ice-floes-to-die
Thanks for the link Pete, it was a good read.
And where in this spectrum does one put people who have worked hard and then manage to have all they have stolen from by a crook who has somehow managed to make what he does legal?
How many million people are there now who have lost everything because of the sociopaths in the banks, for example?
How many million people are there now who have lost everything because of the sociopaths in the banks, for example?
Probably not as many as have lost everything because of sociopaths in government. In the 20th century alone, well over 100 millon people died due to communism alone.
In the last few years the banks that held my accounts have had difficulties and been bought out twice. My accounts are still intact. I have lost more value, and expect to lose still more, from inflation due to gross economic malpractice in government.
I’d like to clarify I wasn’t advocating any form of eugenics. Merely pointing out the “fixes” for poverty seem to have the opposite of desired effect because we look at poverty (I think) through the wrong end of the periscope. (Okay, that metaphor doesn’t quite work, but I’m minus coffee and don’t feel like thinking up a better one.) What I was advocating was aligning behavior with incentives better. Even my most lackadisical friends will work like the devil for stuff they want. If people are just contented with “two squares and roof over head” … make that contingent on working for it. Don’t let people starve, but adjust what you “assist” with to the level where they have to produce SOMETHING. I figure at that point, the breeding will take care of itself. (Mind you, I’m not advocating THIS either. I don’t think the government should “engineer” behavior. It’s just if we can’t dissuade them from meddling in our lives, perhaps we can keep them from being outright harmful.) At the very, very least, because we are social animals, we should demand something from those we assist and, yes, (except of course for the very old, the very young and the very ill) make them feel guilty for needing assistance. One of my friends says one of the hobo signs was “good eats, but you have to listen to their sermon.” Now that practice has stopped, and I think it’s the worse for all of us.