"I therefore urge you to do as I did, and have no children."
Great, take smart people out of the gene pool. I don't think he's thought through his cunning plan. As he says, he doesn't believe he'll cause everyone to not have children. But the only people who even know who he is are the relatively smarter part of the population, and therefore any of those who act on his advice have just diminished humanity's potential.
My boy is the best thing that ever happened to me. I believe the world is a better place for him being in it.
Rather than "not have children" be the solution (of smart people, no less!), wouldn't it be better to figure out how to make the lives of all these children more meaningful, and by extension the life and effect of humanity?
That's a common misconception about genetics. In fact, the children of a very smart person tend to regress toward the mean (just as the children of a very dumb person). So a smart person choosing not to have children doesn't typically produce the outcome you think it does.
Also, your view overlooks the power of ideas, and the degree to which a person can choose to focus on ideas instead of children.
Here's an example -- do you know the names of Einstein's children? I do -- they're special relativity, general relativity, and the photoelectric effect. They look great together in family pictures.
I appreciate having children makes it hard to think about these things straight, but producing less children really is the only way (short of killing others) out of overpopulation and all that it's doing to our planet.
The gene pool quality line of thinking doesn't lead to anything good. Our gene pool is pretty resilient to these things. If our smarts genes were easily ousted by ones procreating like rabbits, we would have gotten rid of intelligence a long time ago.
I have a question thought -- not to you, in general.
If their kids are "the best that happened to them" (as most say), why do we have so many cases of neglected or abused children, tons of estranged parents and children ("haven't spoke to my folks for years"), crazy fights, depression, etc. I guess it's human nature, but also it seems like "the best thing that happened to me" is mainly about the kid being a baby and such (the novelty factor?), and not so much afterwards.
Although I'm me, I'm also in general, so I'll take a stab.
You take notice of the examples toward either end of the spectrum, people like me who say it's the best ever (and he's 15, not a baby), and slobs who beat and neglect their kids. The majority are in the middle, silent, and they love their kids, even if they never say so.
People suck. At least, they can. For the abusers, they probably can't understand that their kids could be the best thing that ever happened to them. And even for the people who aren't outright assholes, it's stressful to be married or cohabitating, especially with kids. Some people don't hold up well. We're not all the same.
I see no reason not to have kids, not by policy anyway. Some people don't want them or aren't suited to it. To borrow the bumper sticker: "Don't like kids? Don't have one." But having kids is undeniably a natural state. Life is hard, and the universe is cold, so why not claim this little bit of birthright?
And yes, I think over-population is not going to be a problem. As education rises, birthrates fall. If anything, population loss will be the longer term problem, as Japan is just beginning to see the first waves. Their problem is not just longevity, it's that fewer young people are marrying and having fewer children. In the end we'll learn to deal with that too, but it will be quite a disruption after centuries of societies that implicitly assume growth and families.
>Great, take smart people out of the gene pool. I don't think he's thought through his cunning plan. As he says, he doesn't believe he'll cause everyone to not have children. But the only people who even know who he is are the relatively smarter part of the population, and therefore any of those who act on his advice have just diminished humanity's potential.
Actually it could be the inverse. For one, RMS is quite kooky.
Second, who said that those that follow his advice would be the "smarter part of the population"?
Rationalizing having children on the ground that the children of a smart person will be smart and therefore an advantage to the world ... isn't very smart.
First, there's regression to the mean, which says the children of an above-average smart person won't be likely to be measurably above average (true also for a person less intelligent than average).
Second, as the planet becomes more crowded, the intelligence, wittiness or saintliness of the offspring stops mattering when they're all starving.
I'm not sure that's how RTM works. As I understand it, RTM is talking about the distribution of an uncorrelated variable and says that they'll trend towards the average on the second measurement. It doesn't seem to say that they'll be average with respect to a given correlate. Some schools are persistently better over time, for instance even if on the second measurement they trend closer to the average and then subsequently further away and then... that's just saying that it's not a perfect correlate and you've got noise in your data.
In this case the assumption seems to be that, measured by the intelligence of the first person as an outlier, IQ's going to be average on the second measurement - their kid. However, IQ doesn't necessarily trend that way in family lines over time. If IQ really does have a heritable genetic component, then, while people might trend up and down, over time the aggregate is going to be persistently higher for some than for others.
Actually, yes, that's how it works. An individual person who is smarter (or dumber) than his lineage isn't likely to have children equally or even significantly smarter (or dumber).
Think of a person as being the offshoot, not of his parents, but of 1000 predecessors including his parents. Now think of that person's children also being the offshoot of 998 predecessors plus his 2 parents. Work out the probability of inheriting any significant percentage of the high intelligence of the 2 compared to the 998.
This example is meant more to convey the idea than be exactly representative.
> while people might trend up and down, over time the aggregate is going to be persistently higher for some than for others.
Yes, but as explained above and accepting that premise, statistics argues against the idea that a smart person will have children significantly smarter than the population as a whole.
Also, bottom line and in the long term, intelligent starving children are still starving children.
> Think of a person as being the offshoot, not of his parents, but of 1000 predecessors including his parents. Now think of that person's children also being the offshoot of 998 predecessors plus his 2 parents. Work out the probability of inheriting any significant percentage of the high intelligence of the 2 compared to the 998.
Maybe the 998 were above average too. Regression to the mean would be the way to bet if you didn't have any other data - but how heritable is intelligence?
> Yes, but as explained above and accepting that premise, statistics argues against the idea that a smart person will have children significantly smarter than the population as a whole.
Wouldn't that only be the case if you take the population as a whole as their lineage?
> Also, bottom line and in the long term, intelligent starving children are still starving children.
I'd expect smart people to provide significant better for their children down the line than will stupid people. If you're looking at the future of humanity a small, dominant group that better fulfils your preferences is going to be a lot more worthwhile for some people.
> Maybe the 998 were above average too. Regression to the mean would be the way to bet if you didn't have any other data - but how heritable is intelligence?
Yes, all valid points, but to some extent set aside by the issue that, on an overcrowded planet, ten additional intelligent people isn't necessarily better than one additional intelligent person.
> Wouldn't that only be the case if you take the population as a whole as their lineage?
No, any grouping larger than two begins to show the effect of regression to the mean. My choice of 1000 was rather arbitrary, just to show the idea, and knowing the "right" number would require us to understand more about IQ heritability factors than we actually know.
I don't think assessing the entire population of a species is required for this idea to work as it does in nature. Indeed, on the contrary -- in this example, all one need do is group people by the genetic traits that lead to a particular IQ, and the heritability patterns of those genes.
> I'd expect smart people to provide significant better for their children down the line than will stupid people.
I might be tempted to agree on emotional grounds, but there's some circumstantial evidence that this isn't so, if we accept mental illness statistics and suicide rates at face value. Also, arguing that smart people should be allowed to have more children (an argument you aren't making) has some obvious logical difficulties, not least of which is that everyone thinks their children are above average.
> If you're looking at the future of humanity a small, dominant group that better fulfils your preferences is going to be a lot more worthwhile for some people.
Not very clear what you're saying here, but a wide genotype has been shown to produce better (healthier, fitter) results than a narrow one.
Comments
"I therefore urge you to do as I did, and have no children."
Great, take smart people out of the gene pool. I don't think he's thought through his cunning plan. As he says, he doesn't believe he'll cause everyone to not have children. But the only people who even know who he is are the relatively smarter part of the population, and therefore any of those who act on his advice have just diminished humanity's potential.
My boy is the best thing that ever happened to me. I believe the world is a better place for him being in it.
Rather than "not have children" be the solution (of smart people, no less!), wouldn't it be better to figure out how to make the lives of all these children more meaningful, and by extension the life and effect of humanity?
> Great, take smart people out of the gene pool.
That's a common misconception about genetics. In fact, the children of a very smart person tend to regress toward the mean (just as the children of a very dumb person). So a smart person choosing not to have children doesn't typically produce the outcome you think it does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean
Also, your view overlooks the power of ideas, and the degree to which a person can choose to focus on ideas instead of children.
Here's an example -- do you know the names of Einstein's children? I do -- they're special relativity, general relativity, and the photoelectric effect. They look great together in family pictures.
I appreciate having children makes it hard to think about these things straight, but producing less children really is the only way (short of killing others) out of overpopulation and all that it's doing to our planet.
The gene pool quality line of thinking doesn't lead to anything good. Our gene pool is pretty resilient to these things. If our smarts genes were easily ousted by ones procreating like rabbits, we would have gotten rid of intelligence a long time ago.
>My boy is the best thing that ever happened to me.
So your life was meaningless without having a child? And, following the same logic, your son's life is nothing too, unless he gets a child too?
Or do you mean "it's the best thing that happened to you", but other things were quite nice too?
Yes, other things were quite nice too. It wasn't the only good thing, just the best.
Fair enough.
I have a question thought -- not to you, in general.
If their kids are "the best that happened to them" (as most say), why do we have so many cases of neglected or abused children, tons of estranged parents and children ("haven't spoke to my folks for years"), crazy fights, depression, etc. I guess it's human nature, but also it seems like "the best thing that happened to me" is mainly about the kid being a baby and such (the novelty factor?), and not so much afterwards.
Although I'm me, I'm also in general, so I'll take a stab.
You take notice of the examples toward either end of the spectrum, people like me who say it's the best ever (and he's 15, not a baby), and slobs who beat and neglect their kids. The majority are in the middle, silent, and they love their kids, even if they never say so.
People suck. At least, they can. For the abusers, they probably can't understand that their kids could be the best thing that ever happened to them. And even for the people who aren't outright assholes, it's stressful to be married or cohabitating, especially with kids. Some people don't hold up well. We're not all the same.
I see no reason not to have kids, not by policy anyway. Some people don't want them or aren't suited to it. To borrow the bumper sticker: "Don't like kids? Don't have one." But having kids is undeniably a natural state. Life is hard, and the universe is cold, so why not claim this little bit of birthright?
And yes, I think over-population is not going to be a problem. As education rises, birthrates fall. If anything, population loss will be the longer term problem, as Japan is just beginning to see the first waves. Their problem is not just longevity, it's that fewer young people are marrying and having fewer children. In the end we'll learn to deal with that too, but it will be quite a disruption after centuries of societies that implicitly assume growth and families.
>Great, take smart people out of the gene pool. I don't think he's thought through his cunning plan. As he says, he doesn't believe he'll cause everyone to not have children. But the only people who even know who he is are the relatively smarter part of the population, and therefore any of those who act on his advice have just diminished humanity's potential.
Actually it could be the inverse. For one, RMS is quite kooky.
Second, who said that those that follow his advice would be the "smarter part of the population"?
The Church tried its best to lower the population's average IQ by encouraging the smartest boys to become priests.
For ostensibly different reasons now we've got do-gooders doing exactly the same damned thing to us.
Rationalizing having children on the ground that the children of a smart person will be smart and therefore an advantage to the world ... isn't very smart.
First, there's regression to the mean, which says the children of an above-average smart person won't be likely to be measurably above average (true also for a person less intelligent than average).
Second, as the planet becomes more crowded, the intelligence, wittiness or saintliness of the offspring stops mattering when they're all starving.
I'm not sure that's how RTM works. As I understand it, RTM is talking about the distribution of an uncorrelated variable and says that they'll trend towards the average on the second measurement. It doesn't seem to say that they'll be average with respect to a given correlate. Some schools are persistently better over time, for instance even if on the second measurement they trend closer to the average and then subsequently further away and then... that's just saying that it's not a perfect correlate and you've got noise in your data.
In this case the assumption seems to be that, measured by the intelligence of the first person as an outlier, IQ's going to be average on the second measurement - their kid. However, IQ doesn't necessarily trend that way in family lines over time. If IQ really does have a heritable genetic component, then, while people might trend up and down, over time the aggregate is going to be persistently higher for some than for others.
> I'm not sure that's how RTM works.
Actually, yes, that's how it works. An individual person who is smarter (or dumber) than his lineage isn't likely to have children equally or even significantly smarter (or dumber).
Think of a person as being the offshoot, not of his parents, but of 1000 predecessors including his parents. Now think of that person's children also being the offshoot of 998 predecessors plus his 2 parents. Work out the probability of inheriting any significant percentage of the high intelligence of the 2 compared to the 998.
This example is meant more to convey the idea than be exactly representative.
> while people might trend up and down, over time the aggregate is going to be persistently higher for some than for others.
Yes, but as explained above and accepting that premise, statistics argues against the idea that a smart person will have children significantly smarter than the population as a whole.
Also, bottom line and in the long term, intelligent starving children are still starving children.
> Think of a person as being the offshoot, not of his parents, but of 1000 predecessors including his parents. Now think of that person's children also being the offshoot of 998 predecessors plus his 2 parents. Work out the probability of inheriting any significant percentage of the high intelligence of the 2 compared to the 998.
Maybe the 998 were above average too. Regression to the mean would be the way to bet if you didn't have any other data - but how heritable is intelligence?
> Yes, but as explained above and accepting that premise, statistics argues against the idea that a smart person will have children significantly smarter than the population as a whole.
Wouldn't that only be the case if you take the population as a whole as their lineage?
> Also, bottom line and in the long term, intelligent starving children are still starving children.
I'd expect smart people to provide significant better for their children down the line than will stupid people. If you're looking at the future of humanity a small, dominant group that better fulfils your preferences is going to be a lot more worthwhile for some people.
> Maybe the 998 were above average too. Regression to the mean would be the way to bet if you didn't have any other data - but how heritable is intelligence?
Yes, all valid points, but to some extent set aside by the issue that, on an overcrowded planet, ten additional intelligent people isn't necessarily better than one additional intelligent person.
> Wouldn't that only be the case if you take the population as a whole as their lineage?
No, any grouping larger than two begins to show the effect of regression to the mean. My choice of 1000 was rather arbitrary, just to show the idea, and knowing the "right" number would require us to understand more about IQ heritability factors than we actually know.
I don't think assessing the entire population of a species is required for this idea to work as it does in nature. Indeed, on the contrary -- in this example, all one need do is group people by the genetic traits that lead to a particular IQ, and the heritability patterns of those genes.
> I'd expect smart people to provide significant better for their children down the line than will stupid people.
I might be tempted to agree on emotional grounds, but there's some circumstantial evidence that this isn't so, if we accept mental illness statistics and suicide rates at face value. Also, arguing that smart people should be allowed to have more children (an argument you aren't making) has some obvious logical difficulties, not least of which is that everyone thinks their children are above average.
> If you're looking at the future of humanity a small, dominant group that better fulfils your preferences is going to be a lot more worthwhile for some people.
Not very clear what you're saying here, but a wide genotype has been shown to produce better (healthier, fitter) results than a narrow one.