It’s not that any of your points are invalid, it’s that they don’t matter since you are arguing for different things. I can argue all day about how an apple is red and be 100% logically correct but it doesn’t matter if the person I am debating with is arguing that an apple is sweet. Both people are arguing about apples, and both can be 100% correct yet the debate is pointless because they aren’t arguing about the same thing.
In this situation, he is is arguing that eugenics will lead to an increase in average human intelligence. You are arguing that society will not be as wealthy if eugenics are implemented. You may both be 100% correct, you might not. While you are both arguing about eugenics (apples) you are not both arguing about the same thing.
If you really reduce it to the extreme then everyone wants to be happy. Some people are happier when those around them are happier, others are not as influenced by this. I’m trying to approach things from a little higher level, not quite as reduced as you are suggesting here. I suppose your usage of the word “how” is accurate, I am just hesitant using that word lest people end up talk about how they implement their “how” (that is, they resort to talking about political solutions rather than why they want those political solutions).
I think some people are content with people dying from natural causes. I personally think that heart disease and cancer are far bigger issues than murder, drunk driving or war because in the end, heart disease and cancer kill the vast majority of people on this planet. However, there are plenty of people who are okay with death by natural causes but they are against death by un-natural causes so for them, science and technology isn’t necessarily the most efficient way to decrease the amount of “death”.
I wish for a society in which people are free enough from presupposition to rationally define his value preferences and then pursue them. The state is a great presupposition and it prevents people from doing the above in any number of ways (both in obvious ways of hampering economic success and less obvious ones such as decreasing perceived alternatives) so I support the abolition of the state to this end.
I also hope for a society in which there is no semblance of nationalism based upon borders or such border based inequality enforced by the law. Nationalism as it exists today is disgusting and feudalistic.
I’m not arguing for anything at all. The universe is what it is. Society is what it is. This is the essential Misesean insight. Wishing doesn’t change a thing, you can wish that things fell upwards when dropped all you like but the fact remains that things fall downward when dropped. Similarly, you can wish that people mated for intelligence but the fact is people mate for a whole host of reasons, only one of which is intelligence. Wishing changes nothing.
I’m not denying that, if you could herd human beings into cattle stalls, you could certainly breed for intelligence just like you can already breed for any sort of attribute you like in other animals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Blue). Humans are animals so the same principles of genetics that apply to other animals also apply to humans.
No, I’m saying that you can’t beat natural selection, even if you could somehow manage to herd all other human beings into cattle stalls. Therefore, such selective breeding of humans must necessarily reduce our chances of survival. This is not a maybe, it’s definitely the case. Animal breeds that are domesticated by human beings after several generations lose their ability to survive in the wild. Humans would, too.
No, it’s not a maybe-maybe, it’s a definitely. This is a point of biology, not arbitrary ends. You’re mistaking confused thinking for carefully balancing multiple possibilities. They’re not the same.
Oddly, yes. This is one of those things that logic can’t fully explain but for whatever reason it makes me happy knowing science and technology is advancing optimally. Also, while chances are slim that science will advance fast enough for it to matter in my lifetime, at some point humans will overcome natural death and at that point “within my lifetime” is indefinite. I think the prospect (however slim) that I may live to see the next species wide struggle for survival is part of what makes me so interested in optimal advancement of technology.
I don’t see what any of that has to do with what you or I said. You said you could argue all day in favor of a system that would lead to advancement of science and technology, but that if someone only cares about increasing the quality of life for disabled people, then your argument for improved technology won’t make a difference to them. All I was wondering is how in the world someone expects to increase the quality of life for disabled people without advancement in science and technology. Do you have any idea how that would be done? How could someone simultaneously care so much about increasing the quality of life for disabled people, and at the same time have virtually no interest in science and technology advancement?
Plus, I don’t understand what any of that has to do with death by design versus death by nature.
I guess that’s kind of my point. I don’t really understand the point of your question. If, as you agree, when you boil it down, everyone wants to be happy, what is the point of asking “what are everyone’s goals for society”? It sounds like the question you’re really supposed to be asking is “what do you plan to do (or how do you plan) to accomplish making yourself (and/or) everyone happy?”
But you explicitly state that that is not the question you want answered. So I am confused by your question. Are you seriously meaning to ask “why do you want to be happy?” Or are you asking “what is it that would make you happy and why?” And if it’s the latter, I don’t see how that wouldn’t in some way translate into a politcal answer. Either people want others to respect their rights and be otherwise left alone, or people want to be able to force other people to do what they want them to do. One could argue that that’s not really a political system per se, but it’s basically a half a step away from it. All you need to do is put the right name to it.
This is a topic I would be interesting in debating with you. You are asserting that natural selection via sexual reproduction between people who are attracted to each other by instinct provides a competative advantage over people who breed for more cognitive reasons? That is, if everyone in the world bred with who they wanted because they were attracted to the person in some way (usually this is instinctual), this would be evolutionarily superior to cognitive matchmaking, where people bred with each other because of some rational and logical line of thinking?
Or are you specifically denouncing a single cognitive reason to breed (breeding for intelligence)?
You mention that animals lose their ability to survive in the wild but they aren’t in the wild. They are superior within their environment (food/milk). Natural selection via traditional breeding methods would not have optimized for this new environment nearly as quickly as guided breeding did. The same logic could be used on humans since human technology has outpaced evolution, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that a new form of selective breeding may prove superior to natural selection due to it’s ability to adapt to the environment faster (e.g.: genetic engineering, cognitive selection, etc.).
No, that’s not equivalent to what I said at all. I said that the population has vastly more knowledge about which mating choices will maximize the survival chances of their offspring than a wise central “breeding planner” could possibly have. As a result, a central planner who chooses some breeding criterion (such as “intelligence”) must necessarily reduce the survival chances of the population.
People use a wide variety of strategies for choosing a mate. These can all be trivialized as “instinct” but I think that’s prejudicial language. Are the parents in India who select a husband for their daughter based on his family’s wealth, the accomplishments of the husband and his siblings engaging in a “rational and logical line of thinking” or just going with instinct?
That, too.
And dependent on it.
What does “human technology has outpaced evolution” even mean?? Evolution is just changes in the genome over time in response to whatever selective pressures are present. Modern technology is just another selective pressure it can’t “outpace” anything.
Genetic engineering is not eugenics. Cognitive selection is just one of many methods by which humans select their mate(s) and it is currently in use.
By humans should be selectively bred, I did not mean that they should be bred like cattle. I mean that intelligent people should (purely voluntarily) donate or sell their gametes to interested third parties (infertile couples, wise central “breeding planners”, etc.). This already happens to a certain degree, but I would like to see it happen on a larger scale.
Again, I thought this went without saying on this site, but I absolutely do not want to see laws that restrict people’s right to breed.
Finally, evidence suggests that intelligence is not the most important criterion for human survival (otherwise, there would not be such a wide distribution in intelligence capabilities in the population)
Actually, the distribution of intelligence can be explained by natural variation (as can the distribution of height or any other trait that can be measured quantitatively).
I apologize for not being clear. I meant to use the death thing as an analogy to disability but I didn’t make that clear. There are some people who are interested in using the science and technology currently available to help those less fortunate. They would rather everyone spend their time helping the disabled using what is currently available than spend all their time researching how to more effectively help the disabled. I assume that this is just a simple matter of rather having a small reward now versus a big reward later.
On this forum and in life I have seen many debates in which people are arguing which system is “better” but they argue under the assumption that the other person defines “better” the same as they do.
A simple example is a parasite versus a producer. The parasite wants to do as little work as possible to survive and have as high of a quality of life as possible without increasing that amount of work. A producer can argue all day long about how anarchy will result in an overall increase to quality of life for everyone but that is of no import because the parasite doesn’t care about that, he only cares about reducing his workload.
I want optimal advancement of science and technology. I am debating with someone who wants to reduce the amount of suffering in the world. If I go into a debate with this person about the advantages of anarchy assuming that they also want optimal technological advancement I will never get through to them. Instead I should first find out what it is they want from society so I can try to argue how my ideal system can provide that to them. In many cases, my ideal system is not compatible with their desires and an argument about the merits of their system or mine are pointless.
I can see the merit in your point that a well defined political system should define what it’s good at but the reality is that is not the case. It would be nice if there was a political system for ever set of desires (e.g.: science-and-technology-advancement-anarchy) and by just using the word it would let people know exactly what I want from society and how best to achieve that.
Humans are dependent on the earth to survive. Do you believe it is advantageous to wait for evolution to allow us to survive in non-earth environments versus using modern techniques (eugenics, etc.) that would result in humans being able to live in non-earth environments within a few generations?
Significant evolutionary changes brought about by random mutation take a very long time to occur. What I mean is that humans use technology to change their environment at a rate which evolution can not keep up with. When environmental changes occur over the span of 10,000 years evolution can do mildly well keeping up with that. When environmental changes occur over the span of 100 years, evolution doesn’t adapt so well. When environmental changes occur over the span of 10 years, evolution has no chance. Humans using technology available today can cause environmental changes that would result in the extinction of humans long before evolution could adapt them to the new environment.
Take the example of global nuclear war. Right now humans are very prone to radiation poisoning from nuclear blasts. In order for natural evolution to combat the effects of nuclear radiation we would need to live in an increasingly radioactive environment for 1000s of years. However, global nuclear war can happen overnight and natural evolution would allow us all to die and cockroaches to live. We could use eugenics, genetic engineering, etc. to create humans resilient to nuclear radiation before it’s too late.
I apologize for getting so off topic, perhaps we could start another thread about this Clayton?
I got all that the first time you said it. What I don’t get is how you claim you’re trying to “approach things from a higher level”, yet all you’re doing is narrowing your wish for society to a simple meaningless, purposeless claim of “I want optimal advancement of science and technology.” That’s as naive as saying “I want a lot of money.” Is that really what you want? Or is it something that you think advancement of science and technology will allow that you’re after?
Or do you honestly just want technology for technology’s sake? You just want to bask in a warehouse of technology like a Scrooge McDuck swimming in his money bin? I mean, you’re the one who asked “why” do you want that…but all you keep talking about how you want optimal S&T advancement.
So, unless you have no higher reason for wanting it…you just want it…then it would seem that your “goal” is not optimal advancement of science and technology…that is just your chosen means to achieve it. It seems like you’re participating in the very folly you claim to want to avoid.
In retrospect, I realize that perhaps my usage of the term ‘higher’ was misunderstood. I meant it in the way it is used in software engineering where ‘higher level’ means more abstracted. Programming in 1s and 0s is very ‘low level’, speaking english to a computer and having it do what you want is very ‘high level’.
In one of my previous replies I mentioned that I don’t have a full logical awareness as to why science and technology makes me happy, but for me that is one of the things that does make me happy and as with all humans, I desire happiness.
I also mentioned that I think my desire for technology lies in the miniscule possibility that I will live to see the life extension singularity. This is the point at which a human can extend his life long enough via science to live long enough to extend it further to the point at which he can live indefinitely (not forever, but not dying of ‘natural causes’).
I can see your point that perhaps it’s not specifically that I am interested in science and technology but rather survival is what I am interested in. To me, survival requires scientific advancement first to avoid death by natural causes and then to avoid death by anything else the universe sends my way such as the sun going super nova, a colliding galaxy or heat death of the universe. Because I believe science is the key to my survival I think that anarchy, a system in which scientific advancement most likely to proceed at a near optimal pace, is my best chance at survival. Also, because I feel death is immenent barring the life extension singularity, I am willing to take certain risks in order to increase the chances of reaching that point such as promoting and participating in a society where there is no safety net and the only strong survive.
When someone brings up “goals for society”, it’s usually a good signal to leave the society as fast as you can.
I guess the main problem is the presumption that society can be and should be planned. Setting up goals is one of the first steps toward an agenda for a plan for society. I say nip it in the bud.
Now if you simply want a “gee, wouldn’t it be neat if this happened…” list, then I might be less skeptical on intentions.
At the top of my list would be:
It finally sinks in that only the individual knows what’s in their own best interest, and attempts to think for others, which too often leads to doing for others against their own will, has significant and mostly negative consequences.
When Micah referred to “goals for society”, I assume that he meant that what situation one would like to see the rest of the individuals in. If that’s “technological advancement”, why would that leave methodological individualism? It’s an individual wanting something of other individuals. I don’t see the problem here.
Maybe as a shorthand?
Because we’re talking about Micah’s use of the word, I guess that we’ll have to defer to his definition, but I can give a guess. I assume that he’s referring to the general situation of all of the individuals with respect to their environment and each other. He wants a more technologically advanced “society”, so I guess that means that he would like to see everybody in a more technologically advanced situation (maybe better communication with each other, perhaps more effective medicine, and so on). As it’s his goal for a specific state of affairs, I really don’t see how it violates methodological individualism.
Because it’s always pretty dangerous to try to defend somebody that you don’t know very well, please take these as a bunch of suggestions. If you don’t care about them, just defer to Micah. I’m sure that he can defend himself. He doesn’t need me.
It seems that the term “society” invokes a lot of feelings around here and everyone has a different definition so perhaps it was a poor word choice on my part. Another way to word it would be, “what do you want from humanity?”.
Why do you want people to know that the ‘individual knows best’? Why does it matter to you if everyone thinks this way?
Correct. My choice of words seems to have stimulated some strong emotions in several people around here and in retrospect I could have done better. I am curious why people want humanity to organize in a specific way (be it spontaneous or planned). Why do you want anarchy? Why do you want socialism? What will anarchy do for you? What will socialism do for you? Etc.
I’m glad someone got it. It is annoying to have to write a sentence or two every time I want to describe a recurring topic, calling it ‘society’ is far simpler.
Correct again. I am curious why people want everyone to be organized in a specific way, be it organized via anarchy/spontaneity or organized via socialism in a planned way.
You did a pretty good job here and I applaud you on your insight given limited interactions with me. You are correct that I don’t need you, but liberty student does because as he has correctly realized, I won’t debate with him.
It is annoying to have to write a sentence or two every time I want to describe a recurring topic, calling it ‘society’ is far simpler.