I just ran across this post of mine from a couple of years ago, and thought it might be worth re-posting (my apologies if I thought wrong, but maybe in several generations' worth of improvement, my descendants won't make the same mistake):
I've often heard the argument (buttressed sometimes by citations to the movie Gattaca) that letting parents use genetic technology to boost their babies' intelligence, athletic prowess, or musical ability would make it easier for rich people to improve their kids' genes, which will increase social stratification, as descendants of the poorer people will find it harder to compete. I profoundly disagree with this argument. (I set aside the quite different arguments that certain techniques, especially in their early stages, may have problems that increase the risk of serious genetic defects, and that certain genetic traits help kids at the expense of others -- imagine a gene that makes people resistant to some contagious disease but increases the chance that they'd be asymptomatic carriers.)
1. If you take this argument seriously, it would be largely an argument against private education (and I've heard the argument made this way), since of course private education lets rich parents improve their kids' competitiveness relative to poor kids.
It might even be an argument against smart people deliberately seeking out other smart people to marry, which is basically a lay form of genetic engineering. Would you therefore urge "breeding for equality," in which smart people self-consciously try to marry dumb people, so their kids wouldn't have too much of an unfair advantage? Or how about programs that try to persuade smart men that the feminine ideal should indeed be the dumb airhead woman (and, of course, to persuade smart women that they should marry dumb men)? True, there might be a significant difference in degree between the IQ benefits to be gained by genetic engineering and the IQ benefits to be gained by lay genetics or education. But I stress the "might be," and in any event the principle strikes me as quite similar.
2. Technological progress is on balance very good, and generally speaking it's disproportionately produced by smart people (technologists, businesspeople, and so on). More smart people means more chance of cures for disease, of better transportation and information technology, of space flight, of good environmental inventions, and so on. True, smart people do harm, too; if Hitler had been dumber, the 20th century might have been less bloody. But on balance, I'm pretty sure that it's good for society generally to have more smart people.
3. Most technologies -- computers, CD players, and the like -- start out expensive enough that only rich people or institutions can afford them, but then, with technological development and economies of scale, the price falls, and more and more people can access the technology. Some Americans may be too poor to afford them, but most Americans can afford technology that provides most of the key features. Rich people can still afford better stuff, but the marginal quality difference between what the 90th percentile can afford and what the 50th percentile can afford isn't that vast. (Consider, for instance, personal computers.)
So if you're concerned that only the top 5% will ever afford getting higher IQ for their kids, that seems highly unlikely. And if you're concerned that only the top 70% will afford it, and oppose the technology because of the bottom 30%, then I think you have the wrong set of priorities. Work on ways to eventually make the technology accessible even to the bottom 30%, rather than denying it to the top 70%.
There's an old Soviet joke about the man who visits Hell. (Actually, there are many different Soviet jokes about the man who visits Hell.) In Hell, there are three giant cauldrons in which the sinners are being boiled. On the rim of one stands a regiment of demons, shoulder to shoulder, constantly using their pitchforks to smack down the sinners who are trying to escape. On the rim of the second walk a few demons, who occasionally whack someone down. The rim of the third is empty, but no-one is getting out.
What's going on here?, the visitor asks. "There are three kinds of people," the Devil says. (In the original joke, they are Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians, but in honor of the 2004 Orange Revolution I've sworn off Ukrainian jokes.) "The first kind is in the first cauldron. When one looks like he's trying to escape, all the rest follow him. We need a lot of demons to manage them.
"The second kind is in the second cauldron. Occasionally someone is trying to escape, but the others don't pay any attention. It takes just a few demons to deal with this kind.
"The third kind is in the third cauldron: When one is starting to escape, all the others drag him back down by the ankles."
Don't be that third kind.
I suppose that a Rawlsian egalitarian might accept such inequalities insofar as they eventually benefit the worst off or at least the majority (Prof. Volokh's 2nd &3rd arguments), who could receive even more of the benefits of genetic engineering via hefty redistributive taxes.
I'm a little confused. It seems that your arguments all support the stance that the use of such technology or private schools or whatever means one might use to advance their own progeny would actually do exactly what you seem to indicate you disagree with them doing (increasing the competition gap).
Is it that you disagree with the argument that these things DO cause a greater gap in the ability to compete based on socio-economic status... or is it that you disagree with using that point as a foundation for the argument of requiring equality in restricting the use of those 'enhancement generators'?
Also, let's suppose that the social equality benefits of prohibiting a new technology are similar to the social equality benefits of prohibiting selective breeding. I think the costs are a lot lower - the right to use a new technology is less fundamental than the right to decide whom to raise a family with.
Though, now that I think of it, arranged marriage has been a popular tradition in a lot of times and places -- maybe it just seems like a fundamental right because I'm used to it.
Exactly!
Imagine everyone gets richer, save the one guy who stays poor. Relatively speaking, he is more poor than he used to be. Additionally, if everyone has more money, inflation has probably chewed away the poor guy's spending power, so he is actually more poor in real terms than he used to be, even though he makes just as much as he used to.
Now, you personally may not feel bad about this situation, but make no mistake about it - through no "fault" of his own, the poor man has become poorer when the rich become richer.
Relatively speaking, he is more poor than he used to be.... the poor man has become poorer when the rich become richer.
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Only if you accept the notion of poverty being relative at all, which is far from uncontroversial. (Would you switch places with Charlemagne?)
The problem with income inequality, is one of using resources for important things before unimportant things. If X celebrity wants to have some silly lavish party for $50 million, then presumably a lot of social resources will be devoted to providing that party. Those social resources with then be unavailable (or cost more) for more important things, like providing medicine or housing to those with lower incomes. I think that most people would agree that providing basics is more important than providing luxuries. However, income inequality results in a shift of resources from basics to luxuries to some degree.
It is a basic matter of supply and demand. The demand of those with wealth for luxuries (or "conspicious consumption") results in a decrease in supply (a shift in the supply curve) for basic goods for others, to the extent that the resources used to provide for these luxuries could have been used to provide basic goods.
It is not the case that the person making the $150k and the $25k in Mike BUSL07's example have no impact on each other. Isn't it absurd to think that would not be the case? Rich and poor alike share a common world with limited resources, after all.
Of course, this is not to say that we should not allow inequality to some extent. Inequality, has benefits as well as costs. For example, allowing inequality to some degree increases incentives to work hard. However, it is beyond ridiculous to pretend that inequality is FREE. It is not. Assume that social resources are constant. Increase one persons income to 150k from 125k. More social resources will shift to the person making 150k. The person making 25k will face higher prices for basic goods and services.
(I should mention another cost of inequality. That is social friction. Certainly, as the existence of communism has shown, this is a cost of inequality that the wealthy are likely to face as well.)
Increasing intelligence, as Eugene Volokh mentions (while not using this terminology), is likely not a zero-sum game, however. If someone with increased intelligence is more productive, it can result in an increase in social resources. This in turn could end up benefitting BOTH the person making 150k AND the person making 25k. I think we have seen this phenomenon often with the advent of new technology. It is not only Bill Gates who is able to benefit from the existence of personal computers, new life-saving drugs, new medical procedures, or the more efficient production of food.
I think it would be beyond foolish to not take advantage of technologies that allow for increased intelligence. There is no reason that with properly designed social policies, we could not exploit such technologies so that everyone is better off.
And who knows, perhaps such technologies would actually result in decreased inequality. After all, such technologies are likely to benefit the less intelligent more than the most intelligent. Someone who would be born to be as intelligent as, say, Eugene Volokh, without such technology would likely experience a smaller gain than someone who would otherwise only have the intelligence to perform manual labor without such technology. To the extent that income is related to intelligence, the use of such technology would decrease rather than increase inequality, to the extent that the technology is widely used.
This would suggest the following policy for those concerned with decreasing inequality. Allow such technology and subsidize its use among those with lower incomes. The result would most certainly be less inequality, not more.
Your point about increased intelligence decreasing cooperation strikes me as bizarre. If anything, more intelligent people would be more able to comprehend the advantages of cooperation. I have seen plenty of conflict between of all intelligence levels to buy into your argument.
Your point about faculty members misses major environmental explanations for their behavior. Faculty members with tenure are minimally accountable to each other. It is not like they are likely to lose thier job for anti-social behavior. So, this example strikes me as a fairly poor one to make your point. It illustrates only that when the cost of non-cooperative behavior is lower, people tend to engage in such behavior more. I think that, stated at that level of generality, this holds for people at all levels of intelligence.
I'm not a big fan of the idea of allowing parents to use genetic tech to manipulate their kid's intellegence. I don't see it as an issue of inequality; I'm pretty well in favor of inequality. The problem is the slippery slope that leads to the destruction of our national pastime.
If we were allowing parents to manipulate their kids "smart" genes we would almost certainly have to allow them to manipulate their kids "home-run-hitting" genes as well, would those kids get to play in the majors? Would their records get asterisks?
Poor people have more stressful lives, and the verry poor can suffer from malnutrition. The rich have a great advantage in getting ahead in life. We could raise the world IQ average by a big leap just by making sure everyone got fed and wasn't living in a war zone.
As far as smart people marrying smart people, while I think that this is generally the case I doubt many successful marriages are built on the solely on the foundation that both partners are intelligent.
What does it mean to be "in favor of" inequality? Do you mean you are in favor of it for its own sake? If so, why?Do you mean to say that you think it has no costs associated with it?
Another thing I find puzzling is your assumption that allowing parents to modify one sort of gene "smart genes" would have to "home-run-hitting" genes. I don't see why this is at all. If there were important reasons to distinguish between the two, why couldn't we?
But more fundamentally, what is wrong with letting kids with modified genes play in the majors? Do you think that those who play in the majors have no genetic advantages? Or that they have "earned" the genetic advantages they do have? Clearly, those who are genetically superior now did not earn their advantage. No one chooses their parents, after all. So, I can't see any fairness rationale for being concerned with whether those with deliberately altered genes get into the majors. It would be exactly as fair or unfair (depending on your perspective) as the current system.
And consider that, here in Texas, where the poorest and dumbest have the most kids, the great apes are about to surpass our high-school graduates in SAT scores. Another reason why we need all those smart, if illegal, Mexican immigrants is to help stem that tide.
Second, I maybe spoke out of turn here, because I am not an expert on hypothetical gene therapy legislation, but it seems to me that one would be hard pressed to come up with a logical argument that it's OK to make your pre-natal child the future champion of the debate team, but not the future champion of the baseball team. If there ever was a slippery slope, this is it...
Third, this is just a question of how you view the integrity of the game. By your rational, you must be OK with the use of steroids in the game. I am not. I think it does the sport a historical injustice. On top of that, I want the myth and mystery of great baseball players to endure. I don't want my daughter to see baseball as a game played by geneticists and pharmacologists, but as a game played by ordinary folks.
Try to read the very apt and prescient novella "The Marching Morons" by C.M. Kornbluth.
Nevertheless, at least in terms of selecting for intelligence at the top, there is now a national gene pool, that will, very possibly, be international. The best and the brightest go to the same top colleges, regardless of where they originally came from, and because of that, marry each other. And, as I think has been mentioned above, we are just starting to see the affect of this selective breeding. Geek Syndrome anyone? (supposedly, autism and Alsperger's are increasingly common in pairings where both parents have the type of brain that is good with computers and engineering).
I think that we are starting to see some of the other effects too. For example, how many here really have that many friends with normal or below normal intelligence? Again, friendships are also going national, and tending, international. For me, at least, a significant number of my friends any more live nowhere near me. I have picked them up over the years across the country. People I went to college with, graduate school, worked with as a programmer, or, later, as a patent attorney.
The problem is that to a great extent, this country is starting to sort itself economically and socially based on intelligence. This is a natural result of the fact that the best paying jobs, overall, require the most intelligence. And this is because intelligence anymore is what creates wealth, and not physical strength. The Microsofts, Apples, Intels, eBays, Googles, etc. of this world get their founders so insanely rich because they provide such profound efficiencies. And, of course, they do it by hiring the smartest people they can find.
This is a true story. A company had been competing relatively successfully in the semiconductor industry for a number of years bringing out a new generation of a certain chip every year or so on a regular basis. A new CEO took over the company and found that they were paying the chief designer some outrageous sum, say $1,000,000 a year. CEO said that, without bonuses, he didn't even make that. The chief engineer was working as a consultant, and so they didn't renew his contract because he was making too much money. Fine. The figured that they would replace the one $1,000,000 a year engineer with a couple of $100k engineers, and pocket the differential. The chief engineer that replaced him plus all his minions struggled with the design. But as any who have worked in this area know, it is rarely easy to keep up the level of innovation, and, as a result, they started missing deadlines, ship dates, etc. Their product shipped almost a year late, which, of course meant that it might well have never shipped. The product line was shortly shut down as uneconomic. The moral? This company started paying what it took to make those deadlines, even if it meant paying an engineer more than most of the vice presidents.
The problem is that in our knowledge based economy, a 5 point increase in IQ may have an economic worth of 25% to a company. Before, if one guy was 10% stronger than the rest, he was worth maybe 10% more. Now, a 10% smarter employee may be worth 100% more.
Maybe you are right that it would be difficult to distinguish between improving intelligence versus improving "home-run-hitting" genes. I personally am for allowing the improvement of both, and I have a hard time distinguishing them. What is puzzling to me, is that you may not object to improving intelligence, but for the damaging effect it will have on baseball. Which is very interesting. Is preserving baseball so valuable that we should not do what we can to increase intelligence, which will have positive effects in all areas of life?
I think that you are right in that the idea of "great baseball players" is to some degree a "myth" at least to the extent that the existence of great baseball players can be explained by talent, which in turn is explained by superior genes. Of course, talent is only part of the equation, training and hard work is the other part. But, clearly, if we allowed genetic alteration, then presumably training and hard work would remain a part of the forumula.
I think you are right on that I do not object to steriod use, in terms of concern that it will destroy the "myth," "mystery," or the "integrity" of the game. However, I do object to steriods. Because of the harmful health effects steriods have, rather than completely artificial concepts like maintaining the "integrity of the game." Baseball is just an idea, and as such, is capable of evolving. I do not think that it would be a good thing if competition drove people to harm their health, thus I would oppose allowing steriod use. But if steriods had no harmful effects, I would not oppose it.
Frankly, I think there are all sorts of things that we allow athletes to do with their bodies that give them advantages. Usually, we do not outlaw them unless we believe their is some sort of harmful effect, like that caused by steroids. I think that is sound policy.
One last thing concerning the "myth" of baseball and the "integrity of the game." Already, people face huge disadvantages due to genetics. You can't escape that. Why aren't natural (and unearned) variations in talent considered as violating the "integrity" of baseball?
Ultimately, I think the "myth" of great baseball players is likely to be destroyed in the long run anyway. Unless you outlaw the advancement of knowledge (as oppossed to the application, as we are discussing here) we are likely to KNOW why certain people have a talent for baseball, as our understanding of genetics increases. We will be able to see what genes great baseball players tend to have that the rest of the population doesn't. I think your myth is in danger. And this is as it should be, because it is, in your words, a myth.
None of this is to say we aren't losing something when that myth disappears. There is something special about maintaining certain myths. But, nonetheless, much to be gained by discarding some. Holding back people's individual and collective potential for the sake of advancing a myth seems like too high of a price to pay.
So it is harmful to have relative poverty, even if the poor only stand still while the rich get richer.
(I haven't determined my opinion on the intelligence-gene-modification issue. It seems like aggressive redistribution would be the answer.)
Well, you seem to have missed the .com boom, the eCommerce boom, the Internet, etc. I suspect that you are writing your comments here on a PC (or Mac), using the Internet to send it in, Google to back up your comments, etc. And, guess what. All of those inovations made a bunch of very bright engineers very, very rich. Bill Gates didn't get where he is today on the Forbes list of richest people in the world based on the hard work of his fellow social science majors.
If you don't think that engineers make a lot of money compared to everyone else, it is only because you are comparing them to the top lawyers, doctors, etc. But the common thread with almost all the self-made billions is high intelligence, whether it be an engineer, an attorney, a doctor, etc.
Didn't some German dude circa the 1930's have an idea similar to this? I seem to recall that whole episode ended badly for about 6 million or so folks.
Your objection about the "sovereignty" of the child makes no sense. As you say, children do not choose their parents genes or their own genes. This alone disposes of your point. You mentioned this counter-point, but you did not address it.
Your point about "modification" is arbitrary. I could just as well say that NOT altering the genes of a child is a "modification" compared to who they could be with genetic engineering.
I think ultimately, your idea is about escaping responsibility. Like, if we don't employ genetic engineering when we could, that we are not making a choice. But we are making a choice when we choose NOT to engage in genetic engineering. A choice with consequences. We should take responsibility for the consequences of our choices.
As for your point about "paternalism" I find that interesting. Obviously, when it comes to children (and future children) paternalism is completely appropriate. The unborn have no ability to choose their genes or even whether to be born. Thus, the decision must be made by someone else. Paternalism is not bad for children! Imagine if your parents decided to abandon you after you were born. And that the rest of the society did as well. Do you think you would be better off without paternalism at that stage in your existence? Of course not. Because you wouldn't even be able to survive.
Let me expand a bit. You suggested that a lot of the wealthy "fell into" their wealth. But that is not accurate, unless you consider falling into having the right genes and upbringing falling into wealth. The vast, vast, majority of millionaires these days are first generation, or, at worst, second generation. The insane wealth that has been made in the last 25 years or so has not had a chance yet to be passed down through the generations - but, obviously, this is behind the push to repeal the Death Tax (also known in liberal circles as the Estate Tax). So, yes, in another generation or two, we are going to have a lot of Kennedys, Rockefellers, etc. running around living high on inherited wealth. But not yet.
That helped at least some of them close the gap between their situation and that of the celebrity.
Was it wasteful? Probably. There are certainly more efficient methods of redistributing wealth. But within the constraints of personal liberties, there's no law or moral obligation to behave in the most efficient method possible.
Your comparison to Hitler shows nothing.
(1) Hitler owned a german shepherd.
(2) Hitler pet his german shepherd.
Therefor,
It is wrong to own and pet a german shepherd???
That is ridiculous logic, isn't it? Well, I must say, yours is similarly silly. That Hitler was an insane murderer does not mean that we should discard the possibility of improving humanity through genetics.
I guess I'm a big fan of myth. I don't have any real faith in some sort of overall purpose or guiding hand in our universe, but I like the idea of fortune and surprise. I don't want kids growing up with the expectation/responsibility/burden of being in any particular way superior to their peers. It just seems like it would take the magic out of growing up/raising a kid.
On top of that, I don't see the advance of technology/wealth/innovation as any sort of higher purpose to which we should be dedicating ourselves as a society. I'm not a luddite, nor am I a communist, I'm just not clear that Microsoft (which folks here seem to be citing as an example of what our society ought to be championing) has made my life any richer/fuller/more worth living. I guess I don't really care if Joe and Sally Schmoe manipulate their daughter into some sort of super-genius. It's all the talk of using this technology to guide the progress of society that begins to sound a bit scary. Not to jump back to slippery slopes, but this all gets to sounding a bit Buck v. Bell to me.
Good point. I think there are two kinds of resources expended on a $50 million dollar party. One is real resources which are truly consumed, like the time of the people involved. Another, are imaginary resources, like the time of a chef that charges $250,000 for one meal. Clearly, the use of that chef versus another does not consumer a huge amount of "real" resources, and so a good portion of that $250,000 is not harmful to anyone, but simply represents a transfer payment from the celebrity to the chef. To this, I entirely agree with your sentiment that this is a "who cares" sort of issue.
On the other hand, such a party is likely to consume real resources. Say it is held on some remote island, and private jets are utilized. These jets in turn consume the talents of many people to build and maintain. That represents a consumption of real resources that in turn effects the supply of basic goods and services for those with lower incomes.
As for your point about liberty, I think that is completely valid. But that goes to the point of whether we should do anything about the problem of inequality, rather than whether it has negative effects on others. I have not addressed the issue of what, if anything we should do about inequality, but am rather establishing the point that it has negative effects on others. Inequality has costs. It is not free.
Nonsense, good luck, ruthlessness, and a willingness to break the rules or even the law can be just as an important a factor. Look at Bernie Ebbers, Ken Lay, Richard Scrushie, Jeff Skilling, John Gotti, not great intellects, but they sure got rich. Again, for all his billions, Bill Gates simply got lucky with DoS. Everything Microsoft has produced since then has been second-rate, the genius has been getting the products pre-installed on every computer at the factory.
As for the internet, well that was invented by government and academic scientists, and they sure didn't get rich from it. And yes, some engineers and scientists will launch a startup or write the killer app that will make them rich, the vast majority or them are going to toil their lives away at jobs where they earn a salary, and their inventions are the property of the company they work for, the .com boom (you seem to have forgotten the ensuing bust) notwithstanding.
Ability to make money is a very crude and poor indicator of intelligence. Look at the greatest minds of the twentieth century. How many of them were truly rich? Einstein, Heisenburg, Teller? Even your heroes on the right and libertarian fringe weren't all that rich.
raises hand But I'm of normal intelligence myself, so if anything that just proves your point. In fact, a really remarkable post. Thanks. Though I still don't know what I think about gene-editing for kids.
Also, to those commenters who think that relative poverty is a bagatelle-- Nerts! Status is a big, big factor in human affairs. It's not just *envy* that makes the poor discontent, its the fact that they get looked down on, are given less respect, and themselves feel less worthwhile. Just because this is true doesn't mean we need to rush off and support big government redistribution and so on, but we shouldnt' kid ourselves that inequality is meaningless if everyone is somewhat better off.
Should poor people be given medical care, or if they can't afford it, should they be allowed to simply die from diseases for which we have readily available cures?
I think your argument only tells one very limited side of the story. Yes, we want to allow individuals as well as people generally to improve their condition. But can you really see no potential problem with a society where certain individuals gain such extraordinary advantages over others that competition becomes essentially meaningless?
Of course, that doesn't mean we want to get rid of advancement simply to avoid any advantages. It does mean, though, that one has to consider whether certain resources or rights become so critical to a decent life that society as a group of people has to come together and make an agreement that certain elites will not be allowed simply to lord over the rest, making all the decisions, and getting everything good that comes along.
It's not a reason to ban genetic improvement, but it's a reason to be careful with how it's allowed to be used.
On the other hand, as was pointed out, there is the envy factor too. If the rich could just sit on their wealth and be happy with that, it wouldn't be a problem. We could have our incentives to take the gambes required to make all this new technology, etc., and still minimize the envy. But unfortunately, we are human, and one of the reasons to make a lot of money is to fluant it. It is just natural. Think of it as little different from the mating displays of many animals. Besides, the generation earning wealth rarely spends according to its ability to spend. Rather, it is the succeeding generations, those who Freder suggested fell into their wealth, that are going to be the real problem as to envy.
I don't think that many really are overly upset about the house race that Gates and Dell got into awhile back, because the millions they spent on their houses were small percentages of their wealth, and most could appreciate where they got their wealth - with many running Windows and Office on their Dell computers. But a lot would be a lot more upset if their grandchildren got into the same type of race to build the biggest, fanciest house. Luckily, Gates at least, has seen fit to make sure that his progeny won't find themselves in that position. But he is unique there, giving almost all of his wealth away (he is apparently giving less than 1% of his wealth to his kids - which is of course still substantial by most people's standards).
The problem with extreme inequality is a result of the world we live in, not of a mathematical comparison of wealth.
If one group of people is put in a position where it knows it has no chance of competing with another group that is put in a substantially superior position, such a society is going to quickly disintegrate. It's very easy for the rich people to say to the poor people, "Hey, well you're not put in any worse position simply because we're swallowing up all the societal advances, so why don't you just simmer down?" Sadly, that just doesn't work.
People don't want to be slaves to other people. It's only by ignoring reality that you can say that a rich person becoming richer has no effect on a poor person. Pretty soon you have a little incompetent brat who just inherited a billion dollars from his parents, and now he's lording it over the poor kids who are smarter and work harder. That may not be a problem in an economic model, but in the real world, it clearly is.
First off, there is no "death tax", people (not just liberals) call it the Estate Tax because that is its name. Secondly, it doesn't even affect "millionaires", you have to have an estate worth $2 million or more before you even have to worry about it. Even then, it only applies to assets above that threshold, not the entire estate. And of course the other thing the opponents of the Estate Tax fail to mention is that heirs inherit wealth at the basis of the asset at the time of death, potentially exempting from tax liability a lifetime of gains on the wealth. (e.g., If your father bought stocks worth $100,000 in 1955, died in 2005 and left it to you and when they worth $2.1 million, you could sell them without paying a penny in tax. If your father sold them the day before he died, he would have to pay capital gains on $2 million).
Secondly, lots of people have done well for themselves over the last twenty-five years, but the gap between the "well-off" and the super-rich is growing ever faster.
Actually, there was a bit of underhandedness with Gates and DOS. What must be remembered is that he didn't write DOS. He just sold it to IBM. Prior to that, Microsoft had been a compiler company, not an operating systems company. (If you want to see some of his own work, some of it may remain in Qbasic that shipped with Windows up through Windows NT 4.0 and 98).
There is a lot of the story about what actually happened there that will probably never come out. But I was lucky enough to have read the unpublished autobiography of Gary Kildall, the founder of Digital Research, and the programmer who wrote the product from which DOS was cloned. The picture Kildall paints of Gates and IBM is not very nice. By the accounts of those who knew him, he went to his grave in 1994 this way.
On what basis is it OK to kill off the less than perfect but verboten to help the average?
Yea, but won't that incentive go away if the poor know that competing with the rich is vastly more difficult because the rich have genetic advantages too?
Even if we could manipulate genes to make people "smarter", I doubt we could even agree on what intelligence is.
Now, Eugene disagrees with the argument that because selecting for intelligence will lead to greater inequality of outcome we should oppose genetic selection for intelligence. Generally, I would say I agree with this, BUT it is not the inequality of the outcome per se that makes me oppose artificial selection to increase intelligence.
It is instead my opposition to the idea of baseline, or innate inequality that leads me to believe that genetic selection should be morally opposed.
If if one accepts the Biblical Creation of Adam and Eve and through one man all men were created then, it follows that there is a far strong argument for fundamental equality. (Some have justified slavery on the basis of Noah's curse on Canaan, but note even this is an appeal to a past action not...as it is an appeal to an innate failing of Canaan's descendents...Even still, this argument is hideously flawed, but we need not get into the exegesis here.) All men are as Jefferson put it...created equal endowed by their creator with certain unalienable by rights. Not only can we say that all men are created equal through Adam...we know all men are fundamentally related, distant cousins perhaps, but cousins nonetheless. This is a strong argument for the inante equality of each man relative to each other man.
HOWEVER!, the converse story of man's origins is one that entails men rising up above the beasts through a positive selection of genes, eventually these men begat better men who begat better men, and still better men. And eventually we reach the current pinnacle of evolution we have today. Then, as we can differentiate now, genes from other genes we foolishly believe we can accelerate the process of "evolution," parents deluded as they often are by the belief that their offspring are truly better than the rest, perpetuate such a dangerous myth letting them know, you were chosen for selected for, that is why you are smarter than the rest, because you are better than the rest. Will this not happen? It for certain will the convergence of eugenics and evolution is exceedingly dangerous.
I do not need an equality of outcome, that is dangerous as it holds men to do no more than they need to subsist, a negative outcome, however as our fundamental belief in the equality of all men innately wanes, then the danger in eugenics become greater.
I do not believe one should pull the escaping man back into the couldron, but I neither believe that I should stand back and encourage the development of Napoleon, Mao, Genghis Khan, or other such men.
I should also note that your argument that the gap between the well off and the truly wealthy growing so fast undercuts your argument about the Estate/Death Tax, because as it currently exists, it hits the moderately well off often harder than it does the truly wealthy. It just isn't that hard having an estate over $1 million anymore. Over $10 million maybe. And definately over $100 million. But $1 (or $2 for a couple) million doesn't make you wealthy these days. It doesn't even make you that well off.
Think of it this way, if you tried to retire on $1 million and you still had kids in school, you probably can't take more than $50,000 a year unless you are relatively close to your life expectancy, esp. given what interest rates are today - the $50k is greater than the interest you can safely earn on that amount. But $50k isn't going to pay for private school for even one kid, and definately won't pay for private college, and still leave anything left for food and shelter.
And maybe that is part of my point - that the current Estate/Death Tax hits at a point where if all the money went to the next generation, even if it consisted of a single person, that person in the next generation could not live well enough to send even one kid to private school, and definately not private college.
I just can't consider that level of wealth to be more than moderately well-to-do, if that.
Universal eugenetics now!
There's a great paper by Nick Bostrom on the role of cognitive biases play in our intuitions about these genetic enhancement cases. The question is: why is the current state of affairs the optimal point? That assumption has to be defended and justified. If we propose acheiving equality by making everyone worse off, and the egalitarian objects, we have to know why.
Speaking from personal experience, I can say that there are a *lot* of Russian immigrants in my former community (Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn), who were doctors and engineers in Russia - and now drive cabs and run groceries. They are worse off with respect to their relative standing, but better off in absolute terms. They made great sacrifices to be able to make that switch.
Speaking from personal experience, I can say that there are a *lot* of Russian immigrants in my former community (Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn), who were doctors and engineers in Russia - and now drive cabs and run groceries. They are worse off with respect to their relative standing, but better off in absolute terms. They made great sacrifices to be able to make that switch.
How is that not equally an indictment of more conventional things done to a child, such as how the child is raised or educated? It's not as if someone can, years after the fact, choose to have been raised in a different way, and it's certainly true that how one has been raised or educated has lifelong effects.
You are correct that most engineers are going to spend their lives working for a salary. But those salaries are substantially higher than those that their humanities and social science brethern can expect. PhD holders in the later disciplines flock to academia because that is typically the only place where they can make a decent living with their degrees. But engineering slots go begging at those same universities because PhDs in many engineering disciplines can earn more in industry. Often significantly more. Indeed, what is weird is taking engineering classes and finding most of the departments being foreign born.
Nevertheless, there are a lot of engineers getting very rich from their engineering. If you don't know them, it is most likely because you run in the wrong circles. I should note that a decade or so, Seattle was rated as having the most millionaires per capita, and that was primarily a result of one company there, Microsoft. Yes, it made Bill Gates and Paul Allen insanely rich. But it also turned many hundreds, if not thousands, of its employees into millionaires. And if you spend any time in engineering schools, this is what they talk about - getting in on the bottom floor of the next Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.You are arguing a general proposition based on specific instances, and this is esp. questionable given the 250 million plus population we are talking about (or, more likely, a couple of billion). Besides, you are arguing from past instances, whereas we are talking a modern trend.
I have no doubt that when all those illuminaries were in their prime in the workforce, they didn't get rich. Back when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's, you could live comfortably on a tradesman's wages, esp. if it was a union job. Indeed, when I graduated from high school, a lot of guys then laughed at us because they were jumping into jobs that paid better than I would be making with a BA from a liberal arts college. An engineer then often didn't earn that much more than the line workers did.
That was then, and this is now. Most of those high paying union jobs have disappeared. Now, there is a significant statistical correlation between number of years of schooling and income, and between number of years of schooling and IQ. That wasn't the case when those illuminaries you cite were doing their best work. This intellectual meritocracy though has only grown up in the last 25-30 years.
Back when my parents were growing up in the 1920s and 1930s, the best jobs, making the most money, went to those with the best connections. Those with the best connections got them through their parents and by going to the best colleges. And, of course, their parents' connections are what got them into the best colleges. If you go back another generation, you can see how incestuous this all is.
But this started to change significantly in the 1960s and 1970s. George W. Bush and John Kerry would probably not have gotten in Yale a decade or two later, and the same for Al Gore and Teddy Kennedy for Harvard. By then, admission to these schools was primarily merit based. The best and the brightest were being sifted out to attend the best colleges, etc.
But it looks like we may be going back in the opposite direction, with parents with money and dedication being able to give their kids an edge through private schooling, SAT prep, etc. - all the stuff that we talked about on those earlier threads. I guess maybe you could look at it that we are moving from a relatively actual merit based system to one that rewards apparent merit, where there is some correlation between apparent merit and actual merit (or aptitude, etc.), but not as much as many would like.
Ask yourself whether you would eschew the use of search engines if it turned out that the founders of Google had had their IQ enhanced by, say, 10 points each? Most of us would, in the end, give up any ethical concerns here, and continue to utilize Google (or whatever search engine you prefer).
But it is basic human nature (at least for some) to strive to be better. So the only way to make equal societies has been to kill or lock up those pesky achievers. Look at the Soviet system, China, Cambodia. People who owned land, had a college degree, or ran a business had to be re-educated, sent to concentration camps or killed.
And the places where humanity made the most progress were where people were free to be unequal and the times when the economies grew the most were when the rich were getting richer. Horror of horrors! We have to let the rich get richer to help the poor?!
Imagine there was so much more income inequality that 100 people became rich as Bill Gates. Sure some would have $50 million parties, but some would probably start making private rocket trips to the moon and Mars others would research new energy sources and others would investigate cancer cures.
The choice is between an equality of poverty and stagnation for all, or inequality and income disparity and a vibrant prosperous society.
I feel you are simplifying things a bit. You write:
"The choice is between an equality of poverty and stagnation for all, or inequality and income disparity and a vibrant prosperous society."
My goodness, if you were right about these being the only two choices, I would surely go for inequality with a vibrant prosperous society. But what you have created here is a false dichotomy. You are limiting our choices rather drastically. Not only that, I think that if you have too much inequality, you aren't going to get that vibrant prosperous society that you want.
Think of it this way. On some level, inequality is harmless or even good to the extent that it is necessary to achieve other ends. But like chocolate, too much inequality can make you sick.
The costs of a perfectly equal society are too high. But inequality has its costs too, and at some point, the costs of inequality are greater than the benefits.
How about this for a concept: Optimal inequality.
The thing is, those who think that any inequality is wrong are crazy. But those that go to the other extreme and think that inequality has no significance whatsoever are equally crazy. There is a better way, and that is to try to reach for the optimal level of inequality.
This of course is simply not true. Engineering slots at universities are very much coveted and hard to get. There are many more applicants than positions available.
Back when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's, you could live comfortably on a tradesman's wages, esp. if it was a union job. Indeed, when I graduated from high school, a lot of guys then laughed at us because they were jumping into jobs that paid better than I would be making with a BA from a liberal arts college. An engineer then often didn't earn that much more than the line workers did.
But you are also missing the point that by providing decent wages and livings to working people, their children, many of whom may be extraordinarily bright, have the opportunity to excel, because they live in a stable home and have access to a good education at both the primary and secondary level. If you encourage income disparity and destroy equality of opportunity, leaving all the benefits of society only to those at the top of the income strata, the pool of talent inevitably shrinks.
When we can't even provide decent medical care to all our citizens the last thing we should be talking about is providing a leg up to those who need it least.
Remember, Mozart died unappreciated and penniless in his time, so by your measure he was a failure (as was Van Gogh and many other people we now recognize as geniuses).
Bruce: if you're retiring when you have kids still in school, you're rich.
No, maybe he just had a child at 50, who will still be in school long after normal retirement.
It's much, much better to have people seeking to advance themselves by providing products and services others want than to have them seekiing the power to coerce others.
The real problem is that by focussing on improving the lot of a very small minority who really don't need any help at all we are going to divert funds from people who could benefit greatly from the same expenditures. Boosting one child's IQ 10 points into genius range through the use of genetic engineering at an exorbitent cost in order to satisfy rich parents' vanity when intelligence alone doesn't mean the kid will do anything meaningful with his life (he might still end up being a total asshole, drug addict, or irredeemable criminal). Yet there is no doubt the same amount of dollars pumped into education programs could boost the achievement and raise the IQ of dozens or even hundreds of average children 10 points (since this certainly within the environmentally variable range of IQ for people of normal intelligence). And that may be the difference between McDonalds and college for a lot of people.
All reasonable arguments for modifying the threshold for the estate tax or the exemptions (that already exist) for residences--but not a reason to completely eliminate it.
And you somehow think these traits are mutually exclusive? That just because someone advances themselves by providing products and services they can't also want to seek power to coerce others? You must live in some kind of fantasy world.
The real problem is that by focussing on improving the lot of a very small minority who really don't need any help at all we are going to divert funds from people who could benefit greatly from the same expenditures.
And by wasting money on Columbus silly voyages, Queen Isabella lost the chance to use the same money to feed a lot of poor people in Spain for a day.
So what's better, a few extra meals to a few poor or a chance for hundreds of millions to have a better and brighter future in a New World? Leftist programs accomplish almost nothing. Free market ideas change the world!
Mozart is equal to log beating
Remember, Mozart died unappreciated and penniless in his time, so by your measure he was a failure (as was Van Gogh and many other people we now recognize as geniuses).
Mozart was an example of how the Left's obsession with inequality blinds them to actual genius.
The only thing his penniless death proves is that in a (relatively) free society geniuses may or may not find success. In an unfree society he probably would have been working on a collectivist farm.
You mention Columbus's voyage to the New World. May I point out that this is not the product of the free market, but rather of government financing a particular venture. So, it is not apt. Not that this says anything one way or another about the larger point of free markets.
Am I understanding you correctly? You seem to be suggesting that any concern with inequality is equivalent to socialism. Is that a correct understanding of your meaning, or are you just targeting "the Left?"
- Josh
So are you saying all government programs are by definition "leftist". By that definition, Columbus' journies (in fact most of the expeditions to the New World) were "leftist". As was the westward expansion in the U.S. All those settlers were lured west by free, or practically free, which the government gave away (we are still saddled with mining laws out west which gives away the minerals on Federal lands in the west). The railroads were built across the country because the government gave the private companies that built the railroads land along the routes (which they often illegally swapped with more lucrative land off of the routes or just plain stole through the government or Indian tribes through various nefarious means). And I bet you can't name one serious technological advance of the twentieth century that wasn't heavily subsidized or owes its success or dissemination due to direct government support.
Your second question looks loaded. The short answer is that an obsession with making everyone equal seems to be the main goal of the left.
And how exactly is that an example of that? Mozart was rejected by the musical establishment, which depended on the sponsorship of royal court in Austria, hardly the "Left" by any stretch of the imagination. I doubt there was even a "left" to be found in Austria in the 18th Century, and if there was, they certainly weren't in a position to sponsor Mozart.
Yes, yes, yes! I just wanted to repeat this comment from Freder. Does anyone have an answer to it? Assuming the factual premises are true, is there any reason it's superior to expend resources advancing (in path-dependent fashion) the lot of one rich family when those resources could be more dramatically used to help many more?
(In Soviet Russia, Hell makes jokes about you!)
No, our obsession is equality of opportunity. There is a huge difference. Is it too much to ask that a bright child of modest means should have the same opportunity to excel and succeed as the not-so-bright son of a Congressman and grandson of Senator who gets into Yale on a legacy admission, is a failure at various business ventures, yet still gets elected governor and then president.
I do not believe one should pull the escaping man back into the couldron, but I neither believe that I should stand back and encourage the development of Napoleon, Mao, Genghis Khan, or other such men.
How do you propose to identify these men? Unless you have an ultra-accurate crystal ball, I suspect you will just resort to trying to "stop" people you don't like, or whom you're competing with, or who are in danger of achieving more success than you or your children, etc. It seems like you would in effect become what you're claiming to fight - a petty tyrant claiming to be protecting people from people you've demonized for one reason or another.
Yes, yes, yes! I just wanted to repeat this comment from Freder. Does anyone have an answer to it? Assuming the factual premises are true, is there any reason it's superior to expend resources advancing (in path-dependent fashion) the lot of one rich family when those resources could be more dramatically used to help many more?
If a rich family is trying to boost the IQ of their kid isn't it self-funding? (I'm not getting into the ethics of this - I'm just commenting on the hypothetical situation being discussed.) We're not talking about tax dollars here - we're talking about people spending their money on a service they want. I suppose if such a service existed it would be sort of like plastic surgeons - where they have a very lucrative practice catering to the rich that allows many of them to perform pro bono procedures for the poor.
I don't see how Freder's scenario is applicable.
Since Spain was a monarchy its arguable that Columbus' voyage can be considered a government project. Generally, wasn't everything viewed to be the property of the monarch? So Ferdinand and Isabella could have easily (and likely did) view the voyage as a private business venture that they were investing in?
Well no, genetic engineering is a highly specialized and technical field. There are only a handful of people in the world who are capable of performing this kind of work. If a very few rich people buy the services of the few providers of this kind of technology to produce superkids, then those scientists are going to be unable to conduct research in areas that would be of greater utility to the society as a whole (say discovering cures for Parkinsons, MS or Down's Syndrome). So by being selfish and creating a few superkids, the rich parents are being the people in the third cauldraun by putting their own self-interest ahead of the good of the society.
Well yes, people forget that the concept of private property, even in the west, is a fairly new concept, and that even in the 15th century the idea of an ordinary man having free and clear title to land was an astounding concept. So anything that Columbus discovered belonged to Ferdinand and Isabella.
That's the beauty of the market, Freder. Nobody chose Toyotas and Hondas as the best cars in the world and there is certainly no agreement. Nobody selected Walmart over Montgomery Ward. The market did and our cars got better real fast, once we let the Japanese in, and department stores have never been better. Using the market to raise kids implies:
1. Parents need to finance the creation and upbringing of their own kids, just as Sam Walton had to do with Walmart.
2. A parent who lacks the money can finance his kid project by selling the idea to investors who will closely monitor the project's progress and reach for excellence, just as Sam Walton did.
3. The parent who has the intelligence, foresight and industry sufficient to turn out a great product will bask in glory forever and can leave something meaningful to other generations, as Sam Walton did.
Still I, for one, put my money on a future Genghis Khan to take over Amerika.
I wouldn't quite call this a false dichotomy. It's important to understand that each dollar taken from the private economy by taxes (including those intended for "equalization" efforts) weakens and hinders it, making everyone less well off. It's a continuum - with pinch points and tipping points in various places. But one side certainly does seem to lead to misery.
If the libertarian near-utopia of a 10-15% flat tax and a massively scaled back government were to occur, I would tend to think the economy would be so strong most equalization efforts would be unnecessary. The economy would be so vibrant that nearly everyone would be able to experience a reasonable degree of success. And a tighter labor market would likely force businesses to fund their own equalization efforts for employees and prospective employees. The remainder of any equalization efforts could be handled through charities and pro bono work. So scenarios exist where the libertarian model would be more effective for all the stakeholders involved than the collectivist model.
Yeah, I know this is all hypothetical. But then again so is this whole thread.
Yeah - glad those days are OVER.
Why would this work today when every time in the past where there has been limited government and low taxes there has been huge income inequality and people starving in the streets? The world prior to World War I was like this and it led to devastating wars and bloody revolutions. Why will it be different this time around? Because we have computers?
Or alternately, I guess poor people could just sell their kids to rich people for spare parts. I think Jonathon Swift had a similar idea a few years back.
I think you're shifting the frame of the argument. If that kind of thing got to the point where it was approved by the FDA and whomever else it would be able to be performed by many more practitioners. So it would necessarily get to the scenario I described.
And medical research doesn't necessarily work the way you describe it - there's plenty of rich people that have relatives with the maladies you described who would fund research in those areas.
There is "equality of outcome." That seems to be what most people are discussing. It's easy to measure and easy to define. But it is also socially pernicious. I don't support it.
There is, on the other hand, "equality of opportunity." This, it seems to me, really does define a just society. It provides for maximal individual freedom while encouraging maximal "social output" in the form or wealth, art, science, etc. Unfortunately, it can be almost impossible to measure and even worse to implement.
But we can take steps to create more of this kind of equality even if complete equality of opportunity is impossible. For example, while punitive income taxes are aimed at "equality of outcome," inheritance taxes are aimed at increasing "equality of opportunity." Why should anyone start out in life with $10,000,000?
There are also other, more positive steps society can take. The GI bill in the United States had probably the most impact on creating equality opportunity of any government program in the last 100 years.
Of course, things like inheritance taxes don't eliminate other things that drive inequality, like rich parents who can afford private tutors for their children. But not being able to do everyting is no reason to do nothing.
Eugene's hypothetical genetic manipulation obviously promotes inequality but falls somewhere in between opportunity and outcome. Let's assume you could pay to have your children's IQ increased when they were 6 years old. Is that increasing your child's abilities so that they will better prosper under a regime of equality of opportunity or is it providing your children an opportunity that poorer children are denied? How does this differ from increasing your six-year-old's abilities by sending him or her to private school, providing tutors, etc.?
The biggest problem I see with genetic manipulation is that it risks create a permanent "underclass" of people who haven't been genetically enhanced, especially if these manipulations breed true. There is already some risk of that as more intelligent people are more likely to marry more intelligent people because of the growth in University attendance. People used to choose mates based almost solely on proximity. But, especially among college attendees, that's hardly a factor at all anymore.
Unfortunately for these folks, due to a phenomenon called regression to the mean, their children are rarely as intelligent as they are. As a result, there is little danger of dramatically increasing social stratification based on genetics.