But Taleb didn't assume Dawkins was personally endorsing eugenics, which is the only thing I'm interested in for the purposes of this tweet (Dawkin's tweet simply a good example of the genre)
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Replying to @ssica3003 @visakanv
hehe, I only extracted the 'nice' part of Taleb's tweet
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But yeah, I agree that people are angry at the wrong thing, just pointing out that there is another axis of legitimate disagreement with the Dawkins's of the world
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What does he mean it “works”? Did slavery “work”?
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I think in Dawkins's mind, 'works' means he thinks humans can successfully and responsibly guide top-down (read: bio-engineered) human gene optimization, with success criteria determined by utilitarian principles
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Replying to @cognazor @ericlinuskaplan and
I'd not say Dawkins thinks we can *responsibly* guide it. That's why he said he does not morally support it. He's just being a modernist, looking at questions in isolation. The extreme negative reaction is PoMo, saying it's meaningless to separate moral and technical questions.
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Replying to @GregDember @ericlinuskaplan and
He claimed that it 'would work', just like with animals
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Replying to @cognazor @ericlinuskaplan and
But not that it would be GOOD if it worked.
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Replying to @GregDember @ericlinuskaplan and
That's a fuzzy distinction. Saying something works often implies at least some normativity
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Replying to @cognazor @GregDember and
ian hines Retweeted ian hines
Not necessarily. "It works" implies both that you can use it and also that bad people can use it. Bad actors are fully capable of performing eugenics for whatever ends they may have. It would be possible for people to make a "superior race" though uhhttps://twitter.com/imhinesmi/status/1216041998316163072 …
ian hines added,
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It's not like "superior" is well-defined and we can just call someone better than another. (This doesn't mean there aren't changes I would make to our genetics - genetic disorders & birth defects seem straightforwardly bad)
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