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Concern by @esrtweet that The Bell Curve's predictions have come true; the stratification of class by ability threatens our society; we will soon see a neo-Victorian rise in servants; and only intelligence-amplification tech can save us: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8085 @charlesmurray
TBC's "central concern was that meritocratic elevation of the brightest out of various social strata..might exert a dyscultural effect..a society run by its cognitive elites would make life difficult for those on the wrong end of the IQ bell curve."
"meritocracy may be driving us towards a society that is not just economically but genetically stratified." (I have long pointed out the paradox that maximizing equality of opportunity creates a world 100% stratified by ability, ~50% genetic)
An ability-sorted world will have a strong and rigid class structure where genetically gifted families accumulate massive wealth. If that sounds bad, should you really be trying to remove non-genetic factors of success variance like opportunity, birth country, etc?
Back to @esrtweet "At the beginning of the Flat Century...the genetic potential for upward mobility was more widely distributed in lower SESes because it had not yet been selected out by the uplifters...But now it’s 2018."
"Even as American society as a whole is getting steadily richer, more peaceful and less crime-ridden, its lowest SES tiers are going to hell in a handbasket..The prophecies of TBC [are] coming hideously true."
"We have assorted ourselves into increasing cognitive inequality by class. and the poor are paying..Furthermore, the natural outcome of the process is average IQ and other class differentiating abilities abilities..becoming genetically locked in."
"I fear that with the reappearance of a servant class the wonderful egalitarianism of the America we have known will fade, to be replaced by a much more hierarchical and status-bound order...This prospect disgusts me; I’m a child of the Flat Century, a libertarian."
"There is only one way out of this..We’ll need to figure out how to fight the economic and genetic drift towards an ability-stratified society by intervening at the root causes. Drugs to make people smarter; germ-line manipulation to make their kids brighter."
The cruel irony is that the social technology to eliminate the problem is readily available. Downward social mobility, in the form of the radical inversion of the IQ-fecundity relationship, a la Sailer’s “one and done” for the lower strata.
At the cost of some social instability, the result is a continuous downward fountain of world-tested genes, a regenerative cycle of continuous improvement. No germline editing required.
Imagine for a moment the dystopian canard of a permanent knowledge/tech worker/leisure class, served by machines, with an economically useless rump in Brazilified ghettoes. Now imagine they wink out of existence. What is left?
@ShellenbergerMD Village life was simple and others knew you well and could make allowances for any cognitive deficiencies you might have. The technocratic modern society builds barriers that can be leaped by the proficient but make life difficult for the disorganized.
The Diamond Age was a rip-roaring good read.
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