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Alicorn comments on Our society lacks good self-preservation mechanisms - Less Wrong
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Beware generalizing from fictional evidence. "Dysgenic pressures" in particular don't seem like they're actually worth fearing in reality, given the Flynn effect, no matter how many times you've seen Idiocracy.
Also beware that reversed stupidity is not intelligence. The existence of the Flynn effect does not imply that "dysgenic" or "eugenic" (scare quotes because there's no value-neutral way to say what counts as an improvement) trends aren't worth thinking about. Suppose hypothetically that genetic trends were leading to lowered average potential intelligence, but that this effect was exactly cancelled by an environmental Flynn effect. This is only a win if you think the status quo is optimal; if you think that more intelligence is better within the range we can apprehend, then IQ not rising fast enough is sad for the same reason that falling IQ would be sad. Cf. the reversal test.
It's disturbing that people have more control over their lives? Why? Because it will result in slightly lower average IQ in the medium term? Because it means our descendants will be monomaniacal fitness-maximizers rather than eudamonic agents in the long-long term?
Parents don't just pass their genes on to their children, they pass on some of their ideas. "Dysmemics" seems a bigger problem than "dysgenics".
This fact you speak of is false, unless by "wanting to reproduce" you actually mean "sexually active, either voluntarily or not, and either inclined to reproduce or poorly informed about or unable to access birth control or unlucky and not so unwilling to reproduce that one will get around any and every obstacle to abortion including psychological attacks, physical prevention, massive social stigma, expense, and physical and emotional pain". Or for the male version, "careless" would do.
...I'm saying that people can and do reproduce without wanting to, even in our society. It is simply not the case that reproduction is caused only by wanting to reproduce.
I think that's a completely inappropriate classification of the catchall "not wanting to get an abortion". It's rarely medically necessary, and it's painful and expensive, even pro-choicers have qualms about it sometimes, it carries enough of a stigma that it can be dangerous for reasons beyond medical complication - there are so many reasons not to have an abortion that it's not at all difficult to imagine a woman whose desire not to reproduce is thereby outweighed, even if you're dismissing as stupid all of the possible religious objections.
Note that optional reproduction doesn't have to be 100% true for Roko's premise to hold. Even if 75% of children are 'oops babies' that other 25% will have significant effects on the gene distribution (or rather, the vast multitude that weren't born because of people exercising choice will have an effect)
I'm not sure what you mean here. How is it different now from any other period in history, and what effect do you think that'll have?
To whoever voted this comment down: did your brain provide a particular reason that it was unnecessary to worry about catholics taking over the world by having babies, or did it just output a feeling that it was somehow wrong -- maybe even racist -- to worry about such things?
(Not the downvoter.) Racist? Catholics are not a race.
Some minds tend to jump to the "Racist!" accusation every time they hear a disparaging comment about a group of people, regardless of what those people have in common.
I wasn't implying that it was a sensible feeling -- I was just describing a sort of internal flinch.
ETA: Here in California, it is to some extent a race issue. We have a large and growing Hispanic population, who are very strongly catholic. If that population continues to grow, without moderation of their religious leanings, it could significantly impact the politics of the state.
The very fact that you're denying that it's racist is EVEN MORE RACIST!
P.S. I make no apologies for my recent trend in comment quality...
Catholics really aren't that bad.
It hardly seems like the Pope can be blamed for AIDS-related deaths based on people not using condoms. Given that he advocates "Use abstinence and don't use condoms", and the effectiveness of abstinence is not increased by using condoms, following his advice will not lead to more AIDS. If people follow the advice "Don't use abstinence and don't use condoms" then they're not following his advice and I don't see why he should be blamed for it.
If not being abstinent was a live option for Catholics, then I'm sure condoms would be reconsidered. However, if people are already going to disregard his advice regarding abstinence, I don't see why he should have to give them more advice about what to do in that case.
Imagine that the Pope claims that God has issued two new commandments:
Would you then argue that it's not his fault that most Catholics have dirty feet?
Indeed I would. I would in that case make fun of Catholics for following such a silly religion, and happily tell people who didn't follow one or both of those that they're being bad Catholics. But for anyone who follows the walk-on-your-hands-all-the-time religion, it's certainly their own fault if they're not up to the task.
People who follow, or try to follow, the whole of the Pope's advice can work to reduce the availability and social acceptability of condoms, which will reduce condom use among people who may or may not care what the Pope has to say. Additionally, since abstinence is apparently very difficult for a lot of people, trying to be abstinent will not reliably result in abstinence; I suspect the number of people who go "well, I can't seem to manage abstinence, but at least I'm not using condoms! That part's easy!" is depressingly high.
I don't see why any such person would continue calling himself a Catholic in that situation. Clearly the options there are 'not a Catholic' or 'Catholic who believes he's going to Hell'. And non-Catholics shouldn't listen to the Pope at all.
It might be worth saying that Catholicism is somehow harmful to society, but it's hardly a fault of the Pope that he informs people about Catholic doctrine.
This... is religion we are talking about.
I am pretty sure that you can confess to a priest that you have been un-abstinent and be forgiven for it and not be destined for hell, although I am not an expert on Catholic doctrine. Adding condom use on top of lack of abstinence would have the consequence of having to do more penance, most likely.
I don't expect the Pope to do anything other than advise people according to Catholic doctrine. That's the job description. That doesn't make it a harmless activity. I wouldn't expect someone whose job title was "assassin" to not kill public figures for money, because that is the task of assassins. That doesn't make it a harmless activity.
That's more than balanced by extra births - if the example of Catholics taking over the world by having more children on average has anything to it. The Pope's strategey encourages risk - but the overall effect is positive in terms of helping Catholocism spread. With 1 billion members it must be doing something right.
Well, there's the cryonics death cult. Those guys think that, if you perform expensive rituals over your dead body, it might live forever in paradise.
It's like the Egyptian pharoes have been reincarnated ;-)
According to this Wikipedia page, there were maybe 2.4 million deaths due to AIDS in the whole world in 2007. I doubt the Pope was responsible for most of them.
How many deaths, directly or indirectly derived from the pope's prohibition, would be enough for his influence to be considered negative in this case ?
Catholics have a religion that help them reproduce in the modern world. They may well be more valuable in nature's eyes than the screw-ups who allow their reproductive potential to be sabotaged by their unfamiliar environment. However, Catholicism is not the only system of thought that promotes family values in modern times. See the Amish.
I actually find the inclusion of this as a "most likely" scenario mildly offensive, since Bostrom explicitly says he finds it seriously improbable:
"In any case, the time-scale for human natural genetic evolution seems much too grand for such developments to have any significant effect before other developments will have made the issue moot."
There's something... unpalatable about intellectuals bemoaning the "lesser folk" from breeding the species into oblivion, particularly when it seems to contradict both evidence and theory.
Though that doesn't immediately make it non fictional evidence, dysgenic pressure (as well as the flynn effect and the possibility of genetic engineering as possible counters) is also being briefly mentioned in Nick Bostrom's fundamental paper Existential Risks - 5.3.