Multiheaded comments on I've had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions - Less Wrong

26 Post author: Multiheaded 25 January 2012 05:43PM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 26 January 2012 05:05:56AM 5 points [-]

I don't "think" anything through because I flinch from the thought, because I see no way to avoid taking on the "Cold-hearted racist white asshole" manufactured identity when thinking it through seriously!

Ok, let's dump race, it's a red herring here anyway. Would you favor "affirmative action 2.0 on a massive scale" for people with low IQs?

Comment author: Multiheaded 26 January 2012 08:52:02AM 2 points [-]

Would you favor "affirmative action 2.0 on a massive scale" for people with low IQs?

I don't know! This is a painful, confusing and ethically hazardous topic that I'm currently trying to learn how to handle. Again, could you please message me with a list of your tenative policy suggestions for such a situation?

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 28 January 2012 03:59:17AM 2 points [-]

I more-or-less agree with Eric Raymod's suggestions in this blog post.

Comment author: Multiheaded 20 March 2012 10:02:08AM *  0 points [-]

Color-blind policies and other "objective" policies in hiring, etc can easily be taken to an absurd conclusion when you end up rewarding and punishing people, by means of status at the very least, for their genes.

Imagine that racial group X, which makes up 20% of a given nation, has been proven at great length to be strongly genetically predisposed towards inferiority at all but 5% of jobs in that society. What do you do when the remaining 15% are forced to compete in an environment where most of them are more or less handicapped from birth? Do you leave them to beg and scrounge? Put them on welfare? Create low-status make-work?

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 21 March 2012 03:33:46AM *  2 points [-]

Imagine that racial group X,

The racial part here is irrelevant and is only serving to mind-kill you.

which makes up 20% of a given nation, has been proven at great length to be strongly genetically predisposed towards inferiority at all but 5% of jobs in that society.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The distribution of jobs in society isn't written down on tablets. If they have some comparative advantage then the market can find niches for them. Or are you saying that the 15% have zero marginal product? In that case, it's going to be a problem no matter how you organize society and pretending the problem doesn't exist won't make it go away.

Comment author: Multiheaded 21 March 2012 10:09:35AM *  0 points [-]

Or are you saying that the 15% have zero marginal product

They would have had a pretty good marginal product if not for the top 25% of their minority, but they're only genetically predisposed towards one thing, and others like them (the top 25% who get hired) are superior to them at it. Nonetheless, the bottom 75% could still compete with people outside the group, if there was enough demand on the market for the only job they do so well. Yes, it's going to be a problem in any society - but it already is in some regards; there's no perfect solution, but what would you do about it in practice?

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 21 March 2012 11:27:46PM 2 points [-]

but they're only genetically predisposed towards one thing,

You seem to be confusing being "predisposed" to do something, with being unable to do anything else. Perhaps, I should have mentioned in my previous post how extremely implausible the zero marginal product scenerio, i.e., that they are literately incapable of doing anything else is.

Comment author: Multiheaded 22 March 2012 10:24:58AM 0 points [-]

Sigh. Of course they're perfectly able to do other things! It's just that all the other people on the market are better at those other things.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 23 March 2012 03:43:18AM 4 points [-]

Read the Wikipedia article on comparative advantage I linked to above. From the first example:

Two men live alone on an isolated island. To survive they must undertake a few basic economic activities like water carrying, fishing, cooking and shelter construction and maintenance. The first man is young, strong, and educated. He is also faster, better, and more productive at everything. He has an absolute advantage in all activities. The second man is old, weak, and uneducated. He has an absolute disadvantage in all economic activities. In some activities the difference between the two is great; in others it is small.

Despite the fact that the younger man has absolute advantage in all activities, it is not in the interest of either of them to work in isolation since they both can benefit from specialization and exchange. If the two men divide the work according to comparative advantage then the young man will specialize in tasks at which he is most productive, while the older man will concentrate on tasks where his productivity is only a little less than that of the young man. Such an arrangement will increase total production for a given amount of labor supplied by both men and it will benefit both of them.

I realize I should probably have just quoted the above rather than dancing around the topic for two comments. My apologies.

Comment author: Multiheaded 23 March 2012 04:57:29AM 1 point [-]

That makes sense... I've got to try and figure out while things aren't so rosy in a real market, then.

Comment author: Blueberry 25 March 2012 06:47:54AM -1 points [-]

Sterilize them all? Wire their brains to make them get extreme pleasure from servitude, then enslave them all?

Comment author: WrongBot 26 January 2012 09:54:26AM 3 points [-]

Are you still glad that you sought beyond the outer gates? It is possible that the shadowy elite refrain from discussing these topics because most people are not sane or prepared enough to handle them. Not that I claim membership; I'm not quite ready for it yet.

Comment author: Multiheaded 26 January 2012 07:18:02PM *  4 points [-]

Also:

I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away!

Comment author: Multiheaded 26 January 2012 09:58:43AM *  2 points [-]

I have little that binds me to the comfort of ignorance. Don't have any explicit grand goals or long term plans; my relations with the people in my life are emotionally impaired (although better than they could've been, given the ways in which my wiring and psychology appears deviant); peace of mind appears overrated to me anyway.

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