bramflakes comments on Open Thread for February 18-24 2014 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: eggman 19 February 2014 12:57PM

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Comment author: bramflakes 22 February 2014 12:44:40PM *  8 points [-]

The increase in knowledge doesn't even seem worth the sacrifice; we're talking about differences in average IQ between 95, 105, 110, 115. For one such as I, who's got an IQ of 168, this degree of difference seems unimpressive, and, frankly, worth ignoring/not worth knowing.

Come now, you know how normal distributions work. Small differences in means cause over-representation at the extreme ends of the scale. From your IQ I can predict a ~30-40% chance of you being Ashkenazi, despite them being a global minority, just because of a "slightly" higher mean of 110. This is an important thing.

(EDIT: This calculation uses sd=15, which may or may not be a baseless assumption)

Plus, maybe there's a reverse-"Level above mine" effect going on here. The difference between someone at 90 and someone at 110 might not seem big to you, but it might just be your provincialism talking.

(Agreed about the immigration rationalization though)

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 23 February 2014 01:35:48AM 3 points [-]

(Agreed about the immigration rationalization though)

Um, as far as immigration. You may have noticed that some countries are much nicer places to live then others, i.e., some have low crime and highly functioning economies and others are poor crime filled hell-holes. Why is that? Is it that something about being north of the Rio Grande magically makes people more productive and less prone to commit violent crimes? <\sarcasm>

The main reason is the people and culture of those countries. Thus if you import too many people from a different country, the pleasantness of the country to live will depend on the the nature of the new people. Notice that this argument assumes nothing about the role of nature versus nurture.

Comment author: bramflakes 23 February 2014 11:09:58AM 0 points [-]

Yep, and I totally agree. The point I'm making is that with immigration we can afford to have more finely-grained selection criteria. Instead of a blanket ban on immigrants from third-world hellholes, we can at least choose the best ones.

Comment author: Randy_M 24 February 2014 11:14:49PM 2 points [-]

Again, provided we are comfortable with disparate impact and all.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 23 February 2014 08:22:36PM 2 points [-]

I would support such a policy, provided the criteria aren't easily gamable.