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Jayson_Virissimo comments on Constructing fictional eugenics (LW edition) - Less Wrong Discussion

16 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 29 October 2012 12:41AM

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Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 29 October 2012 09:47:32AM 12 points [-]

If I happen to have IQ, say, 120, moving to a world with average IQ 140 isn't going to sound like a good news, at least to me.

Would you prefer to move to a world where the average IQ was lower than the current average?

Comment author: prase 29 October 2012 05:28:21PM *  2 points [-]

I am used to the current world and not completely immune to status quo bias, so I am not sure. But as far as I can imagine a choice in which maintaining current friends and relatives wasn't at stake, the optimum would be a world where my overall mental capacities would ensure my being part of the global intellectual elite; that would certainly require the global IQ average lower than today (not sure how much), if my brain had to remain unchanged.

Edit: all that holds ceteris paribus; if I had the option to gain status otherwise, e.g. by inheriting an awful lot of money, I'd prefer that to acquiring status by intelectual superiority over others.