[vlovich123]

You're making a value judgement like "better" and "worse" as if there was a clear global optimum that you can reach. Why do you assume that's the case?

Let's assume there even is a global optimum. Why do we think this global optimum would be invariant on environment? We have clear examples of species that fail to adapt to their changing environment quickly enough dying off. If you took the survivors of a change and then changed things back, those survivors might die again. That means you are fit to the environment you find yourself in. As the environment changes, you're not "better" or "worse" than someone who's more fit to a different environment.

Humanity is not getting strictly better on all stats. It's like a video game. We might tweak improve some stats and have to give up others. We are a bit more unique in that we largely optimize for the environment we create for ourselves, but that doesn't mean humans are constantly "getting better" over time. You could maybe try arguing that the human condition has improved over time due to technology, medicine, etc, but even that's an imperfect analysis because our historical record is so inaccurate.

[matheusmoreira]

Surely having sharper and more intelligent humans is an objectively better uncontroversial outcome. If there's even a chance that our environment is somehow downregulating important features such as intelligence, we must find a way to reverse that process.

[hawk_]

> Surely having sharper and more intelligent humans is an objectively better uncontroversial outcome

What if there's a level of intelligence above which humans decide not to reproduce?

[matheusmoreira]

I question the intelligence of a human species that does not reproduce.

[vlovich123]

By what metric are you making the claim that humanity does not reproduce?

To my eye we’ve simply unlocked medical science and have taken control of reproduction to the point where it’s not critical to the species for everyone to reproduce. I’d be more concerned about all the plastics and chemicals that are now circulating in our bodies slowly decreasing our ability to reproduce than us as a species being too dumb to reproduce. That position just doesn’t have an existence proof point (no pandas don’t count because while it’s a funny pop meme, all evidence suggests they just can’t/won’t mate in captivity and it’s environmental for them).

[matheusmoreira]

> By what metric are you making the claim that humanity does not reproduce?

I'm not. I was replying to the following question:

> What if there's a level of intelligence above which humans decide not to reproduce?

It seems obvious to me that a species that drives itself to extinction cannot be considered intelligent. Doubly so if it does that due to lack of reproduction.

> it’s not critical to the species for everyone to reproduce

It is. Every couple must have a certain amount of children in order to simply maintain a stable population.

[vlovich123]

> It is. Every couple must have a certain amount of children in order to simply maintain a stable population.

On average. That doesn't mean that every single couple needs to reproduce. In fact, historically, that's certainly not been the case because some couples are just incapable while others reproduce far more than the average.

[danwills]

Is this perhaps too focused on the individual which might not lead to the optimum for the zoomed-out / group (population-level) case?

This reminds me of a meta-system-transition where simplified versions of individual (previously independent) units can lead to a unified cooperative whole that works better at the meta-system level (similar to what led to eukaryotes or to multicellularity). It's like a sacrifice that the individuals make (of things that might have looked like intelligence in the previous context) in order to be able to work together better, and these kinds of transitions have worked out extremely well for life, so far! (I guess I am biased, being alive and everything!?)

Should humans resist the formation of human meta-systems? Human/robot meta-systems? Certainly seems like a good chance that an extremely successful meta-system could be dangerous to the rest of the regular humans!? But if it's actually better, then that's just normal (meta) evolution.

[matheusmoreira]

> Should humans resist the formation of human meta-systems? Human/robot meta-systems?

No. I'm saying humans should not lose abilities or features because of it. We should be able to live comfortable lives and still maintain peak physical and mental performance. Any changes in our nature should not go against that.

[vlovich123]

We specialize though. Some people might be able to maintain peak mental performance. Others peak physical. Some might be better at social things to make sure we have a cohesive well-functioning society. There's probably thousands of character traits and some are going to invariably be tradeoffs in our genome/social conditioning. There's a reason there aren't Einstein-level intelligences running around every day doing body building, modelling, race car driving all at once. You have to choose what you spend your time on and most people choose to intersect that with natural abilities and interests.

Also, assuming the conclusions of the article in any way prove a shift in intelligence (it doesn't), you'd still be looking at averages which tells you nothing about the effect it has on total number at population. Maybe there's an upper bound of "smart" people or "strong" people modern society demands. Certainly as a skill becomes more commoditized it becomes less valuable economically. Maybe we've got too many smart people now because a lot of people saw the explosion in value of such careers?

[SamoyedFurFluff]

But do you have any evidence of that? With our supposedly down regulated intelligence we’re achieving ever more and faster.