
Has humanity reached ‘peak intelligence’? - sonabinu
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190709-has-humanity-reached-peak-intelligence
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im3w1l
Welfare systems are dysgenic, but we will be able to genetically engineer
ourselves out of it before it becomes a serious issue.

The notion that time scales are too short for evolution to be involved is not
true. Some evolutionary effects can happen very quickly.

The prevalence of an _existing trait_ within a population can change quickly,
if it's _highly heritable_ , and the _selection is strong_.

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lsd5you
_but we will be able to genetically engineer ourselves out of it before it
becomes a serious issue._

What is your level of uncertainty regarding this? It would seem to be merely a
possibility, especially if we undershoot due to falling intelligence levels
...

~~~
cma
Even ignoring engineering, there is already preimplantation genetic screening
with in vitro fertilization to screen out chromosomes with known heritable
defects.

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geowwy

      > Even the average person today would have been considered a genius compared to someone born in 1919
    

If you didn't already suspect that IQ is a load of crap, this sentence should
tip you off. Can you really imagine a 100 IQ person being haled as a genius
100 years ago?

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lsd5you
IQ being 'a load of crap' doesn't follow from some journalists glib (and
incorrect) claim. What is more, if it were true and the IQ differences were
such that todays average measured as a genius then, if you were to witness
someone ace the test, you could reasonably hail them a genius at least in the
colloquial sense.

~~~
0x8BADF00D
IQ simply measures general intelligence. How intelligence is measured when
there is artificial general intelligence will be interesting.

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wolph
I would argue that intelligence (as is muscle mass for example) is dependent
on the need, and hence, training for it. If your life is simple and
repetitive, why focus on getting smarter as it will probably make you bored
more easily.

Similarly, if you do physical work all day your muscles are bound to adapt.

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cheerlessbog
Your cleverness is likely to be oriented at other matters such as hunting and
avoiding being hunted.

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delhanty
As the intelligence (rather than the wisdom) of the network (i.e. the whole of
humanity connected by the internet) goes up, wouldn't one naively expect the
intelligence of individual average human to go down? (Like social insects -
ants/bees/wasps.)

I seem to recall somewhere an article about how native Australian hunter-
gatherers had very highly developed memories to track animals through the
bush. Not so necessary now - just ask Google Maps where to go.

Also, as elsewhere in this thread - I agree, IQ is a fraud.

~~~
trophycase
Yes I've theorized humans are evolving to be eusocial before our eyes.
Essentially the "knowledge" is being transferred into the structure of the
system itself rather than dispersed amongst humans.

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beambot
And it will get worse, as intelligence is negatively impacted by CO2
concentration too:

[https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-elevated-co2-levels-
dire...](https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-elevated-co2-levels-directly-
affect-human-cognition-new-harvard-study-shows-2748e7378941/)

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olefoo
Just a hypothesis, but often intelligence is a proxy for the mental and social
stimulus a child is exposed to in their formative years. So you would expect
that to grow and then taper off as the useful limit of childhood well-being is
reached. Since childhood enrichment is heavily indexed to wealth in most
couuntries...

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js8
No. The Internet, social networks and other distractions actually cause a
slight decrease in intelligence due to shortening of the attention span.

So if we fix the problem with the attention span, we can increase intelligence
even further, I believe.

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ycombonator
Yes.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxzlq8DoXBw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxzlq8DoXBw)

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papito
Look at the absolute intellectual-curiosity-free morons the masses are
electing to lead us across the world. We are past that point.

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alexashka
We haven't even scratched the surface.

It's not average intelligence that matters, it's how many outliers are we
getting. Outliers make scientific break-throughs that trickle down to the
masses.

That's what matters.

We're in the best spot of all time in terms of number of outliers, simply due
to the population being the highest ever. Now it's a matter of realizing that
potential.

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RyanAF7
SEO fake crap.

