A Million Save Two Utils-Ten Thousand Lose A Hundred

Luciom, you didn't respond to this. As I said, if you disagree with the statement, the discussion is probably pointless.

There are long treaties and books trying to answer your question, "how did the Mandarin class grip on power cause stagnation of Chinese society" you can go and check.

An interesting factoid, which ofc you will disregard as correlation as well, is that China had a fleet circumnavigating the seas well before Columbus did, yet did nothing with all it discovered.

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Several decades before Columbus sailed to the New World, a Chinese admiral named Zheng He made even more ambitious voyages. Between 1405 and 1433, Zheng He led seven major expeditions, commanding the largest armada the world would see for the next five centuries. Not until World War I did the West mount anything comparable.

Zheng He's fleet included 28,000 sailors on 300 ships, the longest of which were 400 feet and 160 feet wide. By comparison, Columbus in 1492 had 90 sailors on three ships, the biggest of which was 85 feet long. Zheng He’s armada included supply ships to carry horses and as many as 20 tankers to carry fresh water. His crew included interpreters for Arabic and other languages, astrologers to forecast the weather, astronomers to study the stars, pharmacologists to collect medicinal plants, ship-repair specialists, doctors and even two protocol officers to help organize official receptions.

Zheng He’s fleet reached Africa and could easily have continued around the Cape of Good Hope and established direct trade with Europe. But the Chinese regarded Europe as a backward region and had little interest in the wool, beads and wine Europe had to trade. China preferred the goods that Africa traded -- ivory, medicines, spices, and exotic woods.

In Zheng He's time, China and India together accounted for more than half of the world's gross national product. Indeed, as recently as 1820, China accounted for 29 percent of the global economy and India another 16 percent.

But during the 1400s, China retreated into relative isolation. By 1500 the Chinese government had made it a capital offense to build a boat with more than two masts, and in 1525 the Government ordered the destruction of all oceangoing ships. A century earlier, China had a fleet of 3,500 ships.

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The bold is the Chinese equivalent of double masking and socially distancing after 3 doses.

The Mandarin class didn't feel it would gain by any change in power relationships which would come through from outside, and that was the outcome.

I don't agree with many political opinions.

I can agree with very specific IQ related opinions like "how we do this multiplication".

You can see why as there isn't a good relationship between IQ and being able to hit on girls, and politics is much more about the latter than about multiplications

It's more about the latter right now exactly because it's a popularity contest. Is there some intrinsic reason why that's "better" than letting the smart people do more of the thinking?

Nono it's more about the latter to make tradeoffs even if you are a dictator.

Most of politics today isn't about the technicalities, those are getting written by actual experts anyway.

It's about trade-offs. And intelligent people are more easily captured by narratives than stupid people unless they are incredibly intelligent. The midwit meme is actually true.

https://brownstone.org/articles/why-are-intelligent-people-so-easily-tricked/

Brownstone Institute

Why Are Intelligent People So Easily Tricked? ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Nono it's more about the latter to make tradeoffs even if you are a dictator.

Most of politics today isn't about the technicalities, those are getting written by actual experts anyway.

It's about trade-offs. And intelligent people are more easily captured by narratives than stupid people unless they are incredibly intelligent. The midwit meme is actually true.

https://brownstone.org/articles/why-are-intelligent-people-so-easily-tricked/

Brownstone Institute

Why Are Intelligent People So Easily Tricked? ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Keep in mind that if higher IQ only had positive consequences, we would have much higher IQs right? There must be negatives to IQ at some point or in some cases and so on, biologically

I'm not sure you understand how this works. Being tall has mostly positive consequences, but some people are going to be short regardless. They are short in relation to the tall people. Same as the stupid people are stupid in relation to the smart people. Are you suggesting that if a trait is a positive then evolution dictates it increases without limit or something?

Anyway, obviously intelligence as we measure it is increasing on the whole. The average school curriculum in STEM topics today probably covers the sum total of human knowledge from a few hundred years ago. You can argue that's knowledge and not intelligence, but I don't think that distinction is pertinent for your specific point.

I am suggesting that if a trait only had positives natural selection wouldn't have stopped for that trait.

We would be exceptionally more intelligent than Romans if IQ was purely positive as a trait. 100 generations is a lot to select for something that is pareto better.

Not sure why you think accumulation of knowledge has anything to do with IQ though

Well we as a society have certainly advanced exponentially during that time, due to our "collective intelligence", if you like. But why would an individual human living in 2024 be exceptionally more intelligent than and individual Roman? That's not the timescales on which biological evolution works. Not even close to the right order of magnitude. We're exceptionally more intelligent than the apes we evolved from. That's closer to the right timescales.

Also, natural selection doesn't work in humans quite the same as it works in other animals, because we have tamed our environment, and we have formed large scale societies where the members support one another etc.

Romans are probably smarter

I imagine that on average, they might well have been. That's more of a reflection on the average person in 2024 than it is on the average Roman. Idiocracy certainly made a plausible case for it.

No. That's voting. The influence of opinions is a different thing.

No we advanced due to accumulation of knowledge.

Knowledge after writing, and the press, and other technologies which allow for rapid dissemination, evolves in a Lamarckian not Darwinian way.

100 generations are A TON if the trait is purely pareto efficient for fitness (if having it increases your chances of reaching fertile age, succesfully procreate, and your children reaching fertile age and procreate and so on, nothing else matters).

We differentiates species of dogs in less than 100 generations.

The ability to digest milk spread like fire once mutations allowed for it, reaching more than 50% of the population where it was developed first in less than 100 generations from a single individual.

Timescales are compressed if a trait is dramatically profitness

Even if we accept all that as given, I'm not sure how it's relevant to the point that people who are better at thinking should probably be doing more of the thinking, and people who are better at picking up women should probably be doing more of the picking up women, and that making complex decisions about running a country probably needs more thinking skills than picking up women skills.

I didn't say anything about influencing opinions in the post chez replied to. I was talking about how much an individual opinion should "count". Right now it counts equally for every single person. My proposal would see that change.

The bit that D2 (and DS) seem to completely miss is that democracy is not just voting and only persists because of enough support from the people. The less people more or less go along with democracy the more authoritarian it has to be. Telling some people they ae too stupid to vote will piss them off considerably in a way that makes very disassisfied with the system and require much authoratrarianism. If it's some test taken when voting whereby people dont know how much their vote has been discounted then that would be even worse DUCY.

It's a good example, like utilitarianism, where the appeal to the intelligent of the narrow result of better treatment decisions misses the patient dying

The only defense afaics is that democracvy may be pretty much done anyway. Not because of trump but because people dont really believe in it anymore. If the intelligent spent a lot less time blaming other people and concentrated on their vote/politcal activity then it would be way better. The 'stupid' people aint the problem.

I'm saying they already do. Well informed and well thought out opinions do count for more.

Not as bad as you think. The proposal that 70% gets one vote and 30% get no vote would bother people a lot more than 20% get two and the rest get one.

The stupid people in and of themselves might not be too much of a problem, but the internet in general and social media specifically has allowed them to coalesce in large groups and reinforce each others' stupid ideas like never before. It has also allowed an avenue for unscrupulous actors to profit from spreading stupid ideas that appeal to stupid people like never before. When viewed in that light, I'd say the whole situation is a pretty big problem.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not in marketing, but I'm sure you can package this idea or similar somewhat palatably. Obviously you don't say to anyone "we're discounting your vote". You say "we're offering bonus points on your vote based on how you do on this test" or whatever. That might be a bit too transparent, but you get the general idea.

The later may be true.

I think you seriously underestimate how the 80% will react to being considered 2nd class citizens. I dont think there would be a huge problem with your system because fairly quickly someone who stood against it would wipe the floor in an election. Lots of us with 2 votes would vote for them as well.

The later may be true.

I think you seriously underestimate how the 80% will react to being considered 2nd class citizens. I dont think there would be a huge problem with your system because fairly quickly someone who stood against it would wipe the floor in an election. Lots of us with 2 votes would vote for them as well. They could simply offer a straight referendum on it.

re D2 point. it doesn't matter how you try and sell it. What matters is how those exploiting the easily available mass discontent sell it.

I love how you always assume in these hypotheticals that you end up in the "preferred" group. I mean, imagine the task was to write a 50 word essay with fewer than 20 errors. You'd be ****ed.

Ironically enough, I wouldn't really care what camp I'm personally in, although I'd question the methodology if I ended up particularly low. If I feel that the qualified people are making the decisions, I don't need too much of a say.