When I think of a lone genius, I usually think of a lone scientist or engineer working in a lab to create or discover something, but the lab usually has a ton of reference books. The lone genius is still communicating with other people, they are just doing it by text instead of face-to-face.
On communication: coincidentally I've got an article coming out tomorrow on Open Office plans and the difficulties encountered by the Return To Office efforts. Open offices (and cublcles before them) are a misguided attempt to foster creativity. Supposedly these chance encounters are what really leads to innovation, and therefore getting people all in one big space will magically produce more of it!
Rubbish. The "lonely genius" might be a myth, but that's because he or she knows when to socialize and when to be alone and think. Forcing them to be "open" all the time is something that only extroverts who never had an original thought in their lives would believe in.
Certainly there is more innovation happening in Singapore than Nigeria.
South Africa would have more innovation if it was just the top 10% of its population and the other 90% disappeared.
When China was communist it had over a billion high IQ people and no innovation.
Core innovation, especially in the modern context) comes from a small subset geniuses. A wider subset can implement and tinker and organize, which is very critical and without which the geniuses couldn't move society. A wider subset still can follow directions fairly well without supervision and solve most problems they have seen before without constant supervision. Most of these people will do these things to their own benefit and thus societies benefit if their security and market incentives are present.
Past that we are mostly talking about extra mouths. To the extent that the people listed above have to spend their time and resources on those mouths rather then societal advancement things are inefficient to one degree or another (perhaps tolerably so, it depends).
And to use Ridley's own example that Bryan quotes at the end, Athens, Genoa, Holland et al. may have had small populations, but large numbers of talented people passed through them, and left their effects, as they approached their zeniths. Why did Socrates go down to the Piraeus, after all?
I have a rather dyspeptic opinions of humans as a species and given the damage that has been done to date I don’t see the point of trying to find the carrying capacity. How would we know? What is the definition of carrying capacity? And what is the point? There seems to be an internalized bias to growth. The earth is a complex system developed over eons and in a rapid and short period of time has been disrupted by this invasive species.
The real problem with the argument that more population = more innovation is that it's based on false equivocation. Innovation is driven by a tiny cognitive elite yet this argument is being deployed to argue against birth control in Africa.
I am not sure one has to choose between lone geniuses and collaboration and cross fertilization amongst many merely talented or even non lone geniuses. We can choose both. But the more people the more genius thing is unnecessary and deleterious to the planet. Like those card games where sometimes you are forced to pick up a bunch of cards. It allows you many opportunities to make points but man do you have a lot of cards to get rid of to win and not get caught with a bunch of cards when the other person goes out
We don’t need 10 billion people for there to be innovation.
A large chunk of the first worlds population is obviously a net drain (collects a lot more in benefits than pays in taxes) before even considering indirect impacts.
If we integrated the third world population into that first world standard, there are likely more costs then benefits.
In general, someone needs to be a relatively well adjusted person of at least middling IQ/conscientiousness on a first world scale before they contribute more to society than they take.
It's pointless to say it could be otherwise in a different context, as there is no way to create that context and the people at the bottom of the scale would fight such changes anyway.
You say 'before even considering indirect impacts' as though these impacts are most likely negative, but I wholly disagree! Most people are net contributors. They do unpaid labour of some sort, even if just for family (as opposed to say volunteering, which a minority do). The jobs that people do provide value. Most of the work people do helps to create far more value than they enjoy. I don't mean that in a commie sense, but I do think that through exchange, surplus value is created for, usually, all parties involved. So even those without great pay often provide huge benefit. Eg the cleaner is not particularly well paid, but she frees up my time in ways which are very valuable to me, allowing me to do other things which I value notably more than the cost I'd pay.
So I think even those who aren't particularly paying in in terms of taxes are creating more value to the wider world than that they are taking up, and we rush too much to denigrate their contribution. I'm kinda repeating Caplan's point re the benefit that an extra janitor provides to the world.
At the same time, there are certainly those who do take out more than they give, but I think this is limited to fringe cases. Particularly bad criminals, people who engage in activities with particularly high negative externalities, or people who just don't really do anything of value, will all take out more than they contribute. But from your comment we'd be inclined to think nigh on half of people are drags on the world! I think it's really less than 1 in 10 people who are particular drags on the world across their lifetime.
"cleaner is not particularly well paid, but she frees up my time in ways which are very valuable to me"
If the cleaner didn't exist you wouldn't have to pay for her Medicaid, her kids k-12 schooling, etc. Then your taxes would be lower and your might find other ways to save time as a result. It also doesn't help that your cleaner probably votes for more government on net.
The truth is that basically all low wage labor is so heavily subsidized by the state we don't have a clue what its real cost is. I don't consider it remotely close to a market price.
I've seen credible figures that say an average black person will accumulate well over seven figures in net benefits from the government over their lifetime. Not a hardened criminal, just regular 85 IQ people. If you stole a million or two from the bank, people would consider you quite a criminal! That's basically how I view low IQ populations, before even considering their political significance (look at what they did to Detroit, etc).
What % is dregs probably varies with the population being considered. For more first world ethnics the answer is probably "tolerably low". For most third world ethnics its "intolerably high". When you mix you end up somewhere in-between.
So long as the dreg category is low enough %, a little Christian charity is probably a rational response. Buy of your problem because you can afford it. It's when the % gets too high you run into tough choices.
Nah if the cleaner didn't exist, I would a) inefficiently do the cleaning myself, and as a result both b) enjoy my day less, and c) *earn less*! I would be less productive! I would be poorer! She is of benefit to me.
Now, of course the above doesn't factor in that my taxes have to cover the infrastructure burden that is greater as a result of the greater population. But I think we need to factor in that I would be poorer in the first place if she didn't exist. If a fraction of my greater income goes towards supporting a tiny bit of extra infrastructure, I think it is still a net gain. Of course we'd have to model it properly to know for sure.
I don't know the figures you mention, but I do think that a working man of 85 IQ should be a net contributor, even with claiming some benefits. Like, any such model focusing on what people take out doesn't capture the full knock on economic benefits of the activity they do do.
Of course, there are many people who are drains to society. It is very difficult for someone of very low intelligence to function well, etc. But I'm just more optimistic about the proportion of people who make net contributions. Many many people of 85 IQ hold down reasonable work and contribute to society.
I'd dispute the idea of the vast majority of people being of net detriment to their society. Often, in the poorest countries, even the poorest have to support themselves, and, lacking power to coerce others, have to support themselves by some combination of autarkic household production and providing value to others. I.e., being net contributors - even if on the smallest scale.
I'm not arguing for Christian charity here either, I'm just more optimistic about pronatalist arguments since I think that sustaining current populations is good.
I mean I can't argue with your gut feeling that has no data to support it.
I would just note that there exist no polities full of low IQ people that are anything but poor basket cases. I don't see anyone in a rush to move to them, which you would think they would do if cheap house cleaners were this amazing economic boon.
My attempt at an analogy is that when you get all the cards you have more opportunities to lay cards down but you can’t go out until all are disposed of so it is both a gift and a burden
If we had 100 billion people we would have more geniuses but would destroy the planet.
It's an interesting idea. It's surely true that given any level of technology and institutions, there must be some limit to carrying capacity. I suppose the question is just whether we're anywhere near that. Concerns about modern agriculture aside, we don't seem to be - we have the capacity at present to feed the world and a few billion more
Why test “carrying capacity”? What if we are wrong like we likely are already. Maybe with technological innovation we can go to 20 billion people. But why? And rest assured that the more people the less animals and other not fully understood parts of the ecosystem
I'm certainly concerned that we could be overly optimistic, mostly if the green revolution proves to be unsustainable. But I do think that if we can sustain more people we should, because human life it great! I'm profoundly grateful for my existence
What do you mean by Green Revolution? I believe the term was coined in the 70’s or so and was meant to talk about revolutionizing agriculture to feed the world’s growing population. The word planet is a complicated ecosystem evolved over billions of years which we do not fully understand. Life spans bacteria to blue whales and they are all interconnected.
I am glad you are alive. But your parents probably didn’t have 10 kids. They decided to have one two three? The other 7 were potential lives that never happened. I believe not messing up the planet further requires that we all accept the lack of these potential lives.
When I think of a lone genius, I usually think of a lone scientist or engineer working in a lab to create or discover something, but the lab usually has a ton of reference books. The lone genius is still communicating with other people, they are just doing it by text instead of face-to-face.
On communication: coincidentally I've got an article coming out tomorrow on Open Office plans and the difficulties encountered by the Return To Office efforts. Open offices (and cublcles before them) are a misguided attempt to foster creativity. Supposedly these chance encounters are what really leads to innovation, and therefore getting people all in one big space will magically produce more of it!
Rubbish. The "lonely genius" might be a myth, but that's because he or she knows when to socialize and when to be alone and think. Forcing them to be "open" all the time is something that only extroverts who never had an original thought in their lives would believe in.
Certainly there is more innovation happening in Singapore than Nigeria.
South Africa would have more innovation if it was just the top 10% of its population and the other 90% disappeared.
When China was communist it had over a billion high IQ people and no innovation.
Core innovation, especially in the modern context) comes from a small subset geniuses. A wider subset can implement and tinker and organize, which is very critical and without which the geniuses couldn't move society. A wider subset still can follow directions fairly well without supervision and solve most problems they have seen before without constant supervision. Most of these people will do these things to their own benefit and thus societies benefit if their security and market incentives are present.
Past that we are mostly talking about extra mouths. To the extent that the people listed above have to spend their time and resources on those mouths rather then societal advancement things are inefficient to one degree or another (perhaps tolerably so, it depends).
And to use Ridley's own example that Bryan quotes at the end, Athens, Genoa, Holland et al. may have had small populations, but large numbers of talented people passed through them, and left their effects, as they approached their zeniths. Why did Socrates go down to the Piraeus, after all?
I have a rather dyspeptic opinions of humans as a species and given the damage that has been done to date I don’t see the point of trying to find the carrying capacity. How would we know? What is the definition of carrying capacity? And what is the point? There seems to be an internalized bias to growth. The earth is a complex system developed over eons and in a rapid and short period of time has been disrupted by this invasive species.
I am for more quality and less quantity
The real problem with the argument that more population = more innovation is that it's based on false equivocation. Innovation is driven by a tiny cognitive elite yet this argument is being deployed to argue against birth control in Africa.
I am not sure one has to choose between lone geniuses and collaboration and cross fertilization amongst many merely talented or even non lone geniuses. We can choose both. But the more people the more genius thing is unnecessary and deleterious to the planet. Like those card games where sometimes you are forced to pick up a bunch of cards. It allows you many opportunities to make points but man do you have a lot of cards to get rid of to win and not get caught with a bunch of cards when the other person goes out
We don’t need 10 billion people for there to be innovation.
But in those card games, the cards are largely a hindrance. How is that analogous to people?
A large chunk of the first worlds population is obviously a net drain (collects a lot more in benefits than pays in taxes) before even considering indirect impacts.
If we integrated the third world population into that first world standard, there are likely more costs then benefits.
In general, someone needs to be a relatively well adjusted person of at least middling IQ/conscientiousness on a first world scale before they contribute more to society than they take.
It's pointless to say it could be otherwise in a different context, as there is no way to create that context and the people at the bottom of the scale would fight such changes anyway.
You say 'before even considering indirect impacts' as though these impacts are most likely negative, but I wholly disagree! Most people are net contributors. They do unpaid labour of some sort, even if just for family (as opposed to say volunteering, which a minority do). The jobs that people do provide value. Most of the work people do helps to create far more value than they enjoy. I don't mean that in a commie sense, but I do think that through exchange, surplus value is created for, usually, all parties involved. So even those without great pay often provide huge benefit. Eg the cleaner is not particularly well paid, but she frees up my time in ways which are very valuable to me, allowing me to do other things which I value notably more than the cost I'd pay.
So I think even those who aren't particularly paying in in terms of taxes are creating more value to the wider world than that they are taking up, and we rush too much to denigrate their contribution. I'm kinda repeating Caplan's point re the benefit that an extra janitor provides to the world.
At the same time, there are certainly those who do take out more than they give, but I think this is limited to fringe cases. Particularly bad criminals, people who engage in activities with particularly high negative externalities, or people who just don't really do anything of value, will all take out more than they contribute. But from your comment we'd be inclined to think nigh on half of people are drags on the world! I think it's really less than 1 in 10 people who are particular drags on the world across their lifetime.
I wrote a wee piece on this: https://ryanhalpin.substack.com/p/is-a-child-really-a-public-good
Re the 3rd world, I mean again I'd point to trade. The undeveloped countries provide loads of surplus value we enjoy!
"cleaner is not particularly well paid, but she frees up my time in ways which are very valuable to me"
If the cleaner didn't exist you wouldn't have to pay for her Medicaid, her kids k-12 schooling, etc. Then your taxes would be lower and your might find other ways to save time as a result. It also doesn't help that your cleaner probably votes for more government on net.
The truth is that basically all low wage labor is so heavily subsidized by the state we don't have a clue what its real cost is. I don't consider it remotely close to a market price.
I've seen credible figures that say an average black person will accumulate well over seven figures in net benefits from the government over their lifetime. Not a hardened criminal, just regular 85 IQ people. If you stole a million or two from the bank, people would consider you quite a criminal! That's basically how I view low IQ populations, before even considering their political significance (look at what they did to Detroit, etc).
What % is dregs probably varies with the population being considered. For more first world ethnics the answer is probably "tolerably low". For most third world ethnics its "intolerably high". When you mix you end up somewhere in-between.
So long as the dreg category is low enough %, a little Christian charity is probably a rational response. Buy of your problem because you can afford it. It's when the % gets too high you run into tough choices.
Nah if the cleaner didn't exist, I would a) inefficiently do the cleaning myself, and as a result both b) enjoy my day less, and c) *earn less*! I would be less productive! I would be poorer! She is of benefit to me.
Now, of course the above doesn't factor in that my taxes have to cover the infrastructure burden that is greater as a result of the greater population. But I think we need to factor in that I would be poorer in the first place if she didn't exist. If a fraction of my greater income goes towards supporting a tiny bit of extra infrastructure, I think it is still a net gain. Of course we'd have to model it properly to know for sure.
I don't know the figures you mention, but I do think that a working man of 85 IQ should be a net contributor, even with claiming some benefits. Like, any such model focusing on what people take out doesn't capture the full knock on economic benefits of the activity they do do.
Of course, there are many people who are drains to society. It is very difficult for someone of very low intelligence to function well, etc. But I'm just more optimistic about the proportion of people who make net contributions. Many many people of 85 IQ hold down reasonable work and contribute to society.
I'd dispute the idea of the vast majority of people being of net detriment to their society. Often, in the poorest countries, even the poorest have to support themselves, and, lacking power to coerce others, have to support themselves by some combination of autarkic household production and providing value to others. I.e., being net contributors - even if on the smallest scale.
I'm not arguing for Christian charity here either, I'm just more optimistic about pronatalist arguments since I think that sustaining current populations is good.
I mean I can't argue with your gut feeling that has no data to support it.
I would just note that there exist no polities full of low IQ people that are anything but poor basket cases. I don't see anyone in a rush to move to them, which you would think they would do if cheap house cleaners were this amazing economic boon.
My attempt at an analogy is that when you get all the cards you have more opportunities to lay cards down but you can’t go out until all are disposed of so it is both a gift and a burden
If we had 100 billion people we would have more geniuses but would destroy the planet.
It's an interesting idea. It's surely true that given any level of technology and institutions, there must be some limit to carrying capacity. I suppose the question is just whether we're anywhere near that. Concerns about modern agriculture aside, we don't seem to be - we have the capacity at present to feed the world and a few billion more
Why test “carrying capacity”? What if we are wrong like we likely are already. Maybe with technological innovation we can go to 20 billion people. But why? And rest assured that the more people the less animals and other not fully understood parts of the ecosystem
Who gave us the right ?
I'm certainly concerned that we could be overly optimistic, mostly if the green revolution proves to be unsustainable. But I do think that if we can sustain more people we should, because human life it great! I'm profoundly grateful for my existence
What do you mean by Green Revolution? I believe the term was coined in the 70’s or so and was meant to talk about revolutionizing agriculture to feed the world’s growing population. The word planet is a complicated ecosystem evolved over billions of years which we do not fully understand. Life spans bacteria to blue whales and they are all interconnected.
I am glad you are alive. But your parents probably didn’t have 10 kids. They decided to have one two three? The other 7 were potential lives that never happened. I believe not messing up the planet further requires that we all accept the lack of these potential lives.
Just my belief