I hope there comes a day when humanity is responsible enough to handle precise gene-tailoring of humans without it devolving into a cliche Sci-Fi dystopia. Until then, I'm glad that humanity has settled on "Eugenics could theoretically work but we know we're not responsible enough to do it right, so let's not". It feels like a very enlightened stance: better than pretending selective breeding would literally not work, and certainly better than doing it badly. Why could we come to such a sensible consensus on this topic but fail to do so on so many others?

All that being said, I still want to see what would happen if Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky had a child together. You know. For science.

I would argue that it took thousands of years of history and one of the darkest episodes of humanity in the 20th century to truly realize this.

Power itself is a bit of a paradox - having some is essential to a free society, but too much ends up corrupting its holders and results in human suffering. The power you describe falls in the latter category, IMHO.

Part of the reason we're not ready for it is that any notion of "societal IQ" is simply not as mature, well-understood, proven, or even useful as our understanding of climate science. Scientists who studied the topic understood the greenhouse effect and the potential for CO2 emissions to result in global warming over 100 years ago. Meanwhile, nobody can agree on whether the Myers-Briggs personality test means anything at all.

We just don't have a way to "rate" humans in a general sense, nor is it obvious that increasing their "rating" would even be a good thing. Selecting for humans with the highest IQ would be like selecting for crops that grow the tallest. Sure, sometimes that's a good measure of general health, but it's so blunt compared to the intricate nuances of how DNA works and the huge variety of outcomes we'd like from our crops. Besides, it's just a weird stance to want to create a "superior human". Why do we want to do that? So they can solve humanity's problems (no pressure!)? So we can have sex with them? So we can "purify our gene pool" (shudder)? So they can live a happier life and avoid disease? Some of those reasons are much better than others.

Yes, messing with the climate has risks, but global climate is a lot less complicated than the DNA of a single human. And we know our climate is headed for disaster if we do nothing, so the risk of not messing with it is much higher. Similarly, we know people with certain genes are doomed to a die young or doomed to have certain major disabilities. Those will (and should) be our first targets of human gene editing, because the risks of not doing anything are higher.

And of course we already are practicing a light form of selective breeding at IVF clinics during embryo selection. Mostly they look for chromosomal abnormalities, but I'd guess there are clinics out there that offer more advanced gene selection (if not now, then soon).

It's a gedanken experiment, but I would expect that people who measure low on IQ tests but are raised immersed in an technical or artistic environment have as much potential to become masters as people with higher IQ, or very nearly so. Further, I think that by increasing the quality of the education system in a country, you can massively increase the intellectual output. There are probably enormous amounts of untapped potential never matched to an equivalent supply of knowledge and skill.

I would strongly expect the opposite. But I agree it would be beneficial to figure out which of us is right.

They might end up tremendously unhappy, of course. It just goes to show how raw IQ is a silly measure to value, let alone optimize for.

If you're just talking about the Flynn effect, then your conclusion is overreaching.

IQ is still very highly heritable and adjusted for the Flynn effect has very little to do with early exposure to abstract reasoning AFAIK (but would love to see those studies).

The fact that something is allowed doesn't make it not eugenics. Choosing your mate for their phenotype is eugenics.

This sort of makes sense to me.

If you're choosing mates at all, it means you're judging the value of other human beings. You're accepting some and rejecting others based on what you think or feel is best. It's just eugenics practiced by the general population according to highly variable personal criteria.

This is not inherently superior to some explicit eugenics program. It's about the principle of individual autonomy.

In my area the schools are providing computers at a young age and spending time teaching STEAM topics, for example. It's not going to make everybody into Nikola Tesla, but the effort to do something about it does exist.