Two slender, voluble, dark-haired, medium-height thirty-somethings, they have slicked-back hair, thick-rimmed spectacles and quirky dark clothing. Their children, Torsten, Octavian, and Titan Invictus, are all IVF-conceived, some gene-selected for traits such as IQ or happiness. Simone is pregnant again, she tells me merrily, with Industry Americus Collins, due in April.
Absolutely everything about this couple seems deliberately designed to make me hate them. I mean, come on.
Incidentally, I’m really hoping “Titan Invictus” is the family’s only girl. Titan Invictus. Jesus Christ.
they didn’t look that dark haired to me. I would describe them as ‘mousey’. Why do you have to ‘hate’ them! Maybe moderate your language to express reality.
I think they’ve got the causal arrow backwards. Reminds me of the old FarSide cartoon where the kid at the school for the gifted is pushing on a door labeled “pull”.
I sincerely doubt that they did anything out of a desire to elicit any particular response from you.
J Bryant
1 year ago
The moral of this story might be that the modern liberal is the end of the evolutionary line. Overly intellectual beings who have thought themselves out of such fundamental–arguably innate–beliefs as loyalty to peer group, tribe, and nation. From a purely evolutionary viewpoint, it may be highly desirable for this type of person to self-select out of the gene pool, along with their more malignant, progressive variants.
It’s easy to laugh at the rubes out there in the hinterland, but they know the value of family and how to make do with little. I suspect the latter quality will be particularly useful for the next few generations.
As an afterthought, it took me a couple of minutes to figure out what bothered me about the photo at the top of this article: those two people are creepily similar in appearance. I viewed several more photos of them on-line and they are, indeed, virtual clones. It likely isn’t their intention, but they’re a walking advert for eugenics.
How to make do with little will be particularly useful for the next few generations?
What a depressing view of the future!
Makes me glad to be old and child free.
This.
A friend of mine from secondary school who is now a D.C. attorney told the story of sitting on the table, getting ready for a C-section.
As she stared off into space, the medical professionals assured her that the procedure was going to go well.
She said she wasn’t concerned about the cut, but was thinking actually about the next twenty years.
Everyone had a laugh, but it is the next twenty years that they who reproduce *should* be concerned about.
Making do with little is what our immediate forebears did and look what peace and stability they bestowed upon us.
Then boomers took all that for granted and rebelled & experimented against the social norms, not realising we were sweeping the ground from beneath our feet.
It seems to me (speaking of evolution or as Mary hints:“current demographic pinch-point will be a brutal survival of the fittest — where “fit” doesn’t necessarily accord with their preferred values”) that it is clear that people with “traditional values” – (large families are good, parents devoted to raising them, religion or some way of identifying eternal truths, no sex until marriage etc, marry young, no adultery etc) are more likely to pass on their gene pool(s).
Hence, devout Muslims, Orthodox Jews, devout Christians (Esp. Catholics?) have more than 4 children,say, as opposed to many upper middle class people who have 1 or zero (ok, Elon Musk, but Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg).
And More and more people are surviving into 70’s and beyond, regardless of how hip they were when younger.
Manufacturing children with tight quality control and then raising them with high expectations for a return in their investment. Doesn’t seem like loving parenting to me. I hope they aren’t too let down when free will sees their children walking out the door with no small amount of resentment.
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago
Very interesting, and a lot of thoughts fighting to articulate themselves in response, but twenty past midnight is not necessarily the best time for cogency, so I will restrict myself to two or three pithy points.
1. If the Collinses are correct and we face a civilizational collapse a la the fall of the Roman Empire and the ensuing Dark Ages, then quite possibly the problem is self-correcting in a rather brutal Darwinian way: smarter people are more likely to survive such conditions, and propogate thereafter. However I don’t for a moment think this ‘MadMax world’ type of reversion is coming – conditions are just far too different for that to happen.
2. The population crash is as real as you can get, but the 300 – 400 year playout timeframe idea is a clear nonsense. I know many many will simply not believe me, but we don’t even have 30 – 40 years for a changed world. I reckon 3 – 4 years and the world is unrecognisable – because this is pretty obvious to anyone aware of what is about to emerge from the AI labs. Beyond the Twenties, all bets are off, and who knows what, or who, comes thereafter.
3. The point about “…clever, bookish, and technologically adept people…” is that such people tend to have brains that are continually pondering, amongst other things: who and what am I – questions that can eventually suck you down into the quicksands of nihilism or solipsism. Most people live most of the time driven by primordial and instinctive biological drivers. If you reason your way out of this state by virtue of your nerdy temperament, this implicitly means a condition which is the enemy of self-propogation, and is ipso facto self-terminating – literally rationalising yourself out of existence. The Collinses are unusual in having reasoned themselves one step beyond this, back into self-propogation, but this is not even remotely the only possible step beyond the nihilism stage, and most other paths don’t result in self-propogation.
Agreed on Point 1 + 3, Point 2 is laughably pessimistic and detached from reality, in 4 years the world will not be “unrecognisable”. There is an existential danger inherent in using AI, but that risk is existential in the ‘philosophical’ rather than ‘apocalyptic’ sense.
Ok, like I said, many people are simply not going to believe me on this for various reasons. Until that is, they are forced to by what happens next, imminently. There are many people who plain flat reject the possibility that the type of entities that are getting created with neural net technologies could ever be capable of human-like cognition, understanding, etc, or capable of human-like creativity, intuitions, humour, originality etc, or human-like empathy, wonder, curiosity etc, or of having human-like goals and it’s concomitants – intentionality, wants, actions towards desires, etc. There are also many people who think sentient machines will eventually happen, but we are decades, perhaps centuries away from this.
For myself, I believe we are on the verge of creating sentient and independent machines right now without really understanding how or what kind of sentience emerges, and that the risk AI poses to humanity is multidimensional, ‘philosophical risk’ and ‘apocalyptic risk’ both present within that. I also think the risks are already present and ongoing for the foreseeable short (five years) and medium (twenty-five years) terms. I have no idea what lies beyond that, but I seriously doubt the long term (beyond say half a century) contains humans as we currently understand them – although if we are very lucky perhaps a sizable chunk of what we are will be preserved in some form in what comes hereafter.
But you don’t need to believe me at all – instead I suggest, listen to the very top AI scientists from the most successful AI labs:
They are all saying AGI sometime this decade, with the astonishing prediction by Paul Christiano of a significant chance (15%) of an Artificial Intelligence capable of making a Dyson Sphere by 2030. You can make up your own mind, but for myself the option to not take what these scientists are saying seriously does not really exist.
Perhaps Darwinian natural selection is rationaly weeding out these over-educated, soft, Bay-area techno fanatics. Who does the world need more, someone who can change a tire, or a Bay-area coder designing stupid apps?
“smarter people are more likely to survive such conditions”
Not really and it depends what mean by smarter.
People like the Collinses depend for their survival on an efficient system of law enforcement. If time get hard those that survive will be those that have tribal and family loyalties and no how to use force.
Prashant, an upvote for your points as always. Could you explain what you mean point 2? Do you think the threat from AI is to people’s jobs and livelihoods or do you mean something more apocalyptic?
Hi Paul, I posted a response to Jason Coale which details my outlook, but like your post, mine disappeared over the weekend. I think the threat to jobs and livelihoods is imminent, but dwarfed by the eventual apocalyptic threat. This stems from the fact that we don’t understand what goes on inside neural nets – unlike standard programmatic algorithms, the causality of neural net decision-making is not traceable, so we don’t really know why for example LLMs do what they do.
“smarter people are more likely to survive such conditions, and propogate thereafter.”
Problem is the people you’re characterizing as such literally cant make their own coffee.
William Shaw
1 year ago
“In 1974, the year the birth control pill became available to unmarried women, the British birth rate fell below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, where it has remained ever since.”
So for the past 59 years all population increase has been due to immigration.
All those new houses blanketing the countryside and all those apartment towers in London and other cities are needed to house who? Immigrants?
We’re destroying the environment and character of our country to accommodate 11 million outsiders.
It didn’t have to be, but Ms Harrington seems just to repeat whatever tosh these two say, without having the basic journalistic nous to challenge any of it.
So a pair of new-age, techno-cult eugenicists, with just enough awareness to avoid mentioning things in front of journalists that would get them cancelled.
They sound absolutely delightful.
Between them and the AI ‘rise of the machines’, I give humanity less than a decade.
Steve Murray
1 year ago
There’s every chance their offspring will have sub-optimal IQs and decide they want to drive trucks or work in hairdressing (and nothing wrong with either – both essential to the economy).
Meanwhile, the next maths genius or tech pioneer is born in a trailer park (or council estate in the UK).
Either way, their kids will rename themselves as Tom, D*ck or Harriet as soon as they can escape the cloying embrace of their fetid parents.
Or perhaps their offspring will be so cosseted and smug that they’ll struggle to wipe their own behinds. But you’re entirely correct about where the next genius will be born.
Yes, this is so true! Genetics is still a crap shoot despite trying to coax it to our bidding
I observed this firsthand: kids from the “desirable” back grounds struggling with school while the working class kids carrying a 4.0+ throughout.
My understanding is that the UK has some type of tracking system so perhaps it is potentially less noticeable than the US
At any rate, I still contend that intelligence cannot be bought – even in a high priced Petri Dish.
Mother Nature gets the last laugh as to how attributes are ladled out
The Ugly Duckling to Beautiful Swan syndrome is always a potential wild card
No. Genes determine at least 50% of adult IQ. Just like tall people will have taller than average children, so to will above average intelligence in parents will give rise to above average intelligence children. https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg.2017.104
AC Harper
1 year ago
Imagine my surprise to find out that Simone and Malcolm Collins are real people and not a literary device. They missed a trick by not getting their children to wear glasses too.
Clearly parody is dead – and risen again!
At first glance I thought ‘Simone’ was an android/robot.
Perhaps it is time for ‘Specsavers’.
William Amos
1 year ago
It strikes me that the same mistake is being made by this couple that has been made by all Eugenicists, including the Bloomsburys and the National Socialist Government of Germany.
When it comes to selective breeding we select for the traits which we find culturally and ideologically appealing but these are by no means the traits which seem to enhance our evolutionary survival.
Or from, an older perspective:
“…the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”
Ecclesiastes 9:11
Interestingly, it’s actually grammatically incorrect. “Happeneth” is just the singular third person “happens”, but in this case it has a compound subject, so it should be “time and chance happen to them all.” Qohelet, see me after class.
Human birth rates are now below replacement almost everywhere in the world.
Not in Africa – particularly sub-Saharan Africa where, to be frank, IQ levels and creative thinking in general are not exactly impressive.
…religious, fundamentalist, xenophobic groups that believe that there can only be one religious group and one ethnic group in the world
Sounds like a reference to the muslim mindset – a religion and way of life of growing popularity in Africa. Is the future African?
Perhaps, before the end of this century, white Europeans will become second class citizens in their own countries. Anyway, who needs white liberals (or Asians) with their pesky high IQ? It only makes other people feel inferior. The next generation will have AI with its superhuman IQ. We’ll have a level playing field where nobody need be cleverer than anyone else. How egalitarian is that? Brave new world here we come.
I live and work in sub-Saharan Africa. So have my ancestors for many generations. My continent is a place of seething creativity, practical intelligence and survival skills honed in adversity. Beware bigots such as N Satori: like the trailer park or the council estate, genius and renewal may yet emerge from here.
Perhaps you could give me one or two examples of this seething creativity. Useful, practical creativity – the kind providing clear material benefits, not the artistic and political kind. While you are about it you might explain why post-colonial Zimbabwe is such an economic failure and why post-apartheid Black South Africa is such a crime-ridden catastrophe. Where are the post-colonial success stories? Is all that creativity simply latent? Why isn’t sub-Sharan Africa showing the world what young nations, now free of the colonial yoke, are capable of?
Is the only hope for Africans the high road (ie. the people smuggling route) to Europe? Or perhaps the possibility of selling the abundant mineral resources to China.
By the way, the online Merriam-Webster dictionary provides a handy definition of bigot:
a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices – especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.
I don’t accept that this applies to me simply because I am prepared apply perfectly reasonable powers of critical observation. You may not like or agree with me but what I have to say does not amount to hatred, intolerance or even obstinacy and prejudice.
I think we can see the point you’re making. But I would suggest that sub Saharan Africa has never been truly ‘free of the colonial yoke’. Indeed I would suggest that the international banking system and its use in ‘soft power’ politics by the old colonial powers, represent a real and rather obvious yoke.
I’m not so sure that we can distinguish such a strong relationship between genetics and cultural as this couple believe there to be. There are undoubtedly genes which influence intelligence, openness and all the other traits which this couple seek to preserve but what their exact relationship with the environment and culture is, is far more difficult to determine.
My own grandfather was an illiterate labourer but my dad went on to study at university at a time when only 15% of the population did and can speak 4 languages. It’s likely that there is more dormant potential amongst the population than those who subscribe to a more deterministic interpretation of genetics are willing to recognise.
Matt M
1 year ago
We urgently need to deliver the following message to every 15 year old girl in Britain: you have 70 years of life ahead of you but only 15 years to have a baby. Don’t delay! Your career can wait (if you have 3 kids in your 20s, you will still have to spend the next 30-40 years working so it is crazy to prioritise work over family).
Spend the next few years finding a man you love and trust and when you do get married and get down to business.
Young men will fall in line with the desires of the women they fancy. If you convince girls that they need to get on with marriage and starting a family or they are at serious risk of missing the boat, men will start proposing to women again. The girls probably need to follow Louise Perry’s advice to avoid “hook-ups” and not have sex with anyone you wouldn’t want to be the father of your children.
Remember 1/4 of all women reaching 40 in the UK are childless and 90% of them wanted to have kids. Last year 1/2 of all UK women reached age 30 with no children. The reason? Wasting time on ephemera in their 20s.
Mary Harrington and Louise Perry should go on a tour to every school in Britain delivering this message.
Big assumption there that the men in their twenties want and are ready to be parents if only the women gave them the opportunity. Not totally convinced this is true for many reasons – cultural, social, appalling cost of housing, … . To some extent the “ephemera in their 20s” may well be escapism from the sheer and depressing economic reality of raising a family on an ordinary – even quite good – income for many in the UK today.
But agree in general.
Also too many broken families.
I think Mary is playing a little joke on us. Simone and Malcolm Collins resemble real people in the 2020s, the way Bertie Wooster resembled a real person in the 1920s.
Treating children as little life experiments with the parent the center of the universe is the very definition of bad parenting. Children are people, not tinker toys.
As the saying goes, the future belongs to those who turn up. These people are clearly mad, and yet…
Felicity Jones
1 year ago
This is a kind of barmy IQ xenophobia …
laurence scaduto
1 year ago
This is the first piece I’ve read, anywhere, in a long time that displays a genuine, un-forced sense of tolerance. And what a fascinating and odd young family. Thanks, Mary.
IATDE
1 year ago
Good luck with the multi-generational planning. Its funny how children turn out to not like things their parents like, and how often they make different life choices than their parents. Those darn kids!
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Haven’t the Jews been doing this for centuries?
Hence their dominance of the Nobel Prizes and Churchill’s description of them as being “the aristocracy of the human race”.
I wouldn’t say they have been doing this to themselves for centuries, I would say they have had it done to them for centuries. Pogrom after pogrom eventually has an effect. For example 1492 to the Jews in Spain – either you convert, or you are expelled, or you die.
Interesting- I remember a Jewish friend of mine said she’d heard Milton Friedman or someone mention that Jewish culture rewarded super brainy young men (who could read and decipher the Talmud etc, maybe future Rabbis) the beautiful daughters of the richest men, because they exhibited the traits most valued by the communities.
Whereas the brightest men in Christendom (think Aquinas) were asked to remain celibate.
I suspect that there is some truth to this (at least historically).
Celibacy within the Church has a long and complicated history, but the Gregorian Reforms of the 11th century* seem to have been more about preventing clerical marriage and thus the possibility that church might become hereditary, than prohibiting a ‘bonkfest’ to lapse into a technical term.
Aquinas & Co were obviously ‘nutters’ and perhaps Judaism more pragmatic approach was the source of their brilliance? Who knows? Perhaps an All Souls question?
(*Pope Gregory IV.)
Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Susan Grabston
1 year ago
The Collinses clearly favour eugenics.
Colorado UnHerd
1 year ago
With global population still growing at a net rate of 225,000 people a day, what the planet needs is not people like the Collinses over-reproducing themselves through technology. but a rein on those doing it the old-fashioned way, in Africa and other too-fecund places. The Earth is not hurting for a lack of human beings, but from an oversupply. That’s the existential crisis, not only to our species but all others.
unless you are pushing 70 you will live to see peak human. The current increase is not an issue, the plummeting decrease in the future will be the defining issue of this century
Daoud Fakhri
1 year ago
This is essentially the first five minutes of Idiocracy turned into a life philosophy.
I do not mean this as a compliment.
Nathan Ngumi
1 year ago
Very insightful!
On an episode of the podcast of Coleman Hughes, Erif Kaufmann delved into why it is the religious who will inherit the earth and not the secular. It is precisely this reason. Liberals are not reproducing at as fast a rate as Conservatives. It is a numbers game ultimately, and on this the Right has an edge over the Left. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXK1ej8HW50
See this paper for evidence that the Victorians were smarter than we are and that fertility patterns have been dysgenic for IQ since the end of the 19th century: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289613000470
Unless this pattern changes, we are heading for a future of progressive stupidity.
Alan Gore
1 year ago
As a conservative, I’m glad to see that couples like this exist, and I would be only too happy to see it become a trend. In the US at least, the left has been anti-science and anti-civilization for years. We have two kinds of leftists now: a moderate wing which would be content with busting humanity back to the dark ages by eliminating technology, like your Paul Kingsnorth, and a radical wing, which considers the human species a colonialist blot on the sacred face of Divine Nature and would love to see it eliminated completely.
I like humanity, and I value civilization. I want to see our species prosper. That, in today’s world, is what makes me a Republican. And yes, I proudly vaccinate.
The sooner the liberal population crash happens the better.
Mike Downing
1 year ago
In the recent past they tried allsorts to control the birthrate and reduce women’s ‘enslavement’ to the stove and cradle, never mind reduce rates of domestic violence, but after all else failed (including covert sterilisation programmes etc) what proved to be the silver bullet? The humble telly (it stops them getting on each other’s nerves and each other generally). So this is merely a more radical reiteration of the same loop.
Last edited 1 year ago by Mike Downing
Alex Colchester
1 year ago
And that instead, in a fit of short-sighted self-righteousness, they gifted the world to the only people still having children: their enemies.
Based on recent world events this sounds like a smart plan.
George Venning
1 year ago
The cultural touch point here isn’t William Gibson, it’s the movie Idiocracy
Kevan Hudson
1 year ago
Idiocracy.
Mike Judge nailed it along with his movie “Office Space”.
Martin Butler
1 year ago
Really not sure what all this is about. Mary, like most intellectuals, can’t help talking in general categories. Liberals, like the others who she contrasts them with – the ones having lots of kids apparently – are both caricatures. The moral majority actually embrace an inconvenient mix of values, some liberal some less so. Trying to understand the world in these absurd categories might be a fun parlour game but bears little relation to actual populations.
Amy Malek
1 year ago
I find it interesting that emotional stability is not mentioned as part of the selective agenda in this brave new world of breeding.
Having known individuals in the 140 – 160 IQ range (and, yes, they bring the receipts of said numbers), there is oftentimes an Aquiles’ heel with this demographic.
The autism spectrum, in many cases, makes an appearance with many such individuals. Nature or nurture? I’m betting on Nature, though autism is still a mysterious construct.
Nonetheless, the uber geeks I have known, do seem to have an otherworldly way of handling social situations.
Is this part of the desired end? Because if it is, then yes indeed, the term “enemies” as listed at the end is apropos.
It will be survival of the fittest and not as the Collins ‘ tribe is envisioning.
Thank you for correcting the spelling.
And why would you suggest the lack of correlation?
Perhaps we should start with the term “geek”.
How do you define it?
Certainly not all highly intelligent people are geeks.
But after many years associated with a top tier STEM university, I *do* see a definitive correlation.
I would like to hear your perspective.
What is your definition of “geek” , for starters?
I’m willing to listen and learn a different experience and perspective which is a reason I comment in the first place.
I appreciate your response. Let’s go back to my previous comment – which you’ve broadly agreed with – concerning the randomness of IQ heritability. I’m simply suggesting that someone who’s been born into an environment where high IQ isn’t necessarily useful or valued might have to “tough” their way out of it. That could be either physically, or emotionally. The process of emerging into the light, whereby their IQ can be utilised to advantage would make it very unlikely they’d have the characteristics of geekiness that, say, the child of a middle-class couple might tend towards.
It might also be the case that many of those born into underprivileged circumstances don’t manage to fight their way out, but content themselves with establishing a foothold in society by other means than attending a STEM institution. They might do good things, but it may not be visible to others. There may be some who don’t manage to acquire that foothold, but struggle within the milieu into which they were born and fail to escape it.
Thank you for responding.
I think (and I may be wrong), that we have several areas being discussed here. I will try, hopefully to some usable degree, to parse out what I think I am trying to say. I like to say that the situation is starting to look like a Venn diagram with more than one issue at work.
I do broadly agree with you that how the genetic code plays out can be quite random.
IMO you are hitting on social status/economics as you define geekiness. I have a phrase that back in the day “geeks were freaks”.
As computers exploded on the general landscape, the geeks suddenly became heroes. (Well, who else is going to maintain your computer which now means so much to society!?)
But, I’m hearing a position from you which seems to focus on the environment into which the highly intelligent child is born.
Is a life of the mind affirmed, denied, or tolerated?
I will speak from experience: I grew up in a working class home in the US. I like to say that I am (literally) one generation removed from the rice field. I am also Caucasian, BTW.
How did I become a geek? I will offer a definition of geek: intellectual prowess, social deficiency. Feel free to disagree if you don’t see this as a tandem trend. Many of my close college friends are on the autism (particularly Asperger’s) spectrum.
So here is where I see the chicken and egg argument which I hear you presenting. Did my environment create the geekiness or did my internal mechanations create that mosaic?
I don’t know. I’m not sure anyone knows.
Was there pushback from my family to not be out of *their* norm? Oh, heck no! My dad saw the handwriting on the wall and wanted me to be a dentist. Why should I live the hard scrabble life he did?
But I hear you asking an even broader societal question: depending on the response, how does the precocious child respond?
I don’t think a one size fits all, but that is just my opinion.
Perhaps it is different in the US where I reside: I don’t see a middle class home more accepting of geekiness than another social/economic strata. In fact, some of my upper class friends were encouraged not to be geeky, because it detracted from their social skills set .
You are right, though, about high IQ people falling by the wayside or not escaping. That can and does happen. But, the US is very success driven regardless of any lower echelon into which you were born. If you can deliver the goods a talented mind can produce, there is still a payoff.
Geek is both internally driven and externally fostered, but IMO it is an attribute oftentimes of someone who is an outlier by virtue of higher IQ regardless of how it is created.
Again, I welcome your comments and clarifications should you choose to respond.
Thanks Amy. This is such an interesting discussion, not least because i don’t think we actually differ in our overall viewpoints very much.
In a similar manner to yourself, i’m one generation removed from an Irish potato field – my grandfather being brought to England by Irish immigrants because his parents had one too many mouths to feed. I was born on a council estate, so – again like you – i’m speaking from experience.
You asked earlier how i might define a “geek”. IQ aside, i’d say the main characteristic might be someone who finds it difficult to navigate through the world except through the medium of (previously) books and now computers. I fully agree with your point about “who will maintain the computers”.
It’s interesting that from your US perspective, you have the *relatively* easy social mobility whereas in the UK there still exists the disadvantages of class. These are not easily overcome, but it’s not impossible, given time and patience. One thing that happens if one succeeds though is the acquisition of a certain “street-wiseness” which doesn’t correlate with being a geek, hence my demurring at the correlation you propose.
As far as i can ascertain from our exchanges, the only difference in viewpoint between us lies in the different societal circumstances in which we’ve been raised.
Thank you for expanding on this topic!
A great end to a week and start of a weekend.
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago
Can liberals save themselves from extinction?
I do hope not
Deb Grant
1 year ago
Certainly clever women are having less children, not wanting to be consigned to a perpetual world of childcare, elder care and drudgery. Who can blame them? Until men share those duties at least equally, don’t expect that trend to reverse any time soon. We need smart women in good jobs, otherwise half the talents of the population are lost.
No, open-ness, above average intelligence and value of education aren’t most common in liberals. Older people are less likely to be woke, but high IQ and value education is equally distributed among old and young. Often it’s more effective for decision making compared with younger people when combined with experience and wisdom.
Well they should have their fun and live on the memory because it will be particularly miserable once they become aged. If you have ever seen a loved one through a serious illness or infirmary you understand that exactly zero number of people treating them will not be prioritizing them. Family advocates for family. Getting dumped into a cut rate nursing home being taken care of immigrants making minimum wage is going to make the most vulnerable stage of their lives most unpleasant.
Jane Davis
1 year ago
What, of course, Harrington and these two home knitted frontal cortices have ignored is that all children are mutations – even children of Nazis do not always see eye to eye with Ma and Pa. Murdoch, so I am told, has impeccably liberal parents.
Martin Johnson
1 year ago
Sounds like one or both of them may have encountered C.M. Kornbluth’s short story, “The Marching Morons,” in their formative years.
Mike Downing
1 year ago
Well the Goths basically walked into Rome and lots of the amenities and basics introduced to life by the latter disappeared for over a millennium. So why wouldn’t it happen again ?
Or will globalisation mean it carries on somewhere in the world and the knowledge isn’t effectively lost for hundreds of years ?
Two slender, voluble, dark-haired, medium-height thirty-somethings, they have slicked-back hair, thick-rimmed spectacles and quirky dark clothing. Their children, Torsten, Octavian, and Titan Invictus, are all IVF-conceived, some gene-selected for traits such as IQ or happiness. Simone is pregnant again, she tells me merrily, with Industry Americus Collins, due in April.
Absolutely everything about this couple seems deliberately designed to make me hate them. I mean, come on.
Incidentally, I’m really hoping “Titan Invictus” is the family’s only girl. Titan Invictus. Jesus Christ.
I cannot agree at all, I like them a lot.
they didn’t look that dark haired to me. I would describe them as ‘mousey’. Why do you have to ‘hate’ them! Maybe moderate your language to express reality.
I didn’t say I hated them, I said they seemed designed to make me hate them. There’s a difference.
I think they’ve got the causal arrow backwards. Reminds me of the old FarSide cartoon where the kid at the school for the gifted is pushing on a door labeled “pull”.
These are really cool people. Weird to see liberals get reality.
“What’s your kid’s name?”
“Titan Invictus. What’s yours?”
“Judd. Why are you looking at me?”
I sincerely doubt that they did anything out of a desire to elicit any particular response from you.
The moral of this story might be that the modern liberal is the end of the evolutionary line. Overly intellectual beings who have thought themselves out of such fundamental–arguably innate–beliefs as loyalty to peer group, tribe, and nation. From a purely evolutionary viewpoint, it may be highly desirable for this type of person to self-select out of the gene pool, along with their more malignant, progressive variants.
It’s easy to laugh at the rubes out there in the hinterland, but they know the value of family and how to make do with little. I suspect the latter quality will be particularly useful for the next few generations.
As an afterthought, it took me a couple of minutes to figure out what bothered me about the photo at the top of this article: those two people are creepily similar in appearance. I viewed several more photos of them on-line and they are, indeed, virtual clones. It likely isn’t their intention, but they’re a walking advert for eugenics.
How to make do with little will be particularly useful for the next few generations?
What a depressing view of the future!
Makes me glad to be old and child free.
“Makes me glad to be old and child free.”
Reproduction certainly is not for everyone.
This.
A friend of mine from secondary school who is now a D.C. attorney told the story of sitting on the table, getting ready for a C-section.
As she stared off into space, the medical professionals assured her that the procedure was going to go well.
She said she wasn’t concerned about the cut, but was thinking actually about the next twenty years.
Everyone had a laugh, but it is the next twenty years that they who reproduce *should* be concerned about.
…and not everyone should reproduce…
Making do with little is what our immediate forebears did and look what peace and stability they bestowed upon us.
Then boomers took all that for granted and rebelled & experimented against the social norms, not realising we were sweeping the ground from beneath our feet.
And alone.
It seems to me (speaking of evolution or as Mary hints:“current demographic pinch-point will be a brutal survival of the fittest — where “fit” doesn’t necessarily accord with their preferred values”) that it is clear that people with “traditional values” – (large families are good, parents devoted to raising them, religion or some way of identifying eternal truths, no sex until marriage etc, marry young, no adultery etc) are more likely to pass on their gene pool(s).
Hence, devout Muslims, Orthodox Jews, devout Christians (Esp. Catholics?) have more than 4 children,say, as opposed to many upper middle class people who have 1 or zero (ok, Elon Musk, but Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg).
And More and more people are surviving into 70’s and beyond, regardless of how hip they were when younger.
Manufacturing children with tight quality control and then raising them with high expectations for a return in their investment. Doesn’t seem like loving parenting to me. I hope they aren’t too let down when free will sees their children walking out the door with no small amount of resentment.
Very interesting, and a lot of thoughts fighting to articulate themselves in response, but twenty past midnight is not necessarily the best time for cogency, so I will restrict myself to two or three pithy points.
1. If the Collinses are correct and we face a civilizational collapse a la the fall of the Roman Empire and the ensuing Dark Ages, then quite possibly the problem is self-correcting in a rather brutal Darwinian way: smarter people are more likely to survive such conditions, and propogate thereafter. However I don’t for a moment think this ‘MadMax world’ type of reversion is coming – conditions are just far too different for that to happen.
2. The population crash is as real as you can get, but the 300 – 400 year playout timeframe idea is a clear nonsense. I know many many will simply not believe me, but we don’t even have 30 – 40 years for a changed world. I reckon 3 – 4 years and the world is unrecognisable – because this is pretty obvious to anyone aware of what is about to emerge from the AI labs. Beyond the Twenties, all bets are off, and who knows what, or who, comes thereafter.
3. The point about “…clever, bookish, and technologically adept people…” is that such people tend to have brains that are continually pondering, amongst other things: who and what am I – questions that can eventually suck you down into the quicksands of nihilism or solipsism. Most people live most of the time driven by primordial and instinctive biological drivers. If you reason your way out of this state by virtue of your nerdy temperament, this implicitly means a condition which is the enemy of self-propogation, and is ipso facto self-terminating – literally rationalising yourself out of existence. The Collinses are unusual in having reasoned themselves one step beyond this, back into self-propogation, but this is not even remotely the only possible step beyond the nihilism stage, and most other paths don’t result in self-propogation.
You got an upvote from me just for your introductory sentence.
Big upvote from me, for point 2.
Agreed on Point 1 + 3, Point 2 is laughably pessimistic and detached from reality, in 4 years the world will not be “unrecognisable”. There is an existential danger inherent in using AI, but that risk is existential in the ‘philosophical’ rather than ‘apocalyptic’ sense.
Ok, like I said, many people are simply not going to believe me on this for various reasons. Until that is, they are forced to by what happens next, imminently. There are many people who plain flat reject the possibility that the type of entities that are getting created with neural net technologies could ever be capable of human-like cognition, understanding, etc, or capable of human-like creativity, intuitions, humour, originality etc, or human-like empathy, wonder, curiosity etc, or of having human-like goals and it’s concomitants – intentionality, wants, actions towards desires, etc. There are also many people who think sentient machines will eventually happen, but we are decades, perhaps centuries away from this.
For myself, I believe we are on the verge of creating sentient and independent machines right now without really understanding how or what kind of sentience emerges, and that the risk AI poses to humanity is multidimensional, ‘philosophical risk’ and ‘apocalyptic risk’ both present within that. I also think the risks are already present and ongoing for the foreseeable short (five years) and medium (twenty-five years) terms. I have no idea what lies beyond that, but I seriously doubt the long term (beyond say half a century) contains humans as we currently understand them – although if we are very lucky perhaps a sizable chunk of what we are will be preserved in some form in what comes hereafter.
But you don’t need to believe me at all – instead I suggest, listen to the very top AI scientists from the most successful AI labs:
Interview with Shane Legg (DeepMind) https://youtu.be/Kc1atfJkiJU?si=MByKzSzxLeOOip_f
Interview with Paul Christiano (The Alignment Research Center) https://youtu.be/9AAhTLa0dT0?si=-q5k745bj4CAFPwm
Interview with Ilya Sutskever (OpenAI) https://youtu.be/Yf1o0TQzry8?si=0uqaPZfoIQ5c-dTh
Interview with Dario Amodei (Anthropic) https://youtu.be/Nlkk3glap_U?si=BWBajy_8tsyNxQQZ
They are all saying AGI sometime this decade, with the astonishing prediction by Paul Christiano of a significant chance (15%) of an Artificial Intelligence capable of making a Dyson Sphere by 2030. You can make up your own mind, but for myself the option to not take what these scientists are saying seriously does not really exist.
I appreciate your perspective, because I share it in many ways.
Perhaps Darwinian natural selection is rationaly weeding out these over-educated, soft, Bay-area techno fanatics. Who does the world need more, someone who can change a tire, or a Bay-area coder designing stupid apps?
Judging by pay packets, maybe the latter.
“smarter people are more likely to survive such conditions”
Not really and it depends what mean by smarter.
People like the Collinses depend for their survival on an efficient system of law enforcement. If time get hard those that survive will be those that have tribal and family loyalties and no how to use force.
Prashant, an upvote for your points as always. Could you explain what you mean point 2? Do you think the threat from AI is to people’s jobs and livelihoods or do you mean something more apocalyptic?
Hi Paul, I posted a response to Jason Coale which details my outlook, but like your post, mine disappeared over the weekend. I think the threat to jobs and livelihoods is imminent, but dwarfed by the eventual apocalyptic threat. This stems from the fact that we don’t understand what goes on inside neural nets – unlike standard programmatic algorithms, the causality of neural net decision-making is not traceable, so we don’t really know why for example LLMs do what they do.
“smarter people are more likely to survive such conditions, and propogate thereafter.”
Problem is the people you’re characterizing as such literally cant make their own coffee.
“In 1974, the year the birth control pill became available to unmarried women, the British birth rate fell below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, where it has remained ever since.”
So for the past 59 years all population increase has been due to immigration.
All those new houses blanketing the countryside and all those apartment towers in London and other cities are needed to house who? Immigrants?
We’re destroying the environment and character of our country to accommodate 11 million outsiders.
Exactly right William.
Isn’t 10 million the total number of abortions performed since they became legally available in 1967. Funny how much the numbers line up.
All the population increase has been due to immigration and the higher birth rates of the immigrants.
Thus ‘we’ either face extinction or “ rivers of blood”, as someone once said.
A lot more than 11 million
Crikey, this was just one vegan kurkuma latte away from Aldous Huxley.
It didn’t have to be, but Ms Harrington seems just to repeat whatever tosh these two say, without having the basic journalistic nous to challenge any of it.
VERY funny and clever – thanks for the smiles!
You read my mind. Thread winner!
So a pair of new-age, techno-cult eugenicists, with just enough awareness to avoid mentioning things in front of journalists that would get them cancelled.
They sound absolutely delightful.
Between them and the AI ‘rise of the machines’, I give humanity less than a decade.
There’s every chance their offspring will have sub-optimal IQs and decide they want to drive trucks or work in hairdressing (and nothing wrong with either – both essential to the economy).
Meanwhile, the next maths genius or tech pioneer is born in a trailer park (or council estate in the UK).
Either way, their kids will rename themselves as Tom, D*ck or Harriet as soon as they can escape the cloying embrace of their fetid parents.
Or perhaps their offspring will be so cosseted and smug that they’ll struggle to wipe their own behinds. But you’re entirely correct about where the next genius will be born.
I’d rather my daughter was a married hairdresser with three kids than a single, childless bluestocking, any day of the week.
Yes, this is so true! Genetics is still a crap shoot despite trying to coax it to our bidding
I observed this firsthand: kids from the “desirable” back grounds struggling with school while the working class kids carrying a 4.0+ throughout.
My understanding is that the UK has some type of tracking system so perhaps it is potentially less noticeable than the US
At any rate, I still contend that intelligence cannot be bought – even in a high priced Petri Dish.
Mother Nature gets the last laugh as to how attributes are ladled out
The Ugly Duckling to Beautiful Swan syndrome is always a potential wild card
No. Genes determine at least 50% of adult IQ. Just like tall people will have taller than average children, so to will above average intelligence in parents will give rise to above average intelligence children. https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg.2017.104
Imagine my surprise to find out that Simone and Malcolm Collins are real people and not a literary device. They missed a trick by not getting their children to wear glasses too.
Clearly parody is dead – and risen again!
At first glance I thought ‘Simone’ was an android/robot.
Perhaps it is time for ‘Specsavers’.
It strikes me that the same mistake is being made by this couple that has been made by all Eugenicists, including the Bloomsburys and the National Socialist Government of Germany.
When it comes to selective breeding we select for the traits which we find culturally and ideologically appealing but these are by no means the traits which seem to enhance our evolutionary survival.
Or from, an older perspective:
“…the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”
Ecclesiastes 9:11
You can learn a lot about the modern world from Ecclesiastes.
if this is the modern world then why say happeneth?
Do you struggle to understand the meaning or do you just object on stylistic grounds?
Interestingly, it’s actually grammatically incorrect. “Happeneth” is just the singular third person “happens”, but in this case it has a compound subject, so it should be “time and chance happen to them all.” Qohelet, see me after class.
It’s a quote from the bible.
Not in Africa – particularly sub-Saharan Africa where, to be frank, IQ levels and creative thinking in general are not exactly impressive.
Sounds like a reference to the muslim mindset – a religion and way of life of growing popularity in Africa. Is the future African?
Perhaps, before the end of this century, white Europeans will become second class citizens in their own countries. Anyway, who needs white liberals (or Asians) with their pesky high IQ? It only makes other people feel inferior. The next generation will have AI with its superhuman IQ. We’ll have a level playing field where nobody need be cleverer than anyone else. How egalitarian is that? Brave new world here we come.
I live and work in sub-Saharan Africa. So have my ancestors for many generations. My continent is a place of seething creativity, practical intelligence and survival skills honed in adversity. Beware bigots such as N Satori: like the trailer park or the council estate, genius and renewal may yet emerge from here.
Why should whites not dread their own extinction? Civilization leads to extinction.
Perhaps you could give me one or two examples of this seething creativity. Useful, practical creativity – the kind providing clear material benefits, not the artistic and political kind. While you are about it you might explain why post-colonial Zimbabwe is such an economic failure and why post-apartheid Black South Africa is such a crime-ridden catastrophe. Where are the post-colonial success stories? Is all that creativity simply latent? Why isn’t sub-Sharan Africa showing the world what young nations, now free of the colonial yoke, are capable of?
Is the only hope for Africans the high road (ie. the people smuggling route) to Europe? Or perhaps the possibility of selling the abundant mineral resources to China.
By the way, the online Merriam-Webster dictionary provides a handy definition of bigot:
I don’t accept that this applies to me simply because I am prepared apply perfectly reasonable powers of critical observation. You may not like or agree with me but what I have to say does not amount to hatred, intolerance or even obstinacy and prejudice.
I think we can see the point you’re making. But I would suggest that sub Saharan Africa has never been truly ‘free of the colonial yoke’. Indeed I would suggest that the international banking system and its use in ‘soft power’ politics by the old colonial powers, represent a real and rather obvious yoke.
Bravo.
I’m not so sure that we can distinguish such a strong relationship between genetics and cultural as this couple believe there to be. There are undoubtedly genes which influence intelligence, openness and all the other traits which this couple seek to preserve but what their exact relationship with the environment and culture is, is far more difficult to determine.
My own grandfather was an illiterate labourer but my dad went on to study at university at a time when only 15% of the population did and can speak 4 languages. It’s likely that there is more dormant potential amongst the population than those who subscribe to a more deterministic interpretation of genetics are willing to recognise.
We urgently need to deliver the following message to every 15 year old girl in Britain: you have 70 years of life ahead of you but only 15 years to have a baby. Don’t delay! Your career can wait (if you have 3 kids in your 20s, you will still have to spend the next 30-40 years working so it is crazy to prioritise work over family).
Spend the next few years finding a man you love and trust and when you do get married and get down to business.
Young men will fall in line with the desires of the women they fancy. If you convince girls that they need to get on with marriage and starting a family or they are at serious risk of missing the boat, men will start proposing to women again. The girls probably need to follow Louise Perry’s advice to avoid “hook-ups” and not have sex with anyone you wouldn’t want to be the father of your children.
Remember 1/4 of all women reaching 40 in the UK are childless and 90% of them wanted to have kids. Last year 1/2 of all UK women reached age 30 with no children. The reason? Wasting time on ephemera in their 20s.
Mary Harrington and Louise Perry should go on a tour to every school in Britain delivering this message.
Big assumption there that the men in their twenties want and are ready to be parents if only the women gave them the opportunity. Not totally convinced this is true for many reasons – cultural, social, appalling cost of housing, … . To some extent the “ephemera in their 20s” may well be escapism from the sheer and depressing economic reality of raising a family on an ordinary – even quite good – income for many in the UK today.
But agree in general.
Also too many broken families.
I am afraid that that majority of men do nor get a look in and would jump at the chance
Men will do what they’re told.
I think Mary is playing a little joke on us. Simone and Malcolm Collins resemble real people in the 2020s, the way Bertie Wooster resembled a real person in the 1920s.
Agreed. Having a hard time believing this is real
Treating children as little life experiments with the parent the center of the universe is the very definition of bad parenting. Children are people, not tinker toys.
I’m guessing you don’t have any kids or a husband.
Interesting. Why?
Sounds like a cult to me. Beware the Kool-Aid, Ms. Harrington.
Understandable. If that picture is real, I wouldn’t want to diddle with either of them.
You are so eminently ‘diddleable’, of course.
Fading a bit, but I brush up quite nice, yes.
As the saying goes, the future belongs to those who turn up. These people are clearly mad, and yet…
This is a kind of barmy IQ xenophobia …
This is the first piece I’ve read, anywhere, in a long time that displays a genuine, un-forced sense of tolerance. And what a fascinating and odd young family. Thanks, Mary.
Good luck with the multi-generational planning. Its funny how children turn out to not like things their parents like, and how often they make different life choices than their parents. Those darn kids!
Haven’t the Jews been doing this for centuries?
Hence their dominance of the Nobel Prizes and Churchill’s description of them as being “the aristocracy of the human race”.
I wouldn’t say they have been doing this to themselves for centuries, I would say they have had it done to them for centuries. Pogrom after pogrom eventually has an effect. For example 1492 to the Jews in Spain – either you convert, or you are expelled, or you die.
Do you mean Darwinian culling?
Interesting- I remember a Jewish friend of mine said she’d heard Milton Friedman or someone mention that Jewish culture rewarded super brainy young men (who could read and decipher the Talmud etc, maybe future Rabbis) the beautiful daughters of the richest men, because they exhibited the traits most valued by the communities.
Whereas the brightest men in Christendom (think Aquinas) were asked to remain celibate.
I suspect that there is some truth to this (at least historically).
Celibacy within the Church has a long and complicated history, but the Gregorian Reforms of the 11th century* seem to have been more about preventing clerical marriage and thus the possibility that church might become hereditary, than prohibiting a ‘bonkfest’ to lapse into a technical term.
Aquinas & Co were obviously ‘nutters’ and perhaps Judaism more pragmatic approach was the source of their brilliance? Who knows? Perhaps an All Souls question?
(*Pope Gregory IV.)
The Collinses clearly favour eugenics.
With global population still growing at a net rate of 225,000 people a day, what the planet needs is not people like the Collinses over-reproducing themselves through technology. but a rein on those doing it the old-fashioned way, in Africa and other too-fecund places. The Earth is not hurting for a lack of human beings, but from an oversupply. That’s the existential crisis, not only to our species but all others.
Don’t worry. A volcano, earthquake, solar flare or asteroid will solve the problem some day.
Thanks for the reminder. I feel better already. 🙂
unless you are pushing 70 you will live to see peak human. The current increase is not an issue, the plummeting decrease in the future will be the defining issue of this century
This is essentially the first five minutes of Idiocracy turned into a life philosophy.
I do not mean this as a compliment.
Very insightful!
On an episode of the podcast of Coleman Hughes, Erif Kaufmann delved into why it is the religious who will inherit the earth and not the secular. It is precisely this reason. Liberals are not reproducing at as fast a rate as Conservatives. It is a numbers game ultimately, and on this the Right has an edge over the Left.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXK1ej8HW50
Unfortunately the most religious are Muslims.
See this paper for evidence that the Victorians were smarter than we are and that fertility patterns have been dysgenic for IQ since the end of the 19th century: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289613000470
Unless this pattern changes, we are heading for a future of progressive stupidity.
As a conservative, I’m glad to see that couples like this exist, and I would be only too happy to see it become a trend. In the US at least, the left has been anti-science and anti-civilization for years. We have two kinds of leftists now: a moderate wing which would be content with busting humanity back to the dark ages by eliminating technology, like your Paul Kingsnorth, and a radical wing, which considers the human species a colonialist blot on the sacred face of Divine Nature and would love to see it eliminated completely.
I like humanity, and I value civilization. I want to see our species prosper. That, in today’s world, is what makes me a Republican. And yes, I proudly vaccinate.
But which vaccines?
The sooner the liberal population crash happens the better.
In the recent past they tried allsorts to control the birthrate and reduce women’s ‘enslavement’ to the stove and cradle, never mind reduce rates of domestic violence, but after all else failed (including covert sterilisation programmes etc) what proved to be the silver bullet? The humble telly (it stops them getting on each other’s nerves and each other generally). So this is merely a more radical reiteration of the same loop.
Based on recent world events this sounds like a smart plan.
The cultural touch point here isn’t William Gibson, it’s the movie Idiocracy
Idiocracy.
Mike Judge nailed it along with his movie “Office Space”.
Really not sure what all this is about. Mary, like most intellectuals, can’t help talking in general categories. Liberals, like the others who she contrasts them with – the ones having lots of kids apparently – are both caricatures. The moral majority actually embrace an inconvenient mix of values, some liberal some less so. Trying to understand the world in these absurd categories might be a fun parlour game but bears little relation to actual populations.
I find it interesting that emotional stability is not mentioned as part of the selective agenda in this brave new world of breeding.
Having known individuals in the 140 – 160 IQ range (and, yes, they bring the receipts of said numbers), there is oftentimes an Aquiles’ heel with this demographic.
The autism spectrum, in many cases, makes an appearance with many such individuals. Nature or nurture? I’m betting on Nature, though autism is still a mysterious construct.
Nonetheless, the uber geeks I have known, do seem to have an otherworldly way of handling social situations.
Is this part of the desired end? Because if it is, then yes indeed, the term “enemies” as listed at the end is apropos.
It will be survival of the fittest and not as the Collins ‘ tribe is envisioning.
I’d suggest there’s little correlation between high IQ and being a “geek”.
And it’s “Achilles”…
Thank you for correcting the spelling.
And why would you suggest the lack of correlation?
Perhaps we should start with the term “geek”.
How do you define it?
Certainly not all highly intelligent people are geeks.
But after many years associated with a top tier STEM university, I *do* see a definitive correlation.
I would like to hear your perspective.
What is your definition of “geek” , for starters?
I’m willing to listen and learn a different experience and perspective which is a reason I comment in the first place.
I appreciate your response. Let’s go back to my previous comment – which you’ve broadly agreed with – concerning the randomness of IQ heritability. I’m simply suggesting that someone who’s been born into an environment where high IQ isn’t necessarily useful or valued might have to “tough” their way out of it. That could be either physically, or emotionally. The process of emerging into the light, whereby their IQ can be utilised to advantage would make it very unlikely they’d have the characteristics of geekiness that, say, the child of a middle-class couple might tend towards.
It might also be the case that many of those born into underprivileged circumstances don’t manage to fight their way out, but content themselves with establishing a foothold in society by other means than attending a STEM institution. They might do good things, but it may not be visible to others. There may be some who don’t manage to acquire that foothold, but struggle within the milieu into which they were born and fail to escape it.
Thank you for responding.
I think (and I may be wrong), that we have several areas being discussed here. I will try, hopefully to some usable degree, to parse out what I think I am trying to say. I like to say that the situation is starting to look like a Venn diagram with more than one issue at work.
I do broadly agree with you that how the genetic code plays out can be quite random.
IMO you are hitting on social status/economics as you define geekiness. I have a phrase that back in the day “geeks were freaks”.
As computers exploded on the general landscape, the geeks suddenly became heroes. (Well, who else is going to maintain your computer which now means so much to society!?)
But, I’m hearing a position from you which seems to focus on the environment into which the highly intelligent child is born.
Is a life of the mind affirmed, denied, or tolerated?
I will speak from experience: I grew up in a working class home in the US. I like to say that I am (literally) one generation removed from the rice field. I am also Caucasian, BTW.
How did I become a geek? I will offer a definition of geek: intellectual prowess, social deficiency. Feel free to disagree if you don’t see this as a tandem trend. Many of my close college friends are on the autism (particularly Asperger’s) spectrum.
So here is where I see the chicken and egg argument which I hear you presenting. Did my environment create the geekiness or did my internal mechanations create that mosaic?
I don’t know. I’m not sure anyone knows.
Was there pushback from my family to not be out of *their* norm? Oh, heck no! My dad saw the handwriting on the wall and wanted me to be a dentist. Why should I live the hard scrabble life he did?
But I hear you asking an even broader societal question: depending on the response, how does the precocious child respond?
I don’t think a one size fits all, but that is just my opinion.
Perhaps it is different in the US where I reside: I don’t see a middle class home more accepting of geekiness than another social/economic strata. In fact, some of my upper class friends were encouraged not to be geeky, because it detracted from their social skills set .
You are right, though, about high IQ people falling by the wayside or not escaping. That can and does happen. But, the US is very success driven regardless of any lower echelon into which you were born. If you can deliver the goods a talented mind can produce, there is still a payoff.
Geek is both internally driven and externally fostered, but IMO it is an attribute oftentimes of someone who is an outlier by virtue of higher IQ regardless of how it is created.
Again, I welcome your comments and clarifications should you choose to respond.
Thanks Amy. This is such an interesting discussion, not least because i don’t think we actually differ in our overall viewpoints very much.
In a similar manner to yourself, i’m one generation removed from an Irish potato field – my grandfather being brought to England by Irish immigrants because his parents had one too many mouths to feed. I was born on a council estate, so – again like you – i’m speaking from experience.
You asked earlier how i might define a “geek”. IQ aside, i’d say the main characteristic might be someone who finds it difficult to navigate through the world except through the medium of (previously) books and now computers. I fully agree with your point about “who will maintain the computers”.
It’s interesting that from your US perspective, you have the *relatively* easy social mobility whereas in the UK there still exists the disadvantages of class. These are not easily overcome, but it’s not impossible, given time and patience. One thing that happens if one succeeds though is the acquisition of a certain “street-wiseness” which doesn’t correlate with being a geek, hence my demurring at the correlation you propose.
As far as i can ascertain from our exchanges, the only difference in viewpoint between us lies in the different societal circumstances in which we’ve been raised.
Thank you for expanding on this topic!
A great end to a week and start of a weekend.
Can liberals save themselves from extinction?
I do hope not
Certainly clever women are having less children, not wanting to be consigned to a perpetual world of childcare, elder care and drudgery. Who can blame them? Until men share those duties at least equally, don’t expect that trend to reverse any time soon. We need smart women in good jobs, otherwise half the talents of the population are lost.
No, open-ness, above average intelligence and value of education aren’t most common in liberals. Older people are less likely to be woke, but high IQ and value education is equally distributed among old and young. Often it’s more effective for decision making compared with younger people when combined with experience and wisdom.
Well they should have their fun and live on the memory because it will be particularly miserable once they become aged. If you have ever seen a loved one through a serious illness or infirmary you understand that exactly zero number of people treating them will not be prioritizing them. Family advocates for family. Getting dumped into a cut rate nursing home being taken care of immigrants making minimum wage is going to make the most vulnerable stage of their lives most unpleasant.
What, of course, Harrington and these two home knitted frontal cortices have ignored is that all children are mutations – even children of Nazis do not always see eye to eye with Ma and Pa. Murdoch, so I am told, has impeccably liberal parents.
Sounds like one or both of them may have encountered C.M. Kornbluth’s short story, “The Marching Morons,” in their formative years.
Well the Goths basically walked into Rome and lots of the amenities and basics introduced to life by the latter disappeared for over a millennium. So why wouldn’t it happen again ?
Or will globalisation mean it carries on somewhere in the world and the knowledge isn’t effectively lost for hundreds of years ?
How will it be “lost” unless the internet closes down? (Not impossible, i know…)
A few “buckets of instant sunshine” would soon polish off the Internet.
You mean the internet that you and Steve and I use to read and comment here?