Numerous studies in the past two years show that CRISPR-based interventions can correct mutations and restore cellular and behavioral function in mouse models of brain diseases. Diseases caused by mutations in genes associated with brain functions - like alternating hemiplegia of childhood (AHC), Huntington’s disease, and Friedreich’s ataxia- have seen major improvements in mice that have had their brains gene edited.
This raises a fascinating possibility - what if this gene editing could go beyond correcting diseases? What if you could get an IQ boost of 20-30 points? For obvious reasons, this would be huge for people on a personal level, but it would also have political effects. What would society be like if everyone were 30 IQ points smarter?
Brain editing now ‘closer to reality’: the gene-altering tools tackling deadly disorders: Stunning results in mice herald gene-editing advances for neurological diseases.
If everybody could read and understand Marx, people would seize the means of production.
I am not clever enough to know if they would still be exploited by an elite. The way investment bankers spend their bonuses makes me think so.
Everyone gaining 30 IQ points would be the death of Marxism, ordinary people would be able to see that his economics is garbage.
Why are they garbage?
He lived back when political economy was pretty much just a bunch of guys groping around in the dark, on the rare occasion that they got something right it was mostly luck. The ideas his entire ideology is built on top of, like all paid labor being inherently exploitative because of excess profits or the declining rate of profit signaling the imminent death of capitalism, have no basis in reality.
Wikipedia makes it seem as if the theory is still valid:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall
Why are excess profits not exploitative? That seems to be more of a moral argument than a theory.
What about the accumulation of capital? After reading Marx, even if not entirely correct, wouldn't people spread wealth more equally to reduce the influence of Capital on politics?
I agree that people would not outright implement Marxism. Yet, what would they implement?
The falling rate of profit in and of itself is not controversial, but 200 years later it hasn't come anywhere close to killing capitalism like Marx predicted, it's a good thing that shows us competition is working to bring down prices and allocate capital more efficiently.
I agree that moral arguments are not economic ones and that a more equal distribution of wealth is compatible with my moral intuitions and would surely make people happier on average, but Marx presented his arguments in economic terms and we should assess them on that basis. Marx based his arguments about labor and excess profits on the labor theory of value, which may have been the best we had at the time but does not explain the world very well at all and has since been abandoned by any serious economists.
I might not be entirely convinced that the concentration of wealth inherently threatens democracy, but because I consider it sacred and believe it to be so much better than the alternatives we should take steps to protect it from anything that could conceivably threaten it, though I worry that attempting to aggressively redistribute wealth could have consequences worse than what we're trying to prevent.
It seems to me that capitalism, though it could always use some tweaks around the edges, is for the most part sound and has produced better outcomes for the average person than any of the available alternatives. If anybody is going to implement an alternative I hope they do it far from me.
The falling rate of profit cannot kill as long as capitalism has no competition. Now China makes it a problem. E.g. Intel hasn't invested enough for the next technology. China's chip production is almost closing the gap.
There are other areas where investments weren't made. Cell phone coverage is ridiculous, as is fibre to the home. Antibiotics are going to become a problem. The housing market and high speed rail both prevent mobility and better allocation of resources.
The software industry has solved it by selling services and not products. But that has left us with an enshittified Windows and an office suit with a file format that stifles innovation.