"This child is still you, just the best of you."

I don't know if the "economic competitiveness" part will be a comforting argument if this ever comes to pass. What I mean is, it won't been seen as "look at how our economy could grow if we do this." That economy would just be viewed as the new standard. This technology will be seen as "do this or you will be left behind." I fear it will be coercive and alienating.

If someone's children will likely have a lower than this minimum intelligence, which you can infer from parent's IQ and other measures, will you encourage or prohibit them to use either embryo selection or genetic engineering? What are the impact on the child's life for each option? Is the 'distaste' more important than giving a better opportunity for the newborns?

Also, what can you do? You cannot put regulations on China or other countries. On this issue, they will not agree on international agreement either. And there will be rich people who fly to other countries to have the procedures done. This will cause even more inequality than allowing it domestically.

Jordan Peterson IQ and Job Market https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjs2gPa5sD0

Can it really be inferred? Not including conditions or syndromes of course. The parents' environment may have affected their intelligence and the child may turn out entirely different.

Getting parent's DNAs sequenced might be needed but it's affordable now. See gwern's answers and link for more info.

1) life isn't about being smart, far from that (that's national emergent feedback, and I often despise nations as a concept)

2) being smart isn't even needed, a culture of sharing and listening would be enough to uplift life by many points. A culture of recognizing ego and letting him shut down then appreciate everything as a whole. Most brains can do this, if people can pass this down.

I regularly remember how everything was beautiful before, even with flaws and limits.. a race for optimization, especially driven by national interest isn't something I'd like to see.

ps: I'd even say, "intelligence" is an emergency mode for our brains, and cultivating it was a normal response, but it's not supposed to be our main mode

Even assuming that this works, when you do that, you immediately run into the same problem as every other eugenics program: you are reducing the diversity of the population to seek a local maximum. In the analogy for optimization problems of the cows in the field standing on hills and in valleys, you're having all the cows stand on a single hill. You improve the current fitness of the population, according to your metrics, at the cost of the future fitness - you'll never find higher hills to stand upon, and if the fitness function changes, your population will be less equipped to handle it.

I'm not denying science, and how it improves the human condition. But this is the point when it stops improving the human condition, and improves the controlled human condition. not the same thing.

IQ points? Hasn't IQ long ago been discredited as a measure of intelligence?

Long answer:

The g form of IQ is still valid. Based on context in which a test is taken, there may be some type 2 error (people scoring lower than actual IQ), but relatively little type 1 error (people scoring higher than actual IQ).

That said, many researchers have asked if g is the be all and end all of intelligence. Research suggests that g tends to focus on the analytic and verbal parts of our brains. Howard Gardner found through research on aphasia patients that there are areas of our brain that function largely outside of what g measures. Others have found that while IQ floors may exist for certain professions (e.g., 120 for lawyers), IQ is not always the strongest predictor for success -- things like EQ often have stronger predictive value.

Note that some of the derivative works of multiple intelligences, EQ, etc. are twisted interpretations of the original ideas, so be careful when reading the non-seminal works. Some people have co-opted the term "intelligence" in their derivative works in an effort to support a political agenda that may not necessarily be true to the original idea or even constructive.

- Optimizing EQ is probably far more valuable for society.

- I am not sure that EQ can be optimized for in genetics as easily as IQ can.

- On an individual level, putting a child on the right side of their potential IQ curve will probably make their lives easier or better assuming that relatively few of their peers have this same advantage.

- If every child is on the right side of their potential IQ curve, then optimizing IQ will largely just be a different state for society rather than a noticeable improvement. Most (all?) improvements would likely be seen on the high end in terms of theoretical developments.

- Note that if this switch is somehow flipped in a society, I personally believe that there will be a huge EQ intergenerational crisis such that EQ will be valued even more.

A: That same research does open up the door potentially to genetic engineering in the future. But that would take a lot longer to make practical.

===

Q: When do you think the embryo analysis might be implemented on a large scale?

A: Actual use of the technology to do embryo screening might take five to ten years, but it could be just a few years. It depends on how motivated they are.

......"