One example:

  The other thing that Miller totally glosses over (or is  
  just ignorant of) is that the one-child policy is a) very
  badly implemented in many places and b) has had all sorts
  of terrible side-effects (other than the top-heavy
  population issue). The first point is that the one-child
  policy is not evenly implemented, and is very vulnerable
  to corruption, loop-holes, mismanagement etc. etc.

"Tell us something that worries you (for scientific reasons), but doesn't seem to be on the popular radar yet—and why it should be. Or tell us something that you have stopped worrying about, even if others do, and why it should be taken off the radar."

I find it silly and vague. They might as well have said "step on your soapbox and preach, brother/sister."

I find the presentation a bit difficult to follow as the full essays are presented on a single page (useful for long reads, difficult to follow if you want to quickly survey the topics). Without even a table of contents.

Even the overview page only lists contributors, without specifying their topic or title: http://www.edge.org/contributors/what-should-we-be-worried-a...

I rather agree with your soapbox preacher assessment. I'm underwhelmed by most of the responses.

Cool, so you don't want to discuss it at all? Or you want to discuss how we shouldn't be discussing anything?

We should just refactor HN and have a single thread where all the really smart people can list all of the links on HN they think are stupid.

What's wrong with that? It brought out some interesting issues to think about.

People without soapboxes would (and did, actually) have dull responses.

I am not implying it is wrong, but this is what most of us seem to be aspiring after - "making the world a better place" (without giving it any further thought).

But why? Is this really most important? How would we go about finding what is most important?

So raise the IQ (didn't the western world "invent" this notion?) of a population so they can be replaced by machines (after all, what use does a government have for highly intelligent people but to put them to work)? Because evidently, this is happening in the western world as noted BI, hollywood, and the technologists of our day.

In a couple generations (60+ years), I think humanity might not be constrained by resources on this planent alone… after all, I think Elon and his partners/competitors are going to want to achieve 10x in a fraction of that time…

Em, the government is not (necessarily) some "enemy". The government is the representatives of the people and the country. So the use the government has for "highly intelligent people" is to strengthen the country.

>So the use the government has for "highly intelligent people" is to strengthen the country.

You wouldn't call that work (the effort applied to produce a deliverable or accomplish a task, which in this case is whatever it takes to "strengthen the country")?

Peak Oil.

  "When I learned about Chinese eugenics this summer, I was 
  astonished that its population policies had received so
  little attention. China makes no secret of its eugenic
  ambitions, in either its cultural history or its
  government policies."

  "The most likely response, given Euro-American ideological
   biases, would be a bioethical panic that leads to
   criticism of Chinese population policy with the same
   self-righteous hypocrisy that we have shown in
   criticizing various Chinese socio-cultural policies." 

Chinese execute thousands of their "lower classes" every year. This is nothing but the "cleansing" of the intellectually deficient and the ungainful.

At the very least Western intellectuals and universities should condemn this and refuse to collaborate or issue professorships and research positions to Chinese academics in a wholesale fashion (since, as the author put it, "there is a unusually close cooperation in China between government, academia, medicine, education, media, parents, and consumerism in promoting a utopian Han ethno-state.")

However we see nothing of that sort.

Western academics are quick to boycott their Israeli counterparts for the slightest infractions of voicing support for their Zionist state.

Where is the uproar here?

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment#Global_distr...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/sep/12/boycott-i...

Edit: Clean-up

Then do you mind not peddling such pathetic and baseless nonsense. Actions of few != Actions of all.

Could you elaborate on this?

Links to definitive works on this subject by respected scholars and experts would be great.

Would seem to support the statement. It's somewhat news to me, and eugenics is certainly associated with the right.

Because the Germans started a world war and killed millions of people? Because the german "eugenics" program included killing millions of Jews, Gypsies, invalids etc? (All of those things that the Chinese do not do).

>Chinese execute thousands of their "lower classes" every year. This is nothing but the "cleansing" of the intellectually deficient and the ungainful.

No, it's merely keeping the strict rule of the party and having capital punishment for several offences. Nothing to do with eugenics, except if you call the killing of a serial killer or state money embezzler "eugenics".

(Not to mention that a number "thousands per year" would be a drop in the bucket compared to the Chinese population to be part of any eugenics program in the first place).

And I don't think the US should speak of other countries on those matters (people in glasshouses, etc).

First, It's in the top-5 capital punishers in the world (along with China at #1, North Korea, etc), in an era where civilised countries have long since abandoned the practice. And besides capital punishment, the US is the world leader in incarcerations, with an non-proportionate majority being black and poor (their "lower classes").

Second, it dived head-first in it's own "eugenics" program, with DNA sequencing etc. American government and companies invested trillions on genome research. Suddenly China is not allowed to?

You're delirious.

United States being in the top five capital punish-er list conveniently masks the fact that the top culprit, China, is in a league all by itself.

Its several orders more depraved.

Its several orders higher than the rest in the list, combined.

And you are very patriotic. Bravo. What exactly was the "delirious" part?

That I treated both the same, whereas China is #1 with a difference in capital punishments and the US is "merely" #4 or #5?

Sorry, but where I come from, both are abhorable, as we prefer zero (0) capital punishments anyway.

I don't find "but we kill far less" an excuse in 2013. Especially since you also kill 15 and 16 year olds (in Texas and elsewhere) or even mentally ill people.

>United States being in the top five capital punish-er list conveniently masks the fact that the top culprit, China, is in a league all by itself. Its several orders more depraved. Its several orders higher than the rest in the list, combined.

It's also several orders bigger. Like 4 times the population of the US. But I agree, China executes far more people even taking that into account.

That said, it kills their own subjects. The US does most of it's killing outside its borders. How many wars have it been involved to, in places it has no damn place to be in? How many innocent millions have it killed directly or helped be killed (by supporting tons of dictatorships all around the globe, from Pinochet to Saddam in the 80s)?

Oh, and the recent trend of execution by drones? That's even worst than Chinese execution. No trial, no jury, bombing, killing innocent people along (like a full wedding, with 49 dead, including 9 children), and in sovereign countries, none the less.

Seems like the worst offenders (warmonger, dictatorship supporter and enabler, black slavery, atomic bombs) etc, are always the most hypocritical and hollier-than-thou ones.

  "Although the state has only recently taken an official 
   role in the control of human reproduction, its current
   policies stem from the age-old concept of the
   individual's responsibility to the collective. It is this
   emphasis on the collective good that has driven modern
   eugenics discourse since the late nineteenth century,
   when Chinese intellectuals the well-to-do gentry, and
   government officials explored how to improve the Chinese
   race after the arrival of the stronger Western
   imperialist nations. Indeed, nationalism in its many
   forms remains an important force in eugenics today.
   Dikötter shows that it is the introduction of modern 
   science in China, particularly after World War I, that
   opened the real possibility of implementing the eugenic
   vision. It is in the republican era (1911-1948) that
   elites called for increased intervention of medical
   professionals and the state into the sexual lives of 
   citizens."

   "Government policy on inferior births also increased in 
   severity from the 1950s on, culminating in the 1995 
   eugenics law, giving rise to many technical and ethical 
   problems. A eugenics policy assumes that all handicaps 
   are irreversible and that education would have no effect.
   Furthermore, poor definitions of disorders, handicaps,
   illnesses, and fitness as well as local control of 
   implementation not only erode individual rights but also 
   increase corruption and bureaucratic incompetence. This 
   book shows us the greater problem in post-Mao China-
   eugenics has been legitimized by medical knowledge that 
   is ever-changing, not to mention packaged and 
   disseminated by those who have a vested interest in the 
   control of human reproduction."

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hapr/summer00_tech/bookreview.ht...

   "A national survey on ethical and genetic issues of 402
   geneticists from 30 provinces and autonomous regions in
   China showed that 90% called for ethical guidelines for
   genetics practice and research; 89% supported current
   Chinese laws on abortion for genetic abnormalities and
   non-medical indications; more than half opposed sex
   selection by any means; 55% thought that gene donors
   should have a right to share in the profits from
   commercial tests or treatments developed with the use of
   their genes; and 50% thought that public education on
   genetics should be the top priority in the Chinese
   government health budget."

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...

In the same way that in Europe, we get a lot more objective news about the wars the US is waging in other countries around the world which probably don't get on Fox News or CNN.

I don't know if it's a good thing, but there seems to be an apathy towards human rights in Asia from the West. It's like child-labour-sweatshops are almost a joke.

And the reason the entire world dislikes Israel as a country (as of the latest world popularity ranking) is due to its one-sided, selfish foreign policy and this ridiculous "anti Israel = anti Jewish" position many Israelis take. When everyone is sick of it you shouldn't be surprised if many academics are too.

Do not spout falsities here. You will be called out.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment#Global_distr...

Meanwhile your "world popularity ranking" index ( whatever and however that is conceived to measure ) and Israel's bottom ranking in it, needs a citation.

And this study was widely reported in the BBC and elsewhere:

http://www.globescan.com/images/images/pressreleases/bbc2012...

As you can see Isarel is down there with North Korea, Pakistan and Iran and with a downward trend in popularity no less.

Germany was real. China ... well China is over there, they make cheap things for us and in return we don't poke at their internal policies. Imagine a Chinese embargo on the Western world, we'd die.

While the CCP has a mixed history, they do relax the One Child Policy for ethnic minorities (I think Tibetans are allowed 2 children), so it's hard to suggest they are actually genocidal. Nationalistic, yes, but that nationalism recognises the rights of minorities (as long as they don't try to rebel). They did a lot of dodgy stuff in the Cultural Revolution, but it's not like they are given a free pass on that.

I'm not sure about the Great Leap Forward, but that was more an outrageously stupid policy decision than a deliberate crime. It only lasted 3 years. While Mao should have ended it sooner, it's not like he kept it going for 10 years, like the Cultural Revolution. Perhaps it really took 3 years to weed through the false reports of progress, and to realise it wasn't just growing pains, sabotage, or natural disasters. Besides, it wasn't really targeted at any ethnic group - all rural Chinese were hit pretty hard.

First, Germany invaded other countries. They had to fight it back, else there would be a huge Nazi power state occupying all of Europe which would be a big thread (and contender for the same resources).

Second, the German "eugenics" program was not birth control or DNA sequencing but killing people they deemed invalid, inferior etc. By the millions. Not even comparable.

Third, China is not a deluded small-ish country in Europe, thinking it can take over the world by itself. It's a huge behemoth superpower.

it might have something to do with starting WW2. just maybe.

That's nice. Speaking as a westerner, fuck "western global competitiveness". Why West should have the upper hand? It's not even 1/5 of the global population, and it has done the most horrible crimes, from the Holocaust, to Slavery, to exploiting and colonising the rest 4/5, including fighting China for the "god given right" to sell opium to its citizens. Time for some payback.