This post is inspired by recent discussion about Nick Bostrom but it is not about Nick Bostrom. It is about EA in general.
It's clear that many EAs believe that there are population-level differences in average intelligence between ethnic groups. Some representative comments from recent discussions:
"IQ distributions differ across races. IQ proxies [are] a general factor of intelligence. Afaik intelligence researchers believe both sentences are correct. I care more about being correct than about being culturally compliant [...]" (1)
"The finding that generally many groups of black people have on average lower IQ than than the median is pretty robust, and he does make it clear even in the initial emailthat [sic] he doesn't think they are morally inferior or that he doesn't hold the actual negative views about them that one might associate with this language." (2)
"[...] the focus on labeling people who lean towards there being a genetic difference in population means as bad is mistaken given that the threat is actually people who try to leverage this claimed difference politically or attempt to inject their belief in this difference into as many conversations as possible." (3)
Some EAs draw a distinction between thinking black people are stupider on average than white people, and thinking they are worth less:
"[...] Bostrom makes clear that differences in intelligence do not alter the moral value or human dignity of each person.
"For him, as for many, the issues of intelligence and moral worth are distinct; he never claims that black people are worth less, you are ascribing your own notion that IQ=moral worth, and then blaming him for not responding to it." (4)
I am not going to relitigate the question of whether population-level differences in IQ exist between races. My own view is the evidence for the existence of such differences is weak and entirely unconvincing. I do not believe such differences exist. I am uninterested in debating this, however: it is in fact irrelevant to my post. My interest is in the fact that, regardless of whether such differences exist in actuality, a subset of EAs clearly believe in them and think they are important.
This has profound implications for the ability of the movement to work in the interests of all humanity. For example, EAs who believe it is important that the human population expand but who think that African people are likely to be stupider than the human average may divert resources away from them. EAs making hiring decisions may prioritise applications from people whom they have not subconsciously assigned to the schema "stupider than me."
These risks are especially salient for a movement like EA, which prides itself on its rationality and adherence to rigorous logical thinking. Belief that members of certain groups are likely to be less capable of this type of thinking is likely have a pernicious effect upon the good work EA is trying to do.
I suggest that:
- EA leaders (executives and board members of EVF, GWWC, FHI, etc.) should publicly share whether they believe that there are population-level differences in intelligence between ethnic groups.
This will allow potential donors to make informed decisions about whether EA work is something they wish to support.
[note to moderators: please do not tag this Nick Bostrom; as noted above the post is not about him or his email, but rather about the wider issues his email highlights]
>This has profound implications for the ability of the movement to work in the interests of all humanity. For example, EAs who believe it is important that the human population expand but who think that African people are likely to be stupider than the human average may divert resources away from them. EAs making hiring decisions may prioritise applications from people whom they have not subconsciously assigned to the schema "stupider than me."
Let's say that it is true that not only are africans today lower in cognitive ability than whites on average, but that this gap is also mostly heritable (the latter is debatable but there is strong evidence to support it - the former is indisputable unless you think literally every single measure of cognitive ability that has strong predictive validity is radically and fatally flawed) .
Should this be acknoledged? Should this affect how we view the world?
Assuming it's true, do you believe, as a rationalist, that ignoring fundmental characteristics of human ity that explain more about society than almost any other factors will lead you towards making better decisions?
Speaking only for myself here, I think the answer is an unqualified hell no.
If you assume African Americans are congitive equivlanet to Asian Americans on average, then you will assume that sending more of them to college (in excess of those who can get in on the basis of academic merit alone currently) will result in improved socioeconomic outcomes (even if no affirmative action in hiring existed). But the real result is that many black people will have wasted 2-4 years of their life accumulating debt and forgoing earnings to gain an "education" that did nothing to close the cognitive gaps between themselves and asian americans. The debt, loss of income and wasting of time that could have been used developing valuable skills will hurt these graduates.
If instead, given that we know that intelligence varies between people, and we're interested in maximising the earning potential of black kids from low income families, we had identified their IQ early on and put our effort into getting them onto the optimal career track for their specific level of cognitive ability.
(The same is true for kids of any race - the difference is people are generally much more accepting of the fact that some white kids are just plain less intelligent than other white kids and can't have the same careers, and much more of acepting income inequality within than between races. And so there is a much bigger push to get black people specifically into college rather than low income/IQ kids generally, which is why it makes sense to think along racial lines here).
The same logic applies to entire countries. If you assume that Nigerians are no less intelligent than Chinese people, then you're likely to expect that Nigeria is going to follow the same development path as China once some threshold is passed for e.g. education health and so on. This is almost certainly not going to happen, and expecting it to will mean you will make suboptimal decisions when thinking about how to help countries in Africa.
More controversially, it also would mean that people in Africa are likely going to be of much lower instrumental value to humanity than people in Japan. But choosing to ignore this is actually the decision that is being made on the basis of race. Choosing to factor this into your worldview and decisions means you're acting on the basis of utility alone and not making decisions aimed at helping people because of their race more than you would of.
Liberal americans obviously aren't categorically opposed to helping low income black americans more than low income white americans in rural areas/the south, and it's likely this is because they think that black americans are better people and have more to offer the country, whereas white americans are just dumb and ignorant and cannot be reformed (not everyone believes this entirely, but I think some implicit form of this belief colors much of liberal thought in this area). All I'm saying is this type of thinking also applies more generally, except in this case the difference is based on data rather than intution and in-group favoratism.
If you, as you say, care about "working in the interests of humanity", you need to think about the interests of humanity collectively. Maximixing the interests of humanity will necessarily involve not helping all groups equally.