[ExI] Limits of human modification

[John Clark]

On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 11:04 PM, Chris Hibbert <cth.mydruthers at gmail.com>
 wrote:

>In the USA the Federal Reserve is thinking about raising interest
>> ​ ​
>> rates in December, half the world's economists think that would be a
>> ​ ​
>> wonderful idea, the other half thinks it would be a terrible idea,
>
>
> ​> ​
> This is roughly true, but it doesn't refute the statement that "There
> ​ ​
> is a near-unanimous agreement among economists on many fundamental
> ​ ​
> findings of economics".
> ​ ​
> Most of macro-economics is outside the
> ​ ​
> fundamental findings that there is near-universal agreement on.
>

​There are few things that effect the GDP more fundamentally than interest
rates​

​and economists can't even agree on what value that should be, and yet you
expect them to agree on the far more complex and astronomically more
emotional issue of how best to permanently alter the human germline to
maximize the GDP?  And if economists understand the inner workings of the
economy so well why is their record on correctly predicting the economic
future so bad? A coin flip would have done as well as a panel of the
world's greatest economic thinkers at predicting The Great Recession of
2007.

​> ​
> Economists agree on many things. One is that trade is pareto
> ​ ​
> improving, so each of the hypothetical economists would be willing to
> ​ ​
> agree that reducing barriers to trade would increase GDP (on both
> ​ ​
> sides of the trade barrier).
>

I'm a
​ ​
big
​ ​
free trade fan myself but many
​presidential candidates
disagree with me, Donald Trump
​and ​
Mike Huckabee
​ ​
on the Republican side and Bernie Sanders
​ ​
on the Democratic
​side ​
are aggressively anti-trade, as are most labor leaders and socialists
​ and leftists​
.
​But you haven't answered my most important question, how do you intend to
enforce your reproductive edict worldwide? The answer is important because
those who disagree with you and successfully evade your enforcement efforts
will gain a HUGE advantage.  ​



> ​> ​
> The reason it's called the "dismal science" is
> ​ ​
> that economics can't be relied on to produce a consensus that your
> favorite social intervention will have the consequences you want.
>

​Yes, economics is far more vulnerable than other sciences to assume that
if fact X about the way the universe works would lead to a more just
society then fact X must be true. But nature is not interested in human
justice, a fact is either true or it is not and justice be damned.

Perhaps it's just simpler to say there is a whole lot of wishful thinking
is going on.

 John K Clark ​
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