And what she did is she basically, by measuring the cranial capacity, filling skulls up with sand, and emptying them out, and weighing the sand, and using calculations Eugenics disappeared as a word that people in polite society would use and think about as its way of social engineering
This is the Office of the Eugenics Society here in the UK. The first eugenics department in the university was at UCL, the UCL Eugenics Department. And UCL has a great history in eugenics .
But basically, a great tolerant progressive institution that very much believed that eugenics was the future of a progressive society. And the Eugenics Society was a very progressive idea, a very liberal idea. Members included Karl Pearson, of course, Neville Chamberlain, John Maynard Keynes, Margaret Sanger.
Members included Karl Pearson, of course, Neville Chamberlain, John Maynard Keynes, Margaret Sanger. Many people believed that eugenics was a way to improve the lot of humanity. And that went along just fine for a while.
And I love this diagram that I found. This is from a eugenics text. And you note, I talk about this optimizing line.
And what she did is she basically, by measuring the cranial capacity, filling skulls up with sand, and emptying them out, and weighing the sand, and using calculations of the eugenics movement.
And what she did is she basically, by measuring the cranial capacity, filling skulls up with sand, and emptying them out, and weighing the sand, and using calculations This is a eugenics kind of bulletin board that says some people are born to be a burden on the rest and that the Americans really made negative eugenics
And what she did is she basically, by measuring the cranial capacity, filling skulls up with sand, and emptying them out, and weighing the sand, and using calculations We banned eugenics from consciousness.
and our food to be blindingly white, and then to have these ideas of purity running very hard-- everything from eugenics on down to food. We can make things pure.
how the next experiment's going to turn out, but I'm getting to report it in real time. But when you talk about eugenics , you're talking about state-sponsored eugenics , obviously the Nazi program being the one that
And Francis Galton invented a new idea, a distinctly British idea, called eugenics . This is the Office of the Eugenics Society here in the UK. The first eugenics department in the university was at UCL, the UCL Eugenics Department.
The first eugenics department in the university was at UCL, the UCL Eugenics Department. And UCL has a great history in eugenics . Wonderful liberal institution, UCL.
UCL had the largest collection of human skulls in the world. They had collected human skulls for eugenics research to basically say, look, here are African skulls, here are European skulls. Look, one has a bigger cranial capacity than the other.
And what she did is she basically, by measuring the cranial capacity, filling skulls up with sand, and emptying them out, and weighing the sand, and using calculations But that was the end of scientific eugenics as research by a long shot.
And what she did is she basically, by measuring the cranial capacity, filling skulls up with sand, and emptying them out, and weighing the sand, and using calculations I'm going to digress from eugenics for a minute and leave England and go to France.
And what she did is she basically, by measuring the cranial capacity, filling skulls up with sand, and emptying them out, and weighing the sand, and using calculations Britain, the eugenics movement was largely a progressive idea, not so much in America.
And in the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness, the optimum point for that trade-off is at one place, and now we want to move that. And so if you imagine this kind of old mad scientist eugenics program where they would breed humans for like 500 years,
I don't know how to feel about any of this. On the one hand, it feels weirdly eugenics -y to do so much tinkering with embryos, and I can't help feeling a little pressured into over-medicalizing everything with these expensive tests.
gets the next worthy successor into existence. Um, the other like really important political implication to my mind is this can really easily lead to a eugenicist view and I know eugenics is a big word but I actually do think it's apt here because when you start making the case that there is an optimal being
how the next experiment's going to turn out, but I'm getting to report it in real time. We have a problematic history with the social and scientific history of eugenics .
make everyone have a daughter to like arrive at this conclusion, so like, what else can we do to convince like a number of guys something about you, I get nervous because of eugenics and race science, which are bad.
And what she did is she basically, by measuring the cranial capacity, filling skulls up with sand, and emptying them out, and weighing the sand, and using calculations I mean, they were the kings of negative eugenics up until the time that it was taken up by the Nazis.
And what she did is she basically, by measuring the cranial capacity, filling skulls up with sand, and emptying them out, and weighing the sand, and using calculations I think this idea of diversity is not-- the problem with the kind of eugenics view of the world is a simple minded view of what's best.
And so I think that one of the corrosive effects of inequality is that it drives rich people into believing that they have good blood, into believing in eugenics . You actually heard this in the last election cycle.
Trump repeatedly talked about his good blood. For people who remember the horrors of the Holocaust or Tuskegee or the eugenics movement, good blood is a scary thing to hear someone talk about.
And usually a couple of people say it's inconsequential, it doesn't really matter one way or another. And I interview a professor of law in the book who-- he researches eugenics , which is the practice of trying to build a superior race.
enterprise uh was disguised as as medical experimentation in in Auschwitz. And many of these experiments were financed by America because we believed in eugenics , which is the theory that you basically get rid of the weaker portion of the population. And Henry Ford was a big proponent of this and uh in fact
that optimized state we need to strip away all the cognitive or physical features that are perceived as holding us back. Um that really quickly can lead to eugenics . Um, and indeed I've had some pretty disturbing conversations with AI successionists where they don't shy away from that. Um, they are pretty
how the next experiment's going to turn out, but I'm getting to report it in real time. But here's a concept you should think about, which is free market eugenics .
Ireland ran ahead of us slightly on this. But basically, a great tolerant progressive institution that very much believed that eugenics was the future of a progressive society. And the Eugenics Society was a very progressive idea, a very liberal idea.
of two conclusions, right? Either markets aren't working the way they're supposed to, or eugenics is real, and there is a 1% of people who are so smart that they should just own everything. And if we would just give them all the stuff, they will allocate capital so wisely that we will get richer and richer and richer.
he would have been celebrating this. One of the greatest scientists of 19th century, if it were not his obsession with eugenics , hereditary eugenics , he is the father of eugenics . And he invented the composite photography, which was a method of essentially morphing, but pre-digital era morphing, where you would
That would be important in everything from space exploration to dealing with climate change to dealing with pandemics, on and on and on. And then, of course, you have the eugenics questions. To what degree do we change ourselves?
Right. I worry like this is going to create um a lot of therapy sessions on like topics we haven't had to deal with before. Okay, and then I think kind of like hovering over this whole conversation is the idea of eugenics . Yep. Is there a concern about removing certain types of like just real
how the next experiment's going to turn out, but I'm getting to report it in real time. But even in the United States, in the early 20th century, at Cold Spring Harbor Lab, there was eugenics based on state ideas for how to create a better, you know,
how the next experiment's going to turn out, but I'm getting to report it in real time. citizenry. I don't think we have that problem now, because I don't think the state will ever mandate any eugenics .
make everyone have a daughter to like arrive at this conclusion, so like, what else can we do to convince like a number of guys Those are bad. Oh yeah, that's been making the rounds on Twitter lately, too, eugenics .
So that was then taken up by Darwin's first cousin, Francis Galton, who was one of the people who was behind the founding of UCL. And Francis Galton invented a new idea, a distinctly British idea, called eugenics . This is the Office of the Eugenics Society here in the UK.
And there was just something about that that was like, this is everything that this is about. Because that's what we were fighting against at that time, was the perception that we were literally inferior, physically inferior, all kinds of crazy eugenics theories.
We have seen entrepreneurs where they start the company in Silicon Valley. It is important. Otherwise, many young people, like Eugenics and Gen Y, when you have a clarity about what you are contributing, where