Based Camp - The Future of Ethnicity with Razib Khan

00:00:00.000 it's hard for me to wrap my head around it because I spent the first, like all my childhood

00:00:04.180 assuming that everyone was just going to sort of become the same like golden-ish color as everyone

00:00:10.560 just interbred with everyone else. And what I'm seeing instead is like everyone moving in the

00:00:16.100 direction of glomming off in these more isolated communities, becoming more different from each

00:00:20.060 other instead of all kind of the same. It's just so weird. And then of course speciation is going

00:00:24.580 to happen when people get off. We ran a big study on this. And one of the things that's most

00:00:27.600 correlated with fertility rate, at least in the U.S., is xenophobia, which means that we actually

00:00:32.980 will likely preserve independent ethnic groups. It's just the opposite of what I expected. Like 0.99

00:00:37.260 for the majority of my life, it's so weird. Yeah. I mean, the issue here is like also

00:00:42.920 if you look at a country like Brazil or Cape Verde, what happens is actually like even in like a

00:00:49.020 genetically homogenous admixed population, there's still variation. And so people still look different.

00:00:53.940 And so if they're sorting based on physical type, there will be like kind of like precipitation

00:01:00.280 back out, if that makes sense. Would you like to know more?

00:01:03.320 Hello. We have a very special guest on Basecamp, Razib Khan. He is the CSO of Generate, which is a

00:01:09.540 really, really cool startup, basically enabling people to use a lot of genetic technology and

00:01:14.580 information that they haven't been able to use yet. Plus he is the proprietor of unsupervised learning,

00:01:19.900 which you can check out on Substack. Talk about deep dives on really cool genetic histories and

00:01:24.860 all sorts of stuff. You had really better check it out if you don't know about it yet. You're in for

00:01:28.860 a treat. You can also just check out a lot of things that he's working on at razibkhan.com.

00:01:33.800 And he's probably one of the most famous in the world communicators on human genetic stuff when it

00:01:39.680 comes, especially on the spicy side. Yeah.

00:01:42.460 Whenever people say that, I'm just like, why aren't there more communicators? I mean, it's like,

00:01:46.540 well, I'll tell you why there are more communicators. I'd say there are a number

00:01:50.940 of other communicators, but I think a lot of the other communicators in this space go

00:01:55.720 a little too hard on the race stuff. Like they seem to have a vested horse in the game,

00:02:01.180 which pollutes their ability to give the message. Whereas you come at it much more neutrally,

00:02:08.500 which I think is why you're such an effective communicator. And to that end, one thing I wanted

00:02:13.240 to ask is where do you think the future of humanity is going genetically speaking? Like,

00:02:20.300 are we going to see a die off of ethnic groups? Are we going to see new ethnic groups? Are we going 0.97

00:02:24.980 to see, you know, who does well in this coming world? What's going on?

00:02:30.580 Yeah, it's complicated because, you know, these sorts of linear projections, not necessarily linear,

00:02:34.300 but just like, I mean, obviously they're exponential too, but you know, like in 1900, if you had asked me

00:02:38.800 this, you know, the, the theory was like all the colored races were going to disappear because the

00:02:43.400 fertility of white Europeans was so high and they were conquering all the continents and settling 1.00

00:02:48.000 everything. Obviously that's not what ended up happening. So it just goes to show you that these

00:02:53.840 like very, very long-term projections. So for example, like people like, oh, there's going to be

00:02:57.120 like 5 billion people in Africa in 2100. I mean, that's, I'm exaggerating. I think it's close to like

00:03:01.240 3 billion or 4 billion. Okay. I just don't think that there will be. I think that those are overestimates

00:03:06.960 probably. And you know, the transition will be faster. You know, since like about the 1980s,

00:03:12.600 the UN has actually consistently over-predicted population growth because as you guys know,

00:03:17.320 a demographic transition has been happening everywhere and fertility is crashing everywhere.

00:03:21.600 And so it just depends on where. So in any case, I think like Peter Zehan says, oh,

00:03:25.500 the Chinese people are going to disappear. I'm like, look, they got a low fertility, 1.00

00:03:28.440 but like there's 1.4 billion of them. I mean, you know, they're not going to like,

00:03:32.560 they're not going to disappear. Okay. There's like 20 million Jews. And like, we're not like,

00:03:37.340 oh, the Jews are going to disappear. You know, the reason the Jews are not going to disappear is 1.00

00:03:40.920 ultra-Orthodox Jews have a high fertility, right? So they're still going to be around. If you read 1.00

00:03:44.800 Frank Herbert's Dune, they're still around, you know? So you just need some of them that really

00:03:48.880 want to reproduce. Wait, who are the Jews in Frank Herbert's Dune? They work with the 1.00

00:03:53.880 Bene Gesserit. Yeah. Really? That's fascinating. Yeah. They're still around. They're still around.

00:03:58.920 Well, do you know Kwisatz Haderach is Hebrew? No, no. Oh, that's wild. I had no idea.

00:04:08.300 Yeah. Mind blown. Mind blown. Are we, are we going the Tylaxi route with our family?

00:04:14.140 You know what? So I have a, I have a friend. Do you know what an axolotl tank is?

00:04:19.360 Yeah, of course. It's what became the Tylaxi females. They basically turned them into birthing 1.00

00:04:23.580 ticks. I have a friend who got her eggs and she has like, she produced a lot of eggs. 1.00

00:04:28.920 And so I was like, you would be a really great axolotl tank.

00:04:34.700 Okay. How long till we get axolotl tanks? Like, do you see some groups basically getting

00:04:41.760 rid of women when we get artificial wounds? Yeah. Yeah. So I do think in terms of what's 1.00

00:04:48.100 going to happen, I do think with diversification, it's probably going to be a thing within a hundred

00:04:51.620 years. You will have like sex of humans that are naturals, others that are probably going 0.96

00:04:56.720 to do like legit transhumanism. I mean, assuming our technological civilization continues, you 0.60

00:05:00.440 know? Right. Right. And then I do think there will be, you know, I mean, look, there's going

00:05:04.080 to be like groups of gay men, actually just groups of people in general, like women as

00:05:07.840 well, because they don't want to give birth. You know, they don't want to go through the

00:05:10.440 body, all that transformation. They're going to use axolotl tanks. The main issue is, I don't

00:05:16.620 think they're going to be necessarily many, you know, they're not going to be like, you know,

00:05:19.280 dead or like brain dead, you know, Plylaxis, Plylaxis women. But, but the point is like, 0.64

00:05:25.000 the point is the issue, the issue is always like, all right, actually, you know, this is

00:05:30.820 going to be fixed. They're going to test it on, on like animals, but the first ones are

00:05:35.080 going to be bad. Right. Yeah. It's just like, you know, C-sections cause some issues, et cetera,

00:05:40.220 et cetera. Actually, I'm going to push back here. I heard a theory on this that was actually

00:05:43.920 pretty compelling to me that it may turn out when we first start doing artificial wombs that

00:05:48.500 the children coming out of them are actually dramatically healthier than children born from 0.99

00:05:52.460 natural wombs because they don't have any restrictions on resources. And so even though 0.99

00:05:57.580 they're not able to give people everything at just the right time, keep in mind, this is an

00:06:01.720 environment where the mother is basically never sick because they're not interacting with the

00:06:05.580 world. There's no restriction on the resources they're giving the kids. So it may be the difference

00:06:09.940 we saw with the Flynn effect where like all of a sudden during a person's developmental period,

00:06:14.000 they were given way more resources than they ever would have been historically. And we're getting

00:06:17.780 like 14 pound babies. And what about babies that pop out and they can like talk? No,

00:06:24.360 we got to, we got to aim for that actually. So, so one of the things that I've thought about,

00:06:31.940 and you can tell me this is crazy that I was like, okay, well, one of the things I suspect to happen

00:06:36.100 as smart people become a rarer asset in the future. And one that companies really need is that there will

00:06:43.100 be a huge economic incentive for companies to create their own humans. And, you know, one of

00:06:48.940 the things we're really actually trying to do as the Collins Institute is make child rearing at scale

00:06:55.220 of like gifted children, like, like scalable and inexpensive. So like a company could implement

00:07:00.080 this program without much human intervention. So long as they were producing people and caring for

00:07:05.260 them in the first like three or four years of their lives.

00:07:07.000 Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, that just sounds like a small nation, right?

00:07:13.980 Well, I mean, sorry. I mean, yeah, I guess like, I mean, you, you could do it as a company. You

00:07:18.980 could do it as an, I'm sure nations will do it as well.

00:07:20.780 I mean, it's like, it's made of the kibbutz system, right? 1.00

00:07:22.900 Yeah.

00:07:23.460 Like they didn't perfect it. They didn't get it to work right. But that's, yeah,

00:07:26.060 they're like collective raising of these children.

00:07:28.420 Yeah.

00:07:28.880 And they're all for the ends of the corporate, I mean, the idea is like, they stay on the kibbutz, 0.97

00:07:32.700 which didn't work out.

00:07:33.580 Usually, yeah, that's the problem. Yeah. But I mean, when, once you like can actually

00:07:37.300 sort of genetically manipulate children, you can even like make them require some kind

00:07:40.920 of proprietary enzyme that only you provide. They can't leave the problem.

00:07:44.420 Okay. This is, this is, this is, this is actually, I think been written about, and there

00:07:48.260 are films about these sorts of things, right? Where it's like, basically it's like, yeah,

00:07:52.100 you, they have a, you know, it's, it's like, you know, like Blade Runner, right?

00:07:56.340 Yeah.

00:07:56.580 They have a time bomb and that's how you control them and stuff like that. I mean, is it possible?

00:08:01.740 Yeah. Yeah. Is it feasible? Yeah. We might have, we, yeah, we might have to have a butlerian

00:08:06.680 jihad. We'll see, you know, whatever it takes, just, you know, what he's talking about. That

00:08:12.200 was the jihad against AI, right?

00:08:15.060 Against thinking machines. Yeah. But they also, they also, it's a jihad, a jihad also against

00:08:20.040 like a genetic, like a genetic engineering and other things.

00:08:22.860 Oh, they won't beat the genetically engineered. That's that's what they, what they, what they,

00:08:26.740 they show the Bedi-Jazera don't use like official genetic entering. What they do is like, is 1.00

00:08:31.360 breeding, like, you know, use like selective breeding. That's what they do. 0.79

00:08:35.300 Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so the, we were talking about ethnic groups, like not going extinct. You're

00:08:40.980 like, well, the Chinese aren't going to go extinct, but there are groups that I am genuinely afraid 1.00

00:08:45.220 for. Like the two that I always mention are actually both in India, which is the Jayans and

00:08:49.100 the Parsi. I was wondering, are you worried for them? Are there other ethno groups that you're

00:08:53.500 like particularly worried about, or do you just not care that certain groups are going to go extinct?

00:08:58.880 I mean, the Parsis probably, but I mean, they have some issues in terms of, uh, yeah, they have. So,

00:09:07.780 I mean, so Parsis, as most of your listeners might know, are Zoroastrians in India. Genetically,

00:09:12.500 they're about three fourths Iranian, one fourth Gujarati, and they've been Indianized in a lot of

00:09:17.480 their cultural habits. So they speak Gujarati. They don't speak any Persian language, obviously.

00:09:20.840 They eat Gujarati food, and they have like names that are often, I mean, they have names like

00:09:26.240 Khusro, but they often have like, you know, like Patel or whatever, you know, or Gandhi. 0.57

00:09:31.540 So like Indira Gandhi's husband was a Parsi. His last name was Gandhi. That's a Gujarati name. Okay.

00:09:36.660 So, you know, they're kind of cool, but like there are other Zoroastrians elsewhere.

00:09:40.140 And one thing that, one thing that the Parsis did is they integrated kind of like Indian caste system

00:09:44.880 mentality. And so they really frowned upon intermarriage and outmarried children are kind of

00:09:49.600 expelled from the group. That's one of the reasons they're shrinking. So to be like an

00:09:52.680 official Parsi, you have to have two Parsi parents. And this is actually like nothing to do with

00:09:57.440 their Zoroastrian religion. It has to do with their becoming Indian. And so it's just like,

00:10:02.200 yeah, I mean, but I mean, that's just how, that's how they're set up. And it's just like,

00:10:06.480 kind of like, you know, with modernity and their, their advances and their, you know, high,

00:10:11.380 like, yeah, you remind me of like a zoologist talking about pandas, but we just can't get 0.99

00:10:17.100 them to fuck in captivity. Like we're trying, we're trying, but they're fucking pandas. 1.00

00:10:22.780 Well, it's interesting because that it suggests like that there's this certain like just right 0.98

00:10:27.380 spot Goldilocks zone of xenophobia where like you, you, you can't be like too xenophobic.

00:10:34.100 Like if you like, you know, get too weird about marrying out, like it's hard to get enough

00:10:38.080 people, like critical mass and like, keep going. But if you're not xenophobic enough,

00:10:42.380 like then you're just going to glom into like the main population. So you have to be just like,

00:10:47.480 just a little bit xenophobic and then you're okay.

00:10:50.980 Yeah. So, you know, the Jews in China disappeared because they intermarried out. 0.91

00:10:55.400 The Jews in Kaifeng, if you look at them, they just, they got assimilated into the Chinese system.

00:10:59.660 Hold on. You have to go deeper here. When did the Jews immigrate to China?

00:11:03.220 I am not familiar with this story.

00:11:04.840 This is weird.

00:11:05.240 Yeah. I mean, people can just Google the Jews of Kaifeng. They're probably like Radonite 1.00

00:11:09.100 traders. So they're Persian Jews probably showed up around the Mongol period. If not earlier, 0.99

00:11:14.380 the Chinese consistently had problems distinguishing them from Muslims, you know,

00:11:19.200 cause they worship one God, they didn't eat pork. All the other stuff is kind of like what,

00:11:22.980 whatever, you know? So like they, they would call them things like black hat Muslims or something 1.00

00:11:28.420 like that. But like they really Jews that like, they don't really know, you know, they're all 1.00

00:11:31.860 like what weird, but yeah, so they show up in Kaifeng and they're well-known. The Jesuits

00:11:36.000 show up in the six, in the late 1500s and they encountered them and they were super curious

00:11:41.360 about them because these are Jews that didn't really interact much with Christians at all.

00:11:44.760 And so they're like, Oh, like you guys are going to like have like the secret knowledge

00:11:48.280 of how like Christianity is actually right. And you guys are hiding the fact that like Jesus

00:11:51.800 was actually the Messiah. Anyway, there's a weird thing like that. So they were, they were

00:11:55.340 around for like many, many centuries. And what happened is by the 18th century, the Jesuits

00:11:59.040 that were the Europeans that encountered them had noticing that they really had been assimilated

00:12:04.560 since like the 1500s. Like they looked much more Chinese. Like the original ones were like, 0.96

00:12:10.200 had West Asian features. A lot of them by the 18th century, they were much more Chinese looking.

00:12:15.480 And you know, the local rabbi of the community, he was super embarrassed because his Chinese wife 0.77

00:12:22.200 was, was, you know, she had pigs in the front yard and he knew that like the Chinese don't care. 1.00

00:12:27.480 They're like, whatever. But he knew that the Christian would be like, wait. 1.00

00:12:32.480 So it was just, yeah. But like, you know, and his sons were, had, were in like the, were Chinese

00:12:38.360 civil servants and stuff like that. So what happened in the 19th century, there was a flood,

00:12:43.540 the community scattered and they either like became Han. So they assimilated into the Han 0.96

00:12:49.180 majority or they became Muslim. And there are still some way Muslim families in like that area

00:12:55.440 of China and also Han families who know that they have the Jewish ancestry. Some of them have gone

00:13:00.940 back to Judaism now. Wow. But yeah, some of them have like, it's fascinating. Okay. So to that end,

00:13:07.940 cause this is one thing you touched on and I'm wondering what you're thinking about it. So we're

00:13:10.400 talking about genetic isolation and populations. Do you see intentional genetic isolation becoming more

00:13:17.600 of a thing in the future? IE more, I don't want to call human speciation, but human like ethnic

00:13:22.040 speciation becoming more of a thing as IQ is dropping in the general population.

00:13:28.440 So, you know what? I think the speciation will happen. I think this is like pretty straightforward

00:13:31.980 when we get off planet. Oh, immediately. Yeah. I think basically like, cause people are just

00:13:37.100 like, they don't want to like go to, I don't want to go to fucking Mars. I don't care how tall 0.97

00:13:40.660 and, you know, stretched out she, you know what I'm saying? Like, of course there's going to be

00:13:44.840 like, you know, Bumble is going to be like interplanetary option. Like if you really like

00:13:49.580 tall chicks, you want to go for a Martian, but the problem is you better have some money to get 1.00

00:13:54.060 all the way over there. And is she going to be into you? Cause you're like only six foot two.

00:13:58.700 No, what I love is in this world, humans were the dwarfs, the ones who are on earth or the short 1.00

00:14:05.240 stout, like stern boned ones. And the ones who go to Mars are the, the elf like people. 0.96

00:14:10.420 No, but people, I think underestimate if it continues to be expensive to do interplanetary

00:14:16.460 travel, which I think will be a thing for hundreds of years that we will definitely have full speciation.

00:14:23.020 Yeah. It's just so, it's so interesting. It's hard for me to wrap my head around it because I spent the

00:14:27.520 first, like all my childhood assuming, cause it was kind of like, I don't know, just assumed

00:14:32.180 everywhere that I grew up that everyone was just going to sort of become the same like golden-ish

00:14:37.720 color as everyone just enter bread with everyone else. And, and what I'm seeing instead is like

00:14:42.640 everyone moving in the direction of glomming off in these more isolated communities, becoming more

00:14:47.580 different from each other instead of all kind of the same. It's just so weird. And then of course

00:14:52.040 speciation is going to happen when people get off. We ran a big study on this. And one of the things

00:14:55.300 that's most correlated with fertility rate, at least in the U S is xenophobia, which means that we

00:15:00.660 actually will likely preserve independent ethnic groups. It's just the opposite of what I expected.

00:15:05.160 Like for the majority of my life, it's so weird.

00:15:08.880 Yeah. I mean, the, the issue here is like also, even in a country like Brazil or Cape Verde,

00:15:14.480 what happens is actually like, even in like a genetically homogenous admixed population,

00:15:19.380 there's still variation. And so people will still look different. And so if they're sorting

00:15:24.020 based on physical type, there will be like, kind of like precipitation back out. If that makes

00:15:29.620 sense. Does that make sense? And so it's not like actually like-

00:15:33.240 Oh, explain. Precipitation back out. So they're selecting a lifestyle, then that ends up

00:15:37.740 precipitating into the community.

00:15:39.700 Yeah. Or like in Brazil, it's known because in Brazil, a lot of families are of a mixed

00:15:44.080 background and it's not like weird to say that that's my white brother. That's my black brother

00:15:48.900 because they look that different.

00:15:50.460 Oh, wow.

00:15:50.960 And there is, there is some evidence that people actually start, they sort based on what they look

00:15:57.400 like, even though they have the same. So it's like, there could be someone who, there could be

00:16:01.860 someone who is like, you know, looks kind of white in a mixed race family and they end up pairing with

00:16:07.500 someone who looks kind of white in another mixed race family. So their ancestry is no different than 0.80

00:16:11.920 the darker people, but their physical type, because they're selecting on that subset. So it's positive 1.00

00:16:15.800 assortative mating. That's what I'm talking about. I mean, cause you guys have that IQ, but you know,

00:16:19.960 physical things are also like pretty salient to people. And in a place like Brazil, there's like

00:16:25.280 skin color prejudice. And so people that are lighter skinned, you know, they have an incentive 0.79

00:16:29.720 to pair up with people that are lighter skins.

00:16:31.860 Well, I think people just tend to like people that look like them often. I mean, not always,

00:16:36.300 but it seems to happen where people are similar to each other.

00:16:39.880 You're just thinking too much of me and Malcolm. Whenever I am at a party with Malcolm these days,

00:16:43.760 I'm like, when I'm trying to like point to him, I'm like, oh, the guy who looks like my brother,

00:16:47.220 that's my husband. This is how we know you're autistic. Cause like, yes, people think that,

00:16:53.640 but very few people say that. Autism confirmed. It works though. It works way better than, 0.98

00:17:00.620 you know, my husband who's over there now. So do you think that when we begin to have

00:17:05.760 genetically selected humans, do you think that we will have the possibility of a caste system?

00:17:11.260 Or do you think, because I know you've talked about the caste system before,

00:17:14.520 and I'm wondering like, like once we can select for specific traits that are of utility to specific

00:17:20.660 professions, like, you know, charisma versus stemminess, do you think that like the only

00:17:27.800 stable long-term iteration of humanity is a caste system? Or do you think that there's a way you

00:17:32.460 could have this sort of selection without caste systems forming?

00:17:35.280 Yeah. So I think like the Indian types caste system requires like a religious justification. 0.98

00:17:41.380 The gene flow is so fucking low. So I think a normal, like more like colloquial caste system 0.94

00:17:47.780 does emerge. But I mean, if you read Greg Clark's work about social stability of like,

00:17:52.980 you know, status and all that stuff, and that's a legit thing there in the work,

00:17:56.640 but there's still permeability. There's still people moving up and moving down and those sorts

00:18:00.180 of things. So I think that's going to be more likely just because I, you know, most human

00:18:06.100 societies have not sacralized social status that way. Like India is the exception, not the rule.

00:18:12.640 But if you sacralize social status, like only those with like that blood can do that thing,

00:18:16.980 then yes, it could emerge. So it depends on the religious aspect. We create a religion out of it.

00:18:22.040 So I don't know if you saw this, there was a study on this that I thought was really fascinating.

00:18:25.680 It was done in the UK. And you know, in the US, we were often like, well, we're not descended,

00:18:29.760 you know, if you're from a white US background, they're like, oh, we didn't have a caste system.

00:18:32.420 And I'm like, bro, your last name is Smith and his last name is Weaver. And there was an

00:18:37.600 interesting study that looked at people with the last name Weaver and found that they had higher

00:18:42.180 dexterity, manual dexterity, even today. And people with the last name Smith had higher grip

00:18:47.440 strength even today. I don't know if you've seen that one. I thought it was interesting in terms of

00:18:51.480 Yeah, I think I saw that. And then also like, like people with these sorts of like, you know,

00:18:56.580 you know, working class or blue collar artisanal artisanal names are still much more average to

00:19:03.340 like below average and social status. I mean, so what Greg Clark shows is, you know, what is it like

00:19:09.760 the persistence of social status, like point eight per generation, which is pretty high. But so what

00:19:16.000 happens is there's a lot of noise from one from generation, not to generation one. And so people

00:19:21.220 extrapolate from that. But what actually happens is there's often regression back to something that's

00:19:26.060 more ancestral. And so I think the statistic is like, so in, in the year 1100, every single officer

00:19:32.820 in the British army was basically Norman, because they just replaced all the Anglo-Saxons. Like in the 0.96

00:19:38.740 20th century, 10% are Norman, even though like less than 1% of the names in the British

00:19:44.540 population. Fascinating. You can calculate, you know?

00:19:49.600 Yeah. Another study I heard on this that really was profound to me was looking at China and, you

00:19:55.700 know, looking at the number of people in the Chinese government today, like high level Chinese

00:20:00.320 government who were descended from aristocratic families in China. And this is insane because if

00:20:05.400 you know anything about the Chinese revolution, these families were ground to dust. They lost

00:20:10.300 everything and were treated worse than every other person in society. And yet somehow they

00:20:15.760 all bubbled back. It was something like 80% of the people in high level positions of power

00:20:19.800 came from an aristocratic family from the, the, the last dynastic period, which was just wild

00:20:25.720 to me that even when they were, had everything taken away from them, society reassorted that

00:20:30.900 way.

00:20:32.480 And we've seen this with like post-Soviet countries too, I think, right?

00:20:35.900 Right. There's, there's lots of, or you, or you, or you see like the descendants of the

00:20:39.880 banking families in Florence from the 1400s or the Swedish like nobility in the 17th and

00:20:47.360 18th century, these sorts of things. Now this doesn't mean that like we have like a fixed

00:20:51.460 caste status. There are people that go up and people that go down. Traditionally in a Malthusian 0.97

00:20:56.400 environment, actually a lot of people just went down and the lower classes didn't reproduce 0.77

00:20:59.280 themselves. So that like, for example, Oliver Cromwell was like gentry, but you know, he 0.99

00:21:05.020 was like, he's one of my ancestors, by the way.

00:21:07.180 Okay. Well, he was, his grandfather was super rich, you know? And so like he, like in his

00:21:12.980 generation had gone way, way down. And that was common in terms of like downward mobility.

00:21:19.340 And then like the lower classes just didn't reproduce themselves. Obviously it's not like

00:21:22.540 how it is today, but still the point is people still go up, people still go down, but there's

00:21:27.260 also like a rough, like, you know, I don't know. I mean, yeah, it's just, if you like look

00:21:33.500 at people's family backgrounds, you can see that a lot of people have actually not moved

00:21:38.560 as far as you would think.

00:21:39.780 Like a regression to a certain level of wealth.

00:21:41.840 Yeah. And of course these are things that can be changed now with genetic selection technology,

00:21:46.280 which removes one of the biggest barriers in society to true equality.

00:21:51.760 Sort of. Yeah, I agree. The only thing is like, if everyone has access to it, then it'll

00:21:55.340 just like change the baseline, which is okay.

00:21:57.600 Well, I don't think it will. So everyone has access to it, but the groups that will use it,

00:22:01.480 I think are incredibly rare. I think if you look at the people who are actually having

00:22:05.260 kids in our society, maybe two to 3% would really use this technology in mass. And I asked

00:22:11.120 you, you know, before this interview, I was like, oh, the calculation for determining how

00:22:14.940 quickly, you know, if we're creating about the number of embryos we're creating and we're

00:22:18.540 selecting about the number of kids that we're selecting. And you did this for five generations.

00:22:22.740 And then I looked at like the current technology and we should be looking at about a three

00:22:26.960 standard deviation increased in IQ. If you were selecting for IQ only, which is pretty crazy

00:22:31.740 that, that any, any cultural group.

00:22:33.720 We have the, we have, we have the technology. We have the technology.

00:22:36.640 Today. Yeah.

00:22:37.660 Yeah.

00:22:38.340 Really cool.

00:22:39.320 Which is, which is wild. And it, it, it's, it's one of the things I think about where a

00:22:44.240 lot of people who promote like, oh, you know, we should be really accepting of people who

00:22:48.880 are different. And then I'm like, oh, I'm trying to create people who are different. And

00:22:52.280 they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's too different. They would have a lot, a lot

00:22:57.180 of that is like, but a lot of that stuff is like, you know, performative. Yeah.

00:23:01.660 Normie conformity. Like when really weird people actually show up, they're like, whoa, whoa.

00:23:07.960 Whoa. Yeah. It's funny. Actually. We had the episode that went live right before we were

00:23:12.040 filming. This one was the episode where I was going over Nassib Taleb's argument that IQ

00:23:17.320 doesn't matter at all. Um, well that it's, uh, like, what did he say? Made by Charlotte. 0.97

00:23:22.860 It was just so performative. Like, I was like, come on, man. Like, you know, this matters anyway.

00:23:28.720 Well, I mean, you know, it doesn't matter. Cause he calls people fucking retards all the 0.99

00:23:32.020 time. 1.00

00:23:36.960 Destroyed. Destroyed.

00:23:38.720 I love it.

00:23:39.720 One thing I do wonder about is like what the selective pressures will be in the future

00:23:43.360 in terms of gender, like on one end, I see all these fundamentalist groups that are like

00:23:47.060 getting super aggressive and also like probably encouraging a lot of differentiation between

00:23:51.400 the sexes. But then like, when you look at the more technophilic sectors of society or

00:23:56.080 like cultures within society, they're like more blank slatist. Like, no, there shouldn't 0.91

00:24:00.280 be any differences between genders and whether or not there actually are genetically, they're

00:24:04.120 trying to pretend there aren't, maybe they'll try to select against it. Like where, where

00:24:08.480 will the future of, of gender go? Or where is it even now?

00:24:11.740 Yeah. So, I mean, with the trans stuff, one thing I will say, like, I don't talk too much

00:24:15.880 about it, but part of it is it is like modern trans gender therapy, especially for children

00:24:22.540 is transhumanism.

00:24:24.240 Yeah. Yeah.

00:24:25.520 And so that's how you, that's how you eliminate the gender differences. You biologically go in 1.00

00:24:31.100 and tinker, you know? And so that's how you would do it. And you can create homo androgynous 1.00

00:24:36.740 if you want to. The main, the main issue that we're having right now is I think with the

00:24:41.540 trans stuff is the mixing of normie brain with transhumanist technology. So I've said 1.00

00:24:49.600 this elsewhere, but you know, I knew people who are transhumanists like 15 years ago and

00:24:53.000 they're mostly autistic, but now, now these people, they don't call themselves transhumanists.

00:24:57.800 Like, you know, they're like gender fluid or whatever the hell, but like, but they're 1.00

00:25:01.240 normie brained in terms of like, now they're attaching identitarian politics to it. That's

00:25:04.940 the fundamental issue.

00:25:05.660 Yeah. I mean, if you're talking about the genetic differences that would be caused by

00:25:10.000 transness, you're actually going to see an increase in gender dimorphism between the two 1.00

00:25:14.360 genders because of the men who are born thinking more like women and the women who are born thinking 0.60

00:25:19.380 more like men are systemically removed from the genetic pool within the progressive population.

00:25:23.960 That means the progressive Jews who are still breeding or eventually selecting against androgynous and 1.00

00:25:30.080 fimbots. 0.77

00:25:31.080 Yeah. Huh. Okay. So even among like progressive cultures where people like really welcome transness,

00:25:37.500 even that's going to be selected against.

00:25:39.140 Yeah. And as you guys know that this has been like research that goes back a generation.

00:25:42.900 This was obviously cultures that have like give a lot of freedom to gender expression

00:25:47.180 often shake out to be more dimorphic in a lot of ways. Yeah. A lot of that, a lot of the

00:25:52.920 non-performative visible ways. So men and women in Sweden may dress more similarly than men and

00:25:58.580 women in Turkey, but women tend to major in much fewer STEMI things than in Turkey.

00:26:05.800 Hypothesis. Yeah.

00:26:07.240 This is a selective pressure. IE in societies where, uh, it is more accepted that male and

00:26:16.020 female roles aren't different from each other, that the women who have a biological predilection 1.00

00:26:22.620 to take on more masculine roles, end up having fewer kids. Same with the men who take on more

00:26:27.440 feminine roles. And that then doesn't select them out of the gene pool, leading to a higher amount 1.00

00:26:32.680 of inborn gender dimorphism. Yeah. I mean, it could be, I mean, you'd have someone have to

00:26:38.180 like run the simulation. That's the way you would do it. Yeah. Cause like, you know, we've had it

00:26:41.760 since Sweden, we've had it since World War II, right. The sort of kind of like super egalitarian

00:26:46.280 viewpoint. And, you know, ironically, you know, a lot of things are not as different in Sweden.

00:26:52.160 Like there's a lot of sexual, just like dichotomous behavior because men and women are different

00:26:58.040 on average. It's just a fact. Yeah. Well, and they're given the freedom to make those choices.

00:27:01.800 And so they do. Well, I mean, so also like, you know, one of the things that you see in like a

00:27:06.140 lot of the conservative countries is STEM is a way for women to actually break out of the box 1.00

00:27:11.760 because if they're, if they're a successful engineer at the end of the day, people still

00:27:16.200 need successful engineers. And so, you know, women's women in a lot of these conservative 1.00

00:27:20.800 countries, you see that they, they select STEM in particular, not because like, oh, I have a passion

00:27:26.480 for engineering, but they know that that is a path to social liberation that they otherwise would not

00:27:30.760 have. Whereas in Sweden, you don't need to be an engineer to be like respected, like a man.

00:27:37.260 You know, you have equal rights, you know, at least nominally, at least like legally, you know?

00:27:41.420 And so like in Italy, Italy during Mussolini's period, they privileged philosophy and the

00:27:46.720 humanities over science. And so men tended to go into philosophy and the humanities and

00:27:51.680 there were more women in STEM. Yeah. 1.00

00:27:53.960 So that's really, I didn't know that. Why did they do that?

00:27:58.820 I think they wanted to create like, you know, the fascist ideology. And so the philosophers,

00:28:04.180 the philosopher kings were privileged, you know? Huh?

00:28:07.200 Weird. So like scientists, so scientists are technicians, you know, that's what they thought.

00:28:12.180 Oh, that wasn't like high status there.

00:28:14.820 Yeah. That's secretary work. 1.00

00:28:16.200 I think their performance in the war show is how, how far that gets you.

00:28:20.320 Um, this has been a fantastic conversation. Honestly, one of my favorite interviews so far,

00:28:27.120 I am so excited that we got a chance to chat with you. Please, please, please go check out his

00:28:32.420 sub stack. If you want detailed genetic information on humans, the spiciest stuff that you're not going 1.00

00:28:38.480 to get at this level anywhere else, you know, and if you are interested in, if you run any sort of

00:28:47.340 genetics company, because actually our audience is like a lot of entrepreneurs and stuff like that,

00:28:51.960 and you're interested in, in cutting edge technology, you know, receives a guy to reach

00:28:55.500 out to. And thank you so much for joining us. And, and also thank you so much for, for all of the

00:29:01.400 people you help in this space. Cause I was mentioning on the last episode, you help so

00:29:05.500 many young people in this space and it really makes a difference to them.

00:29:08.020 Yeah. I mean, yeah, I guess so. I don't remember that, but I'm sure.

00:29:12.980 Yeah. Yeah. You don't see it that way. So he mentioned in the last episode, he's like,

00:29:16.580 I really like babies. And I'm like, this is again, not a thing that's known about him. He really likes

00:29:21.980 babies. He is the most, if there was some pronatalist apologetic score here, I need to capture it from

00:29:28.640 his genome. I'm going to need to like have my descendants review it to try to find whatever makes

00:29:34.920 him so into. Yeah. Like best dad, best dad, like unbelievable. So yeah, no, huge fans. Obviously

00:29:42.180 we love you so much, Razeev. Thank you so much for coming on. It was my pleasure. I haven't.

Based Camp - November 06, 2023

The Future of Ethnicity with Razib Khan

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