Why achieving Darwinian equality is bad for humanity — from a utilitarian’s perspective

In the previous article, I expressed how to achieve true equality — by ensuring Lemarkian equality and Darwinian equality. In this article, I will demonstrate the utilitarian ills of ensuring Darwinian equality.

TLDR:

1. The greatest advancement in human progress are made a few individuals with rare traits
2. Darwinian equality prevents these traits from being created by random variation
3. We need to balance Darwinian equality and ability for natural variation to occur

The concept of Darwinian equality can be achieved through genetic engineering of children. This is ensures that each children will have the same attributes, aptitudes and will have an equal chance to succeed in all fields. Given the assumption that traits are not mutually exclusive of each other, it seems to be amazing that each child will be born with immense talent in all fields.

However, achieving Darwinian equality negates human’s strongest trait in long-term survival — variation. Through genetic engineering of children, we basically ensure that every child’s genome is the same. Everyone is dealt the same cards, seems fair right? But Darwinian equality forces everyone to be in the same boat. For example, if a person is highly vulnerable to coronavirus, it will mean that an entire human population will be susceptible to coronavirus. And vice versa. It will mean that an extinction event of the human race can be more easily achieved by random environmental condition changes.

These are basic evolution and natural selection concepts.

But it is boring just to think of this in terms of humanity’s survival. If we assume that humanity’s survival is somehow guaranteed, we can then explore how Darwinian equality will affect human progress and technological advancement.

On the surface level, it seems that Darwinian equality will massively increase human progress and work efficiency. If we can engineer everyone’s genes such that they are fully talented and competent, the economical production capacity generated by the human race will increase by a few magnitudes.

However, exploring deeper, we find that achieving Darwinian equality will be the biggest hindrance in great human progress. Why? Because it is almost impossible to predict what human traits are required to bring humanity to the next big leap.

Looking back at history, we will realise that the greatest human advancements are spurred by the works of a few, revolutionary people. The typical human being is designed to maintain the status quo — which by itself is a difficult thing to do. The hard work of the billions of people around the world ensure that humanity continue to function properly. They ensure that humanity can continue to enjoy its current higher quality of life — rather than going back to the hunter-gather times.

It is handful of human beings in every generation that are blessed with unique traits which enables them to bring humanity forward to destinations not travelled. But what are the exact traits which enables these individuals to propel humanity forward? The answer is: No one knows. The human civilization is constantly changing, the challenges faced by one generation would be very different from the challenges faced by the next. Therefore, the traits are the required to make significant changes to the world will also change from generation to generation. The traits required to succeed in today’s digital age is very different from the traits required to succeed during the Industrial Revolution.

In today’s Information age, we see strange phenomenon’s happening. One example is the Geek Syndrome — cases of the Asperger’s syndrome was reported to be surging in Silicon Valley in recent years. Perhaps, Asperger’s syndrome confers some advantages to these individuals enabling them to succeed in a highly tech dominated environment. If you had asked someone a 100 years ago whether being on the Autistic Spectrum can confer traits which are beneficial in the harsh competitive job market, it would have been ridiculous. But this is something that we are seeing in the 21st century.

It is almost impossible for humans to predict what traits are required for humanity to make the next leap forward. Therefore, the strategy that nature has adopted has been weirdly effective — natural variation through mutations, independent assortment, random fertilization. It is nature’s built-in randomness in traits has enables at least a handful of human beings to be lucky enough to be given the traits that will enable them to change the world. Humans need the 0.0…01% of individuals to be given just the right traits to propel humanity forward into the future.

If we were to ensure Darwinian equality, humans will never have the right traits to make the next big leap. We will always be stuck in our status quo.

We live in a cruel world. We are faced with the conundrum between the short-term happiness that Darwinian equality provides and the long-term happiness the revolutionary human progress can provide.

On one hand, variation produces brilliant human beings (brilliant in terms of the prevailing selection pressures) that helps humanity overcome the challenges of the generation. On the other hand, variation also produces many human beings who have traits that are not meant to excel in the rules defined in today’s generation.

Life is inherently unfair and we can only hope that we are given the right deck of cards.

However, even when a individual is the 0.0…01% of individuals to be given just the right traits to propel humanity forward into the future, it does not mean that he/she will be able to fulfil their potential. Because they may not have the right opportunities to succeed. This is the plight of a society without Darwinian equality or Lemarkian equality. The greatest tragedy is to invest in variation and randomness and yet end of with these prodigal individuals that are unable to live up to their potential. Hence, if we want to give up the benefits of Darwinian equality in favour of variation, we must ensure that Lemarkian equality is in place first.

Ultimately, it is important to recognize that the ideas of Darwinian and Lemarkian equality are not binary. There can be levels of Darwinian equality and Lemarkian equality achieved within society. The key is for the human race to find the sweet spot. It is a spot where we can ensure basic welfare of human beings via genetic engineering, but also allow of a degree of variation which enables the 0.0…01% of individuals to redefine the future.