Hello

I had an existential crisis when I was around 16-17 after reading a book called the Bell Curve. Nowadays the Bell Curve is most famous for its controversial stance on race and IQ, however what people often do not know is that the book as a whole is supposed to function as a synopsis for IQ research as a whole at the time. In fact, partly why they concluded what they did about race and IQ is not so much due to far-right motivations, but simply because IQ research is very depressing, so why would there not be depressing conclusions about the race-IQ gap. Look at Richard Haiers research on people on the upper echelons of the IQ spectrum and then Jordan Peterson lecturing on those at the bottom, and it gives you a drop in the ocean as to how bad the problem is. Moreover, as any biology student at secondary school will tell you, all organisms are influenced by genetic and environmental factors (excluding controversies surrounding free will and consciousness etc.), which means if we address environmental factors and nothing else (e.g. access to education, access to healthcare, welfare etc.) but do nothing about biological factors, then either now or some time in the future humanity will become nothing more than a genetic-caste system. You may say that there are plenty of people who have high IQs who do not become successful and vice versa, however this does not invalidate the general trend, but simply means that more than just IQ contributes to quality of life (which is certainly the case). 

However, there is also a lot of resistance against Germline Genetic Engineering. Of course, you could argue that this is because the technology is not sophisticated enough just yet, however Elon Musk said in an interview with Tim Urban that the scientific problems would be relatively easy to overcome. He thinks that we nonetheless should not because we do not know how to solve the 'Hitler Problem'. I am not saying there are not controversies with inequality or eugenics or genetic diversity or any of the other arguments cited against GGE. I have debated the subject for a while now, and I know all the counter-arguments. The thing that bugs me is the fact that, from my perspective, what causes people to be against GGE is simply because they do not know how bad the alternative, doing nothing, really is. When I say I had an existential crisis, I do not mean that lightly. This really shook me to my core, and it's annoying that no one knows just how bad the problem is. 

I therefore do not know what to do. The best thing I can think of would be a PhD studying this as my thesis, as the best arguments I make are the ones where I know exactly what I am talking about deeply. However, how exactly I would pursue this is difficult (as GGE for IQ is where careers go to die), and I do not know what exactly I should do instead if that is not an option.

I am not looking to debate the ethics on this post. I have willingly done so on other forums and I will be including links at some stage. Also, there are plenty of people elsewhere who have pointed out that, legally speaking, we can draw legislation that states exactly where the line is between a parent who wants to provide their children with the highest quality of life, and anything that was done in the Eugenics movement of the 20th century (e.g. Moral reasons to edit the human genome: picking up from the Nuffield report by Gyngell et al.). I would therefore guide people to those readings if they would like to know my stance on the issue and what my comebacks would be. 

What do you people think?