From Gwern on a Hacker News comment thread:
I always regarded myself as being a left libertarian sort of type. My reaction to learning about individual differences being so profoundly driven by genetics – never mind racial differences – was simple: research and subsidize genetic engineering. For everyone. To the point of being free. Level the genetic playing field. There is not the slightest bit of justice, fairness, or economic optimality to many people being born with high genetic risk for stupidity, schizophrenia, heart attacks, or anything! Anymore than there is in being born with a silver spoon in your mouth or being born female. No different from Headstart or any other program; if we can do it safely and cost-effectively, we should.
If there are racial differences, then that simply means it would be more efficient to allocate more of those funds to people in that group. (Actually, if there are racial differences, this might even be good news; the massive efforts in the USA to close the black-white difference have largely failed over the past half-century, and I have more faith in genetic engineering becoming practical than I do in another half-century of trying the same thing suddenly succeeding. Wouldn’t it be great if the black-white gap was just a few genes or insufficient iodine or something? We can fix that – all it would take is money and science! Maybe not even more than a few billions, chump change! Whereas if it’s structural racism…)
…I think it’s fine for the government to spend on things which pass a stringent cost-benefit test, which genetic engineering would be able to considering the many positive externalities; and I know Headstart doesn’t work, but if it did.
Some subsidies can be justified from a consequential/utilitarian standpoint if the ROI is positive, and still be consistent with libertarianism (or at least minarchism). For example, David D. Friedman advocates a consequentialist approach to policy…”he advocates a consequentialist version of anarcho-capitalism, arguing for anarchism on a cost-benefit analysis of state versus no state.[10] It is contrasted with the natural-rights approach as propounded most notably by economist and libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard.” High-IQ businesses (such as information technology) created by high-IQ founders tend to have a high ROI, so policy that can spur the next generation of Facebooks, Googles, Apples, Teslas, and Amazons, seems prudent and auspicious to economic success.
Boosting national genetic IQ by just a couple points can yield significant economic and social returns. From Eugenics Summary, and HBD-Based Policy
Herrnstein and Murray found that when they moved the average IQ down statistically by just 3 points, from 100 to 97, all social problems were exacerbated: the number of women chronically dependent on welfare increased by 7%; illegitimacy increased by 8%; men interviewed in jail increased by 12%; and the number of permanent high school dropouts increased by nearly 15%.
The problem is politicians, both the left and the right, are afraid to touch the hot potato that is HBD, instead regurgitating same old environment-based solutions to societal problems. For the left, we need more wasteful social programs in a futile effort to close an achievement and wealth gap, which is really an IQ gap. For the right, they say that with smaller government, stronger family units, and more religion, problems like crime, unemployment, and poverty will be lessened.
From 2060 IQ Projections:
We calculated expectable wealth productivity effects (in US Dollar of 2010/2011). Internationally, one IQ point corresponds to $810 higher average productivity per capita and year. Between 2012 and 2060 it is expected that 17 year olds’ ability level will increase by 2.16 (pessimistic model) or 3.68 IQ (optimistic model), representing a productivity gain of $1,750 to $2,981 (at constant prices). The general FLynn effect (White’s slow ability rise) contributes at about $219 to $1,806, minorities’ catch up at $1,644 to $1,450, demographic change at–$1,102, interaction between minorities’ catch up and demographic change at $988 to $834 US Dollar.