Here's my attempt to compile the heritabilities (in the narrow sense of h^2) for many different interesting human traits.
Before you read this, however, I recommend you read our piece on the Missing Heritability Problem which provides important context for interpreting this information.
We'll first look at estimated heritabilities from five categories: body, mental health, physical health, cognitive/mind-related traits, and personality (including the Big Five personality traits).
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Author: Spencer
Categorizing types of beliefs: Valuable Truths, Bitter Pills, Philosophical Disorders and Helpful Falsehoods
Seek "Valuable Truths".
Resist and challenge "Philosophical Disorders."
I'm also of the opinion that being happy to cling to "Helpful Falsehoods" is usually a bad life strategy.
Here's an infographic I made showing how I categorize beliefs:
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Oversimplifiers vs. Difference Deniers: a dynamic regarding group differences that leads to rage and confusion
Here's a misery-filled dynamic that I believe commonly plays out regarding small observed differences between groups:
(1) Two groups have a small (but meaningful) difference in their average value of some trait, with heavily overlapping distributions.
(2) Some people ("Oversimplifiers") observe this difference (in their everyday life or media reports) and turn this small average difference into a (sometimes very harmful) oversimplification: "A's are like this, B's are like that."
(3) O...
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Valuism and X: how Valuism sheds light on other domains – Part 5 of the sequence on Valuism
By Spencer Greenberg and Amber Dawn Ace
Image created using the A.I. DALL•E 2
This is the fifth and final part in my sequence of essays about my life philosophy, Valuism - here are the first, second, third, and fourth parts.
In previous posts, I've described Valuism - my life philosophy. I've also discussed how it could serve as a life philosophy for others. In this post, I discuss how a Valuist lens can help shed light on various fields and areas of inquiry.
Valuism and ...
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What countries have the most billion-dollar startup companies per capita?
What countries have the most unicorns (i.e., billion-dollar startup companies) per capita (i.e., per person)?
Oddly, I couldn't find this anywhere, so I calculated it.
The winners:
Singapore
Israel
the United States
Estonia
Ireland
Here's the full chart I created:
Interestingly, the top of the table pretty closely follows the amount of startup investment per capita according to this chart from Crunchbase:
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What would a robot value? An analogy for human values – part 4 of the Valuism sequence
By Spencer Greenberg and Amber Dawn Ace
This post is part of a sequence about Valuism - my life philosophy. This post is the most technical of the sequence. Here are the first, second, third, and fifth parts of the sequence.
Image created using the A.I. DALL•E 2
This is the fourth of five posts in my sequence of essays about my life philosophy, Valuism - here are the first, second, third, and fifth parts (though the last link won’t work until that essay is released).
I...
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13 metaphors to give the flavor of why sufficiently advanced A.I. could be extremely dangerous
1. Suppose a new species evolves on earth with the same intellectual, planning, and coordination abilities relative to us that we have relative to chimps. Chimps are faster and stronger than most humans - why don't they run the show?
2. Suppose aliens show up on earth that are far smarter than the smartest among us at all cognitive tasks. They have specific goals that aren't fully aligned with ours, are completely unconstrained by human morality, and don't value our survival. What happens ne...
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Should Effective Altruists be Valuists instead of utilitarians? – part 3 in the Valuism sequence
By Spencer Greenberg and Amber Dawn Ace
Image created using the A.I. DALL•E 2
This is the third of five posts in my sequence of essays about my life philosophy, Valuism - here are the first, second, fourth, and fifth parts (though the links won’t work until those other essays are released).
Sometimes, people take an important value - maybe their most important value - and decide to prioritize it above all other things. They neglect or ignore their other values in the process. In ...
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What to do when your values conflict? – part 2 in the Valuism sequence
By Spencer Greenberg and Amber Dawn Ace
Image created using the A.I. DALL•E 2
This is the second of five posts in my sequence of essays about my life philosophy, Valuism - here are the first, third, fourth, and fifth parts.
Pretty much all of us have multiple intrinsic values (things we value for their own sake, not merely as a means to an end). This means that sometimes our intrinsic values come into conflict. For example, you might value:
Both achieving ambitious goals and...
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Doing what you value as a life philosophy – an introduction to Valuism – part 1 in the Valuism sequence – what are intrinsic values and why do they matter?
By Spencer Greenberg and Amber Dawn Ace
This is the first of five posts in my sequence of essays about my life philosophy, Valuism - here are the second, third, fourth, and fifth parts. Featured image created using the A.I. DALL•E 2
Many of us struggle at times to know what to do. We are surrounded by conflicting advice about how to live our lives - from our parents, peers, and communities, from ancient philosophers, and from modern gurus and intellectuals. Faced with these con...
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