Questions you can't ask

There should be a word for the phenomenon whereby people try to make things sound more interesting than they really are by pretending they're disallowed, banned or censored. The phenomenon is common enough and annoying enough that it'd be great to say "Oh, that's just [insert new word here]".<p>In this case, these questions aren't really "questions you can't ask". It's true that people are a little over-touchy on a few of them, but most of them are just fairly dull questions which are rarely asked because either:<p>(a) They're dumb suggestions (active population control, abolishing corporations)<p>(b) They're based on false assumptions (e.g. people are "anti-sex", whatever that means), or<p>(c) We're sick of the question already<p>A couple of the others (rights of AI, why people make decisions subconciously and then make rationalizations) are questions which get asked all the time.

1. No. First, because we don't know how genetics really works. Second, because it violates an individual's freedom.<p>2. Genetic and social aren't separate things, but parts of an evolutionary continuum. Google the Baldwin Effect. Yes, there are many theories. Read any book about evolutionary psychology.<p>3. No.<p>4. Citation, please.<p>5. No.<p>6. Yes, but not what you're thinking. No.<p>7. Stupid question.<p>8. Yes. None.<p>9. Nothing.<p>10. Nothing, none.<p>11. No. Market economics.<p>12. Evolution. That they aren't what they at first seem.<p>What a load of crap.

Touchy topics, to be sure. I think they all can and should be asked. Whether each is really worth of much debate is a different question.<p>Most are worth debating, some aren't: depending on your audience. I think most people think these are things you "can't ask" because many folks lack an intelligent, informed opinion on the topic, and therefore resort to emotional closed-minded positions that result in little exchange of ideas.<p>So, intelligent people think: "Maybe I can't ask that question."

<i>8. If AI can be created, should it be? What rights would it have?</i><p>What's wrong with this one? Maybe I live in my own mind, but this question seems to be asked a lot in my group of people.

Assuming for a minute that this is a person who honestly feels these questions are off-limits (as opposed to just trying to crank up the old hit machine) I think the questions say more about the questioner than the questions themselves.<p>In certain circles all of these questions are on the table -- including a lot more obnoxious questions than he thought about. In certain circles a lot more questions are off limits (I'm thinking of the former dean of Harvard and his simple suggestion that "Do the sexes learn differently?" would be a provocative question. Poor schmuck)<p>I liked #1 the best, about evolving the human genome. The reason why is that it seems so logical at the surface -- if people can be "bred" like cats and dogs, why not breed them for qualities we all hold dear?<p>The coolest part of that question is that we immediately hit Godwin's law and end up where all internet discussions lead -- Nazis. And for good reason! They had the same ideas. (I won't go into trashing the entire notion. Too easy to do. I would add that most attacks on it are a lot more emotional than rational though)

all of these focus on what the government "should" do. The government is broken. good luck getting it to do anything.

Just a bunch of nutcase, leading questions.<p>"If IQ doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist, then why is it the single largest statistical predictor of life trajectory?" Who says it's the largest predictor? Who says IQ does not exist or does not matter?<p>All of these "questions" were made to fit this guy's pre-conceived answers and arguments. And why can't you ask these questions in "modern political debate and polite society"?<p>Then you see the guy's blog subtitle: "Driving my truck through the flaws in capitalism" and you realize you've wasted your time reading gibberish from a guy people usually describe as "nutcase."<p>Creating questions to fit your pre-conceived answers is a cheap mental trick, nothing even close to the Jedi mind trick :-). I figure since nobody was asking him, he chose to ask himself the questions.

&#62; Why is there a deep-seated, cross-cultural tendency to be de facto anti-sex, even among the “liberal” left? What is the genetic or social basis of this tendency?<p>Who is anti-sex? I don't know any people who are against sex. Does this question mean something else? Or is this US specific?

1. No. You try to breed for egg laying chickens and you end up with super aggressive chickens. You select for Malaria resistance you end up with rickets. Life is not something you can linearly improve on and there is no goal to reach for.<p>2. Uh, what?<p>3. No. George Bush is a socialist.<p>4. Are you sure it is, what if your dad is Prescott Bush? I'd think who your parents are is an even better predictor then IQ.<p>5. No. But you sure should stop government subsidies.<p>6. All of humanity is more similar then just one tribe of chips. We are all descendant of a handful of people (5 women) who lived ~ 80000 years ago.<p>7. Maybe they have kids?<p>8. Yes. None.<p>9. Nothing.<p>10. Difference between individuals are HUGE, difference between large groups tiny.<p>11. China.<p>12. Nothing. Most people are simply more emotional then us rational geeks.