I have an idea which would solve every problem on earth.

This forum has nothing to do with chess at all, but with an idea I had and can’t shake off, cause I can’t see how or why my idea would be faulty. And if it’s not faulty, implementing my idea would mean every non-technical problem we have on earth would be solved forever.
So here’s my idea: If you were to successfully measure the empathy of every person in a society, then try to encourage the 20% most empathetical people to have children, and rewarding the 20% least emphatically people for not having any children. Then this would result in all people in that society to slowly get more empathetical after each generation due to this method. I call this method Forced Evolution, cause the principal of evolution is applied only not by natural law of nature.
In order to believe my idea is possible at all, you have to believe the personality and existence of every individual is created by 2 things only: DNA and environment (environment is everything which happens to you in your life). My idea is focused on the first aspect: DNA.

Now you may think, why would we do this, what is the benefit of this idea? Well, imagine a society, where this method is successfully applied, in a couple of hundred years. In this society:

No psychopath, or sociopaths would exist anymore. 

Crime rate would plummet to essentially non-existing.

Everyone would genuinely care for those around them, and would genuinely want to help those around them.

You could trust everyone around you, you could give a complete stranger your wallet and walk away, and he would return it to you.

Every major problem we have today would get solved. Global warming would get solved, cause people would care less about their own prosperity and well-being than the existence of the earth. People would care about plastic pollution in the ocean, and causing no more pollution would be a big priority for everyone.

Animal cruelty would be minimal and the terrible condition of livestock animals would get drastically improved.

Basically what you have achieved is, you created a society of angels: Heaven on earth.

Now, is it possible to implement my idea, to test and rank every individual by how empathetic they are and to then reduce/increase the extremes of the curve? I think it is.
First of all, all methods used must obviously be throughly tested by science to be fault-proof, which may take decades to do, and the correct way to implement my idea may differ from the implementation I came up with, but this is what I came up with:

The test. If you basically make a very accurate lie-detector, using measurements used in lie-detectors existing right now, but train an AI on the data. By collecting lots of examples of people lying, and lots of people telling the truth, that AI may get very good at detecting lies. If you also search for empathy it may get very good at spotting that as well. You can then ask the participants certain questions like “Would you care if I punched a dog?” Or something of that nature and you should get a strong reaction if empathy is high.
A second method could be, to use VR-goggles on the participants, and while he is watching something which should trigger empathy, measure his breathing, blood-pressure etc, to see if the empathy is genuine.

If everyone is then ranked as to their empathy levels, the least empathic individuals should be encouraged not to get children, but should not be forced to. This could be achieved by rewarding them, in money or otherwise, if they refrain from having children.
The most empathetic individuals only have to be encouraged, cause since their intrinsic desire is to do good anyway, they will do it even without reward.

What do you think of my idea, would it work on a technical level? And do you agree it would solve every non-technical problem forever?

😶

Sounds scary.

Fr. This is like one of those movies where everyone's forced to be happy or smth...

Or... We could just destroy the sun! No more poverty, no more pollution, no more racism, it would get rid of all the bad things!

Well the thing is, the empathetical people I would like society to consist of are already here, they're just a small percentage of the population. These people are not forced to be happy, they are just like you, and the only difference is the empathy they're capable of feeling.

This giving anyone else 1984 vibes?

okay...

Bro this ain’t getting used until we achieve world leaders having mind control and that not happening due to ethical reasons.

Next elroch?

Yep

I think that if there was such a strong and obvious link between a person's genetic makeup and his empathy as you suggest, then the 'empathy gene' would probably get as much attention from scientists as other genetic disorders such as Down syndrome and Huntingson's disease. In reality, when it comes to this subject, your genotype is probably a very negligible factor; and the only real way to improve people's empathy is through methods like education, community building and other social policies.

Just because you're empathetic doesn't mean you won't do anything harmful to others.

Every living being on earth is the way it is because of its DNA. The reason we are able to feel empathy, is because it is in our DNA. Our DNA in it's turn, is created and shaped by evolution. So it is without a doubt the case, that we can change our empathy through this Forced Evolution.

So now the question becomes to what extend the DNA of the top 10% most natural empathetic, differ from the top 10% naturally least empathetic people. If this difference is significant (and I think it is), then in my opinion it's not a bad idea to use forced evolution on empathy in our society. Especially keeping in mind the tremendous positive potential as illustrated in my original post.

It means you will feel bad about harming others, and don't want to see others in pain. It indeed doesn't mean you can't.

This is not guaranteed to work, and it’s very unlikely that it will ‘solve all of the world’s problems’. While there’s a much better chance for the kids of parents who are more empathetic, it’s simply not a guarantee.

Eugenics is not a new concept and has been tried. Read a history book

That is just not true. The neurological structures necessary for us to feel empathy are the result of our DNA, yes, but the actual expression of empathy, like how much you show it, when and toward who, is largely determined by external factors like your environment, culture and experiences. Your argument might as well be "DNA makes us able to learn language, let's breed people to learn French".

Wow a scientific debate on OTF 👏👏

First of all, you cannot objectively measure empathy. Not everyone is going to be comfortable sharing all their thoughts in the test, rendering the results worthless.

Secondly, what exactly is it about people with higher empathy that make them superior to others? And what type of empathy are we even talking about here, the shallow, loud fake kind, or the real thing? Because if it’s the real thing, that’s impossible to measure, and if it’s the fake loud kind, then that’s not a good indication of what you clearly think, which is that humans that show more empathy are better humans.

Finally, the fact that you would gatekeep the joy of raising kids to the people who arbitrarily got a better score on a meaningless test is crazy to me. This would be like if you had every person take an IQ test and only the top 20 percent of intelligence got to have kids. And even that wouldn’t be quite as terrible of an idea as this, because at least professionally administered IQ tests have a level of objectivity.

Basically, for someone suggesting only the most empathetic should have kids, you yourself clearly aren’t very empathetic.