The Risks of Cognitive Enhancement

We don't really know what's going to happen if we start trying to meddle with genes, as some people would say, to increase intelligence. More intelligent people on average tend to live longer and avoid many kinds of social mishaps. It's at least arguable that we need more intelligent foresight than wiser decision-making to meet many of the great challenges of the 21st century. And although there might be new risks introduced by changing average intelligence, there might also be many new means of reducing risk that would be made available to us, if we were smarter.