Re: Steering the Extropian Ship [was ... Where do cool people go?]

From: Robert Bradbury (bradbury@genebee.msu.su)
Date: Wed Apr 19 2000 - 18:45:58 MDT


On Wed, 19 Apr 2000, Anders Sandberg wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Apr 2000, Robert Bradbury wrote:
>
>>>> Re: resurrection theorists...
> >
> > Well, Anders' IQ is about 10 points above mine and I think he is in
> > the same camp I'm in on this scenario.
>
> Thanks, but I thought it was the other way around - you 10 points
> higher than me? Maybe we have some kind of weird intelligence
> rock-scissors-paper loop here... :-)

I think that is experience weighing in rather than raw intelligence,
so I'd agree with the analogy.

I had a individual working for me a couple of years ago who went
through MIT, I believe, with a 4.0 average. He could run circles
around anyone I've ever met, with the possible exceptions of
Eric D. or Robert F.

The interesting thing about being moderately smart is that it
lets you *clearly* see how very smart the really smart people are.
I'm often struck by "everyday" situations (some of which crop up
quite often in Russia) where I become aware of how the average
individual hasn't the faintest clue of the *real* range that
intelligence can span. I think there was a posting on the EI-list
or on /. a few months ago about how "clueless" the average individual
is. It is presumably a form of mental self-preservation, not knowing
what you really might be capable of with some IA. But it touches
on the issue of why more people aren't demonstrating in the
streets in favor of technologies to uplift them to the levels
mentioned above.

You can put "Wouldn't you like to add 50 points to your IQ?" in
the same class as "Wouldn't you like to double your expected
lifespan?". Most people have no idea what it really means.

Robert



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