[extropy-chat] Moving on (was CF research)

[Samantha Atkins]

On Feb 12, 2007, at 7:02 AM, Keith Henson wrote:

> At 08:31 AM 2/12/2007 -0500, you wrote:
>> On 2/11/07, Keith Henson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:
>>> Have you considered an intermediate step?  An intelligence  
>>> amplifier that
>>> could build engineering models and keep track of details would be of
>>> enormous help.  Not to mention being worth a fortune.

Building something generally enough to have a sufficient market for a  
decent ROI and yet sufficiently intuitive, efficient and useful to  
precisely the project you are working on now without taking too long  
out of the schedule to learn the tool is a real trick.    How many  
potential users willing to pay how much for what with what kind of  
long term maintenance, support and enhancement costs?   It might be  
better to do it with a consortium of interested parties under open  
source.   More of a Cathedral than a Bazaar though.

>>
>> Can you further qualify "intelligence amplifier"?
>
> A slide rule is an intelligence amplifier.  Computers more so,
> Google/Wikipedia etc.  I have been working on a space elevator design
> recently and the nitpicking details are painful to keep track of.
>
>> I imagine a concoction of chemicals that when consumed by
>> already-smart people, makes them more likely to have periods of  
>> highly
>> lucid creativity and focused output towards a goal.  This too  
>> would be
>> worth a fortune, but does not scale as well as computer hardware due
>> to the relative scarcity of already-smart people.  :)
>

Hmm.  How about drugs that make even less smart people unusually  
lucid, creative and capable of accelerated learning?

- samantha