[ExI] Nootropics and Anders

[BillK]

On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Anders Sandberg  wrote:
> That is not obvious at all. Most neuropharmacology is about changing
> trade-offs between different modes of function: focused attention is good
> for some things but not others, but it is (usually) separate from your mood.
> In practice real drugs have combination effects that do not neatly fit the
> tasks or faculties (boosting your awakeness by stimulants will also up your
> noradrenergic levels, perhaps changing your mood if your mood structure is
> sensitive to it, but also make you more stimulus-response driven).
>
> There is often a bottleneck that is the key limitation: your working memory,
> your motivation, your knowledge base, some stupid assumptions. Fixing that
> has the biggest enhancing effects, fixing something else will rarely matter.
>
>
> if you are smarter you might understand what you need to do in order
> to be nicer. You might still not *care* to be nicer, but you are better
> poised to think about it.
>


Well, yes, if you extend the range of drugs to include everything, not
just (possible) intelligence enhancing drugs, then stuff like Oxytocin
will make you love everybody. (Should it be added to the water
supply?).

My point was that twice as smart doesn't make you twice as nice. It
enhances your processing to enable you to do more of whatever you were
like before. It might well enable you to do nasty stuff that you
didn't think you could get away with before.

The other main disadvantage to being made twice as smart is that very
smart people are often contemptuous of lesser intelligences. We see
this already in the finance industry elite. They see 'normal' people
as there to be robbed and swindled. All the top university graduates
that go to work in finance (because the salaries are better) don't
necessarily go there with the intention to swindle everybody. But peer
pressure makes them join in, because the game gives them such big
rewards with little downside. (They never see the ruined lives they
cause - just the millionaire lifestyle they have).


BillK