[ExI] Silence in the sky-but why?

[Kelly Anderson]

Spike spoke:

I can easily imagine mechanisms which would cause average intelligence to
> decrease.
>

You need look no further than Washington DC to see a prime example of such
a mechanism.

> ****
>
> We may be at, or nearing, or possibly even past, the peak average
> intelligence of our species, depending on how it is measured, and that last
> phrase is very important.
>
It's not the average intelligence that is important, but the intelligence
of the least average person in the smart direction. One Einstein makes up
for a million below average proles in some important ways.


> I know we have these IQ tests and performance is going up.  But we may be
> fooling ourselves.
>
As long as the long tail keeps reaching towards intelligence, I think we
are all good. So long as the dumb proles don't vote themselves too many
feeding troughs.

> ****
>
> We could conceive of an MBrain which would start tugging the sun towards
> another star, which is a necessary prerequisite to some earth-based life
> form colonizing the galaxy.
>
Why is that a necessary prerequisite?

-Kelly
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