From: kevin.osborne (kevin.osborne@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Aug 23 2006 - 14:26:17 MDT
there is no question that IQ/g plays a huge factor in measuring a
persons chances of having a positive role in SL4-related developments.
but there are a couple of policy issues here (which I'll mention
quickly before this thread is no doubt sniped):
We have the elite cadre factor, e.g. only the smarties get to make the
decisions and get the good jobs; just as much an ethical minefield as
aryanism or genetic predisposition evaluations. We can't be sure that
a sub-140 intellect might not be blessed with a certain neuronal
misfiring that gives them an edge in developing cognition-replication
algorithms or molecular nano-switches. But we can be sure that
excluding them based on their IQ takes us well on the way to being
Eugenics practitioners. Apotheosis is great but not at the cost of
Altruism, there's no point being transhuman if you can't live with
yourself.
Then there is the issue of telling children with high or low IQ's what
their chances of making a difference are. Growing up in New Zealand I
heard of testing but also that any child who took one was under no
circumstances to be told what their result was. Now residing in
Australia I have met a fair few people who were tested as children and
given particularly high scores - in the 180 range. Some of these
people are close friends and... I love them dearly but someone was
kidding themselves with these tests. These people are bright sure but
are just _not_that_smart_ and for the most part are holding down
minimum wage and have a fairly limited worldview. Is it because they
thought from test result on that everything was going to be handed to
them on a to-your-braininess-sire silver platter? And what about the
stupid kids? Did they ever even bother trying out for college? Do they
content themselves with the fact that they must be 'emotionally' or
'linguistically' intelligent while they work as labourers but can
solve the Times Cryptic - yet scored some second-rate IQ as a
grade-schooler?
Coming back to the 150 vs 180 point now that I've had a bit of a rant
(I've been coding for 21 hours straight x-) : the extra computation
no doubt helps, but we're not currently setup as a techno-creative
society in a way that our highest of higher-order intelligence gets to
have the lion's share of execution cycles on our cognition machines.
We still have to click mice/squint at screens/adjust backrests, spend
precious tens-of-minutes commuting/queueing/holding, waste cycles in
meetings/lifts/gopherings. That extra oomph has got to help but
isolating it from the distraction and noise and ramp-up is the rub.
FWIW I've never had an IQ test; it wasn't offered a kid and like most
adults, I think, I'm now a little bit scared to find out exactly how
average I really am, and just settle myself with beating allcomers at
a bit of chess :-). This is probably the cause behind all the
'emotional intelligence' rubbish; just hairdressers who don't really
get a kick out of thinking of themselves as bottom-rung in the brain
stakes so amp up their fashion sense so they can look down at us nerdy
types. I get the same way about some of the super-brains in IT that
I've met (some have their initials credited somewhere on _your_
machine, trust me) but who are trekkie saps and think a good bushwalk
makes a rockin' weekend (it doesn't. don't be a sap :-)
Also, I don't think cognating SL4 is as big a deal as some of you
think it is. For a start, I'm here, and I feel I'm pretty average joe,
apart from some NZ's-most-wanted action when I was a post-adolescent
wannabe-crim; and most of the people I talk to about this subject
matter are fairly good with it if at least healthily sceptical. In a
world where Elvis Lives and Jesus Cometh the Singularity is just
another salacious shock-jock premonition; the risks are there, but
don't forget that every generation has been convinced it's the last...
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