Will designer brains divide humanity?

[Soylent Brice]

13 May 2009 by Andy Coghlan

WE ARE on the brink of technological breakthroughs that could augment our mental powers beyond recognition. It will soon be possible to boost human brainpower with electronic "plug-ins" or even by genetic enhancement. What will this mean for the future of humanity?

This was the theme of a recent Neuroscience in Context meeting in Berlin, Germany, where anthropologists, technologists, neurologists, archaeologists and philosophers met to consider the implications of this next stage of human brain development. Would it widen the gulf between the world's haves and have-nots - and perhaps even lead to a distinct and dominant species with unmatchable powers of intellect?

One view is that this is merely the next phase in a process that has been taking place throughout human history. Humans have always played an active role in improving their own brainpower, says Lambros Malafouris of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge, UK, who was one of the organisers of the Berlin meeting. It began with inherited gene mutations that gave us uniquely "plastic" brains, capable of changing physically to meet hitherto unassailable intellectual and practical challenges.



more: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227083.700-will-designer-brains-divide-humanity.html

[Eric J in MN]

1. Being smart doesn't make one rich and powerful..

College professors are generally smart. But not rich and powerful.

[Teaser]

give us time.

we are merely massing our power, waiting for the right moment.

[FiveGoodMen]

10. Make it soon!

The world has been ruled by idiots for long enough.

[Soylent Brice]

5. on the contrary, in a lot of cases knowing something is sometimes all you need to wield power

over another.

informational advantages.

[Eric J in MN]

7. Whether someone is smart is a different issue from....

...whether he has access to private information, and a willingness to use it for blackmail.

[Soylent Brice]

11. lol

true, but knowledge is power. always has been.

[AnneD]

13. Knowledge is NOT power......

the Application of Knowledge is power. You can be the smartest person in the world but if you can't tie your shoes, WHAT GOOD IS IT.

Pres Carter was smart-no doubt about it. Probably smarter than LBJ. But when you look at their records-LBJ did more in his short time than Cartet did, for example.

[Soylent Brice]

14. just referring to the old adage:

“Knowledge is power.” - Sir Francis Bacon

“In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power” - JFK

etc etc.

[Teaser]

2. It's probably inevitable, and if I could take a drug to boost my brainpower, I would

so how do we allocate this new resource equitably?

[valerief]

3. We already have class division based on access to education and/or inherited wealth.

We got it already. This is just a new flavor.

[HopeHoops]

4. Probably no more than designer jeans have.

Unless they are "hip hugger" brains. Then we would have to rethink the matter.

[hobbit709]

6. There's already homo nonsapiens-the average freeper.

[NC_Nurse]

8. The GOP will be over without a new supply of dimwits to brainwash.

[Spike89]

9. Short term social upheaval

Actual implants aren't as likely to create "super" thinkers as soon as genetic mods do it. There will be a split between the haves and have-nots that will push the existing splits to a stage of revolution. The haves will be forced to make the treatment universally available not directly by the have-nots, but because the haves will understand that they simply can't exist as a minority and once it hits a tipping point, there is no advantage and a huge downside to having clever and resentful (if relatively stupid) unmodified humans around in great numbers.

[unpossibles]

12. a really good novelization of this and related ideas is Charles Stross' "Accelerando"

http://www.accelerando.org/

A very good read. It's all about evolving human (and otherwise) intelligence and touches upon a LOT of really neat points, from data rights to the basic question: "what makes a human?"

[Soylent Brice]

15. my favorite book hands down.

Aneiko is god.