asciilifeform comments on Intelligence enhancement as existential risk mitigation - Less Wrong

17 [deleted] 15 June 2009 07:35PM

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Comment author: MichaelBishop 16 June 2009 04:20:59PM 0 points [-]

persons with high IQ are often prevented from putting it to a meaningful use due to the way societies are structured.

Do you mean that organizations aren't very good at selecting the best person for each job. I agree with that statement, but its about much, much, more than IQ. It is a tough nut to crack but I have given some thought to how we could improve honest signaling of people's skills.

Comment author: asciilifeform 16 June 2009 04:50:37PM *  4 points [-]

Do you mean that organizations aren't very good at selecting the best person for each job.

Actually, no. What I mean is that human society isn't very good at realizing that it would be in its best interest to assign as many high-IQ persons as possible the job of "being themselves" full-time and freely developing their ideas - without having to justify their short-term benefit.

Hell, forget "as many as possible", we don't even have a Bell Labs any more.

Comment author: komponisto 17 June 2009 12:43:13AM 3 points [-]

This, I think, is a special case of what I meant. A simple, crude, way to put the general point is that people don't defer enough to those who are smarter. If they did, smart folks would be held in higher esteem by society, and indeed would consequently have greater autonomy.

Comment author: MichaelBishop 16 June 2009 05:53:07PM 0 points [-]

How should society implement this? I repeat my claim that other personal characteristics are as important as IQ.

Comment author: asciilifeform 16 June 2009 06:00:25PM 0 points [-]

I do not know of a working society-wide solution. Establishing research institutes in the tradition of Bell Labs would be a good start, though.