gwern comments on Limitless, a Nootropics-Centered Movie - Less Wrong

7 Post author: atucker 15 March 2011 01:58AM

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Comment author: AngryParsley 15 March 2011 03:13:59AM *  16 points [-]

this seems to be of the common subgenre of scif where any new technology must have terrible costs, and when there aren't any plausible costs, the power of plot will provide them.

Yep. Something tells me this will be similar to caveman science fiction.

Comment author: gwern 15 March 2011 04:20:20PM 1 point [-]

Predictable, really. There's not much of a Hollywood movie story in 'guy takes a pill and becomes really really awesome. The End.'

Comment author: Broggly 15 March 2011 04:38:24PM 3 points [-]

Wait, so they're not making the Captain America movie now?

Comment author: NihilCredo 15 March 2011 05:03:31PM 2 points [-]

In fairness, in the 1940s nootropics would have been hyped as the salvation of humanity (and any potential side effects carefully swept under the carpet).

Comment author: gwern 15 March 2011 05:02:38PM 2 points [-]

Captain America isn't as cost-less as you think; to quote from the Marvel Wikia about the 'super-soldier serum' that makes a Captain America:

But the more powerful variants come with strange side-effects that may also include mental deficiencies.

(In one random comic - I have no idea which - that I read as a kid, S.H.I.E.L.D. had apparently put Captain America into cryogenic suspension specifically to stop the serum from killing the cap'n, in the hopes that the future could fix him. Quite a side-effect.)

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