Really? Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that you were in your 30s or 40s, which in the US would damage your chances pretty badly. Perhaps I should amend my essay if it's really that easy in the UK, because the difficulty of donating is the main problem (the next 2 problems are estimating the marginal increase in IQ by one donating, and then estimating the value of said marginal increase in IQ). Do you get notified when some of your sperm actually gets used or is it blind?
I'm 45, started this donation cycle at 44. Limit in the UK is 40-45 depending on clinic. I went to KCH, that link has all the tl;dr you could ever use on the general subject.
I thought I said this in email before ... the UK typically has ~500 people a year wanting sperm, but only ~300 donors' worth of sperm. So donate and it will be used if they can use it.
They don't notify, but I can inquire about it later and find out if it's been used. This will definitely not be for at least six months. The sperm may be kept and used up to about 10 years, I think.
My inc...
I blew through all of MoR in about 48 hours, and in an attempt to learn more about the science and philosophy that Harry espouses, I've been reading the sequences and Eliezer's posts on Less Wrong. Eliezer has written extensively about AI, rationality, quantum physics, singularity research, etc. I have a question: how correct has he been? Has his interpretation of quantum physics predicted any subsequently-observed phenomena? Has his understanding of cognitive science and technology allowed him to successfully anticipate the progress of AI research, or has he made any significant advances himself? Is he on the record predicting anything, either right or wrong?
Why is this important: when I read something written by Paul Krugman, I know that he has a Nobel Prize in economics, and I know that he has the best track record of any top pundit in the US in terms of making accurate predictions. Meanwhile, I know that Thomas Friedman is an idiot. Based on this track record, I believe things written by Krugman much more than I believe things written by Friedman. But if I hadn't read Friedman's writing from 2002-2006, then I wouldn't know how terribly wrong he has been, and I would be too credulous about his claims.
Similarly, reading Mike Darwin's predictions about the future of medicine was very enlightening. He was wrong about nearly everything. So now I know to distrust claims that he makes about the pace or extent of subsequent medical research.
Has Eliezer offered anything falsifiable, or put his reputation on the line in any way? "If X and Y don't happen by Z, then I have vastly overestimated the pace of AI research, or I don't understand quantum physics as well as I think I do," etc etc.