4 ms·
Only in the most pedantic sense. No one's afraid of someone with the equivalent of built-in glasses or hearing aids. What worries them is the prospect of someo
by PhasmaFelis 10y ago
Only in the most pedantic sense.
No one's afraid of someone with the equivalent of built-in glasses or hearing aids. What worries them is the prospect of someone with superhuman mental ability. The potential to create a permanent underclass is obvious.
- akvadrako 10y agoSo obvious it already exists
- pharrington 10y agoAs others in the thread have pointed out, the original superhuman cognitive augmentation was called literacy. Literacy indeed was restricted in an attempt to create a permanent underclass. Unfortunately I don't know enough history to have a satisfying understanding of how literacy became ubiquitous in most of the world, or how that interacted with the spread of wealth derived from automation, but intuitively it seems hard to maintain the restriction of augments, especially when the augments specifically increase general intelligence.
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoThere is a huge social and logistical difference between education and implanting computer chips in people's brains. We already have a semi-permanent underclass based on (among other things) poor access to decent education, something which is supposedly guaranteed by law in the US. Imagine how much worse that will get if we don't even pretend that augmentation is a universal right, but let the free market charge for it instead.