5 ms·

> It’s not hard to see how tDCS could pose some ethical considerations, though. Only if you're primed by your culture to blanch at transhumanism. > What if so

> It’s not hard to see how tDCS could pose some ethical considerations, though. Only if you're primed by your culture to blanch at transhumanism. > What if some students can afford tDCS kits, but others can’t? What if some students can afford college, computers, calculators, tutoring, study guides, etc. but others can't? This is one of the silliest purported ethical issues I've ever seen, but it consistently gets contemplating nods from those pretending to be wise, so long as we're talking about a new, scary technology, and not a mundane, accepted reality.

sp332 15y ago
Only if you're primed by your culture to blanch at transhumanism. I think they meant the stigma of "cheating" or somehow getting something without working for it. I think you're right though.
- hrabago 15y ago
  That doesn't sound like what this is, though. Someone is just in an optimum state for learning, but still has to learn the subject.
JonnieCache 15y ago
>What if some students can afford college, computers, calculators, tutoring, study guides, etc. but others can't? Lots of people worry a great deal about these things as well, and would see tDCS as just another factor on that list, making the whole situation worse. It doesn't sound exactly expensive though, so the point is kind of moot.
- phaker 15y ago
  Lots of people worry a great deal about these things as well But they don't advocate delegalizing them either.
godfreykfc 15y ago
What if this allows you to run faster. Should we allow this in Olympics? (I haven't made up my mind yet, but leaning towards a no.)
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  Given that the Olympics is ostensibly rooted in long tradition, I would say no, enhancements should not be allowed. I'm all for allowing drug use of any kind into professional sports. I think it's silly that we watch rather grotesque caricatures of humans swinging bats or tackling people, then pretend to be shocked and admonish them when we find out they're "cheating" by using chemicals. As if the health risks associated with steroids and HGH somehow outweigh the simple risks of broken bones and mutilated joints that are a direct consequence of pushing a body to its limits and beyond on a daily basis.
  - joshu 15y ago
    I would like to see an "all modifications allowed" Olympics, please.
- mistercow 15y ago
  The Olympics, while wonderful, are nothing more than entertainment, so the ethical considerations of "should we or should we not do X" are typically pretty much inconsequential. The ramifications of a runner setting a new record are, in the grand scheme of things, pretty much null. The ramifications of the average human being able to learn more in less time are relatively gigantic. So gigantic, in fact, that I think they dwarf what small social-inequity considerations are raised (if it can really be done for a $90 kit right off the bat, then just wait until economies of scale kick in).
- cheatercheater 15y ago
  They put sprinters in vats of water and ice cubes after running to freeze their muscle so that they perform better, and they put thermometers deep in their butts to check for the exact point until which they can be frozen before they get hypothermia. I think if that's allowed then zapping yourself with 9V is definitely in.
thwest 15y ago
Some are primed to blanch at transhumanism; Some are primed to accept a class-based social hierarchy as simply mundane and not an ethical issue. Every new privilege granted to the top socioeconomic class is an appropriate opportunity to ask the question "why solve this problem instead of improving peoples' lives by tackling inequality?" The answer can be that one is simply working on what one is good at. However that answer doesn't mean the question is silly or appropriate to sideline.
- lincolnq 15y ago
  "tackling inequality" can be achieved in many ways. One of these ways could, counterintuitively, be creating an effective way to produce more elites. If your training program / intelligence amplification technology created another Norman Borlaug or Henry Ford or Bill Gates, you might have had a greater impact on the lower socioeconomic class than if you had managed to invent a new vaccine yourself.
- mistercow 15y ago
  I don't understand how you can look at a $90 kit and call it "a new privilege granted to the top socioeconomic class". It's not a $400 smartness pill or a million dollar brain upgrade. It's a reusable $90 device that increases the benefits of hard work. I'd certainly expect that to have an impact on social inequality, but not in the direction of increasing it.
- Gormo 15y ago
  What does the fact that some people may not be able to immediately afford the latest innovations have to do with accepting a "class-based social hierarchy", or recognizing any social hierarchy at all? Who is 'granting' any 'privileges' to anyone - where do these kinds of notions even come from? Reducing the particulars of actual people's real lives to instances of abstract categories is silly, inappropriate, and insulting; if you know someone who you think would benefit from this device, but who can't afford to buy one, then you can buy one for him yourself. If you know many such people, you can start a foundation to buy them for people, and contribute your own energies to developing even lower-cost open-spec implementations, a la Raspberry Pi. There are plenty of actual solutions you can pursue when you address problems within the particulars of their own contexts. But those who instead prefer merely to dawdle with abstractions, propose preemptive universal-scope policies, and cast people's real circumstances into arbitrary taxonomies are themselves the one promoting some kind of "class-based social hierarchy".
gwern 15y ago
And it also ignores that a lot of these interventions seem to have U-shaped curves: the smartest benefit least. Iodization shifted averages up by like 13 IQ points - and did little or nothing for the smartest people since they didn't have iodine deficiency almost by definition. Modafinil, ritalin, or nootropics - all have similar results. This even holds true with the elderly, where interventions almost always report strikingly larger results than in young people at the peak of their intelligence. To the extent that class issues genuinely match up, these interventions ought to be greeted, especially as this tDCS is cheaper than I remember my programmable TI-84 calculator in high school being!

sp332 15y ago

Only if you're primed by your culture to blanch at transhumanism. I think they meant the stigma of "cheating" or somehow getting something without working for it. I think you're right though.

hrabago 15y ago
That doesn't sound like what this is, though. Someone is just in an optimum state for learning, but still has to learn the subject.

JonnieCache 15y ago

>What if some students can afford college, computers, calculators, tutoring, study guides, etc. but others can't? Lots of people worry a great deal about these things as well, and would see tDCS as just another factor on that list, making the whole situation worse. It doesn't sound exactly expensive though, so the point is kind of moot.

phaker 15y ago
Lots of people worry a great deal about these things as well But they don't advocate delegalizing them either.

godfreykfc 15y ago

What if this allows you to run faster. Should we allow this in Olympics? (I haven't made up my mind yet, but leaning towards a no.)

georgieporgie 15y ago
Given that the Olympics is ostensibly rooted in long tradition, I would say no, enhancements should not be allowed. I'm all for allowing drug use of any kind into professional sports. I think it's silly that we watch rather grotesque caricatures of humans swinging bats or tackling people, then pretend to be shocked and admonish them when we find out they're "cheating" by using chemicals. As if the health risks associated with steroids and HGH somehow outweigh the simple risks of broken bones and mutilated joints that are a direct consequence of pushing a body to its limits and beyond on a daily basis.
- joshu 15y ago
  I would like to see an "all modifications allowed" Olympics, please.
mistercow 15y ago
The Olympics, while wonderful, are nothing more than entertainment, so the ethical considerations of "should we or should we not do X" are typically pretty much inconsequential. The ramifications of a runner setting a new record are, in the grand scheme of things, pretty much null. The ramifications of the average human being able to learn more in less time are relatively gigantic. So gigantic, in fact, that I think they dwarf what small social-inequity considerations are raised (if it can really be done for a $90 kit right off the bat, then just wait until economies of scale kick in).
cheatercheater 15y ago
They put sprinters in vats of water and ice cubes after running to freeze their muscle so that they perform better, and they put thermometers deep in their butts to check for the exact point until which they can be frozen before they get hypothermia. I think if that's allowed then zapping yourself with 9V is definitely in.

thwest 15y ago

Some are primed to blanch at transhumanism; Some are primed to accept a class-based social hierarchy as simply mundane and not an ethical issue. Every new privilege granted to the top socioeconomic class is an appropriate opportunity to ask the question "why solve this problem instead of improving peoples' lives by tackling inequality?" The answer can be that one is simply working on what one is good at. However that answer doesn't mean the question is silly or appropriate to sideline.

lincolnq 15y ago
"tackling inequality" can be achieved in many ways. One of these ways could, counterintuitively, be creating an effective way to produce more elites. If your training program / intelligence amplification technology created another Norman Borlaug or Henry Ford or Bill Gates, you might have had a greater impact on the lower socioeconomic class than if you had managed to invent a new vaccine yourself.
mistercow 15y ago
I don't understand how you can look at a $90 kit and call it "a new privilege granted to the top socioeconomic class". It's not a $400 smartness pill or a million dollar brain upgrade. It's a reusable $90 device that increases the benefits of hard work. I'd certainly expect that to have an impact on social inequality, but not in the direction of increasing it.
Gormo 15y ago
What does the fact that some people may not be able to immediately afford the latest innovations have to do with accepting a "class-based social hierarchy", or recognizing any social hierarchy at all? Who is 'granting' any 'privileges' to anyone - where do these kinds of notions even come from? Reducing the particulars of actual people's real lives to instances of abstract categories is silly, inappropriate, and insulting; if you know someone who you think would benefit from this device, but who can't afford to buy one, then you can buy one for him yourself. If you know many such people, you can start a foundation to buy them for people, and contribute your own energies to developing even lower-cost open-spec implementations, a la Raspberry Pi. There are plenty of actual solutions you can pursue when you address problems within the particulars of their own contexts. But those who instead prefer merely to dawdle with abstractions, propose preemptive universal-scope policies, and cast people's real circumstances into arbitrary taxonomies are themselves the one promoting some kind of "class-based social hierarchy".

gwern 15y ago

And it also ignores that a lot of these interventions seem to have U-shaped curves: the smartest benefit least. Iodization shifted averages up by like 13 IQ points - and did little or nothing for the smartest people since they didn't have iodine deficiency almost by definition. Modafinil, ritalin, or nootropics - all have similar results. This even holds true with the elderly, where interventions almost always report strikingly larger results than in young people at the peak of their intelligence. To the extent that class issues genuinely match up, these interventions ought to be greeted, especially as this tDCS is cheaper than I remember my programmable TI-84 calculator in high school being!