Wednesday's Brain Is Bigger: Who's Posthuman Now?

[elfs]

One in five scientists uses cognition enhancing drugs

Nature did a survey of 1,400 scientists and discovered that about 20% of them used Ritalin, Modafinil, and anti-anxiety medications to boost cognition and concentration in their work. It will not be long until The World Anti-Brain Doping Authority gets called in to vet Nobel Prize winners.

The Next Civil Rights Battle Will Be Over Your mind

Speaking of which, it's nice to know that we're at least talking about our own cognitive rights nowadays. Just wait until we start arguing about it in the context of robot rights.

I and My Brother Against My Cousin

Stanley Kurtz does a good job of arguing that tribalism and a Hobbsian identity drive more of the problems in the Middle East than any other distinction we might come up with, including Islam.

Comments

[omahas.livejournal.com]

It will not be long until The World Anti-Brain Doping Authority gets called in to vet Nobel Prize winners.

You might want to change the link on that, dear...to something that, oh, is real? ;)

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Fixed, thanks!

[edichka2.livejournal.com]

It's a joke, right? I mean, this site had to have been launched on April 1, right?

Um, they're going to let us still have coffee, right?

- E

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the WABDA is indeed an April Fool's joke. Still, for a while there was the "Elliot Institute," which seems to have folded up shop; it was an organization dedicated to preventing 'human cognitive enhancement in all its forms' for religious reasons.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

It will not be long until The World Anti-Brain Doping Authority gets called in to vet Nobel Prize winners.

*Why*? The Nobel prize awards people who benefit humanity as a whole with the work they do.

Moreover, it's not necessarily the best and the brightest, but the first to make a discovery. Just look at the two AT&T technicians who won the prize in physics for discovering the cosmic background radiation.