If the point of this essay was to advocate pharmaceutical research, it might have been more effective to say so, it would have made the process of digesting it smoother. Given the other responses I think I am not alone in failing to guess that this was pretty much your sole target.
Well, there may be tactics other than pharmacology: we might have nutritional interventions or perhaps something like transcranial magnetic stimulation, or even something we haven’t thought of yet.
But I should emphasize that the sole criterion for such interventions would be that it would be feasible to get lots of people to use them.
I’m still not clear what the takeaway from this essay is for a lesswrong reader, though,
This article is not a “here’s something you can do to enhance your own life today!” type article, it is a discussion of existential risk reduction via mass IQ increase. I may well write some “how to” articles, too though.
Well, there may be tactics other than pharmacology: we might have nutritional interventions or perhaps something like transcranial magnetic stimulation, or even something we haven’t thought of yet.
But I should emphasize that the sole criterion for such interventions would be that it would be feasible to get lots of people to use them.
This article is not a “here’s something you can do to enhance your own life today!” type article, it is a discussion of existential risk reduction via mass IQ increase. I may well write some “how to” articles, too though.