Over the past few decades, growing evidence from cognitive science has revealed significant limits on the ability of individuals to criticize their own viewpoints. Even the most analytically gifted and experienced among us are susceptible to bias and self-deception to an extent that we (ironically enough) generally fail to appreciate.
[...] Science eventually yields impressive answers [...]
Archive for September, 2007
Unconscious bias
Posted in mentat, mind, science on 2007-09-24 | Leave a Comment »
Making decisions on the basis of technology that hasn’t happened yet
Posted in ideas, science, science fiction, technology on 2007-09-16 | Leave a Comment »
Nick Szabo over at Unenumerated proposes a means to differentiate science fiction from imminent technology. In essence: require that if the exact form of the technology can’t be defined, then at least the experiments needed to resolve its unknowns can be defined. (For example, SENS meets this criterion.)
Personally I’d say this is a start, but [...]
An idea for age prediction markets
Posted in anti-aging, ideas, money on 2007-09-15 | Leave a Comment »
Suppose I want to raise money for anti-aging research. A good tool would a prediction market for longevity. But how to achieve it?
I have an idea: the one-living-person-only repayment contract.
How it works: you sell a promise to pay one named living person ONLY, a fixed sum at a fixed gap into the future (eg: £10 [...]
