Category: think

A pill that makes you sad and happy

Imagine a drug that makes you horribly nauseous and miserable for the first 59 minutes after you take it, but then makes you feel hedonistic bliss for a final 1 minute. The other effect of this drug is that during the those first 59 minutes, it blocks the transcription of long-term memories so that by the next day you only remember the final 1 minute.

  1. Assuming you did not know the full effect profile of this drug until after taking it the first time, would you expect yourself to take it a second time?
  2. Assuming you would decide not to take it a second time during the 12 hours while you still remember how horrible the first 59 minutes were, how would you prevent your future self who only remembers the bliss phase from taking the drug again?
  3. If you were King in the world where this drug existed, what policy measures (if any) would you enact to improve the welfare of your subjects’ interactions with this drug?
  4. If you were trapped on a deserted island with an inexhaustible supply of the drug and no way to prevent your future self from taking it each new day, would your subjective life be one of ecstasy or misery?

Porno for Pedophiles?

Thought experiment:

Assume someday the VR sex-machine experience gets so good that pedophiles would prefer to have a virtual encounter with a child than a real one.

Should the software that generates these experiences be illegal to create? Own? Use?

Thoughtful answers requested in the comments section.

FAQ

Q: Children are still harmed even with a VR only encounter.
A: Assume that all the characters in the VR simulation are completely computer generated and synthetic. If this is the case, then who is hurt- and how?

Q: Having access to VR porn would stoke pedophiles to action and create more victims. 
A: In this thought experiment we are stipulating that the VR porn is preferable to real life and would supplant it for some people. This is not a necessarily hypothetical conceit.

Q: Why would the software be illegal? It is just 1’s and 0’s.
A: Things can get legally non-intuitive around this issue.

Q: You sick fuck.
A: I am not a pedophile. Instead, I am interested in thinking and talking about ways to potentially reduce or eliminate the harm that they do.

Idea Dump 2018

As each year passes and my to-do lists get longer, I have to accept that I will die long before I will get to make and do everything I want to.

Here are some things that I probably will never get to, but maybe you will? Don’t let the crackpot-stream-of-consciousness-style throw you, I believe most of these ideas could actually be successful and profitable… with some work.

Let me know if you are truly interested and I will try to share any effort I’ve already invested to give you a head start….

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How a Bitcoin is not a Dollar

There is no intrinsic value to a BitCoin because it is an anonymous IOU written by no one.

I want you to give me half of your doughnut.

I can offer to give you a signed IOU that says “Josh will give the holder of this IOU 1/2 doughnut”. The more you trust that I will actually honor the IOU, the more it is worth to you. You might even be able to trade that IOU to someone else for something that they have and you want… assuming they also think there is some chance that I will honor it.

Instead of writing the IOU, now imagine that I write a program that generates random sequences of letters on my computer. I let that program run for a very, very long time until it happens to generate something like “IOU 1/2 doughnut”. I print this out and I offer to trade it to you for 1/2 your doughnut.

YOU: So if I take this note, someday I can give it back to you and you'll give me something yummy?
ME : Nope. This is not an IOU from me. It was randomly generated by a computer.
YOU: So who owes me the 1/2 a doughnut?
ME : No one! But it took the computer a really long time to generate this note at random!
YOU: If there is no one who will pay me back, then why would I ever accept this note?
ME : You can try to trade it to someone else for something they have and you want!

A dollar is an IOU from the government, a BitCoin is an IOU from no one…

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A different kind of Initial Coin Offering

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I have 2,500 in shinny new $1 coins that I need to get rid of. I want to give them to you… if you can come up with some way to creatively use them.

You have until midnight December 31st to tell me your idea. The winner will be announced on New Year’s Day. If you win, you will have 30 days to come pick up the cash in NYC.

Some facts about the coins:

  • 100 rolls of $25 each
  • Weigh almost 50 pounds
  • Stacked like flapjacks would make a tower more than 16 feet tall
  • Laid edge-to-edge would stretch father than a city block

I am looking for a project that:

  • uses the coins as coins rather than money
  • can be completed quickly and decisively
  • is a concrete plan of action rather than an abstract concept
  • will make people say “That is amazing”.

I’ve intentionally avoided adding rules to encourage wild and unexpected creativity.  I’m looking forward to see what you come up with!

Tweet your entry to @ico_irl

Website is at https://ico-irl.com.

Pass this on to anyone you know who might have been waiting for an opportunity like this to do something amazing!

-josh

Marketizing Zipcar

There are normally lots of Zipcars near me, but looking at Thanksgiving day things look pretty bleak…

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If I want a Zipcar on Thanksgiving, my only option is to wait and hope someone cancels their existing reservation (which for other reasons will all likely happen 3 hours and 1 minute before the reservation start times).

Maybe a little marketization could fix this problem and make everyone better off….

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