So I just finished reading some of the book Flowers for Algernon for school. It's about a mentally retarded man volunteering to be part of a surgery/experiment that will try to make his IQ three times higher than what it was.

I've heard that some scientists today are trying to accomplish this.

What do you guys think about artificially raising a person's IQ? What do you think would happen if everybody, or most people received that sort of surgery?

Just wondering what some of you guys think about this sort of thing.

I think it would be a bad idea. I mean, when everyone's super-smart, there'd be no competition! Well, at least not in school.

And the suicide rate would probably be heightened. You guys have all heard of super-smart people killing themselves because they know too much, right?

I think it'd be crazy.

Talk about irony. I just finished reading part of that book too.

Well, in the book, in says that his intelligence go down (sorry if this is a spoiler :P) rapidly after a few months of gaining it. I'm not sure if that book was written based on scientific research yet, but after I googled it, it said nothing about the kind with surgery, only involving computional intelligence.

But despite that, I think it'll just be cool to be able to have artificial intelligence, just a feeling. I just think that if they ever do come up with a success in this, that many people will take advantage of it, especially people with money. And I think that people who are mentally disabled like that should stay that way, even as cruel as I may sound.

Well, if you were to do it to everybody, and it remains a constant times three (or whatever number) your IQ, then everyone would basically be the same in IQ gaps, just everyone's overall IQ would be higher.
Kind of like a super-intelligent society.
Except it's seems pretty unlikely that every single person would get that operation.



Yeah, I tried not to mention that part of the book since I didn't want to spoil it. Oh well.

Oh, alright. It's still a hypothetical situation, right?

Everybody would still have extremely high IQs (except for people who have <50, but that's like impossible). It is said that smart people kill themselves because they see things that normal people don't see. They think too much and their minds can see on multiple levels.
Suicide rate would be pretty high.. I probably wouldn't want to live in a world like that.

It'd be chaotic too, because what if someone decides to create a new plague one day just to terrorize humanity? Or build super-strong nuclear weapons and destroy the Earth.

Yeah, hypothetical.
I never knew about that suicide part. (In the book the main character had thoughts of suicide, but I don't think they were because he was super smart.) But yeah, that's a pretty interesting situation.

Yeah I always wondered about all the high technology we would end up with because of that. I mean, sure we'd have a lot of helpful things, but then you have those sort of thing that cause total destruction, if someone wanted to. Those things would probably be real technologically advanced and effective in what they do.

Human intellegence is at it's limit.

Any more intellegent, and humans would not be able to function as a society.

Alright, well what about having mentally impaired people take the surgery?

I don't think average people should get any smarter. They're fine the way they are. Lots of smart people are doing useless things that aren't helping the world. Scientist have created botox, viagra and wieght loss pills but they can't find a cure to cancer, aids and etc. Lots of smart people are using thier mind for material gains.

I think if mentally retarded people want to be smart, then let them take the surgery. I don't think that every mentally inpaired person should get surgery but only if they want to. In the book Charlie said that even a feeble minded person wants to be like any other man or something like that. If they want to get the surgery to fit in because lots of people look down on mentally retarded people but honestly I think they're fine just the way they are. I mean most mentally retarded people are really loving, trusting and honest making them, a really rare kind of person.

suh gud buuk

I think it'd be a nice thing for people with extremely low IQs--who can't function as well as others--to have a choice to undergo an artificial intelligence boost. But I don't think people who meet an acceptable intelligence should be able to. They probably do fine as it is.

I wouldnt mind them doing it. I mean, if people are willing to offer themselves as guinea pigs thats none of my business. But it seems like a complicated thing to do... how the heck do you raise someone's IQ? Hm.

Futures... made of... virtual insanity...

easy, make them smarter, more mental activities, more thinking, etc

Is it a form of reprogramming a person's mind?