um

what

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190411-the-violent-attack-that-turned-a-man-into-a-maths-genius

Yeah. Summary: a traumatic assault turned a mathophobe into an obsessive savant who sees everyday patterns as rich and beautiful. I wouldn't wish his other symptoms on anyone, but... this is our final frontier and source of my greatest hopes.

Human brains are pretty broken and dysfunctional... in their crappy factory-default settings. But their untapped potential is fucking amazing. THIS, not some egomaniac dipshit libertarian dream of immortality, is why I became a transhumanist.

If we can do this, not only can we drastically increase raw human potential, we might figure out how to fix the GAPING COGNITIVE FLAWS that makes us so vulnerable to authoritarian manipulation and memetic attacks.

Heh, or they could engineer a race of perfectly obedient computing devices out of it. Probably that one. *shrugs and laughcries* But if SOMEHOW we can win this round of the Red Queen's Race, and beat them to this technology...

I mean, hey, what the hell, damn near everything ELSE Bruce Sterling and William Gibson predicted ended up coming true. Maybe we'll get something good for a change...

"The secret is to bang the rocks together, guys!"

@zebratron2084 Look, it's not an easy road ahead, but so long as I eventually get to fuck up the Villa Straylight, I'm in.

@Phorm OK, but I must INSIST you put a gratuitous integer in front of your name.