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Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

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Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#121

Post by Alex3917 »

Eliezer wrote: post #50
ph0rque wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eliezer, I believe you just created the Yudkowsky Ambition scale. My startup, http://automicrofarm.com/ , rates between a 3 and a 5, depending on how successful it becomes, in my opinion.

Holy schmaloly, that actually is a 3 if it works. Anyone else got 3 or higher?

"Anyone else got 3 or higher?"

I have a drug that could massively raise the IQ of the world's population, in total more than the power of all the world's computers combined. And it costs only a couple pennies per person per year.

Iodine.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#122

Post by martindale »

untog wrote: post #95
martindale wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've got a solid 5 with what we're building at LocalSense: https://localsense.com -- but it contains elements of #9 which is strangely high on the list.

A local, social offers app is going to be "equivalent of the invention of electricity"? I don't mean to sound down on the idea- I'm sure it could work out great. But come on.

No worries, it's easy to be down on the public message right now. We're all pretty confident in the plan to overhaul the way commerce works in general, possibly to the end of supplanting "money" entirely. :)

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#123

Post by martindale »

nooneelse wrote: post #117
untog wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A local, social offers app is going to be "equivalent of the invention of electricity"? I don't mean to sound down on the idea- I'm sure it could work out great. But come on.

Only way I can read that comment as anything but shameless self-promotion (or, more generously, over the line entrepreneurial-delusion) is if they intend to morph their using of social status to get things into being whuffies.

You're on the right track.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#124

Post by martindale »

jarek wrote: post #100
untog wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A local, social offers app is going to be "equivalent of the invention of electricity"? I don't mean to sound down on the idea- I'm sure it could work out great. But come on.

Hustle!!!1

All day, err'day.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#125

Post by MattGrommes »

chmike wrote: post #23

How would one make the difference between frighteningly ambitious , crazy or stupid ?

That reminds me of Peter Thiel's Venn diagram of 'Sounds like a bad idea' and 'Is a good idea'. It's a pretty slim area in the middle and the 'Sounds like' part means it's hard to know until you do it.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#126

Post by trafficlight »

ph0rque wrote: post #77
thebigshane wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case anyone missed the small blog link on the bottom: http://blog.automicrofarm.com More information about the idea there. Count me interested! As long as it doesn't involve entomophagy... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy

Thanks... we have no plans on raising insects for human consumption! Right now, our prototype is producing fish, berries and vegetables; we'll be experimenting with fruit trees, beans, and eventually poultry (for eggs at first), mushrooms, and honey.

This is fascinating. I'd love to build one of these setups.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#127

Post by ph0rque »

abecedarius wrote: post #106
ph0rque wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks... we have no plans on raising insects for human consumption! Right now, our prototype is producing fish, berries and vegetables; we'll be experimenting with fruit trees, beans, and eventually poultry (for eggs at first), mushrooms, and honey.

That's a shame, since good insects to eat are hard to find: http://www.bayesianinvestor.com/blog/index.php/2012/09/05/ea...

Since we will be providing a "platform", as it were, for building your own ecosystem of plants and animals, feel free to raise insects :)

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#128

Post by dusklight »

swombat wrote: post #112
Eliezer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy schmaloly, that actually is a 3 if it works. Anyone else got 3 or higher?

I have one idea I'm still incubating in the back of my head that's a 6. It's achievable technologically, but I'm not yet in the right place in my life to be the one to achieve it. Edit: It's not a drug - but it will, imho, produce a change in the basic human condition, if/when implemented.

I downvoted you because you added nothing to the conversation by claiming you have a 6 but then adding no details to it. Hey I can do that too. I have an idea that ranks a 7! I am cooler than you! But I am not going to tell you what it is because I think having a good idea is harder than executing well and I don't have many good ideas and I am afraid you are going to steal mine.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#129

Post by SilasX »

davidgerard wrote: post #113
Eliezer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say where the scariest and most ambitious convincing pitch was on the following scale? 1) We're going to build the next Facebook! 2) We're going to found the next Apple! 3) Our product will create sweeping political change! This will produce a major economic revolution in at least one country! (Seasteading would be change on this level if it worked; creating a new country successfully is around the same level…

Where would the World Wide Web be on this scale? It would look below 4, but one instance of it, Wikileaks, arguably sparked several revolutions and is a 3 by itself.

It's a solid 5 -- made the kind of change that electrification did, in terms of there being massively many more ways to get informed, fact-check, collaborate, organize, the importance of location, and so on.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#130

Post by powertower »

dusklight wrote: post #128
swombat wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have one idea I'm still incubating in the back of my head that's a 6. It's achievable technologically, but I'm not yet in the right place in my life to be the one to achieve it. Edit: It's not a drug - but it will, imho, produce a change in the basic human condition, if/when implemented.

I downvoted you because you added nothing to the conversation by claiming you have a 6 but then adding no details to it. Hey I can do that too. I have an idea that ranks a 7! I am cooler than you! But I am not going to tell you what it is because I think having a good idea is harder than executing well and I don't have many good ideas and I am afraid you are going to steal mine.

> Edit: It's not a drug - but it will, imho, produce a change in the basic human condition, if/when implemented.

He's probably talking about an idea similar to the H+ neural implant (http://www.youtube.com/user/HplusDigitalSeries).

It's a nano device that is injected into or around your spine/brain, and after a week it learns how to interface with your body.

Then it links out to the network and you can do all the things that we can do now online, except it's all in your head.

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