This video is a recording of the London Futurists event on 17th Jan 2015, “What is a fair distribution of brains?”, featuring renowned neuroscience researcher and futurist philosopher Anders Sandberg:

In a post-industrial economy useful individual abilities – human capital – are increasingly important both individually and to society. But acquiring human capital is presently a slow, expensive process of education and training. Human capital can be lost through the processes of aging, or made obsolete as the world changes ever faster. People also vary in their mental abilities, which has significant effects on life outcomes.

Can we do better? And if so, what risks and opportunities arise?

Biomedical cognitive enhancement may allow better acquisition and retention of mental ability – including more reliable thinking under conditions of stress. How would such improvement affect social equality? Being able to buy better brains would benefit more well-off people and give them a competitive advantage, but less sharp people could benefit more from enhancement than brighter people, and the network effects of a smarter society might benefit everyone.

For more details about this meeting, see http://www.meetup.com/London-Futurists/events/218957153/.