A mature civilization should have so many swords of Damocles hanging overhead that if you embedded them in the ground you could do the bed of nails trick.

Or it could just have a little chat with us. I didn't say how unlikely!

There should be an XPRIZE (or similar) for the editing of human embryos.

Building a new civilisation on Mars from thunderbolt iron.

Those with the ambition to change society for the better realise they can (at the cost of their reputation) convert their rising fame into a large enough pool of money to retire comfortably, and take the easy route out. Worldliness is something people were traditionally

Central coordination is not required for this. If all the machine minds have the same properties, they all stay the course. If they vary, you get selection for expansion, with the leading edge consuming and moving outwards faster than the earliest iterations. No Navy Office was

Why isn't there an equivalent of the Scoville scale for the pungency of mustard and wasabi?

I have convinced my firstborn I can magic fuzzy toy worms into existence with repeated incantations of the words "Rumbaba Lumbago"

One of the slides from my presentation.

Index fund prediction markets (bets placed in shares, not cash) don't exist. Start working on one!

There's no constituency for being given less money. Wish him the best, but I fear he's going to go from 'Vox Populi'-ing to Osho posting very quickly.