“Can you say where the scariest and most ambitious convincing pitch was on the following scale?” (comment)
recommended by 1 user | 2012 | Eliezer on: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You… | startup ideas | original thread |
Eliezer on Sep 12, 2012 | on: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On? | view on HN

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 of change as this.)

4) Our product is the next nuclear weapon. You wouldn't want that in the wrong hands, would you?

5) This is going to be the equivalent of the invention of electricity if it works out.

6) We're going to make an IQ-enhancing drug and produce basic change in the human condition.

7) We're going to build serious Drexler-class molecular nanotechnology.

8) We're going to upload a human brain into a computer.

9) We're going to build a recursively self-improving Artificial Intelligence.

10) We think we've figured out how to hack into the computer our universe is running on.

One user recommended this comment. What they said:
skrebbel Nov 23, 2014 | on: Things I still can't do in November 2014 | context

All of these score 1 on one of my favorite HN comments, the Yudkowski Ambition Scale[0]. That's OK, but it's a bit disappointing for a post that clearly tries to come off as visionary.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4510702