# Key Ideas from #hplusroadmap IRC Discussions

• Planetary Resources' announcement of asteroid mining plans attracted significant attention, with notable investors including Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and James Cameron, sparking technical debates about the economic viability of extracting materials that would be prohibitively expensive to lift from Earth versus using reusable launch vehicles.

• The channel featured substantive discussions on brain emulation and mind uploading, referencing the Whole Brain Emulation Roadmap and ModelDB, revealing a clear divide between those optimistic about near-term neural simulation capabilities and those skeptical about current neuroscience and computing technology being sufficient.

• Carbon nanotube safety concerns were discussed, particularly regarding mesothelioma risks, with proposed mitigation strategies including H-termination or resin coating to make these advanced materials safer for widespread use.

• A collaborative AI/cognition project was proposed focusing on the frame problem, planning, and knowledge representation, with suggestions to use Mechanical Turk for human cognition experiments to advance understanding in these areas.

• The community showed interest in biomimicry and domestication, specifically discussing selective breeding of social spider species (Anelosimus) for domestication and silk production, drawing parallels to historical silkworm domestication and the Russian fox domestication experiment.

• Open-source technology developments were highlighted, including the release of OpenCASCADE 6.5.3 (an open-source 3D modeling kernel) and sharing of a PhantomJS library with state machine functionality, demonstrating the channel's focus on collaborative technology development.