Re: Why are there so few Singulatarians?

From: Zeph Campbell (zephc@hotlinehq.com)
Date: Sat May 10 2003 - 22:35:36 MDT


On Saturday, May 10, 2003, at 08:45 PM, Bellious Moon wrote:

> There are a number of secular people out there who
> have some idea of what the singularity is and oppose
> it on the ground that advanced technology either poses
> a great threat to the environment and/or it will be
> used for oppressive purposes. And for one I believe
> the public is warranted to be suspicious of highly
> disruptive technology. I want to know who is going to
> control this technology and what kind of safeguards
> are going to be put in place to prevent it from being
> put to qustionable use. I'm beginning to agree with
> Ted Kaczynski that perhaps the invention of
> agriculture itself was a mistake. A neolithic,
> hunting-gathering lifestyle with no big centralized
> governments and oppressive economies is starting to
> sound good to me. Perhaps the Luddites were right all
> along.
>

Sure, part of me wishes for an easier, simpler time. But it's really
an illusion that it was easier back then. Sure it might have been
low-tech, but dealing with tyrants, disease, irrationality, the unknown
- basically everything we have now, but in much larger helpings back
then. We can't uninvent technology (short of annihilating humanity),
so we might as well make the best of the direction in which we found
the world.

Cheers,
Zeph



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