RE: An essay I just wrote on the Singularity.

From: Tommy McCabe (rocketjet314@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Jan 07 2004 - 15:53:09 MST


--- Yan King Yin <y.k.y@lycos.com> wrote:
> From: Tommy McCabe <rocketjet314@yahoo.com>
> >Even assuming we aren't living in a virtual reality
> >where getting something is as simple as snapping
> your
> >fingers, competition for resources is unlikely when
> >you can just disassemble Jupiter and turn it into
> >stuff that people want. As a matter of fact,
> doesn't
> >that remove one of the main reasons for war, if you
> >have the technology for
> >instant-mansions-just-add-water? People don't
> usually
> >compete with each other for water during a flood.
>
> The 19C industrialization also created abundance,
> but
> that abundance was not equally distributed among
> all.
> From a historical perspective it seems the same will
> go on for the 2nd industrialization (replacement of
> jobs by intelligent machines).

Intelligent machines? What do you mean here?

> We may take solace in that industrialization did
> uplift living standards, and that over time
> re-distribution of wealth did take place.

The first industrial revolution provided the capacity
for preexisting manufacturing processes to be
automated to some extent, thus making goods more
widespread. The Singularity, as a matter of fact even
just nanotech without superintelligence, will enable
us to convert rocks into goods. There is an inherent
limit as to how many shirts you can make, regardless
of the speed or number of factories, due to the
limited amount of raw materials. However, when you can
use anything (yes, literally, anything) as a raw
material, that problem kind of goes away.

> Does a much better way of organization than free-
> -market economy exist? I don't know but I do notice
> there is some similarity between the free market and
> natural selection.

I don't know, and please elaborate on said similarity.

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