Re: Nonsingularitarian America and us

From: Diego Navarro (the.electric.me@gmail.com)
Date: Sun Aug 19 2007 - 18:20:11 MDT


> The idea that the US will undergo a "USSR-style collapse" within 10
> years is so out of touch with reality that it almost does not even
> deserve comment.

The US is really pushing its chances with the level of its debt.
Pretty much any other country would have collapsed under a much lesser
pressure.

The only reason for the apparent stability of the american economy is
that China can't afford dump its dollars and have the world descend
into recession. It's a prisoner's dilemma situation. China (and a few
other countries as well, but China is closest to a purely
discretionary economic regime) is sitting on a mountain of rotting
paper, but can't afford to get rid of any of it, lest the rest of it
devalue enough that the world plunges into chaos.

How does this even relate to the Singularity? Well, I think a few
people here have done enough to argue that getting to the singularity
requires a minimum of social and economic stability. Pushing a SL2
scenario to a SL1 elite to explain to the SL0 populace is one thing,
but when the elite chooses SL(-1), we're screwed.



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