Re: LIST: Singularitarians

Jason Spencer (spencer@ualberta.ca)
Thu, 8 Apr 1999 01:27:48 -0600

>At 11:39 PM 4/7/99 -0700, you wrote:
>>Is the Singularity inevitable? In other words, is it going to happen
>>anyway, regardless of what any particular person does or does not do? Or
>>is it contingent, i.e. something that may or may not happen?
>
>Well, on some level, it's trivially contingent: we have enough nuclear
>weaponry to destroy all human life on earth umpteen times, etc.
>
>But Singularity somehow, someway, with a species that may not even be our
>own? Totally inevitable.
>
>-Dan

Well, in the universe, sure. "Statistically inevitable" or something of the sort. But here on earth? I hardly think its inevitable.

But I'm wondering why you asked the question, Lyle? Are you suspecting that we have become so numbed by our own memes that we see the Singularity as completely inevitable?

(Note that I'm not denying the high likelyhood of "Singularity somehow, someway," but inevitability seems another order of magnitude altogether.

--
Jason Spencer
spencer@ualberta.ca
http://www.ualberta.ca/~spencer/