From: altamira (altamira@ecpi.com)
Date: Sat Jul 08 2000 - 14:51:44 MDT
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.com
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.com]On Behalf Of Spudboy100@aol.com
> Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 2:29 PM
>
>
> In a message dated 7/7/00 11:47:47 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> brian@posthuman.com writes:
>
> << You can change the world a lot faster with a Singularity. Can
> you make an
> argument showing that it would be better to spend my time having
> political
> discussions, and generally "working within the system", rather
> than "playing
> a bit with computers" as you so unbiasedly put it? >>
> That's assuming that Singularity actually arrives at the time and
> manner you
> desire. It may take its own time for technical reasons. Certainly
> it may not
> arrive all at once.
There could also be an entirely different sort of singularity. For accounts
of past singularities, see _Plagues and Peoples_ by William McNeill,
_Floods, Famine, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations_ by
Brian M. Fagan, and anything you can find by Pitrim Alexandrovich Sorokin.
Most of his works are out of print, but there's a recent reprint under the
title _Social and Cultural Dynamics: A Study of Change in Major Systems of
Art, Truth, Ethics, Law and Social Relationships_
Of these, I find Sorokin's works to be by far the most interesting. I've
not read the recent reprint, but I believe it's a summary of a multi-volume
work he wrote during a period of years roughly centered around 1930. Sorokin
examines the great civilizations of China, India, Peru, and Mexico/Central
America as well as the "western" civilizations which gave rise to the one in
which we now find ourselves.
If I were designing a curriculum for the well-balanced education, I'd
include Sorokin's works as mandatory reading.
Bonnie
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