From: John Marlow (johnmarlow@gmx.net)
Date: Mon May 14 2001 - 22:58:48 MDT
Marlow's Axiom of the Long Term: All talk of a long-term contains an
unwarranted assumption and is therefore unduly optimistic.
jm
On 14 May 2001, at 20:34, Spike Jones wrote:
> > > >Tech prognostication is optimistic always in the short
> > > >term, laughably pessimistic always in the long term.
> > >
> > Anders Sandberg wrote: ...then we better reevaluate what we think. After
> > all, we
> > transhumanists seem to be optimistic about both near and far
> > developments. Hence we better be more cautious about the near future and
> > the speed various transforming technologies appear, while our wild far
> > future extrapolations might be too *mild*.
>
> Clarke's rule: long term predictions are always too pessimistic.
>
> Extropians corollary: long term predictions are always too
> pessimistic, even when Clarke's rule is taken into account.
>
> I suspect the long term future will have at least some aspects
> that are beyond our current imaginations. spike
>
John Marlow
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