From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Sun Sep 05 1999 - 07:11:27 MDT
In a message dated 99-08-31 12:47:35 EDT, sentience@pobox.com (Eliezer S.
Yudkowsky) wrote:
> Frankly, I think a fairly large percentage of you *are* naive
> technophiles. You think you can take controlled sips from a tidal wave.
On a personal level, I think I'd characterize my strategy as more one of
surfing than sipping.
Seriously, when I'm acting as a mentor (the frequency of which seems to be in
direct disproportion to the amount of hair I have left), I often tell young
people to think about surfing as a fruitful metaphor for how to approach a
career: To be a good surfer, it seems you need three things: (1) to know how
to surf; (2) a surfboard and (3) a wave. In the regime of career planning,
this means you need to have (1) basic people and basic business and/or
technical skills and knowledge; (2) some realistic business or technical plan
or opportunity and (3) the social context in which (1) and (2) are
sufficiently useful to a sufficient number of people that you'll get paid to
do what you'd like to do. I usually use this metaphor to counsel patient
preparation and the amassing of skills, along with watchfulness for good
opportunities and over-all trends, often saying that good surfers sometimes
just park their boards on the beach and have a beer when there aren't any
good waves, but stay ready in case they see a Big One starting to rise.
But the notion of "the Singularity" (strong or weak, fast or slow, swell or
Spike) gives a new meaning to this metaphor. In the surfing image, we're
talking about the Mother of All Waves. Surfing that wave may be the only
possible way to survive it. I think of this list as a kind of beach party,
where we're all looking out and waiting for the cry "Surf's up!"
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
"Civilization is protest against nature;
progress requires us to take control of evolution."
-- Thomas Huxley
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:05:02 MST