From: Richard Loosemore (rpwl@lightlink.com)
Date: Tue Feb 07 2006 - 09:08:11 MST
Russell Wallace wrote:
> On 2/7/06, *Joshua Fox* <joshua@joshuafox.com
> <mailto:joshua@joshuafox.com>> wrote:
>
> Russell Wallace wrote:
> > I don't think the Singularity is inevitable. In fact, I can think of
> three plausible scenarios in which it never happens, and there might be
> a fourth and fifth . . .
>
> What are those? The only ones I have seen in the literature are:
> - total catastrophe for human civilization
> - some unknown factor that puts limits on exponential progress for
> intelligence and technology.
>
>
> I'm not concerned about the second (known lower bounds should suffice,
> though not for a hard takeoff), but I would reckon the most likely
> variants of the first as:
>
> 1. De facto world government forms, with the result that progress goes
> the way of the Qeng Ho fleets. (The European Union is a disturbingly
> large step on this route.)
>
> 2. Continuing population crash renders progress unsustainable.
> (Continued progress from a technology base as complex as today's
> requires very large populations to be economically feasible.)
>
> 3. Future political crisis leading to large scale war with nuclear or
> other (e.g. biotech or nanotech) weapons of mass destruction results in
> a fast-forward version of 2.
>
> I don't know what will happen in the future, but I think there is at
> least a significant risk that some such event will occur before we reach
> the Singularity (which is why we need to hurry).
>
> - Russell
Russell,
This is pure political baiting:
World government is a threat?
European Union is a potential threat?
We need very large populations?
Worried about weapons of mass destruction?
These sound like a catalog of neoconservative buzz-concepts.
I agree that the world faces serious problems that might sabotage a
beneficial Singularity. But your list looks like it is designed to
provoke a NO POLITICS! stomp-down by the list sniper. Because of that,
I'll only say that I totally disagree with your analysis.
Richard Loosemore
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