Anyone else think Technological Singularity is a joke?

[sneakerd]

Sideshow Bob took my line. "Incorrect strategy- Number One"

[Elhuero]

kurzweil is a nutjob.

he's trying to stay alive to reach the point where human consciousness can be transferred into computers, thus achieving immortality.

his theory has merits, but his timeline is off and he's gonna die a sad panda before his dream is realized.

my opinion.... in the future that's coming a man that can make fire without matches, find, kill, skin an prepare game to eat, and hit a target at 500 yards with a rifle will be worth 58.25 uber geeks like kurzweil.

[mcantar18c]

my opinion.... in the future that's coming a man that can make fire without matches, find, kill, skin an prepare game to eat, and hit a target at 500 yards with a rifle will be worth 58.25 uber geeks like kurzweil.

+10

[Pancho Villa]

I think the biggest issue I have with the singularity is that it assumes that progress is automatic.

History shows that progress is far from automatic as it is full of dark ages where civilizations crumbled and people lived in the shadow of the ruins in poverty just a few generations later.

The Industrial revolution changed that - but the industrial revolution was based on the ideas that came before it (guys, there's a reason the US was founded during the Age of Enlightenment which was preceded by the Age of Reason.) I think we're getting to the point where the ideas on which consistent progress is based are finally fading from the public consciousness.

Progress has already slowed, comparatively - when you look at the poverty-stricken living standards that the Industrial Revolution eradicated and the population explosion that followed. Leftists never put the living conditions of the industrial revolution is context - like the context that half or more the people you see in the slums would have been dead from starvation, not just living in crowded conditions, 50 years before.

[jerrymrc]

One good EMP strike would send that boy back to first grade.

[alxone]

One good EMP strike would send that boy back to first grade.

or the puzzle factory

[mcantar18c]

One good EMP strike would send that boy back to first grade.

Ya know, I'm not hoping for a total breakdown of infrastructure like that or anything, but I think the country would benefit from a major kick in the pants.

[Pancho Villa]

Ya know, I'm not hoping for a total breakdown of infrastructure like that or anything, but I think the country would benefit from a major kick in the pants.

I believe:

1. Such a kick is coming, in the next 10 years.
2. Everyone who has ever fantasized about SHTF or other stuff is going to look back and wonder WTF they were thinking.

[Irving]

I believe:

1. Such a kick is coming, in the next 10 years.
2. Everyone who has ever fantasized about SHTF or other stuff is going to look back and wonder WTF they were thinking.

Are you trying to say that starving to death isn't as fun as it sounds?

[MrPrena]

There are some technology(ies) out there that general public/consumers don't know about.
The public/consumer demand has to meet the supply of future mass production for the technology companies to produce those prototypes.