[extropy-chat] Sterling, Wired, and the Singularity

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

> 
> > > >More likely yet, we live in a dull, self-satisfied,
> > > >squalid eddy in history, blundering around with no concept of
> > > >progress and no sense of direction. "
> >
> > > Where is this guy living, camp xray?
> >
> >Watts?  Elko, Nevada?  Guy needs to wake up and smell the gigaflops.
> 
> Well, to be literal-minded about it, the Brucester is living in a
> very 
> tasty part of Austin, so the very air is fragrant with wi-fi
> gigaflops. 
> Meanwhile, other people are making the same sort of point (boo hoo,
> the 
> future didn't turn out like the Jetsons, and now nothing is ever
> going to 
> happen except more terrorism and unemployment poverty and boredom,
> boo hoo):
> 
>
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPPrint/LAC/20040908/SCIFI08/TPEntertainment/
> 

Vinge himself has said in the past that other factors could temper or
set back the exponential curve. In his fictional treatment in the Peace
War, it was a global bio/nuke/chem/bobble war waged by the Peace
Authority on governments, and use of the 'bobble' technology thereafter
to restrain technological advancement.

Today, we have global reactionary elements of various sorts:

a) christian conservatives
b) islamist fundamentalist/nationalist terrorists
c) Green luddites

Smart realpolitik will pitch these elements against each other, as is
currently happening between a and b. C is being marginally impacted by
a's statutory controls on b but is gaining credibility via an agitprop
campaign against those controls among the lumpenproles.

The common theme among all three groups is a deep distrust in the human
individual to act responsibly with technology of any kind (even culture).

=====
Mike Lorrey
Chairman, Free Town Land Development
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                         -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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