[extropy-chat] Singularitarian verses singularity

[Natasha Vita-More]

At 01:09 AM 12/21/2005, Anna wrote:

>Again,  maybe another naive question:)
>
>How can you be activist for something that apparently hasn't happened yet?
>How come it sounds like Nostradamus? Predicting things in advance that 
>hasn't happen yet?
>How can I be singularitarian when i'm not sure what is singularity?
>Knowing it's going to happen doesn't predict how it's going to happen?
>Just curious

There is a professional field of that includes the skills of strategic 
planning and scenario building in looking ahead toward the future and 
analyzing what could possibly occur.  The skills are not fly by 
night.  They are specific skills that require such talents as environmental 
scanning, research, analysis, and planning, which use a  number of 
different methodologies.  Rather than using the terminology of "prediction" 
most of us use the terminology of "forecasting," but it is essentially the 
same thing (minus the mystical interpretation.)

When a person spends a great deal of time thinking about the future, the 
trends, the variables that are detailed elements of the trends and 
environment that are or become the driving forces of change, he she often 
becomes excited about the information gained throughout the work.  The 
excitement can lead to passion and even activism if the person recognizes 
that there are patterns in society that occur due to the balancing and/or 
reinforcing loops of events, and that if certain variable were changed, 
even a little, the result would or could be a different 
outcome.  Understanding the patterns and knowing that they can be altered 
leaves a window open to the fact that people and society can and do change 
the conditions for better or for worse.

Being an activist is a commitment to seeing "something" occur in the way 
that would be either beneficial or detrimental to society.

Most of the Singularity activism realize the potential benefits and the 
potential dangers of emerging superintelligences and that humanity does 
have a choice and an opportunity, however, small, to affect the outcome of 
the probable or the inevitable.

In short, studying trends and having a broad spectrum of knowledge and 
information about social, technological, environmental, economic domains 
can provide a person with enough intellectual savvy to make assumptions 
about what could possibly occur.  Of course there are wild cards and pop up 
unexpectedly and discontinuities that can throw everyone off, but they have 
a range of probability as well, even unknown probability which fits into 
the equation.

Natasha

<http://www.natasha.cc/>Natasha <http://www.natasha.cc/>Vita-More
Cultural Strategist - Designer
Future Studies, University of Houston
President, <http://www.extropy.org/>Extropy Institute
Member, <http://www.profuturists.com/>Association of Professional Futurists
Founder, <http://www.transhumanist.biz/>Transhumanist Arts & Culture
Honorary Vice-Chair, <http://transhumanism.org/>World Transhumanist 
Association
Senior Associate, <http://foresight.org/>Foresight Institute
Advisor, <http://alcor.org/>Alcor Life Extension Foundation

If you draw a circle in the sand and study only what's inside the circle, 
then that is a closed-system perspective. If you study what is inside the 
circle and everything outside the circle, then that is an open system 
perspective.
Buckminster Fuller


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