[ExI] Kurzweil honored for inventing the Singularity

[Natasha Vita-More]

You missed the point.   


Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Damien
Broderick
Sent: Friday, December 26, 2008 7:50 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Kurzweil honored for inventing the Singularity

At 06:46 PM 12/26/2008 -0600, Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More wrote:

>when someone from the Extropy list writes about transhumanism and list 
>discussions on the Singularity, I feel confident that a fairly accurate 
>recollection will be made.

Two problems with that statement (in the context of this thread):

As far as I know, none of the complicated and imaginative posts from the
first couple of decades of the ExI list (long before Kurzweil's Singularity
book, and before my own also, of course) are archived. A tiny sampling is
quoted in THE SPIKE and perhaps in a few articles here and there. A few
aging people will recall that such a long conversation once existed, but the
text of it has already vanished (I assume).

And in any case, Dr. Vinge--who *did* discern/invent the singularity--has
never posted here (although Eliezer did, of course, copiously--as did Robert
Bradbury and others).

But maybe I've missed your point, Natasha.

Damien Broderick
[I feel a related sort of frustration and unfairness when journalists
routinely source derivative, half-baked STAR TREK or STAR WARS or TERMINATOR
movies or eps instead of the brilliant books and stories by the geniuses who
not only thought up these ideas, decades earlier, but usually developed and
explored their nuances. In that case, though, the lazy journalism has a kind
of justification, because so vastly many people have been exposed to the ST,
SW, T products that the reference is immediate, instantly recognizable, and
clarifying.]


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