[ExI] Inevitability of the Singularity (was Re: To Max, re Natasha and Extropy (Kevin Haskell)

[Kelly Anderson]

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 11:08 AM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7 July 2011 23:51, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I see the market
>> demand pushing much more in the direction of the Singularity than in
>> the direction of neopaleolithic scenarios.
>
> Well, it depends on... the market demands. Which is not an independent
> variable. See for instance all the issue pertaining to Global Warming.
> What is the "market demand" for emission reduction? It depends.

I don't think the ECONOMICS of global warming are in any question
whatsoever. There are too many people who won't pay to offset global
warming in any significant way until the tipping point is reached, and
the climate change is VERY hard to reverse. It is just too expensive
to do anything about it, unless we come up with economic methods of
CO2 sequestration, which is conceivably possible.

>> We do have to keep working at it, for sure. And until someone comes up
>> with a different rationale, I'll stick with Kurzweil as a first
>> approximation to what is likely to happen. Perhaps, you'll just have
>> to call it faith in human nature.
>
> I have more faith in human *action*. Im Anfang war die Tat... :-)

But there are thousands of humans in action keeping to the curves in
question. Time will tell, of course.

-Kelly
"Predicting the future is easy, if you wait long enough."