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

[Eugen Leitl]

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 01:34:36PM +0200, Stefano Vaj wrote:

> In history, we have had weather cycles, some of which have been much warmer

In Earth's history, we've had everything from steamy jungle to snowball
Earth. In *human* history, particularly recorded history, we haven't
seen a lot. In human history where more than a billion lives were
on the line we've seen jack squat. Every mosquito is going to look
like a black swan. CO2 emissions at the current rate until end of
this century will produce atmospheric concentrations last seen 30-100
megayears ago. Nobody knows what exactly is going to happen, but
definitely something is going to happen, and it can be Damn Big.
Even low-probability events are worth hedging against if the outcome
amplitude is large enough.

> than what is forecast even in a worst case scenario for the next century.
> Moreover, some of those have been periods blossoming with innovation and
> growth.

I have serious issues with people dismissing some potential 
two billion loss to starvation and war as no big deal.  
 
> Now, it may well be the case that this would not be the outcome of any
> contemporary change in the average temperature, be it on the minus or the
> plus sign.
> 
> One should however consider whether the actual risk is such a change, or
> rather the implied,  increasing fragilisation/sclerosis of our economic and
> civilisational framework, which may easily lead to scenarios where only
> absolute, unlikely stability (and stagnation) of all factors can prevent
> catastrophic developments. This, btw, sounds as a distinctly
> anti-transhumanist prospective...

Extremely unlikely stability. We're up to our ears in alligators for the
foreseeable future.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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