[ExI] Niall Ferguson: Don’t Believe the Techno-Utopian Hype

Dave Sill sparge at gmail.com
Fri Aug 17 18:15:20 UTC 2012


On Google+, David Brin shared the link:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/07/29/niall-ferguson-don-t-believe-the-techno-utopian-hype.html

Here's what Brin had to say:

"Niall Ferguson on the gap between technological optimism and economic
pessimism: The things Ferguson says are mostly true... yet when I am around
Singularity guys, I am always the grouch in the room. Only followers of Fox
News seem to have less grasp of history than the transhumanist zealots, who
think Moore's Law will automatically make us all gods in a decade or two.
On the other hand, Ferguson is a tad superficial here -- For example, while
the middle class may have stagnated in the U.S. -- (what would you expect,
when a vast portion of their wealth is simply being handed to a neo-feudal
oligarchy?) -- Ferguson ignores the far more significant news, the
fantastic rise of middle classes in developing nations.  The rate at which
the next generation is becoming more educated and technologically empowered
in China, India and even Africa is positively stunning... a vast social
leap that has been propelled largely by the American consumer and WalMart.
 Any "economist" who ignores the yang side of this yin-yang, the way the
world sum is overwhelmingly positive, is simply a fool."

-Dave
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