[ExI] Are we too stupid? (Was: Cold fusion)

[John Clark]

On 2013-05-27 15:25, spike wrote:

> Look at us; how long have we been debating the singularity right here?
> Twenty years now?  We aren’t any closer than we were then,
>

On a geological timescale 20 years, or even 200,000 is considered
instantaneous. And I don't know when the singularity will happen but I
think its safe to say that we're 20 years closer to it now than we were 20
years ago. It is in the very nature of a singularity that there is little
evidence for a dramatic increase in some quantity or quality until just
before it happens, so whenever the singularity happens it will come as a
great surprise even to those who know that a singularity can only come as a
great surprise, otherwise it wouldn't be a singularity.

> other than computers are faster and better connected.
>

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln how did you like the play?

> It is possible that humans are just slightly too dumb to discover how to
> cause a singularity.
>

We probably are too stupid to cause a singularity, but our machines won't
be.

  John K Clark
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