<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Jan 14, 2006, at 11:11 AM, Russell Wallace wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">On 1/14/06, <B class="gmail_sendername">Samantha Atkins</B> <<A href="mailto:sjatkins@mac.com">sjatkins@mac.com</A>> wrote:<BR> <DIV><BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><SPAN class="q"></SPAN><DIV>I read this article. Not to put too fine a point on it, I found it laughable. Religious faith is not going to save the West and secularism sure as hell isn't dooming it. As much as I think welfare statism is evil and dangerous I can't in honesty lay the blame there except as a large contributory drain on the economy and on the character of the people. The notion that we must reproduce more this close to Singularity is the biggest laugh of all.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR> Out of curiosity, how close to the Singularity do you think we are? <BR> </DIV><BR> </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV><DIV>About one generation away if we don't do something stupid. Of late I think the odds of us doing something catastrophically stupid are higher than the odds of Singularity by a growing margin. That is not a happy conclusion. I also believe that the Singularity is increasingly much more likely to come out of the East rather than the West.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>- samantha</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>