[ExI] Kurzweil honored for inventing the Singularity

[Damien Broderick]

At 06:46 PM 12/26/2008 -0600, Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More wrote:

>when someone from the Extropy list writes about transhumanism
>and list discussions on the Singularity, I feel confident that a fairly
>accurate recollection will be made.

Two problems with that statement (in the context of this thread):

As far as I know, none of the complicated and imaginative posts from 
the first couple of decades of the ExI list (long before Kurzweil's 
Singularity book, and before my own also, of course) are archived. A 
tiny sampling is quoted in THE SPIKE and perhaps in a few articles 
here and there. A few aging people will recall that such a long 
conversation once existed, but the text of it has already vanished (I assume).

And in any case, Dr. Vinge--who *did* discern/invent the 
singularity--has never posted here (although Eliezer did, of course, 
copiously--as did Robert Bradbury and others).

But maybe I've missed your point, Natasha.

Damien Broderick
[I feel a related sort of frustration and unfairness when journalists 
routinely source derivative, half-baked STAR TREK or STAR WARS or 
TERMINATOR movies or eps instead of the brilliant books and stories 
by the geniuses who not only thought up these ideas, decades earlier, 
but usually developed and explored their nuances. In that case, 
though, the lazy journalism has a kind of justification, because so 
vastly many people have been exposed to the ST, SW, T products that 
the reference is immediate, instantly recognizable, and clarifying.]