[ExI] [ieet] Singularity - Non-Gender Specific

natasha at natasha.cc natasha at natasha.cc
Tue Sep 29 19:45:12 UTC 2009


  Quoting Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com>:

> On 9/29/2009 1:37 PM, natasha at natasha.cc wrote:
>
>> the real (if there is such a thing) Singularity is not male-centric.
>> Since this is the truth (if there is such a thing), why are its central
>> advocates oblivious to this?  It seems that it would be more beneficial
>> to be non-gender specific in its promotion.
>
> Are you asking why more women are not currently discussing the
> singularity? [delete]

I am not asking why more women are not discussing the Singularity.   
(Why is it that is women are mentioned, there has to be a giant leap  
to sex symbols?)

> Since "the Singularity" is an abstract concept about rates of change in
> technology, I don't see how it can be *personalized* as either male or
> female, except in the figuration of Terminators or Gaiamind or some
> other comic-strip reductionism.

Yes, I agree.  And this is my point - the current climate of the  
Singularity appears to propose a male dictate of our future and it  
cannot be gender specific.

> Consider science fiction a generation or two ago, when women were
> usually seen as excluded from the readership, the creative input, and
> the subject matter (except as "sexy" or domestic decoration); this was
> never really true, but it slowly changed to the point when now very
> many women write sf and a fair proportion of the readers are women.
> What caused this change? In part, education, feminism and the social
> readjustment of women's roles (made possible in part by oral
> contraceptives). With such changes now prevalent, despite the dickheads
> trying to push back the tide, it might be that the singularity idea
> will spread among women sooner or later if it becomes fashionable.

I thought I alluded to this by stating Haraway's use of "cyborg" and  
making it a feminist term (which now has a tremendous following and  
numerous academic courses) and which forgets Manfred Clyne's vision.

> When
> Malcolm Gladwell writes a book about it, and is hailed as a genius for
> "inventing" this great new idea (as Ray Kurzweil has already been, on a
> smaller scale), it'll be in the New Yorker and work its way down. Maybe.

It is a darn shame that you are not recognized for your seminal works.  
  But maybe a woman will come along and take the Singularity and make  
it about humanity's metamorphosis.








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