[ExI] Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, Singularitarian Principles. Update?

[x at extropica.org]

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 9:03 AM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14 November 2010 02:22, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
>> Extrope Dan Clemmensen posted here around 15 years ago his conviction that
>> the Singularity would happen "before 1 May, 2006" (the net would "wake up").
>> Bad luck.
>
> I still believe that seeing the Singularity as an "event" taking place
> at a given time betrays a basic misunderstanding of the metaphor, ony
> too open to the sarcasm of people such as Carrico.
>
> If we go for the original meaning of "the point in the future where
> the predictive ability of our current forecast models and
> extrapolations obviously collapse", it would seem obvious that the
> singularity is more of the nature of an horizon, moving forward with
> the perspective of the observer, than of a punctual event.
>
> The Singularity as an incumbent rapture - or
> doom-to-be-avoided-by-listening-to-prophets, as it seems cooler to
> many to present it these days - can on the other hand easily
> deconstructed as a secularisation of millennarist myths which have
> plagued western culture since the advent of monotheism.
>
> As such, it should perhaps concern historian of religions and cultural
> anthropologists more than transhumanists or researchers.

Thanks Stefano.  So refreshing to hear such words of reason within a
"transhumanist" forum.

- Jef