[ExI] Inevitability of the Singularity (was Re: To Max, re Natasha and Extropy (Kevin Haskell)

[Stefano Vaj]

On 9 July 2011 14:06, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 09, 2011 at 12:39:26AM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> > Global Warming may be a big problem, but not so large as the overall
> > economy, IMHO. So I agree with Samantha on this one. However, a 2-4 C
>
> Global warming can push 2 gigapeople over the brink of starvation.
> This will trigger migrations and wars, including wars with the potential
> to turn nuclear. (But, hey, what is a nuclear war compared to burning
> issues the "teh economy"?)
>
> This is not a financial or even economic crisis. It is far, far worse.
> We're facing a systemic crisis through confluence of some ten factors,
> but the core driver behind all these is overshoot. This is serious,
> and it needs to be addressed three to four decades ago.
>

In history, we have had weather cycles, some of which have been much warmer
than what is forecast even in a worst case scenario for the next century.
Moreover, some of those have been periods blossoming with innovation and
growth.

Now, it may well be the case that this would not be the outcome of any
contemporary change in the average temperature, be it on the minus or the
plus sign.

One should however consider whether the actual risk is such a change, or
rather the implied,  increasing fragilisation/sclerosis of our economic and
civilisational framework, which may easily lead to scenarios where only
absolute, unlikely stability (and stagnation) of all factors can prevent
catastrophic developments. This, btw, sounds as a distinctly
anti-transhumanist prospective...

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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