extropians: Re: META: Singularity, a restriction on...

Re: META: Singularity, a restriction on...

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Mon, 19 Apr 1999 13:24:36 -0700 (PDT)

> I just thought of one possible restraint on Singularity-type
> growth: Procrastination.
>
> As more people become immortal at the edge of the Singularity,
> the amount of procrastination which occurs in society will amplify
> at exponential rates, leading to a major braking effect on growth
> of all kinds.

The counterbalancing effect to this is ego. No matter how rich everyone in society becomes, even if every person now on the streets of Calcutta could easily retire to a large house and have all the free time and recreation ey wanted, ey would still want to work and create and build so that ey could be just a little bit richer than eir neighbor.

And of course every specialist in each field of endeavor will still want to be the first to accomplish some feat or other.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC