Re: No Singularity?

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Wed, 17 Nov 1999 01:01:39 -0600

Billy Brown wrote:
>
> Dan Fabulich wrote:
> > 'What is your name?' 'Billy Brown.' 'IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT
> > YOUR NAME IS!!!'
>
> Any Vorlon who tries that interrogation routine on me is going to be
> forcibly reminded that he isn't bulletproof. Unlike Delen, I'm not silly
> enough to worship a race that has had technology for a million years and
> hasn't managed to do anything with it.

Um, Billy? Vorlons *are* bulletproof. This was established fairly thoroughly during the fourth season. (Okay, so this transcends the concept of mere "pedantry", but I can't help it.)

Besides, you can't blame JMS for running all his civilizations in slow-mo. Going through the next million years worth of progress in twelve seconds may be the most computationally realistic result, but Vinge is the only one who's managed to make a human-readable drama out of it (_A Fire Upon the Deep_).

Besides, I was deeply touched by the "Human Encounter Suit" in _The Deconstruction of Falling Stars_. The torch passes on, and burns brighter still. 

-- 
           sentience@pobox.com          Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
        http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
Running on BeOS           Typing in Dvorak          Programming with Patterns
Voting for Libertarians   Heading for Singularity   There Is A Better Way