} I'm sorry, I prefer the Vernor Vinge who wrote _AFUTD_, not the one who
} speculates on the coming Singularity. Too many people (I'm not implying
But most of Vinge's thought on the Singularity happened before _Fire_;
it's clearly present in his two short story collections. (See my Vinge
page for my story labels.) All of the Powers are High Beyond
civilizations which have passed through the Singularity. The fact that
High Beyond civilizations (or more pointedly, and possibly relevant to
another thread here if anyone has anything concrete to say, their
languages) are rather funky from our point of view goes to show that the
Singularity is more the dominant label for a vague, shifting, and
possibly even gradational concept.
} Vinge) seem to see this as a magical, effortless, sudden transcension.
Yeah. Only in this area of the ideosphere (ideo-archipelago?
ideopelago?) do I feel like an arch-conservative.
} I think this is a good corrolary of Tolkien's claim that "perilous to us
} all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves."
So having some idea of how one's technological support works is a good
idea, even if the need for specialization precludes being able to
re-engineer everything at a moment's notice. File under "disasters
preventable by preparing for the disaster actually happening."
Merry part,
-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix
"Dragonlords fight for honor, Iorich nobles fight for justice, Jhereg
nobles fight for money, and Dzurlords fight for fun."
-- Steven Brust, a Vlad Taltos book