I completely agree with Anders' comments, and those of Lyle on this topic.
The Singularity idea has worried me for years -- it's a classic religious,
Christian-style, end-of-the-world concept that appeals to people in western
cultures deeply. It's also mostly nonsense, for the reasons recently
articulated by Anders', Lyle, and Hal F.
The Singularity concept has all the earmarks of an idea that can lead to
cultishness, and passivity. There's a tremendous amount of hard work to be
done and intellectually masturbating about a supposed Singularity is not
going to get us anywhere.
Since many Extropians, like others, seem to be prone to uncritically
absorbing this idea, in my revision of the original Dynamic Optimism, I will
add an analysis and warning of the Singularity idea. I suggested that the
idea of uploading could be abused in a similar way, even though uploading
seems far more reasonable that a Singularity.
There is no heaven, there will be no Singularity. We can create a wonderful
posthuman future where we will be unshackled from many human limits, but it
will take critical thinking, creativity, and hard work.
Max
Max More, Ph.D.
more@extropy.org
http://www.primenet.com/~maxmore
President, Extropy Institute, Editor, Extropy
info-exi@extropy.org, http://www.extropy.org
(310) 398-0375