From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Feb 05 2003 - 16:28:47 MST
Russell Evermore (nanowave) writes
> I just read this very informative, readable paper by Francis
> Heylighen which introduced me to the term "ephemeralization".
The essay, http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Info-Overload.pdf
I find to be extremely well-written, though haven't finished
it. The concepts and imagery he introduces are also extremely
apt.
> I'm curious if any of you likewise see the described side
> effects - information overload, socio-institutional inertia,
> increased unpredictability etc., as phenomena likely to delay
> singularity?
I'll keep that in mind as I continue reading. I do, however,
question one item in the first paragraph.
Heylighen writes
The explosive development of the Internet and related
information and communication technologies has brought
into focus the problems of information overload, and
the growing speed and complexity of developments in
society. People find it ever more difficult to cope
with all the new information they receive, constant
changes in the organizations and technologies they
use, and increasingly complex and unpredictable side-
effects of their actions. This leads to growing stress
and anxiety, fuels various gloom and doom scenarios about
the future of our planet, and may help explain the
increasingly radical movements against globalization.
While he makes a crystal-clear presentation (later) of the
complexity and unpredictableness of those "side-effects",
I would like to know if the "growing stress and anxiety"
is really symptomatic of our world at all.
The people I'm around---even the people I listen to on
radio or read on this list---do *not* seem to be getting
more edgy or exhibit symptoms of growing anxiety. But,
then, I've not been laid-off lately like many others
here in silicon valley, and in fact in the last months I've
been quite happy. So maybe I'm really just not seeing it.
I would appreciate anyone else's sense of the accuracy of
those introductory remarks.
Thanks, Lee
> I know some will say an SI would transcend such side
> effects - but the near term development of a SI might
> not? Also, I see these problems as sure to manifest
> in an ever increasing techno-backlash as more and more
> people are swayed by the (untenable) luddite appeal of
> a return to "simpler times".
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