Singularity literature

i want to believe the Singularity is not just the Rapture of the Nerds, because it's based on the idea that computers can be used to improve computers - which is true; the design for the Apple Macintosh was assisted by a Cray supercomputer, and oddly enough the next generation Crays were partly designed using Macs.

whereas the Christian rapture is more of a revenge fantasy.

>>8689847
>Is singularity literature just repackaged Christianity for a society that is increasingly unequal and poor?
I don't think it are the really poor who think "This hardship will go away soon enough, the singularity will come soon. I believe it."

I speculate it is rather just something nerds believe in. People who play lots of futuristic video games, watch futuristic movies and enjoy technological gadgets.

But I have no idea really. All I can say is that the transhumanists I've talked to are naive and have a lack of erudition. Their seems an overlap with the kinds of Dawkins and Dennets, because transhumanists seem to be reductionists (think selfish gene).

They think that there's a single gene for stuff and that it is easy to genetically engineer humans. While the books I've been reading, some on evolutionary biology and genes (Eva Jablonka), others on systems science (Yaneer Bar Yam, Fritjof Capra), tells me it is much more complicated.

Systems science says that the whole cannot reduced to its parts (sorry can't explain it well, but know what it means). That applies to genes too. Heck the latest book I've read on systems science discussed genetically modified crops.

And guess what? Most genetically modified plants die, so you have to try out a bunch of stuff, so it doesn't. How the heck are we going to apply genetic engineering to humans?

I should probably read a textbook or add some scientific papers to the mix to be sure I am not the clueless one. But based on what I know now, I think it are the transhumanists who are clueless.

I think this naivity is potentially dangerous, and I do consider these nerds, not transhumanism itself, as an existional threat and cultural enemy if their fantasies would ever come true and the way they envision it.

Nerd culture itself, their ideas, their pure ideology and so on and so on, manifests itself into transhumanism. And I think that some of their ideas are wrong or I don't agree with.

I am making generalizations here, but that is what my overall association is with this singularity stuff. I am not even sure how much of an influence these nerds have on scientific developments that make their visions come true.

Super intelligence will come, it's inevitable. Where Kurtzweil is wrong is in thinking it will care for us at all. We will be ants to it.

The most sensible posthumanism is that of Nick Land.

>Generation X is poorer than the Boomers, and the Millennials are poorer than Generation X. I can't think of a better refutation of the idea of "accelerating returns" to a singularity of prosperity and super AI.

That only refutes the prosperity aspect. Which is important to the public images of all the singularity-leaning tech dudes, but ultimately not very important to most arguments for a singularity.

>>8691656
Systems science is where singularity theories come from, dude. Norbert Weiner mentioned the possibility of AI escaping human control in 1950 (Human Use of Human Beings, toward the end). Valentine Turchin's cybernetic view of history leads to a singularity. For current writers, Stephen Wolfram is a flat out believer, Bar-Yam's complexity transition idea is comparable and he actually dipped his toes in the life-extension milieu last year. W. Brian Arthur's stuff on increasing returns, technological evolution and combinatorial innovation support a singularity, although I don't know if he ever comes out and says it. There's others. I don't think any of them buy into the gospel according to Kurzweil, but he's only ever been a popularizer.

https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_can_we_build_ai_without_losing_control_over_it

Take the Sam pill.

>>8691779
>Systems science is where singularity theories come from, dude. Norbert Weiner mentioned the possibility of AI escaping human control in 1950 (Human Use of Human Beings, toward the end). Valentine Turchin's cybernetic view of history leads to a singularity. For current writers, Stephen Wolfram is a flat out believer, Bar-Yam's complexity transition idea is comparable and he actually dipped his toes in the life-extension milieu last year. W. Brian Arthur's stuff on increasing returns, technological evolution and combinatorial innovation support a singularity, although I don't know if he ever comes out and says it. There's others. I don't think any of them buy into the gospel according to Kurzweil, but he's only ever been a popularizer.
Guess I am wrong, I didn't know. It was my association so far based on limited experience with a few talks with transhumanists and a look at some transhumanist blogs or some subreddit.

So how do you know all this? Where do I go to develop a more accurate picture of this stuff?

Also, it seems much more likely that it will be the military where we will see the most progress at, no?

>>8691835
>It was my association so far based on limited experience with a few talks with transhumanists and a look at some transhumanist blogs or some subreddit.

Yeah, transhumanism is mostly crap, but singularity ideas don't always entail transhumanism.

>So how do you know all this? Where do I go to develop a more accurate picture of this stuff?

http://www.scoop.it/t/cxbooks is good, their other sections are okay but they should stop letting Dirk Helbing spam the talks feed. Twitter is good. Wikipedia is a good way to find older stuff to read. Moocs here https://www.complexityexplorer.org/courses if you want to get really in depth.

It's not like the singularity is some huge topic in the field, though, it's just conceptually close to a lot of stuff that is so it crops up from time to time.

>Also, it seems much more likely that it will be the military where we will see the most progress at, no?

Progress in things the military is interested in, definitely