Let me be clear, this is not my article! An excerpt is included here because of it’s ‘no holds barred’ approach in presenting one person’s thoughts about the state of humanity relative to the industrial world which we are all dependent on. There has been NO attempt to verify the purported facts in the article although some statements seem to be supported by recognizable externally links. Examining our acceptance of this reality seems to me to be the responsible approach to the demands we make on this worldwide industrial system. Jim
Signs of the Times: Could The Human-Industrial “Singularity” Be Near?
Posted by: cctracker | March 18, 2012
Some weeks ago we were dealing with “faith and science” in my class. For a few days I was carrying around a copy of a big, fat book by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil: The Singularity Is Near.
“The singularity” is Kurzweil’s name for a moment coming our way in the not-so-distant future when the pace of technological progress reaches a critical breakaway point. Humans and machines merge and in a sudden, ‘whoosh’ of geometric progressions we can scarcely imagine now, human life is utterly transformed.
Mostly, I find the material terrifying.
More on that in a future post; It puts me in a winter mind and I’m ready for spring. But a series of articles and ongoing news about Apple Computer in the NY Times, despite sounding dark chords that remind me of Kursweil’s vision, also have me wondering whether a much more hopeful breakaway point in human history might be approaching. Read the complete article