The Singularity Is Near - When Humans Transcend Biology

As I’ve been ranting the past few years, to many a raised eyebrow, humans are on the cusp of achieving the incomprehensible and divine (or opposite of divine, until it helps someone YOU love). Namely, greatly extended life spans.

Gradually, the “reputable” prophets are ringing in. I’d say “I told you so” but you already know that. The comments on The Singularity Is Near : When Humans Transcend Biology are especially worthwhile in helping me to understand why none of this mattered, however true, when it was only me saying it. I have to confess, it’s not easy to have such a long track record of validated prophecy and still be relegated to the underclass referred to below as “less capable hands.” Sigh.

Nonetheless, these “less capable hands” expect that like the Internet, which many a religious mainstreamer interpreted as The Devil’s Way To Usher In The Antichrist World Government (until they found out web sites help church attendance); I suspect these advances will be met with similar claims that It’s Not Okay To Play God. Why not? YOU DO, and we probably all do to some extent and in some way or another. Even atheists, who simply hope for the humble, everyday liberty to be in control of their own lives and destinies – within market forces, ostensibly – apparently desire a level of autonomy historically reserved for The One And Only.

“In less capable hands, this phantasmagoria of speculative extrapolation, which incorporates a bewildering variety of charts, quotations, playful Socratic dialogues and sidebars, would be easier to dismiss. But Kurzweil is a true scientist – a large-minded one at that – and gives due space both to “the panoply of existential risks” as he sees them and the many presumed lines of attack others might bring to bear. What’s arresting isn’t the degree to which Kurzweil’s heady and bracing vision fails to convince – given the scope of his projections, that’s inevitable – but the degree to which it seems downright plausible.” - Publisher’s Weekly