The Singularity Is Here

People often make note of how fast things seem to change with regard to technology. Often, they take for granted that things have always been this way and always will be. During the 20^th century, though, the leaps forward in technological capability seemed unusually prodigious. In the First World War, men had still fought from horseback and some troops had gone to battle with pikes. Less than 30 years later, the Germans tried to forestall defeat with jet fighters and the United States clinched global victory with nuclear weapons. 

  

Technological advance, it seemed to some observers, was not advancing in linear fashion. Rather, progress was occurring in exponential fashion. As computers came into use after World War II, Moore’s Law was defined. The speed of computation, generated by the number of transistors placed on integrated circuits, appeared to be doubling every two years. In fact, this speed was itself subject to acceleration and computers began to double their capacities in even shorter periods of time as the 21^st century dawned.  

Even as this recognition of accelerating progress was dawning on scholars and scientists around the world, some had already recognized that this would have profound and incalculable effects on the future and on mankind in general. If technological progress was happening after shorter and shorter junctures, then it would someday, naturally, approach infinite acceleration. Obviously, should that happen, the days of wondering at the advances in modern technology would cease. There would no longer be any change to look back on because change would be infinite. We would be in the Singularity, according to some of these thinkers.

It sounds ridiculous to our ears. However, 3D printing would sound like magic to people from a hundred years ago. So might travel to the Moon and the Internet.

What Is the Singularity?

There is not a lot of agreement on the singularity. It is easy to mistake it for the kind of apocalyptic nightmare that some people like to see in movie theaters. The usual scenario involves robots “waking up” and turning on their human masters. In fact, many people envision the Singularity positively as a juncture in which everything will be possible and death will come to an end. Some such groups have been accused of a form of millennialism, like those Christians that quit working and sat contentedly waiting for Kingdom Come when the year 1000 approached.

Most thinkers who spend time on the topic tend to see the Singularity’s primary characteristic without regard for how that moment in history will turn out for mankind. Instead, they are concerned about the mysteriousness of the time period after this event. It is called the Singularity in order to compare it to the singularity at the center of a black hole. Beyond the borders of this small region, the physical laws of the Universe purportedly break down. Beyond the arrival of a technological singularity, no one can be sure what will happen.

Impact of the Singularity

Some thinkers, such as Ray Kurzweil, see a bumpy road on the way to a Singularity that will eventually result in bliss for the survivors. You must use ominous terms such as survivors in Kurzweil’s scenario because there will undoubtedly be struggles along the way. He foresees potential problems such as widespread and chronic unemployment before the culmination of the event sometime around 2045.

Since automation will take over more and more jobs, there simply will not be a lot for people to do unless they have highly specialized skills. The closer we get to the Singularity, the fewer jobs and trades that will be safe form automation. Ultimately, when the Singularity arrives, there will be no jobs. Machines will have become more than human equals. They will surpass us and no longer need us.

Preparing for the Singularity

Kurzweil sees a way to survive and enjoy the Singularity. As it approaches, he suggests that people begin to incorporate technology into their fleshy substrates. When the Singularity arrives, people will be part of it rather than simply endure it.

The Singularity Is Here

Some doubters scoff at the idea of the Singularity. They accept that the world has undergone rapid change since the time of the Industrial Revolution. Some of these opponents of Kurzweil’s suggest that the progress will halt or falter as integrated circuits near the molecular limit for the walls that separate them. We are, in fact, approaching this point already. Other opponents simply put Kurzweil’s and others’ ideas on the same pile of predictions about the future that have failed to come true for millennia. 

However, in a final defense of the Singularity’s reality, some would suggest that we are already in it. After all, how many people have metal and plastic limbs or organs already? As for chronic unemployment due to automation, the current economic crisis presents itself as a possible precursor to Kurzweil’s vision. Perhaps we are already on the edges of the Singularity, like a boat caught in a whirlpool, doomed for the mysterious vortex of forces in the center.

The Founding Fathers and the Welfare State

The Founding Fathers of the United States have been depicted in several different lights throughout history. Never at any one time has there been agreement about their composite or specific character. You can find disagreement over the qualities of these men in literature as early as Irving’s Rip Van Winkle, in which the protagonist mistakes a portrait of General Washington for that of King George III.

Modern Misconceptions about the Founding Fathers

Misconceptions abound about these men and their views. In Christian-right circles, these men are sometimes depicted as stalwart and anachronistically fundamentalist Christians. Leftists like Howard Zinn see them as one step removed from robber barons. Others assume that they were secretly anti-slavery because they want to respect these men but can’t get over their glaring possession of black-skinned human beings.

The most popular misconception about them regards their purpose in the War for Independence. Many people think that they were rebelling against monarchy. These men actually appealed to the king to save them from the pseudo-democratic Parliament.

Like any body of men, each of them was a complex being. As a whole, they were also complex. Some wanted to separate themselves from monarchy and create a libertine society that probably would have differed only a little from that which would be erected in France in the next few decades. Others were unabashed monarchists who simply wanted to move up the political food chain in their locale. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, years after the War for Independence had ended, Alexander Hamilton argued publicly for the institution of an elected monarchy.

The Cultural Difference

There was one quality of all those men, and the other people who occupied the newly-developed country, that was undeniably common. Each of them was self-sufficient. This aspect of their collective character is often trumpeted by so-called conservatives.

It is an undeniable fact. Virtually all people were, when compared to the average person today, self-sufficient. Even the large landowners, such as Washington and Jefferson, had to engage daily in their business affairs in order to keep things going. The only ones that truly lived off the labor of others and idled away their lives were the increasingly useless nobles of Europe and they were far away.

While a pseudo-libertarian like me might adhere to this idea and proclaim a gospel calling for a return to this self-sufficiency, it would be disingenuous. After all, self-sufficiency was not a choice. While it might have been character-building, it undoubtedly also involved a lot of tragedy.

People were self-sufficient because they had to be. It remains in doubt whether they would have been philosophically against a welfare state like our own or the kind seen in Europe today. There are certainly some Founding Fathers who would have been repelled by the state of things today. There is not a consensus among those cadavers about the issue, though.

Moving Forward

Nevertheless, we are not what they were. Most Americans, even the red-blooded kind that still go to Church on Sunday and stand for the pledge of allegiance, believe in some kind of welfare state that is clearly distinct from the early Republic. You can only cut so many social programs before even the most libertarian amongst us cries out in pain.

Perhaps the best way forward is not to look back at these complex men who inhabit a region of the space-time continuum which we cannot ever access. Some have surrendered to the present and simply await the inevitable downfall of a society which constantly spends more than it earns. They still face the same problem that pro-welfare individuals will face when it all comes apart. Each of these people will have to come together again to create the next state. That political organization will have to be derived from the human resources of the present and not from the spiritual remains of the Founding Fathers.

Freedom vs. Safety: the Real Political Divide

I had a conversation the other day with some adult classmates during a break in biology class. I can’t remember the exact topic of discussion but it had a sociopolitical element to it. We were not exactly arguing gun control but it was related to citizens’ rights.

I made some sort of remark about how people should be allowed to do what they want as long as they are not hurting anyone else. One of the participants in the discussion, a woman in her thirties, said that she would not feel safe in a country where that was allowed.

“I don’t want to be safe,” I replied. “I want to be free.”

After I said it, I realized that I had put my finger on the real social, cultural and political divide that is heating things up right now. I am not pretending that you can divide the entire population of the United States into two groups. By now in our history, the picture of the American population is truly kaleidoscopic. However, the distinction between two ways of thinking about government and freedom are the real causes behind the rancor in politics today.

Freedom or Safety

Some of us want to be free. We do not want anyone to tell us what to do.  We accept that this means that no one will be there to help us, either. That’s okay, this segment of the population says. Let us sink or swim.

 On the other hand, some of us believe that the government has more responsibility. It should make us safe. For the most part, this segment of the population wants the government to act like a parent and guide our actions. It is not enough to simply forbid hurting others and punish those who do so. The government must prevent anyone from committing crimes.

If I Were President…

There is certainly a segment of the population that would take it one step further. A young girl in that biology class learned from the professor that prolonged exposure to the UV rays in a tanning bed could bind adjacent thymine nucleotides in your DNA and spur mutations. She announced that, if she were President, she would shut those places down. The professor loudly remarked that this was the United States of America and we had a little thing called freedom. Kudos to the professor.

The dictatorial powers that she thinks that the President has (or should have) are alarming enough but they are topics for another essay. The point that stuck with me was that she thought the President should act like a father and guide the actions of his children toward safe choices.

The Founding Population

There were many currents of thought running through the founding population of the United States. Not everyone was fighting to get rid of a king. Many victorious Americans, at the end of the Revolution, wanted George Washington to be the new king. Others wanted something closer to what the French would disastrously try to implement in the next few decades.

However, there was definitely a strong element who wanted nothing to do with the way of life that had been common to European peasants for centuries. These ancestors had lived in straitened circumstances and looked to aristocrats for their protection. While there was also much admirable self-sufficiency among peasants, they definitely placed an onus of responsibility on their noble overlords. These leaders were expected to make things right and keep them safe.

The Americans in the country were mostly first or second generation immigrants who wanted to support themselves. They were content, even thrilled, to leave behind the superstructure of authority that had watched over their actions if it meant that they could live as they pleased.

Sometime between then and now, our population has undergone a drastic change. Probably very few of us, even the most diehard libertarians, are prepared to live as self-sufficiently as those ancestors did. Many Americans seem to want the government to take charge and tell them how to be safe. The topic of the next essays will be a study of the two centuries of change that have altered the political and cultural landscape of the United States of America. 

Is The World Coming to an End?

 

In my work as a content writer, I have come across a lot of disaster porn on the Internet. This phenomenon manifests itself in websites devoted to survival of one or more catastrophes allegedly headed our way. The looming calamities tend to fall into three categories: physical cataclysms, economic ruin and worldwide spiritual downfall. Sometimes these imagined disasters are pictured happening at the same time or one as a result of the other.

The Cataclysmic Possibilities

There is a group of people out there that is eager to believe that an asteroid or comet is going to strike the Earth and kill a lot of us off. In 2009, it was the hardly believable threat from Hellion 1957 that caused at least a few score people to sleep uneasily for a few weeks or months that fall. Not long ago, the threat from DA 14 was much more believable and something sure happened that gave people plenty of reason to worry. The impact of a large meteorite in central Russia had conspiracy theorists humming.

Typically, in the forums that cater to discussions of these potential disasters, there is a reason that knowledge of impending destruction is limited to a chosen few. NASA is the usual target for these accusations. NASA knows that a big rock is headed this way and is covering it up under orders from a multi-national interest that is preparing a vault in Norway to hold all the necessary supplies to restart life on Earth for the chosen few. Themes that are constant among almost all strands of the disaster theory are that the Freemasons or the Jews are arranging all this or that they are somehow at fault.

The people most concerned about these possibilities are doing more than just starting blogs and pointing fingers. They are preparing. Racks of guns and buckets of bullets are just the starting point. If you look around the Internet, you will find packages of emergency food conveniently packaged into one-year supplies for sale. Survivalists are shelling out a lot of money at Sam’s Club for these provisions.

Economic Ruin

The Federal Reserve is the favorite target of certain groups of people who believe that the US dollar will soon suffer hyperinflation. Fools will wander the streets with barrels of greenbacks, vainly attempting to exchange their worthless paper for loaves of bread or used Xboxes. In the meantime, the wise will hole up in their homes with guns and gold, prepared to set society straight once the masses starve or recognize who their rightful masters really are. 

Soon you'll be wishing you were this dude.

Believers in this particular disaster flock to websites that preach the gold gospel. This message from the wise details the ways in which solid gold is superior to fiat money. When paper currencies are good for nothing more than starting fires, the owners of gold will have the only valuable assets on the planet. People who have food and guns, naturally, will be able to take the gold anytime that they want.

The Worldwide Spiritual Downfall of Man

Some of these above disasters are just background to the root cause of global destruction. It was all foretold in the Book of Revelations. What wasn’t told there was told in St. Malachy’s prophetic list of the Popes. Additional information can be found in the Edgar Cayce diaries apparently.

While the other disaster scenarios suggest certain physical ways of surviving, these methods will do little good when the Anti-Christ shows up. Go ahead and shoot.  He will burn your ass to cinders. The only way to save yourself is to read your Bible and pray that the rapture takes you.

There are many more vividly imagined disasters just waiting to happen. If you have some alternative way in which we may all die gruesomely, please feel free to add them in the comments.

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