X-Message-Number: 18988
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Re: Slipping singularity 
Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 13:28:09 -0700

Progress doesn't happen automatically.  It requires considerable social 
construction and initiative to sustain.  And as John Horgan, Alan Cromer and 
others have pointed out, the kind of thinking involved in science is hard to 
master and only relatively few people have a talent for it.  Horgan in _The 
End of Science_ quotes one's physicist's opinion that anyone who really 
understands modern physics has to be some sort of freak.

Bio-engineering right now is especially vulnerable to social sabotage and 
restriction in part because of popular beliefs that life derives from the 
"supernatural," whatever that means.

Nobody believes that the locally prominent deity makes computers and 
software, by contrast.  That's why bio-engineering, especially of human 
materials, is often denounced as "playing god," while computer engineering 
is still socially acceptable.

However, there's an outside chance that some outspoken Singularity 
enthusiasts, like the hyperactive Ray Kurzweil (doesn't he have a company to 
run or something?), might break through the crank barrier into public 
credibility.  They might inadvertently spook some key politicians into 
restricting progress in computing much like President Bush's efforts to 
relinquish cloning research.  If that were to happen, even is a Singularity 
is possible, it might be postponed indefinitely.

For example, talk of using biotech and Borg-like implants to create people 
with "superhero" powers (apart from Rush Limbaugh) might not go over well as 
public relations for Transhumanist ideas in the current cultural 
environment, as for example in this article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50958-2002Apr25.html

And, of course, Hollywood has to muddy the memetic environment with movies 
about "clone wars" and sequels to the "Matrix" and "Terminator" films.

Mark Plus

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