// wrote these on the bus headed in and out of Golden, didn’t get a chance to
// submit them before now.
Current Location: on the bus in Downtown Denver (39.737 N / 104.993 W )
20090825 - 1100 MST / 1700 UTC
Listening to Vernor Vinge’s SALT (Seminars on Long Term Thinking) talk on why
the Singularity* might not happen. To risk restating the podcast, which is
available online (check out, as a matter of fact, The Long Now organization at
http://www.longnow.org), Vinge gives the following as reasons why the
Singularity might not in fact occur:
1. Mutually assured destruction actually does occur,
2. Our civilization enters into a golden age, and we enter into a form
of transhumanism that obsoletes the idea of the Singularity, or
3. A wheel of time scenario in which humanity cycles through periods
of long runs, only to suffer near extinctions requiring the rebuilding
of society (i.e. the Roman Empire on a global scale, a real mind twister
when you look at how globally interdependent the planent is now).
I’ve been tossing around the idea of the Singularity as being a force or major
event in the cyberpunk novel I’m very slowly working on, and it certainly
provides some food for thought concerning the future. He notes that “younger
older people”, with their wisdom, would be good for humanity, and that research
into productive longevity of the human race would be a good policy decision.
Their insights into events of the past and the course of history to that point
through their lives would help with the aims of the Long Now. This could be an
interesting scenario, much like the character of Conover, the sumggler lord, in
the cyberpunk novel Metrophage.
I’ve also noted preparations for my upcoming business trip do not take all of my
time or even always most. Operating under this parameter, I’ve decided to start
using some of my free and currently unemployed time to earnestly study Java and
how to write webapps, and integrating Java, PHP, and possibly perl or python or
(my ultimate goal), lisp. Definitely not Ruby though.
I have two small projects I want to develop first:
1. a java SFTP program to provide a unified, cross-platform tool for
providing a free SFTP GUI for whatever operating system being run (as
long as said OS runs Java) to learn some secure network programming
techniques in Java, and
2. a tumblr notepad like program to write new posts from your desktop
(maybe some sort of desktop widget) to learn how to do HTTP interfacing.
Both of these will work towards a program that was originally suggested to me
by a systems administrator at my last job (where I worked as a student network
administrator) that could provide the first real cash flow and name for Epic
Secure Data Systems, but I need to come up with some intermediate projects to
work on to lead me there.
We’ll see what happens down the road.
————————————————————————————————————————
Current Location: The bus (headed back to Denver) (39.738 N / 105.156 W)
20090825 - 1536 MST / 2136 UTC
Had a few more thoughts based on things that Vinge mentioned in the Q&A section
of his speech. Some of these he ended up more or less saying anyways. There are
certainly some interesting perspectives here though:
1. The possibility that the Singularity occurs as a rapid chain reaction,
or, as Vinge put it, “an explosion rather than progress.”
2.Think about the idea that the Singularity could (at least initially)
be isolated to the military-industrial complex.
3. The Singularity may be the byproduct of a new type of arms races.
4. If one side in an arms race gets to it first fast enough to take
advantage, could we end up with a one-sided singularity? If both get to
it at the same time, could an informational form of MAD (not necessarily
limited to the originl MAD idea of deterrence) take place? Either way.
how does this affect the outcome / situation regarding the Singularity?
5. One thing Vinge does talk about is a possibility assuming we begin the
colonoization of extraterrestrial locations (asteroids, planets, other
star systems): how does the Singularity propagate through to the remotest
systems? What effect does this have on the scenario and on society?
6. If the Singularity dominates mankind, how will that change the
social power structure? Maybe the Singularity won’t dominate, but “simply”
overthrow the status quo.
I’m falling asleep as I type, the result of no sleep last night. Hopefully, the
skipping of a night will allow to at least temporarily reset my sleep schedule.
Also I would like to expand more on this, but I’m barely coherent as it is. So
this will be it for now, and I will definitely be spell-checking again tomorrow.
August 26, 2009, 12:45am
