Thaths <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > It has been some months since I listened to the Sterling talk. IIRC, > the gist of Sterling's talk was that the Singularitarians spoke in a > vein similar to Millenarians and that we all know how successful the > latter have been in terms of predicting the future.
I understand, but it seems like a false analogy. People predicting, say, that the world will end because Jesus is going to return soon are doing so based entirely on faith. On the other hand, the notion that the human race is soon going to build things smarter than people, and that this will have particular consequences, is straightforward to evaluate on purely technical grounds. Rather than evaluate it he simply dismissed it. I don't have any problem with intelligent refutation of an idea like this, but his notion of discussing it seemed to be "boy, aren't these people silly? lets laugh at them." Hardly what I'd call intelligent evaluation of the proposition. Perry
