Anyway, I am curious if anyone would like to share experiences they've
had trying to get Singularitarian concepts across to ordinary (but
let's assume college-educated) Joes out there. Successful experiences
are valued but also unsuccessful ones. I'm specifically interested in
approaches, metaphors, focii and so forth that have actually proved
successful at waking non-nerd, non-SF-maniac human beings up to the
idea that this idea of a coming Singularity is not **completely**
absurd...
I would tend at this time to put Singularity skepticism into four categories:
1. Some people live in today's world, and the idea of radical change just isn't part of their mental landscape; it's not so much that they have an argument that the world in 500 years will be much the same as it is today, more that they're not interested in contemplating alternative scenarios.
2. The "10-20 years from now" timescales put forward by some Singularitarians generate skepticism - projected rates of progress don't support Singularity-level tech that soon in the opinion of most of the scientists and engineers working in the relevant fields.
3. The "Judgement Day" versions, where an event happens over a short period of time that brings salvation or damnation with no subsequent effort required, generates skepticism for reasons that have been amply discussed elsewhere.
4. There is skepticism about prediction in general. It's not just the Singularity - we have never had the ability to foretell the future. Major predictions in the past have generally been wrong, and if anything the smarter the people the more wildly wrong their forecasts. A lot of people therefore take the agnostic attitude: "maybe some elements of this Singularity will come to pass someday, maybe not; I don't know the future and I don't believe you do either".
For version 1, I've found tossing wild scenarios just makes people go "well, I was right to not want to listen to this crap". I find the best approach is to:
Point out that the world has changed dramatically in the last 500 years, and is still changing rather rapidly on historical timescales.
Ask if they agree it therefore makes sense to say that the world will similarly change over the next 500 years.
If agreement on this is forthcoming, then ask what _they_ think might be possible ways things could go, and discuss the ins and outs of those.
For versions 2-4, I think the skeptics are right, so I'm not the best person to ask for counterarguments :)
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