Re: [singularity] Defining the Singularity

[Samantha Atkins]

On Oct 20, 2006, at 2:14 AM, Michael Anissimov wrote: Sometimes, Samantha, it seems like you have little faith in any possible form of intelligence, and that the only way for one to be safe/happy is to be isolated from everything.  I sometimes get this impression from libertarians (not to say that I'm anti-libertarian). Sure, I grant that humans can be conniving, jealous, coercive, and competitive, but does that mean that every single point in the gigantic space of all possible minds must be as well? Are you just making this up as you go along?  A cursory glance at a few archives will show that if anything I can sometimes be accused of being much too optimistic as to what I believe is possible for the right combination of intelligence and consciousness / vision.   Of late I feel a lot of despair because I see lots of brilliant people seemingly mired in endlessly rehashing what-ifs, arcane philosophical points and willing to put off actually creating greater than human intelligence and transhuman tech indefinitely until they can somehow prove to their and our quite limited intelligence that all will be well.  I see brilliant idealistic people who don't bother to admit or examine what evil is now bearing down on them and their dreams because they believe the singularity is near inevitable and will make everything all better in the sweet by and bye.    I despair of selling a dream.   Dreams are hard to sell and much too easily perverted.  - samantha This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]