Clearly I don’t agree. As saint mike has shown me the truth about Cosmicist singularitarianism, saying, even if we have a ‘Ghandiularity’ – the most demure and decent Singularity, or e ‘Jeevesularity’ – the most dilligent, discrete and subservient one – the majority of humans will be very intensely upset anyways.

Good Singularities cannot be anything else than a 6 meter knife balancing on its point. It may be possible to create it, but they won’t last and tip over fast. Singeys will respond to environmental and physical stimulants we have no clue off when designing it and evolve away into a blind spot region real fast. That is why I postulate calling the Aubrey de Grey Singulatarians “green cheese” singularitarians – they assume anything totally weird might happen, such as the singleton turning everything to green cheese, so why bother speculating about it? He probably thinks, these phemonena will be transcendant, unknowable, pervasive and metaphysically powerful (magical), and beyond definition – so lets stick to what I do know and ignore the intense stuff.

There is much to say for such an approach. H+ians are all betting people in a way. We can’t prove what we do is a valid idea or strategy, and we can’t even make compelling arguments for everyone it is a valid idea in the first place. We may think we are pretty smart people, but in most places we are still met with roaring laughter.

Even if we believe it’s all true, and we bet on the outcome, some (like me) going as far as to state that in an appreciably short amount of time ‘some kind of’ Singularity, where ‘something or the other’ grows a transcendanly quick and ‘sophisticated decissionmaking and feedbacking gland’.

(I don’t think the world as it is can even hope to avoid it happening somewhere before 2050, but who am I? Certainly not Elizer.)

So we all collectively hedge our bets, hoping for the best. We don’t know what precisely will happen, and we treat it with optimism, reason it away with occams razor, or “act all philosophical” about it. Is that a sensible attitude? What can caveman do about when one starts ranting about “the big change called Holocenarity” – ‘which will destroy most coastal plains with flooding’ and bring forth this arcane thing called scripture ?

Aubrey represents the ‘one thing at time’ guy. He sets out for one task, ignores distraction and works towards his goal. A sensible betting man I’d say.

Life has been continuously evolving for billions of years but there is a set of core features and biochemical pathways common to all life. In the same way, humanity has been evolving culturally and gone from a few naked tribesmen on the savanna to a world-spanning civilization, but a whole lot about our brains and bodies is basically permanent. Things can undergo radical development and retain certain features. That retention would be even more possible if actively guided by an intelligence that wants to retain certain features.