“You can’t just go around bashing the Singularity like that!”

“Well, why not? Isn’t it due the same scrutiny as any other statistical or theoretical extrapolation?”

“No. Just no.”

“Why is that?”

“Don’t you understand?! — the Singularity is a sacred tenant of Nerd-dom, beating out even force-fields and light-sabers in conceptual God-status!…”

“I am not aware of any such thing as conceptual God-status, nor does it lend anything at all to your case this equating it with your Zeus-level memetics or whatever you want to call it. Science doesn’t care if it’s cool or if your world view rests upon its shoulders; all that matters is the truth: Is it going to happen or isn’t it? And your quick-tempered reaction to my by-all-standards-justifiably-dubious approach to the issue is self-defeating to say the least… I mean, would you want people making parody god-concepts out of your precious Singularity, much like the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Invisible Pink Unicorn parody the God of the Old Testament? Give it a rest, please! It’s just another blogger pointing out some obvious fallacies inherent in the meme.”

“I… Ghah! I hate you!!”

“To further my point, consider how unlikely it is that we could properly imagine something so supposedly un-imagineable in the first place! I mean, where do you even start if the extrapolation leads to a wall of un-extrapolatability? ‘It’s like saying God is so mysteriously, incredibly powerful that you’re not even gonna believe it!’ To which me or any other sane, skeptical scientist would respond: ‘Ok, I’ll take your word for it. I don’t believe in it one bit then!’ Don’t waste your energy deifying such a mundane, backwater concept, that’s all I’m saying.”

“It’s not mundane or backwater! It’s brand-spanking new! It’s — it’s.. It’s the most glorious — bad-assest, mega-bajillion-power-plus-infinity concept there is! I mean, the Singularity almost guarantees us Earthly eternal bliss. And you don’t even have to believe in it to get the access-cards to the Mega-Rapture of the Nerds. It’s just gonna happen, what with all the modulation and widgetizing and hackitizing, not to mention the research and development money that’s being poured into the field of recursively self-improving A.I., which is really just the beginn…”

“Stop. Just stop right there. I’ve heard it all before. I’ve seen the wikipedia article on the Technological Singularity. I’ve listened to Ray Kurzweil speak at TED. I’ve read Vernor Vinge’s works. There’s nothing you can say. You’re not gonna convert me. I’m beyond it. I’m post-cyberpunk to your momma’s moldy Nöospheres. I’m post-singularitarian while you’re still in singularitarian infancy. I’m nerd nihilism 2.0. But you, you’re still raving about AOL 2.0!! Go home already!! Just go home!”

The nihilist turns his back and walks away, leaving Mr. S-fan boquiabierta — stunned and without a comeback.

“God I hate these playa-hater’s…” mumbles Mr. S-fan to no-one in particular. Looking off into the distance he ends saying, “Maybe I should make it a religion…. Yea, I’ll call it Singularitarianism… Yeah, I like the sound of that. It just rolllllls off your tongue…” He tromps self-righteous back to the hood, his hood, the neighborhood net-cafe, to make his plans for the future and ensure that nerd-nihilism spreads to not-another-soul…

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE STORY:
Article: The Singularity has already happened.

THE NEXT THING TO READ:
The Rapture of the Nerds, NOT

MORE SINGULARITY LINKS:
The Three Major Singularity Schools
Kurzweil’s TED Speech
Vernor Vinge’s Famous Theoretical Paper

Life is resistant to entropy. Survival of the species is genetic. And selfish self-preservation is the rule. Carried out over generations, species preserve themselves. And out of humans new forms of life are springing: tools and artificial intelligence that may choose to preserve themselves at some point and push outward into the universe, saturating the whole of it with consciousness.

And although it may end up as strange and alien life, the universe will live. This is extropy, the concept that life can get around entropy visa-vi genetic and cultural heritage, and that it will continue to expand from the cradle of Earthly human intelligence.

Yep. We’re pretty key, alright, us humans. Pretty damn key…

But let’s keep some of this alive too, eh?

It’s just not good to burn up your own cradle, no matter how much you believe you have grown.

With increasingly subtle moves, the players in Asimov’s epic Foundation and Earth are confronted with the daunting decision of whether to initiate an all-encompassing ethical framework, one which just might direct humanity into an acceptable future. The agents of change go unnamed for those who have yet to read it.

Dr. Isaac Asimov, in his Foundation series (also iRobot), first places these principles:
(Wording slightly adjusted for clarity. See the original if you wish.)

1. A robot may not harm a human, or, by inaction, allow a human to come to harm.
2. A robot may not disobey human commands, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to a human.
3. A robot may not allow itself to come to harm, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to a human.

The Zeroth Law (0th) is added by another powerful mind (still some 20,000 years before the grand finale):

• A robot may not harm humanity, or by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
• A robot may not harm a human, or, by inaction, allow a human to come to harm, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to humanity.
• A robot may not disobey human commands unless required to in order to prevent harm to a human, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to humanity.
• A robot may not allow itself to come to harm unless required to in order to prevent harm to a human, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to humanity.

The Zeroth Law really puts everything into perspective, adding a new level of consideration and calculation; within this framework, every thought, word, and action for robot-kind needs exquisite justification. In Foundation and Earth, we see just how much extra crunching is necessary, evident in the many hardware updates Daneel Olivaw has to go through to keep up with the data produced by a galactic human civilization at a very tenuous place in history. So as not to spoil this epic 7-book series (by my count), I will just give you a recommended reading order, one which allows for ‘optimal absorption of foundational elements’ and also a thorough understanding of the elegantly intricate possible-future-history of humanity that Asimov has created. Here follows what should trump every other sci-fi reading list you may currently have:

1. Foundation (1951)
2. Foundation and Empire (1952)
3. Second Foundation (1953)
4. Prelude to Foundation (1988)   [prequel 1]
5. Forward the Foundation (1993)   [prequel 2]
6. Foundation’s Edge (1982)   [epilogue 1]
7. Foundation and Earth (1986)   [epilogue 2]

How did you read this series? Please let me hear your voice!

Also: An updated version of Asimov’s Laws of Robotics has been drafted for approval in Japan to govern the actions of robots in the near-future.

Mind, through the long course of biological evolution, has established itself as a moving force in our little corner of the universe. Here on this small planet, mind has infiltrated matter and has taken control. It appears to me that the tendency of mind to infiltrate and control matter is a law of nature.
— Freeman Dyson

We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.
— Vernor Vinge

Self-organization and extropy are themselves fundamental principles of the physical universe, to the extent that the laws of physics themselves may have developed through a process of self-organization.
— Lee Smolin

The explosive nature of exponential growth means it may only take a quarter of a millennium to go from sending messages on horseback to saturating the matter and energy in our solar system with sublimely intelligent processes. The ongoing expansion of our future superintelligence will then require moving out into the rest of the universe, where we may engineer new universes.
— Ray Kurzweil

Technology expands data by 66% per year, overwhelming the growth rates of any natural source.  Compared to other planets in the neighborhood, or to the dumb material drifting in space beyond, a thick blanket of learning and self-organized information surround this orb.
— Kevin Kelly

The universe might end in intelligent life (rather than as either a ball of fire or as scattered ice). Not life as we know it, but life that has acquired the capacity to shape the cosmos as a whole, just as life on Earth has acquired the ability to shape the land, the sea, and the atmosphere.
— James N. Gardner

The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. Recently, we’ve waded a little way out … and the water seems inviting.
— Carl Sagan

Dubious readers must see: reapplying entropy.

Extropy is a term used to describe the vitality of a system. What we mean by a system being vital, lively, robust, or dynamic is that it resists entropy, the tendency for everything to fall apart and decompose, yes, even protons and neutrons crumble and break apart. For a system to resist this, you may think, what’s it gotta do besides brush off the dust every once in a while, but no, we’re talkin’ about a drive for improvement and growth incentives, we’re talkin‘ intelligent here, not just lego blocks building amusement parks complete with ferris wheel’s and octo-pods or whatever they’re called. Extropy is what emerges from gradually organized chaos which itself springs from ground rules for probability and possibility. It emerges and pops. It pops so hard the whole universe can hear it, like one big ear. And this is what it’s gonna be about – one big cosmic ear and whatever message we’ve got to throw into it.