{"id":3540,"date":"2010-12-07T03:09:04","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T08:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=3540"},"modified":"2010-12-07T03:14:11","modified_gmt":"2010-12-07T08:14:11","slug":"the-technological-singularity-a-thing-of-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/the-technological-singularity-a-thing-of-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"The technological singularity: a thing of the past?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"One of the latest trends in science fiction is the concept of the technological singularity <\/a>— the point in history at which technological advances occur so rapidly that we can no longer learn the new stuff fast enough to keep up with it.<\/p>\n

I hear a lot of people talk about this at cons, and I’ve read\/listened to quite a few stories about this concept.\u00a0 Basically, these stories posit a world where science has become a new magic, and our world has been transformed beyond all intelligible recognition.<\/p>\n

However, a recent post<\/a> on the excellent Rocketpunk Manifesto<\/a> blog made me wonder if we’ve already passed the point of singularity in our own society.\u00a0 The post basically asserted that the period 1880 to 1930 saw so many sweeping technological advances that the world in 1930 would have been unrecognizable to a person from 1880, whereas our current society would still be intelligible to a person from 1930.<\/p>\n

This made me wonder: how far into the singularity have we already come?\u00a0 How much of our technological infrastructure has become so advanced that the common man lacks the capacity to comprehend it?<\/p>\n

Think about it.\u00a0 Fish around in your pockets and pull out your phone.\u00a0 Do you understand how it works well enough to take it apart and put it together again?\u00a0 To rebuild the device from parts?\u00a0 Do you own the tools and machinery to construct the parts from which it is made?<\/p>\n

How about the building in which you currently find yourself?\u00a0 Do you possess the knowledge to build a comparable structure that performs the same functions?\u00a0 That keeps you sheltered and provides the same light, heat, electricity, and internet connection that you now enjoy?<\/p>\n

There was a time, not too long ago, when people would move out to the wilderness and homestead land by building their own homes from available natural resources.\u00a0 If you needed to build your own house, as so many people used to do, could you do it?<\/p>\n

How about your means of transportation?\u00a0 If necessary, could you take apart your car and rebuild it again from the ground up?\u00a0 Could you perform basic maintenance on it if you needed to?\u00a0 How many of us can change our own oil–and how many of us are dependent on others for such a simple service?<\/p>\n

Or what about the things we take most for granted–our understanding of the way the universe works.\u00a0 Do you really<\/em> understand the principles of physics?\u00a0 Do you comprehend how electricity or magnetism really<\/em> works, or are you still thinking in overly-simplified terms like electrons flowing through a circuit like water?\u00a0 Even the most intelligent physicists can’t reconcile electromagnetism with Newtonian physics, so what makes you think you know so much?<\/p>\n

How much of what we think we know is really just an illusion, meant to keep us pacified and docile?\u00a0 To give us a false sense of security–that someone is in control, so we can rest easy?\u00a0 Does anyone REALLY<\/em> understand 100% how the economy works?\u00a0 Do any of us know who or what is really in charge anymore?\u00a0 Have we unwittingly handed over the reigns of control to some digital algorithm so basic to our newly networked way of life to be practically invisible?<\/p>\n

Looking at how few of us are truly self-sufficient, and how much power we’ve ceded to forces beyond our control, our modern society seems so delicate and fragile.\u00a0 Can anyone REALLY<\/em> say that our society is not in danger of falling apart?\u00a0 That our way of life is not an unnatural and unsustainable aberration?<\/p>\n

Anyhow, those were some of my initial thoughts.\u00a0 The more I compare the science fiction of the past with the reality of the present, the more predictions I see coming true in the most unexpected of ways.\u00a0 The singularity may have less to do with uplinked consciousnesses and more to do with Google’s SEO algorithms than we are comfortable admitting.\u00a0 And realistically, the light bulb may prove to be more revolutionary than anything Apple has ever or will ever produce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the latest trends in science fiction is the concept of the technological singularity — the point in history at which technological advances occur so rapidly that we can no longer learn the new stuff fast enough to keep up with it. I hear a lot of people talk about this at cons, and… Continue reading The technological singularity: a thing of the past?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[490,399,259,332,107,488,199,479,99,487,489,599],"class_list":["post-3540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-computers","tag-just-for-fun","tag-near-future","tag-post-apocalypse","tag-post-singularity","tag-questions","tag-rocketpunk","tag-science-fiction","tag-technological-singularity","tag-technology","tag-thoughts-reflections","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-V6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3540"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3554,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540\/revisions\/3554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}