The Social Implications Of "The Singularity Moment"

Well, primarily affluent white males with technical backgrounds. Are we really saying that the small number of affluent white males with tech backgrounds are synonymous with "society"? That seems ill-considered to say the least.I mean, sure, you're on Facebook. I'm on Facebook. Everybody you know is on Facebook. But, that's what I'm talking about in terms of "absorption": everybody you know is on Facebook. But nobody this guy knows:is on Facebook, or even knows what it is. Or even knows what the Internet is. Or has even seen a computer. Or a toilet that can be located inside your house because it flushes into a network of sealed sewer pipes. And this guy is a lot more representative of the average human being than you or I are.Has Facebook been "absorbed" by our society? I don't know - I'm not smart enough to offer a rigorous definition of what it means to be "absorbed" - but my intuition is that, given that 998 out of every 1000 human beings is not a Facebook user, the answer is "no." (Probably 700 out of those 998 people or more simply cannot be Facebook users because of a lack of access to the requisite technologies and infrastructure.) I don't see how an invention accessible to such an enormously small fraction of human beings could possibly be said to have been absorbed by human society. Your culture and my culture have done that. Has your grandmother's? Does she own an iPhone? Is she on Facebook? Does she do Twitter?As the rate of technological change increases, a lot more people are going to have your grandmother's relationship to technology than your relationship to it or mine. Including us, someday. That's the singularity. I don't see how it can not be true.

Ok. You give a serious answer of something I was intending to be light-hearted. Basically it amounts to the speed of light being too damn slow.So then would you agree that the universe is just too damned big to go anywhere or send a "Hello, world!" message? Going anywhere would take generations & generations to do and would be very unlikely to keep focused over time. Messaging and waiting for a reply would also take too long.But probably the main reason SETI will fail is that all of the equivalent efforts on other worlds would have died in congressional committee and never reach the floor for a vote, just like our own SETI eventually will.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

I am none of those things and have all of those things. Are you saying black people and hispanics aren't on facebook or own iPhones? Do you know how many family members in Cuba I have that are on facebook? Do you know how many own a blackberry but actually want me to send them the iPhone and/or HTC? Shit, I got a friend here that came from Cuba 3 years ago and left his wife and kids while he did the paper work and gathered the money to bring them. He told me he didn't want to get a facebook because his wife would find out about all the women he had here. And Redbull? Fuck! They love Redbull. Never seen it. Never tasted it. Never even seen it being sold. But they fucking love it. Western stuff spreads, man. Big time.What helped Egypt and Iran last year with their demonstrations, wasn't it social networks like facebook and youtube? No doubt, I agree fully that you and I have it far better than 2/3 of this planet. But, I wouldn't go as far as to say that, even the guy you pictured there, doesn't know of or has seen someone use a cellphone. Or maybe a missionary with a laptop. Or on the one tv he has, seen advertisment for these products.I don't know. I think the scale would tip 2/3 of the world being familiar with technology of this level, all be it not be able to afford it. Let me ask it this way then, How much of our population would you guess knows about facebook?And just for shit and giggles, How much of the world's population would you think also knows about facebook? That number will shock you. Fuck the suspense, here: "About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States"Plus there are a few other things you have to look at with something like facebook. Namely this:

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I would say a high percentage of the population on this planet has heard of facebook, knows what it is and wishes they had it too. Again, I think it's a greater number than you're giving it credit. Plus the fact that even if they don't use it, they know about it and what it does.I never met any grand parents, but my mom and dad are in their 70's and both have a cellphone, a laptop and I Skype with them when I'm on the road. I just don't think the numbers are in favor of that theory.- Oni

You must be operating under a different definition of "primarily." Or "males", for that matter! No, I'm not saying that. Was there some confusion about what I said? I said that iPhones are primarily marketed to affluent, white males with a technical background. I don't recall at any point saying that blacks or hispanics don't own iPhones. My sister has an iPhone; I don't.So what? Probably a bunch! Did you miss the part where it's not about how everybody you know is on Facebook?I mean, no shit, dude. You're one of the 2 in 1000 human beings who uses Facebook. It's really more like 99/100ths. I mean you and I are talking to each other on the Internet, on our own personal computers, an act that puts us well into the 99th percentile of technological "haves."So what? Not a lot. If it's as high as one-half of one percent of the non-users, I would be very, very surprised. Great, but so what? Based on what? Your math fail? 250 million people is only 3 percent of human beings. I don't consider that "high."Nothing in those numbers gives any indication that a "high percentage of human beings" has heard of Facebook. Look, it's popular among people who use the Internet. That's not a lot of people! Ok, but would your grandmother have known what Facebook is? Besides "a website"? Mine wouldn't have. My dad has a fan page on Facebook and still doesn't understand what it is. How can a technology accessible by such a small percentage of human beings be considered "absorbed by human society"? How can technologies we're still killing people over - like birth control - be considered absorbed by society? Can we consider the firearm "absorbed" by 20th century society when the highest-bodycount military weapon in that century was the hand machete?Shouldn't "absorb" mean something akin to "widely used"? Obviously, many more technologies are absorbed by the subset of society with considerable wealth, affluence, access, and technical skill - people like you and I - than by the less affluent and less technical. But, I guess you, in your relentless anti-Crashfrog contrarianism, are going to insist that there's absolutely no difference in technological proficiency between 30-something males on the Internet and 80-something seniors in nursing homes.

Please, please, please.What the hell does this mean?If you would at least sketch out what you mean by this maybe we can agree on something.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Jesus, Theodoric, I've only explained it half a dozen times: Message 31Message 67Message 83Message 106Message 109We're actually having an interesting discussion. Maybe you'd like to read in and be a part of it, Theodoric? The terms being used here aren't in any way mysterious and they've been explained to you over and over again.

Why wouldn't a simulation of my brain inside an environment that simulated, to angstrom accuracy, the behavior of neurotransmitters in saline, be my brain? Especially if my original brain was no longer around. Isn't it only a copy if there's two? If "Crashfrog" is just an appellation for what is basically a moving target - a system of organization, not specific molecules - then there's no reason "Crashfrog" can't be the appellation for that same system of organization represented in something besides a meatbag.Moby Dick is Moby Dick whether I'm reading it as letters on the page or as simulated letters on a Kindle. Why not? I'm the same person even if all my molecules changed into other equivalent molecules, we agreed on that. Why wouldn't I be the same person if all my molecules changed into equivalent virtual molecules inside a chemistry simulation program? As long as the simulation accurately models the behavior of real-world molecules, there's no reason the chemical system being simulated couldn't be "Crashfrog." So why didn't I stop being "Crashfrog" when all my molecules got replaced? I'm sure it's happened at least once since I started posting here.Really, Rrhain, all you're doing is asserting that I'm not myself. But I'm pretty sure I am.

Hi Crash. I'm not being an arsehole here but I too remain confounded by what you mean by "absorb technological change". You replied to me in Message 89 and simply changed this to "grapple with technological change". But that wasn't really any more enlightening. These statements regarding culture's ability to "absorb" or "grapple with" technological change seem rather central to your argument here. So could you tell us definitively what you mean by this? I also strongly dispute your argument that this 'Singularity Moment' is somehow mathematically inevitable. Your argument that the pace of technological progress will continue to rise on the basis that it always has done is an inductive argument. Fair enough in and of itself. But then you assert that it is some sort of mathematically deduced certainty that this ‘Singularity Moment’ will inevitably occur. This conclusion obviously isn’t justified on the inductive basis on which you started.If there is a limiting factor that we haven't yet reached then there would be no reason to expect past history to provide any experience of this limit would there?Were you talking figuratively? If so this was far from clear.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

We created Watson, after all. And whats wrong with infotainment? Humans like to play games and have fun. Its an emotional thing.Also jar, as you once pointed out, we have a unique emotion known as empathy. Could Watson even be programmed with such a thing?And if so...so what?

Facebook apparently has a "Global Audience" of 624,682,160 LinkDoes that qualify as "widely used"? Is "widely used" the same as being "absorbed" or "grappled with" as you have been talking about previously?Has nuclear power technology been "absorbed" by human society as a whole? Has mobile phone technology? The internet? Chemical pesticides? Teflon? Sewage treatment?I am still bemused as to exactly what you mean by "absorbed" and how we know when a particular technology can be said to have been "absorbed" by human society.

Message 31
Gee no explanation about what it means here Message 67
Not sure what this means in relationship to the singularity and the absorption of technology. Maybe you can expand on this so it means something. Message 83
Doesn't really tell us what it means does it? Message 106
I think Oni has done a good job explaining why this whole argument seems a bit silly. Still doesn't actually explain your absorption concept. Where did you get the idea from, maybe they can explain it better. Message 109
Obviously Straggler is just as confused as I am on your attempts at explaining, or rather your attempts not to explain. Actually the term seems to be very mysterious. Does Straggler also not accept that technology always marches forward too? That is what you accused me of because I don't agree with you. Actually, I don't know if I agree with you. Your refusal to explain the terms or prevent evidence for you idea of "inevitability" make sit impossible to know if I agree with you or not.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I feel like I have at least five times already - see my message to Theodoric - but again, the difference between absorbing technology and not absorbing it is the difference between your relationship with Facebook/Twitter/the Internet/etc and your grandmother's.I continue to remain puzzled about what could possibly be unclear about that. Can any of you elaborate as to precisely how the concept remains mysterious to you? At this point I need much more to respond to than Theodoric's "dur, I still dun get it."

I have, several times - including in the posts you link to and claim to have read.At this point I need more than your gape-mouthed assertions of non-comprehension to respond to. Your relationship to technology is different than your grandmothers - you've absorbed Facebook/iPhones/internet dating/etc but she has not.What precisely is it that confuses you about that concept?

600 million out of 7 billion is roughly 8.5 percent.Why would I consider that "widely used"? How can a technology utterly inaccessible to 92% of human beings be considered "widely used"?

OK. So we now know that you don't consider Facebook to be "widely used". Does that mean that it hasn't been "absorbed" or "grappled with" by human society as whole? If all you meant by "absorbed by society" was to be "widely used" by people as a percentage of world population then you could have saved a lot of time by simply saying that instead.Has nuclear power technology been "absorbed" by human society as a whole? Has mobile phone technology? The internet? Chemical pesticides? Teflon? Sewage treatment?How do we know when a particular technology can be said to have been "absorbed" by human society?Would it broadly require over 50% of the worlds population to be using it? If that is the case I suspect we hit this "Singularity Moment" decades ago as the affluent few shot off out of sight of the vast majority of the world.