What is Digg?76 Comments
- cadavreexquis, on 10/20/2007, -4/+18Don't be silly, the problem of immortality and overpopulation can easily be solved by genetically breeding smaller and smaller people. Didn't Jesus say that blessed are the midgets for they shall inherit the earth?
- inactive, on 10/20/2007, -0/+11If you bothered to actually look at any of Kurzweil's work or actually research the guy, you will see how he has accurately predicted many events and technological advances that have come in to light. Heres a quick bio of him.
http://www.kurzweiltech.com/aboutray.html - Blazekun, on 10/20/2007, -2/+13This isn't really a problem if laws are put into place. Keep the law simple "You may only have such a procedure if accompanied by a procedure making it impossible to procreate."
If we are starting to colonize Mars when things like this come out, it may not be a problem.
Maybe we may have very good green energy production. Through usage of new techniques, the theorized zero point energy for instance, we may not even have any problems with overpopulation.
Trees wouldn't have to be cut down for paper thanks to Nanotech. And hey, we could even create nanobots that will clean up the dirty atmosphere we've made for ourselves. - Blazekun, on 10/20/2007, -0/+11Figured I should comment on a few things. Yes, life would change. We would have to work basically all the time. I read something on immortality, allthough I cannot recall where, that people would be more inclined to work for 20 years, then vacation for 5 years. Something to that effect.
Immortality would change EVERYTHING but would it be a bad thing? Imagine what would happen if Einstein were still alive today. Constantly examining and pondering the universe.
People wouldn't die from diseases or viruses. The only thing that would kill people would be accidents and injuries, even then much more uncommonly thanks to more advanced physiological reconstruction. Once we unlock the keys to how the body operates and regenerates, we will be able to save people with critical injuries. The only way people will truely die is if they take injuries to the brain. Every other body part will be able to be reconstructed. - NanoStuff, on 10/20/2007, -1/+10In that case, you can go and slowly decompose if that's your idea of a 'good time', while the rest of us will hit the beach over the turquoise blue water for the rest of eternity.
- Continuum, on 10/20/2007, -0/+8I have not read The Singularity Is Near but I have read Kurzweil's Age of Spiritual Machines.
While his predictions of 100 years in the future are hazy at best, it is easy to imagine his predictions from 20 years from now coming true (plus or minus 10 years) especially since in the past he has predicted other things. And these are not midway fortune teller predictions. His predictions are studied and backed by numbers and facts.
Also one of the best things about Kurzweil is the optimism he has for humanity. I for one am with him on this. We could see the problems to technology like nanotech or we could see the amazing things that could be done. That could be a nice change. - inactive, on 10/20/2007, -8/+16I dont buy into this "overpopulation" myth. I have flown over the US and looked out the window the whole time. The amount of empty space between large cities is enormous. Canada too.
- Namarrgon, on 10/20/2007, -2/+10Tell that to India. Far greater population density than the US, and they manage to feed themselves pretty well, on the whole.
Thing is, you can grow a great deal of food in a pretty small space, if you have to. Give up meat, for one thing - cattle and sheep are very inefficient food sources. With hydroponics, you can do better still, even growing underground. You're basically limited by energy more than space. - JasonPrini, on 10/20/2007, -1/+8It's very difficult to even imagine what the singularity will be like. It would be like a caveman describing to his buddies how they'll be ordering pizza in the future.
Why would we need flesh-bodies when our conciseness can be manifested anywhere? In 50 years, a square inch of paint might have more processing power than all of the computers ever made up to today. And that's still talking "caveman".
Take pigeons for example. They experience time at a different rate than we do, they're nervous system runs faster. That's one reason they {most of the time} get out of our way, or avoid a dog. What if you could change the rate of your nervous system? A day could last a lifetime, a decade could feel like a fleeting moment.
We've been told we may travel in giant spaceships to other stars someday. I say it's more likely we'll travel the stars in rice grain sized spaceships as pin pricks of conscience, feeding experiences back to your "conscience aggregate", and to "anyone" who wants to take part. Then it doesn't really matter if it takes 100, or 10,000 years to get there.
Natural resources become less of an issue when 6 billion "people" can "fit" inside a thumb drive. Need a body? No problem, have one printed and download a portion of your conscience to it. You could travel to Mars in about 5 minutes.
Of course all this prognostication is still in "caveman". Any look back will seem silly, because our post-singularity world will be many magnitudes different than the world we live in today. - JasonPrini, on 10/20/2007, -0/+7Your still thinking pre-singularitily. :P
Religious people have always had a hard time dealing with ideas that conflict with their own. Isn't religion the root cause of most of our wars and conflict? If they're different, covert-em or kill-em. But looking past the human institution of religion there could still be intense spirituality in a post-singularity reality. It's just that the spirituality of post-humans will evolve past what we understand today.
Sane people today would never think that thunder is the anger of god manifested to warn us. But that is what pre-modern humans thought.
We ARE tragically isolated in our delicate flesh-bodies. We experience a tiny fraction of the stimuli that occurs all around us, we only have 5 senses. They only receive data from your body's current location and time. Imagine having a billion senses {Every bit of the EM spectrum, plus many we can't even imagine}, being able to receive data from vast numbers of locations across hundreds of earth-years of time. All at once.
Immortality, as in the after-life, is an unprovable concept and paradoxical. What if the singularity is god's plan? If we reject it we reject god. but if we accept it we reject god under current dogma. I guess it depends if you believe "immortality" is really the laws of thermodynamics for ancient peoples {energy-soul cannot be destroyed}, or a big cloud in the sky with pearly gates and winged angels. - YmerejO42, on 10/20/2007, -0/+6Last time I checked, though, the fire-breathing lizards were in the Monster Manual... He's not an RPG player, obviously.
- Pic0, on 10/20/2007, -0/+6I have thought about this and would do it if I had the chance!
- skidzilla, on 10/20/2007, -0/+6I don't think it would be a bad thing either...
Overpopulation might even give humanity an serious incentive to get off this little blue and green rock and finally start colonising elsewhere in our solar system. - kingcam, on 10/20/2007, -0/+6 After reading the comments here it is apparent that most people have not actually read the book. I will explain how Kurzweil deals with the issues brought forward by things like overpopulation work etc.
Ray Kurzweil predicts (through applying his law of accelerating returns) the the bulk of the singularity will take place between the 2020's and 2030's. Kurzweil believes that by the mid to late 2020's we will have transformed the human body to the human body 2.0. This new version of the body is much more durable than our current bodies and could in theory last forever.
The most significant part of the human body 2.0 is that it has trillions of nanobots working inside of it. These bots will not only work as advanced blood cells but they will also supply the body with the nutrients that it needs to survive (from an external source) and clean up waste generated by biological cells and the digestive system. This will allow people to eat as much or as little as they want and still lead the ideal healthy lifestyle.
Nanobots inside the bloodstream of a human 2.0 will also be able to generate FULL IMMERSION virtual reality, which will be indistinguishable from real reality. This is possible by having nanobots stimulate the brain and nerves to crate a virtual world in the same way the real world is perceived by the brain. So imagine being connected to the Internet 24/7 with all 5 senses.
By this time all production off goods will be automated using self-replicating nanobots, so that work as we know it will be handled by AI (strong) and robots. This will allow people to do what they want, making work indistinguishable from play.
However the most important aspect of the singularity is not new bodies that use nanobots it is the ability to upload the brain. Kurzweil believes that the requirements to emulate a human brain on a computer are 10^16 cps and 10^18 bits of memory. Ray imagines that we will have this technology at about $1000 USD somewhere in the 2030s. Once brains can be uploaded onto computers we will be able to create smarter-than-human intelligence (strong AI). This strong AI will be able to recursively improve itself, this ability will truly be the mark of the singularity.
So you see that we don't have to worry about things that currently limit biological society's when thinking about the post-singularity world. My brief summery only Scratches the surface of the book and because of its briefness may be quite confusing. I would really recommend that everyone reads the book; it is life changing. - NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"The inherent flaw is that if you live forever, in a relatively youthful state, you must constantly be working."
Yet the inherent flaw in your argument is the lack of foresight to the future of automation. How can one realistically believe in eternal youth yet not believe in the significant impact of AI/Robotics? - JonathanHarford, on 10/20/2007, -1/+7I'm totally up for living forever. I don't care that it's not natural; neither is kissing, clothing, and vaccination. You want to die naturally, go right ahead.
When I get old, put my brain in a younger body. When my brain degrades, put my mind in a robot body.
Overpopulation? When people realize the earth's not getting any bigger and birth control's ubiquitious, I think we'll stabilize (look at the birth rates of developed countries).
Not enough food? Stop wasting resources on breeding meat and grow it in underground vats instead.
Don't want an eternal life of work? Are you really looking forward to retirement that much? A good life is about the work you do; if you hate it so much, find a new job! You'll regret it otherwise, even if immortality never pans out for you. - beanfeast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The idea of billions of very small people reminds me of Vonnegut's "Slapstick". Hope we don't get any of em clogged in our lungs...
It occurs to me that the further we advance the greater the chance of something "worse than death" would wind up happening...ie eternal isolation ala Stephen King's "The Jaunt" or some horrible P.K. Dick scenario (Palmer Eldridge anyone?).
It also occurs to me that religious people would have a real problem. One the one hand, they would realize that immortality would mean never becoming one with God. On the other hand, suicide is a sin and rejecting immorality would be tantamount to suicide, wouldn't it? What would it do the the capital punishment debate? - technique, on 10/20/2007, -1/+6If I were to live for 10,000 years, I would never ride in a vehicle. I have all the time in the world to take it easy -- why risk getting in a car wreck or a plane crash? Those old guys hobbling down the street with their walkers instead of riding the bus *choose* for their trip to take a long time.
Life is hectic for the young. Old timers have been there and done that, so they're not in a hurry because they know the important things take time. - EvilTesdall, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11ROFL
@steeel
Those large open areas...are where food is produced... and if you put people there, well, then there would be no more food. With no more food comes no more people. SOOOO, over population is easily obtainable. - resplence, on 10/20/2007, -0/+4nj10 is right. We MUST anticipate it so we can come up with some laws and regulations that will be obsolete and inadequate when it becomes a reality.
- tallgreen, on 10/20/2007, -0/+4@JasonPrini
Thanks for writing all that. Most people don't see it like you do. Everyone applies these predictions/theories to a "pre-singularity" world, to solve "pre-singularity" problems. If we are still alive in 50 years we will be seeing, no experiencing, some truly awesome *****. Life on earth is taking a new step in evolution, with emphasis on information and consciousness. I'm so happy to be here to see it! - whitecricket, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4not to mention the homeless wouldn't be able to afford this technology and would still be mortals.
If humans each lived for 300 years, we would most definitely begin to use renewable energy resources, such as the sun. Most likely as Satellites because there is no inclement weather or nighttime. There are also corn-based fuels, which are more than renewable. So to say the resources aren't there is false, they are there; we just do not make use of the more efficient, renewable sources.
I also can't wait for the Christians to get a hold of this. "Sounds like the mark of the beast to me!"
Morons surround me.
Let the flames begin! - cadavreexquis, on 10/20/2007, -6/+10To all you morons saying "there's plenty of space left for more humans" - it's not about real estate, it's about limited and non-renewable resources.
- NanoStuff, on 10/20/2007, -0/+4"We are no where close in nano-tech to making miniature machines on the level that's described, perhaps in 2020."
You obviously didn't read the article. Nobody is claiming such possibility before 2020... well, at least not Kurzweil. I myself am a little less optimistic, maybe 2030. - cadavreexquis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It sounds peachy but the moral issues involved are mind-boggling.
Does everyone have a right to immortality or are some people 'entitled' to it by virtue of their wealth or significance? So what about overpopulation? What happens to personal freedom if procreation is restricted? What about the rest of nature, should we allow certain animals, like pets, to live forever, while others die? Is death 'banned' or is suicide now socially accepted or even encouraged?
We can't even agree on whether fois gras is moral. - transeunte, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Hey, could we get the immortality issue done before you guys come up with a second problem (overpopulation)? Really, mind the elephant, not the peanut.
- danielf30, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3First of all you would not have to work forever. It's called retirement, you have to build up enough money so that through investment your income becomes self sustaining, taking standard inflation into account of course. Another point would be, It has been suggested, I cannot remember where, that even if you were immortal and immune to disease the average life span would be about 300 years. Things like war and auto accidents would still take you out. On the subject of over population, you would think with with all this grand technology we could find away to feed and house everyone. Although there will always be a percentage of homeless an hungry people, some by choice others by circumstance.
- diggforit, on 10/20/2007, -0/+3If you are told that you can live 10000 years, you probably will change your lifestyle to take no risk at all. Probably at the same time, everything will become safer: cars, planes,... Not talking about the environmental issue that you cannot ignore any more. If you look back a few centuries back when the lifespan was half of now, you can already notice such an emerging desire to live in a safer world. Fear already drives everything today: politics, environmental issues, terrorism, retirement funding, health research... Immortality would only add more weight to it.
- chivas3, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Immortality is not going to happen just because your cells don't die.
Eventually you will bite it on some stupid accident. Most figures I hear quoted are around 300 years... being the average time you would spend before the proverbial anvil falls on your head.
So eliminating death by disease and old age may significantly increase human lifespans, but until we work out a way to restore a person after a fatal fall or car crash, the best we can do is quadruple the lifespan- not achieve immortality. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It doesn't say anything about not doing the things that you love.
Who wants to work?
Worldpeace,
Ben - pixeldust, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Sweet, now supreme court justices will stay in office forever!
- kurtu5, on 10/20/2007, -0/+3"I just don't think man can manage to successfully augment himself without nature's intervention."
What the hell does that mean? Are you purposely choosing to forget that we are natural, that every thing we do and make is natural? A skyscraper is as natural as a termite mound. Both are artefacts created by living natural organisms. Yeah one is "man made" and the other is "termite made", but both are still natural. - mranissimov, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Plugging my own Singularity blog, because responding to this thread is pointless:
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog - Stevethegreat, on 10/20/2007, -0/+2@Charlemange: If those futurists are right then the turning off/on of some genes which will give us twice our current lifespan would be the equivalent of eliminating infancy mortality. I mean why we should eliminate infancy mortality, haven't already we done so? I don't think it represents any of a problem that we'll get greater lifespans through other means
- NanoStuff, on 10/20/2007, -0/+2"To think that scientists will completely overhaul our cellular structure in the 21st century is hubris, at best."
The beauty part of all of this is we won't have to. Once the 'information' of the neurons in the brain can be moved to an artificial, non-volatile medium, nobody will concern themselves with maintaining body integrity. It's not as far fetched as it seems, it all comes down to when and where electrons move. Neurotransmitters are only responsible for regulating electron flow; they don't contain information in themselves, thus the process comes down to what we already do in a computer, sending an electron from one place to another.
The fact that nanowire arrays can already inhibit and stimulate electron activity, being perfectly controllable via external computer; and due to their size can achieve a level of precision even way beyond that of human neurons, and the fact that an artificial hippocampus has already been created, which is essentially a piece of a brain on a chip, I'd say the technology has already gone way beyond speculation.
What remains to be done is to expand the network to contact every neuron in the brain, but that's mere implementation.
Even if an indefinitely sustainable biology could be obtain, I'd still decide against it in favor of such technology. Not only would it do you no good in a virtual world, the fact it could crap out on you unexpectedly for whatever reason would be unsettling. - kurtu5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Oh my dog what a bunch of sillyness.
The false dillema you create is huge.
Lets do some maths
Nonimmortals:
2 people have 6 children by age 30.
Those 6 children have 6 by when thier parents are 60.
Those 6 grandchildren have 6 each when thier grandparents die at age 90
Total persons after 90 years; 6 children, 36 grandchildren
Immortals:
2 people have 2 children at year 100
Total persons after 100 years: 4
Now why do immortals have less children in my example? Well, I assume that the immortals will have a higher standard of living. In Italy, they have negative population growth, because nearly every one is having fun instead of making babies.
Now why do mortals have more children in my example? Well, I am assuming a worse case and representing the poor. For some reason, those less able to provide for their offspring, seem to have more. Is there negative population growth in poor Africa? I doublt it.
The reason you have a false dillema in my opinion, is that you don't write out your assumption. I think your assumption is that people will continue to breed as normal when time limits are taken away. If you are born into a society where your parents are 300 years old, do you really think you will meet, marry and reproduce before age 30? How about before age 100? There are no biological clocks anymore.
And then there is the other false dillema about immortality. "I wouldn't want to live forever, everyone I love will die." Er, no, not if immortality is available to everyone.
And this gem... "A superclass will arise and deny access to resources to those under them." Have you ever considered that, perhaps, maybe, that people will be more able to resist a super class? Think about it, you have had 300 years to learn how people manipulate other people. Don't you think that it will be harder to rule a nation from a skull and bones club? You would have all the time in the world to learn the information that a superclass uses to subdue an ignorant underclass. Ignorance is how classism perpetuates. - kurtu5, on 10/20/2007, -0/+2Yeah I love how immoratality automatically equates to over population. Nice assumption.
And If god meant us to fly he would have given us wings.
Oh wait we fly all over the place all the time. Take that nature. You and your natural laws that we have learned to manipulate with our natural brains. - marius404, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Immortality is great and all......but shouldn't we find the cure for male pattern baldness first? I mean if I'm gonna live forever I wanna at least have a full head of hair along for the ride.
- Stevethegreat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@Bloodwine: What are you talking about? You must be out of reality or a religious wacko. What do you think we are? Someone sent us, to dominate this earth? ***** no, we are made from this world, just like earth was made from it, just like a galaxy also did so. How exactly are our achievements less natural than a supernova?
We are conscious, so we are special, that's what you think, ah? You'll be really surprised if we'll actually manage to emulate consciousness, we are not special, we are just the most complex pack of algorithms we know of in this world while being us, give us a subjective look of the world, it makes us the center of the universe but we are not, we're just a part of it. Oh, OK, due to our subjectiveness we're also the center of the 'verse, but that doesn't mean that it will stop the objective universe to manifest itself through ourselves. - whitecricket, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die."
I don't want to go to heaven. It sounds like such a boring place. The only people aloud in according to modern religions would be majoratively non-free thinking individuals, but those who like the universe explained to them in terms of invisible beings; and self-interpretation is disallowed. Sounds like an awesome place. - MarkHarrison, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Figures are from the US statistics for White people, because I could find those figures easily (life expectancies for non-whites are lower, and have been for the last 150 years.)
Average life expectancy at birth in 1850: 38 years (male) / 40 years (female)
Average life expectancy at birth in 1900: 48 years (male) / 51 years (female)
Average life expectancy at birth in 1950: 66 years (male) / 72 years (female)
Average life expectancy at birth in 2000: 74 years (male) / 80 years (female)
This suggest that life expectancy has, in round terms, doubled, in the last 150 years. I suspect that society could adapt to another doubling or two. - inactive, on 10/20/2007, -2/+4Well you can be 100% sure that we(the average class working people) will definitely not get our hands on that technology for atleast 100 years after it's been invented, if ever.
- gnomon, on 10/20/2007, -0/+2"we are just a blimp in the history of the universe"
Are you calling me fat? - tjlsmith, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Actually, the over population problem caused by immortals can be solved by merely making immortal females having a baby once every, say, seven years.
The actual number is the eigenvalue of the Leslie Matrix for immortals.
We'll need this once we crack the senesce problem. - Bloodwine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2For the people saying that we are not overpopulated and talk about the vasteness of the midwest in the U.S. forget that much of that vasteness is used for crops (read: food and biofuel).
Just because there is empty space, doesn't mean it needs to be filled elbow-to-elbow with people.
As for immortality, I don't like the idea of dying, but it is a natural part of our lifecycles. I don't see nature sitting idly by while humanity cheats death. New complications and diseases will affect mankind in order to try and maintain order and balance. - CiXeL, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@ steeel
youre very right. we make very poor use of all our space which is why i think the united states sometime in the distant future perhaps will be occupied by multiple countries who will more efficiently use the space. it would be interesting to see how the united states would be like if the land were as efficiently used as europe for example, with different countries not being all that far away from each other. a bastion of creativity. - kurtu5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Terrorists are not very scary. What 2000 people killed by terrorists since 2001? Some private property destroyed? You are more likely to die from an auto accident. Hell, you are more likely to die in a specific auto accident with a blonde named Amy, with fake *****, who is drinking a coke and talking in her cell phone, than by a terrorist.
Additionaly nukes are not that scary either. One day every one will have access to them anyway.
So what, some one nukes new york city. "Boo hoo," goes me.
What I am insensitive? What about the other killers out there? The ones we gaily accept and really don't even report? How many die each year from cigarretes? How many die on the roads? How many die from alcohol? How many die from pot? Oh wait that last one is easy(zero, since begining of time)
How many died in dresden or tokyo from conventional fire bombings? Nukes are dramatic killers, but not very effecetive when compared against other sources of death. Yeah you can mention MAD, but there is alot of FUD about MAD. MAD only works if both sides truely believe that life would be wiped out by a full nuclear exchange. But the reality is that MAD was not what kept US/USSR from going toe to toe. The war planners on both sides, knew that a full exhange was survivable and that life after was possible; so MAD was not a deterrent. The reason we didn't was the USSR wasn't ready to loose a good bargining chip nor 6 million comrades. Nukes are political boogey men and once every one has one, life will have to change. No more living in a target packed with people(cities).
Now I am all for nuclear nonproliferation, but this is simply bying time, until we realize what a target a big city is and with new telecommunications technology, how useless cities have become. - kurtu5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Oh, why is overpopulation sure to follow?
Can I say "In an ethical sound and free world where immortality exists, frogs are sure to follow"? I really dont see where it follows the premise. What is your chain of reasoning?
This is how it works.
"Given that a is greater than b, it follows that b is less than a" - twoeyes, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1This is great, this does not mean "no death" it means, I have taken control of my life and can choose WHEN to die. It is a big step forward that I'm hoping to see in my lifetime. It's my opinion that death itself is not anything inherent in living organisms, its merely been the most succesful model so far (i.e. evolution). For a world with evolving organisms and static, immortal ones, it's obvious which would triumph in the end. However, if we take our evolution into our own hands we take our next step into the universe.
You guys are forgetting, once our nanotechnology has advanced to the point of stopping degradation of the body I'm sure we'll be able to produce strawberrys, grain, corn, and the best steak in the world with little effort. This is the dream of utopia that we're talking about here, nothing new. Just that now it's something that we're starting to get a glimpse of. - noctu, on 12/22/2007, -0/+1I hope to see the singularity!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu7W0QoW7OM -
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