The Singularity

[mesyn191]

Re: The Singularity

You're still missing the point.

Theoretically the machine noted above could create a CRT television, if it could somehow assemble the vacuum tube, but that machine could never, ever be able to create an LCD television.
...
In contrast, in the modern era, I greatly suspect the productivity enhancements in terms of self sufficiency of the first 2 revolutions simply aren't there.

I think we're talking past each other or something. You seem to be talking about increasing complexity of production and associated energy/materials costs and I don't see where that intersects with what I was talking about with machines essentially replacing humans in production of most anything. If you're arguing that we'll always need some very skilled and specialized few scientists and techs to produce new things then you'll get no disagreement from me, I didn't say otherwise. If you're arguing that increasing complexity guarantees more jobs in the future then I'd disagree.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

While certainly there is a class of people in the United States for which Say's law applies, I'd argue that this is in fact the opposite for most people.

I know, I wasn't arguing for Say's Law! I also agree with what Warren has said before too WRT the Two Income Trap.

[jiimbergin]

Re: The Singularity

I took that from Kurzweil, just going by memory without looking it up again. He's predicted that children today might live to be 200 years old as miraculous advances in medicine become available during their lifetime. A couple years ago I became aware of his singularity concept and looked through it casually.

This point of his stuck with me because it would apply to my children if he's got it right. As I recall, he postulates nanobots in the bloodstream doing microsurgery; gene repair; cheap and easy replacement organs; the whole nine yards, right up to transferring ones consciousness into a machine for immortality.

Your point is a great one. Although average ages go up with advances in medicine, the upper age limit for people who manage to live very long stays around 100 years maximum, unchanged since reliable records have been kept.

actuaries call this squaring the mortality curve.

[c1ue]

Re: The Singularity

I think we're talking past each other or something. You seem to be talking about increasing complexity of production and associated energy/materials costs and I don't see where that intersects with what I was talking about with machines essentially replacing humans in production of most anything. If you're arguing that we'll always need some very skilled and specialized few scientists and techs to produce new things then you'll get no disagreement from me, I didn't say otherwise. If you're arguing that increasing complexity guarantees more jobs in the future then I'd disagree.

I think the dichotomy is that you're thinking the machines will self replicate or some such, while I'm saying there just isn't enough money to build even the first of these machines, thus the Von Neumann or Borg or whatever is purely a science fiction conjecture.