Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Want to to tell me why or are you going to just make statements.
China has an issue to deal with related to its estimated 1 billion people with poverty incomes who can't afford most of the products made for international consumption. International trade is an important part of China's economy. Some of China's construction boom has been total failures, building gigantic malls and cities that largely stand empty. The End Of The Chinese Economic Miracle - Forbes
When a country goes through such economic problems, it can result in having to make cutbacks to domestic budgets, which in turn means progress slows down and people lose jobs. It's worth noting in terms of international trade, the US is the largest market for Chinese and Japanese products.
Really? You've NEVER brought up what could happen post-2045 here? Perhaps you forgot. On page 1, post 5 of this thread you posted a link to refer another poster to a thread of yours titled "I want to live forever!" In that thread, you give the usual More's [sic] Law and Ray sez as your convincing evidence. Why do you keep misspelling that? It's MOORE'S, not MORE'S. Here are some of the post-2045 things you said in that thread:
(Note: Bold highlight by me for emphasis)
So you haven't brought it up here? Sorry to say but yes you did, with the link, even though you didn't elaborate on it here.
Fair enough I have said that I want to live "forever" and spend New Years 2100 on the moon with my bf.
However he was talking about computers and I have consistently said that after 2045 all the models break down so I could not make a specific comment on that. At some point in the future will computers stop advancing exponentially? At this point we do not know we just know it won't happen before the singularity.
IBM to Announce More Powerful Watson via the Internet
Computers keep getting faster and smaller and that is key for the singularity to happen by 2030. This is the latest example:
This is from the NY Times:
LAS VEGAS — Welcome to the age of supercomputing for everyone. On Thursday IBM will announce that Watson, the computing system that beat all the humans on “Jeopardy!” two years ago, will be available in a form more than twice as powerful via the Internet.
Companies, academics and individual software developers will be able to use it at a small fraction of the previous cost, drawing on IBM’s specialists in fields like computational linguistics to build machines that can interpret complex data and better interact with humans.
IBM’s move to make its marquee technology more widely available is the latest effort among big technology companies to make the world’s most powerful computers as accessible as the Angry Birds video game.
It is also an indication of how quickly the technology industry is changing, from complex systems that cost millions to install to pay-as-you-go deals that provide small companies and even individuals access to technology that just a few years ago only the largest companies could afford.
Fair enough I have said that I want to live "forever" and spend New Years 2100 on the moon with my bf.
However he was talking about computers and I have consistently said that after 2045 all the models break down so I could not make a specific comment on that. At some point in the future will computers stop advancing exponentially? At this point we do not know we just know it won't happen before the singularity.
My point was that you said you never bring up what could happen after 2045 on this thread because it's nothing but theoretical talk. But by posting the link early on in this thread, that IS about your view about the post-2045 future. By the way, it's not theoretical. It's hypothetical. If all models break down after 2045, then what was your point of posting the link to your thread "I want to live forever!", intending to live thousands of years or more, and that it's not a matter of "if" but "when" it will happen? I mean, the prospect of intending to live a lifespan of 1000's of years or longer, is quite a prediction about things long past 2045. That's more than simply talking about when computers will reach a singularity. That's just switching tracks to avoid the point.
My contention is that it really can't predicted with any certainty that a singularity will in fact happen in 2045, 2030, or any other time. It could just as easily be 2090 or later. I've said before that such futuristic predictions about when a singularity will happen cannot be taken as absolute. It may happen, or it may not. And the reason is because there are numerous variables that involve the potential of unknown or unforeseen events that could get in the way an put the skids on it resulting in a delay, or possible preventing such a thing from ever happening. There is no way of knowing with 100% certainty.
I think you mentioned earlier that nothing would prevent it, apart from people destroying everything on the planet. I agree, that could do it, but that's not the only thing and doesn't involve the extermination of the human race. A strong enough Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from the sun could potentially fry out all communication satellites as well as power grids on the ground. People would have to adapt to surviving like things were in the latter half of the 1800's. Such a solar storm happened in 1859. It didn't have much impact then, apart from telegraph lines doing down. There's no reason to think such an event could not happen again.
Many societies in the world are dependent on the energy systems available today. If communication and the energy grids were toasted, everything would come to a crawl. There'd be no electricity, which could be pretty chaotic. Landline and cell phones wouldn't work. No fuel or water because the pumps (which use electricity) won't work. Repairing the grids would be a major undertaking that could take decades or longer to restore. Best case scenarios are that it could take a decade or so, but I'm not so sure about that. It wuld depend on the severity of the CME. It would all have to be done by hand labor and there's not much in the way of supplies on the shelf to use to make those repairs. Food and medicine supplies would run short because there'd be no fuel to transport it. Hospitals would have to revert to left sophisticated techniques to treat patients, and that would be for patients that can get to hospitals. Emergency facilities would be unable to respond because communiation systems would be out and no fuel for the vehicles. Internet would be down, as would computers. It wouldn't necessarily send us back to the stone age, but it could be severe enough to hamper things for quite a while. Solar storm of 1859 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What I'm saying is that to assume a singularity WILL happen is just that - an assumption. There's no guarantee that it will happen as predicted. That pretty much throws any theories or hypotheses out the window. Not only is it important to consider planning for the future, but it's also important to look at the broader picture and consider what could prevent such future plans from happening. Do we have a backup system and plan for everything that could go wrong? No, we don't.
My point was that you said you never bring up what could happen after 2045 on this thread because it's nothing but theoretical talk. But by posting the link early on in this thread, that IS about your view about the post-2045 future. By the way, it's not theoretical. It's hypothetical. If all models break down after 2045, then what was your point of posting the link to your thread "I want to live forever!", intending to live thousands of years or more, and that it's not a matter of "if" but "when" it will happen? I mean, the prospect of intending to live a lifespan of 1000's of years or longer, is quite a prediction about things long past 2045. That's more than simply talking about when computers will reach a singularity. That's just switching tracks to avoid the point.
Good point. Sometimes when I post I am not as precise as I should be. I should of kept my response to his comment better about computers and when they will stop advancing exponintially. After 2045 the models on how fast computers will advance break down so there is no way to know for sure or if they will ever stop advancing exponentially. Now not know when computers will stop advancing exponentially after 2045, or if they ever will, and knowing I will live to see 2100 and for a very long time after that is much different.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightBazaar
My contention is that it really can't predicted with any certainty that a singularity will in fact happen in 2045, 2030, or any other time. It could just as easily be 2090 or later. I've said before that such futuristic predictions about when a singularity will happen cannot be taken as absolute. It may happen, or it may not. And the reason is because there are numerous variables that involve the potential of unknown or unforeseen events that could get in the way an put the skids on it resulting in a delay, or possible preventing such a thing from ever happening. There is no way of knowing with 100% certainty.
I think you mentioned earlier that nothing would prevent it, apart from people destroying everything on the planet. I agree, that could do it, but that's not the only thing and doesn't involve the extermination of the human race. A strong enough Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from the sun could potentially fry out all communication satellites as well as power grids on the ground. People would have to adapt to surviving like things were in the latter half of the 1800's. Such a solar storm happened in 1859. It didn't have much impact then, apart from telegraph lines doing down. There's no reason to think such an event could not happen again.
Many societies in the world are dependent on the energy systems available today. If communication and the energy grids were toasted, everything would come to a crawl. There'd be no electricity, which could be pretty chaotic. Landline and cell phones wouldn't work. No fuel or water because the pumps (which use electricity) won't work. Repairing the grids would be a major undertaking that could take decades or longer to restore. Best case scenarios are that it could take a decade or so, but I'm not so sure about that. It wuld depend on the severity of the CME. It would all have to be done by hand labor and there's not much in the way of supplies on the shelf to use to make those repairs. Food and medicine supplies would run short because there'd be no fuel to transport it. Hospitals would have to revert to left sophisticated techniques to treat patients, and that would be for patients that can get to hospitals. Emergency facilities would be unable to respond because communiation systems would be out and no fuel for the vehicles. Internet would be down, as would computers. It wouldn't necessarily send us back to the stone age, but it could be severe enough to hamper things for quite a while. Solar storm of 1859 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What I'm saying is that to assume a singularity WILL happen is just that - an assumption. There's no guarantee that it will happen as predicted. That pretty much throws any theories or hypotheses out the window. Not only is it important to consider planning for the future, but it's also important to look at the broader picture and consider what could prevent such future plans from happening. Do we have a backup system and plan for everything that could go wrong? No, we don't.
The models do not break down till 2045 and in fact that is what Ray uses to help define the singularity at 2045. Its a term taken from psychics and its impossible to see pass a singularity and that is why they used it as its impossible to see what life will be like after 2045. I use 2030, along with people like Vernor Vinge, because I think its more of a average persons date.
I have and continue to agree that if something happens to the planet like you suggested here it would slow down or stop the singularity. However I have seen my fair share of shows about things like that on TV and the odds of it happening in the next 1,000 years is slim in the next 20 is as close to 0 as we can get. The thing is once we get past the next few decades then society will have the technology to stop anything from nature that could cause harm. So on the list of things that I worry about that is not even on it.
I have and continue to agree that if something happens to the planet like you suggested here it would slow down or stop the singularity. However I have seen my fair share of shows about things like that on TV and the odds of it happening in the next 1,000 years is slim in the next 20 is as close to 0 as we can get.
Whoa! Can't get more accurate than TV shows now can we?
Quote:
The thing is once we get past the next few decades then society will have the technology to stop anything from nature that could cause harm. So on the list of things that I worry about that is not even on it.
You have got to be kidding. We'll have the technology to stop:
~ Tsunami?
~ Category 9 hurricane?
~ Earthquake along the San Andreas fault?
~ Meteor/comet impact?
~ Virus/flu pandemic?
~ Rogue biotechnology?
~ Volcanism?
~ Pulsar?
Wow, you and I must be living on different planets or different planes of existence. All of these will be manageable in 21 years...
China has an issue to deal with related to its estimated 1 billion people with poverty incomes who can't afford most of the products made for international consumption. International trade is an important part of China's economy. Some of China's construction boom has been total failures, building gigantic malls and cities that largely stand empty. The End Of The Chinese Economic Miracle - Forbes
When a country goes through such economic problems, it can result in having to make cutbacks to domestic budgets, which in turn means progress slows down and people lose jobs. It's worth noting in terms of international trade, the US is the largest market for Chinese and Japanese products.
But wait! YOU said in your last post (and let me quote you)
Now you are saying you are clueless as to when Mankind will be able to stop these natural/Manmade disasters?????
True I did say in the next few decades. This is because knowing what I do about how fast technology will be advancing after the singularity I think we will have the technology shortly after. However after more consideration I have to be honest and consistant and since this is not information technology it is impossible for me to be 100% certain when that will be.
Your reply was in response to what was said:
"I suggest you go and read about the economy in Japan."
Of course it doesn't have anything to do with patents. It has to do with the economies of both China and Japan. So did you actually read the articles? The point is that if an economy of a country goes sour it has an effect on how that country is manage its money. It often means reducing budgets or tossing programs out altogether. With regard to development of advanced computer technologies to the hyopthetical point that it advances so quickly that it reaches a singuarity within the next 15-25 years, between now and then if money gets tight, then it can potentially have an effect on such development programs which could be hindered and slowed down, or even scrapped altogether. I doubt the latter would be the case, but it could slow down taking much longer to reach that so-called singularity. Do you see the relationship?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
IBM to Announce More Powerful Watson via the Internet
