X-Message-Number: 18976
From: "George Smith" <>
Subject: Re:  Slipping singularity
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 10:45:26 -0700

Until just a few hundred years ago people did not have any conception of the
atmosphere, that ocean of air we walk in.  Just as it has been popularly
suggested that fish know nothing about water.

In exactly the same way, it is all too easy for we time travellers who move
through time at only one second per second to notice change.

Our nervous systems are simply not wired up to notice change over years.  To
do that requires memory to achieve perspective.

The acceleration of technological change is overwhelmingly obvious IF you
alter your perception of time.

I look at my watch.  It is tuned to a radio frequency signal out of Colorado
based on an atomic clock and is ALWAYS on time to the second.

LAST year I always had to consult some other source to check the time to be
right.

150 years ago the need to be within an hour of the same time was imposed by
railroad schedules.

200 years ago it might have been important to know the right date.

20 years ago the internet (and this forum) did not popularly exist for all
practical purposes.

50 years ago there was no internet  and no personal computers.

70 years ago science fiction writers expected spacecraft navigators to rely
on mechanical sliderules and log tables.

Time lines are very useful for getting a "sense" of how things are changing.

Looking at medical, chemical, materials, information and other technologies
on a time line and then if we make the mistake Robert Heinlein once wrote
about - making straight line projections - it STILL points to "the future"
RUSHING at us.

We are all in a rising elevator which is accelerating.  The only debate is
when we will reach the penthouse.

Next stop, the penthouse.

Just my opinion,

George Smith
CI member and immortalist

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