X-Message-Number: 28007
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 18:56:02 -0500
From: 
Subject: Deus ex Machina

The ancient Greeks in their drama productions would often resolve an 
otherwise unsolvable crisis by using a machine to pull the characterization 
of a god onto the stage.  This "Superman save the day" routine found itself 
in the arts ever since, and "Deus ex Machina" (god from the machine) is now 
the formal name of the literary technique.

In the current drama of life on planet Earth, we see a number of tragedy 
players - "the widening rich-poor gap, the degredation (sic) of water and 
topsoil, the exhaustion of animal life," waste, wars, overconsumption, 
economic inequities, heck - even peak oil and bird flu.  These crises are 
all difficult if not impossible to solve, so this drama needs a Deus ex 
Machina to magically appear and save our souls.  Enter:  The Singularity AI!

The price to be paid for The Singularity AI's services, would be covered in 
the sequel to the drama mentioned above, were it not likely that said 
sequel would be of no use to write and at the least not permitted to be 
written.  Heroic minority efforts will prove to be to no avail - Swiss bank 
reanimation accounts will be frozen, cryopreserved bodies will be thawed.

But I keep asking myself what is the point of fussing.  Even if concerned 
humans were to convince 99.999% of the people that the Singularity is a bad 
idea to let happen, it will only take one genius madman to bring it 
about.  And a Singularity AI could easily learn and evolve more rapidly 
than the rest of the humans could control it.

But if I'm wrong, and I hope I am, we remain with the future, and all its 
threats to our existence mentioned by the writer quoted in paragraph 2 above.

Today, the Day of the Beast, 06-06-06, I have no idea what the answer 
is.  Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

Flav

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=28007