We are carefully and remarkably building an alien civilization to our nature without due recognition, without processing the changes we are making to our entire technology. I have a phrase I use to describe the related technologies which compose our consumer/industrial capability at any given moment. That phrase is the tech set.
Our tech set, viewed from a proper analytical distance, is approaching a monumental discontinuity, a catastrophe as Rene Thom labelled it, in this case a fold curve. We are going to be cruising along dealing with incremental change when suddenly highly capable robots begin building highly capable robots and maintaining them. That's the discontinuity. That's the Economic Singularity. That's the realization of the alien civilization of which I am speaking.
Civilization is a product of surplus food, of surplus time. Human beings are creatures of scarcity. Scarcity and utility are what make things valuable. Civilization is easily not natural to humans. It has to be taught to them.
Civilization with its schools and its libraries is the wellspring of this new tech set, this alien civilization. Starting from alien institutions and moving next logical step by next logical step to a maximum realization of surplus, the end of scarcity, can only be radically alien to humans.
The question to be answered is, will it be alien and hostile? The answer cannot be divided from here. It is as unknowable as dark matter. We will know when we know. Let us hope it's alien and friendly.
Do Well and Be Well.
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