Some apocalypse with your midday meal
given the shitstorm that hit my brain yesterday, I went to bed early and got up late. I'm feeling a bit better, only if I don't move. And today I picked to go to the gym, and go buy some books. Yeah... that's not happening, probably. If, for those of you In South reading this, I don't show up for dinner, it's because I'm too sick to move.
Aaanyway, I found a couple of articles on The End of The World, and thought I'd share them with y'all.
to start us off, here's Kurzweil on The Singularity, a social/cultural phenomenon which will rewrite our existence as we know it, essentially, as I understand it, a cultural revolution to trump all cultural revolutions. He writes his own FAQ about this technological renaissance, which sounds like the dawning of the sci-fi world of The Matrix or Transmetropolitan, in briefest form, as thus: "We’ll get to a point where technical progress will be so fast that unenhanced human intelligence will be unable to follow it. That will mark the Singularity."
Next, here's something that tells us that, indeed, metals are not a sustainable resource. Our ore, it says, is finite--a gentle reminder--and probably won't keep up with the demands of increasing worldwide population growth--a less gentle reminder--even if we recycle it. We're going to run out of metal, like we're running out of oil, and forests, and ice caps, and ozone.
finally, the mostest apocalyptickest, a commentator by the name of James Lovelock writing in The Independent says we're all gonna die, because we're killing the earth so bad it's not going to recover. I vaguely remember, from back when I was younger, some sci-fi writers that used the old chestnut that Mars was like Earth before its civilization killed all its resources. Lovelock is essentially saying that's what we're doing to the Earth, and at this point there's no way to truly reverse the damage we've done. Over the past five years or so--since I've become aware of this kind of writing--the environmentalists have been getting increasingly apocalyptic in their rhetoric. Is this an incidental to the folks I've been reading, or (seriously--those of you who are more up ons with the environmental lit, please help me out here) is someone winding up the pitch to fling the shit at the fan?
I'm still engrossed in Kurzweil's article. Am thinking, will buy his book.
shb
Aaanyway, I found a couple of articles on The End of The World, and thought I'd share them with y'all.
to start us off, here's Kurzweil on The Singularity, a social/cultural phenomenon which will rewrite our existence as we know it, essentially, as I understand it, a cultural revolution to trump all cultural revolutions. He writes his own FAQ about this technological renaissance, which sounds like the dawning of the sci-fi world of The Matrix or Transmetropolitan, in briefest form, as thus: "We’ll get to a point where technical progress will be so fast that unenhanced human intelligence will be unable to follow it. That will mark the Singularity."
Next, here's something that tells us that, indeed, metals are not a sustainable resource. Our ore, it says, is finite--a gentle reminder--and probably won't keep up with the demands of increasing worldwide population growth--a less gentle reminder--even if we recycle it. We're going to run out of metal, like we're running out of oil, and forests, and ice caps, and ozone.
finally, the mostest apocalyptickest, a commentator by the name of James Lovelock writing in The Independent says we're all gonna die, because we're killing the earth so bad it's not going to recover. I vaguely remember, from back when I was younger, some sci-fi writers that used the old chestnut that Mars was like Earth before its civilization killed all its resources. Lovelock is essentially saying that's what we're doing to the Earth, and at this point there's no way to truly reverse the damage we've done. Over the past five years or so--since I've become aware of this kind of writing--the environmentalists have been getting increasingly apocalyptic in their rhetoric. Is this an incidental to the folks I've been reading, or (seriously--those of you who are more up ons with the environmental lit, please help me out here) is someone winding up the pitch to fling the shit at the fan?
I'm still engrossed in Kurzweil's article. Am thinking, will buy his book.
shb