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NASA and Google To Back New "Singularity University"
Slatterz and Keith Kleiner were among several readers to send in word of Singularity University, announced at TED today by Ray Kurzweil. He and X Prize founder Peter Diamandis began talking about creating the school last year, after Diamandis read Kurzweil's 2005 book The Singularity is Near. NASA and Google are both supporting the project, NASA with space and Google with cash. The school aims to foster "disruptive innovation." As envisioned, Singularity U. will sponsor 3-day and 10-day courses for executives year-round, and its main offering will be a single 9-week course of study over the summer for 120 students, each of which will pay $25,000 for the privilege. Announced faculty so far includes Nobel Prize winning physicist George Smoot, NASA Ames chief scientist Stephanie Langhoff, Vint Cerf, and Will Wright, creator of the video games Spore and The Sims.
I don't think this is going to work because although these people are the top in their fields, it doesn't make them good teachers, which is important if you're paying $25,000 for a 10 day course.
its main offering will be a single 9-week course of study over the summer for 120 students, each of which will pay $25,000 for the privilege
Well, that should help them get rid of that surplus cash. It's really in the spirit of TED, though. How much are the tickets to get into the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference -- $4k? $6k? It's basically an event where you pay for the privilege of schmoozing with famous people, be they celebrities, scientists, politicians, etc.
Still, some interesting news has come out of the conference (re. Aptera).
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
But that's OK, I can wait a few more years for my life to be that fucked up.
They were right - the revolution did not get televised. It was posted on YouTube instead. All in 120 characters. SLOOSH!
What makes you say so? I'm not any kind of fan Kurzweil or his technology singularity concept (I've heard of it, but haven't read any of Kurzweil's writing on the subject), but the idea is absolutely intriguing. Not only that, it's entirely possible he may be right. Ray Kurzweil is a very smart man who has always been at the forefront of technological development.
My blog
Not really. Cult = small, unpopular religion. Religion = large, popular cult. The basic idea is the same, of course; the difference is in magnitude and some popular form of legitimacy.
I have several (mostly intelligent...) friends who believe this tripe. It's magical thinking for nerds.
It is complete and utter nonsense. These people are so obsessed with the idea that science and knowledge and inventiveness can solve all our problems that they've neglected the actual process of technological development, which is filled with ideas that look good on paper but don't work when you try them in the real world. When it comes to solving problems, nothing beats hard work, not even the "singularity".
I believe we will reach a point when technical progress will create a society completely different from anything we have ever seen, before the mid of this century.
But this does not mean I believe any of the participants in this event has something significant enough to say to make it worth paying $25000 to listen to them.
Ah, no.
A cult is an "extremist" group that broke off of a religion. Thus a "Christian cult" is different from a "Muslim cult." It's more akin to "sect" except that it is typically viewed as heretical by the majority of the religion. For example, a "Christian cult" would be Heavens Gate or (depending on who you ask) even a group such as Mormons of Jehovah's Witnesses. Not being a Muslim, I don't know much about their cults.
Even google agrees. Or rather, wordnet.princeton.edu
Keywords are "unorthodox" and "extremist" which tend to be relative terms based on what IS "orthodox" and "non-extermist" (normal?). So a "Christian cult" is going to be unorthodox, and obviously that orthodoxy isn't going to be defined by, say, a Muslim, or some other religion.
Don't even start.
The difference between a cult and a religion is 100 years.
What about Catholics? are they a cult? How about Lutherans?
All religions fell under the definitions you list at one point in their history.
Cult: A group of people who blindly follow a person or ideology with no verifiable evidence.
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I think the idea is that people with $25K go to Singularity University in order to "learn" how to spend their money on more singularitarian bullshit.
Any place of learning, from high school through community college and up to grad school, is Singularity University. Hint: take math and science classes. I think I'd rather take linear algebra and diff eq. at a community college than pay $25K to hear a blowhard's dream for the future. Hell, if you take a decent statistics class you can outsmart these guys by learning about what's wrong with extrapolating a fitted curve past its support is not valid...
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
A lever makes one man capable of lifting several tons by means of his own strength.
Where is the lever for the mind that makes thousands of brilliant technological advances out of a single man's half-baked brain fart?
Where is the force-multiplier for the mind?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
When I was a child I loved to dream about the year 2000 and about the predictions of flying cars. Since I learned why things didn't go as expected, I've been following the field of future predictions as a source of entertainment. You would think they would be more modest, considering the 100% empirical fail score, but nooo...
Anyway, the singularity will not happen anywhere soon, because they fail to take the following three points into consideration or appreciate their weight: 1) In the past technologies changed over lifetimes. When you lived the past century, you have seen many new technologies come. Closer to the Singularity, humans are not capable or willing to change so many times. Humans slow it down. 2) Economics. Products are tied to an economic life cycle of cost and win. If all human effort was concentrated, we could have a base on Venus. Or Flying Cars. Instead, we have Windows Vista and low power PC's. 3) Their own egos, fantasies and projections. Fiction at best.
Smart does not equal right.
For it to happen means mankind no longer has imagination, creativity, and individuality.
Quite frankly, I can't imagine the entire human race losing the imagination. It is what allows us to be at the top.
Kurzweil is taken the proposition stated by I. J. Good and is turning it into a religion.
He proposes that 'Moore's law' will apply to all technology and assumes IC development will not change.
Yes, it seems intriguing, but I first read about it in OMNI* in 1983. Vinge wrote it,I believe.
The technology is still 50 years away.
I'll take cold fusion..it's only 5 years away~
*Best magazine ever. Especially when Bova was in charge. Guccione ruined with his damn red pages.
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Thank you for posting your own definition. I am actually IN the religious groupings (being part of a religion, that is), and I even cited an outside source... :)
Catholics are not a cult, unless you talk to conservative evangelical Christians. It kinda depends on what dogma/doctrine of the RCC one looks at and how it is interpreted. It can get somewhat complex.
Lutherans are not a cult. Lutherans have basically orthodox teachings.
What one particular religion or sect is considered DOES change. Who said it didn't? What is a sect now may end up becoming more "popular" and the "original" may end up being a "sect." For example, 600 years ago, it was Roman Catholic or nothing, as far as "mainstream" things were considered. And yes, back then if you held to non-RCC you were a "cult" or, in more popular terms, a "heretic." In the present day, that is different, and the RCC is less heretic-happy than it was 600 years ago. Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc., all are "orthodox" Christian denominations. Heavens Gate, Worldwide Church of God (at least when it started), Unitarians, etc., are not.
Who gets to decide what "orthodox" means may change. (note the distinction: who determines what is "commonly accepted" may change, but that is different from saying what is actually true or not changes... in other words, I'm not advocating a post-modern position in epistemology)
Actually, it's not mine. I forgot to give the credit where the credit belongs. It was said by Michael Shermer
Oh, so at what point did the Catholics stop becoming a cult, as per the definitions you listed?
Same for Lutherans.
The term Catholic goes back to abput 105/6. It was meaning Universal...but some how I thinkg the Romans and Jews may have a different take.
This is obvious if you study the time, perios and events that were happening at the time the letter was written.
Of course, you have read the Letter to the Smyrnaeans ? and studied the founding of the church?
To say ANY christian* religion isn't a cult as per the definitions you gave is absurd.
All this brings me to my point:
Either define a moment when something moves from 'cult' to 'religion', or it's just a larger cult.
Stop trying to ahve it both ways.
I specifically mention Christian because that's what we are discussing, I can come up with similar historical examples for most religions.
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No, the $25,000 comes out of the potential bonuses of the actual workers. The C level people will remain unaffected.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
You seem to have some misconceptions about what the singularity is, it simply means things are improving a bit faster than before, as in, it's moving so fast we have trouble actually following the development, sortof like today, only that when you you visit slashdot you'll be facing two months content in todays rate in a single day.
We are already extremely dependant on machine and internet connections to keep up the rate today, our dependence and rate of immersion will simply increase along with the rate of progress. I don't really see where the loss of imagination, creativity and individuality comes into play here.
Also, religion usually lacks scientific basis and contains supernatural aspects, it's sortof what makes it a religion, the concept of the singularity may perhaps be a bit naive but it's not a religion. Sure it sounds a bit romantic and head in the clouds to dream of the Time of Change when the world will turn utopian but as a matter of fact we are living in a time of change and extremely rapid progress right at the moment, it's only the utopian part that's missing but the situation is rapidly improving for the average human.
For it to happen means mankind no longer has imagination, creativity, and individuality.
I don't understand this. None of those are necessarily eliminated by a singularity; if anything they're more likely to become stronger.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
True enough. But pointing that out does not make him or his arguments wrong, either.
To say that creating computers advanced enough to surpass ourselves proves that we have "lost" imagination and creativity is a stretch, to say the least. To me it would seem to prove the contrary.
Whether it will happen or not, and in particular whether Kurzweil's timeline is correct, is another issue; as many have pointed out, futurists love to predict that the most fantastic things will happen right near the end of their lifetimes, so his "live forever" claims may be borne of hope more than reason. But the Moore's law claims don't seem as wild to me, since he is very explicit about noting that it has nothing to do with the particulars of the chips, but about the fact that the total computing power tends to follow the law with only minor divergences as one technology dies out and is replaced by one that scales better.
Personally, I feel the label "religion" is a bit inappropriate whenever log-log plots are a crucial part of the pitch. Feel free to disagree.
Arguing that religions are just larger cults because there's no clear demarcation is like arguing that adults are just larger children because there's no clear demarcation.
Right around the point where they run hospitals, schools and soup kitchens.
Scientologists on the other hand do not appear to do anything at all for the benefit of society or even of those members that are not in the upper reaches of the pyramid scheme - actually I wouldn't even call them a cult, although there are things like Magnificant Meal that are called cults but were also designed and run for financial purposes.
It's time to reach for the dictionary instead of the increasingly popular technique of giving words a meaning that feels good.
Okay, pseudoscience
Bonus counter point to your log-log plot remark: Scientology has 1950s scifi styled lie detectors as a crucial part of their religion. And the Catholic church one time published long treaties on just how many angels could physically dance on the head of a pin, so you see the trappings of science, don't make it science.