3 ms·

Hmmm. Kinda fly's right over the many, many correct technological predictions that Kurzweil has made over the years...and comparing singulitarians to scientolog

by W3AVE 8y ago

Hmmm. Kinda fly's right over the many, many correct technological predictions that Kurzweil has made over the years...and comparing singulitarians to scientologists is rather absurd I think.

arkades 8y ago
Any of those you want to describe in detail? Reading Kurzweil’d actual books felt rather like finding out the emperor has no clothes, to me: he made a lot of false analogies, conflated massively different things so he could argue for exponential growth, and made predictions so vague that he resembled a fortune teller more than a technologist. The validity of arguments for/against the singularity are distinct from whether Kurzweil is a bullshit artist, of course.
jryan49 8y ago
I mean random chance means some of his predictions came true, some of them insightful, but a lot of the stuff on this list [0] is wayyy off the mark. "Average life expectancy is over 100 :P [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzweil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzwe...
notthegov 8y ago
I know a Scientologist and a former government employee who started a new techno-religion decades ago. It kind of operates as a conspiracy directed against the US Government. The CIA has declassified documents where they suspect certain people known to them may had been Scientology agents; specifically the remote viewing psychic Pat Price who died under mysterious circumstances. These members of this esoteric deep state worked with Pat Price at the CIA in the 1960s. [0] Thus they've held the highest security clearances for decades and several are current CIA contractors. [1] Although it appears sinister, it's more like an optical illusion. Most of them are just scientists who have a legitimate interest in the unknown. Yet somewhere there is some grand secret with a subtle or covert force at work. Deciphering it is almost impossible though. This techno-religion is affiliated with several former military and CIA employees. The US Government views it as a long-term, persistence kind of 'paranormal deep state' conspiracy which threatens national security. And, of course, the government considers their claims regarding remarkable secrets held by the government and exotic technology as false. (And they are false.) One person involved in this is a Stanford professor who was recently in the NY Times discussing exotic and controversial research. His partner is the one who said (in the 1980s) that he was starting a new religion with the Scientology scientist; and ostensibly these people either have or are on the direct peripheral of "Singularity-type" radical technology. Yet the only person affiliated with the group who actually works for the US Government is a JASON scientist. Some say he is the mastermind of it all but that's unlikely. JASON's an interesting group of elite scientists who meet once a year to work on various problems and topics for the federal government. My point is there's interesting conspiracy-like actions happening, whether they are self-organizing and random, or some cosmic force of deception. If you think of the Stoic's idea of Amor Fati, then a first principle like 'deception is a force of nature' makes a lot of practical sense. Resist the temptation to get angry, have faith in chaos and unlock mysteries of life. [0] https://mikemcclaughry.wordpress.com/2017/06/29/pat-prices-death-effectively-ends-all-official-cia-involvement-in-esp-research/ https://mikemcclaughry.wordpress.com/2017/06/29/pat-prices-d... [1] https://thetanetworkersscientology.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/against-rons-will-remote-viewers-hal-puthoff-ingo-swann-and-the-hijacking-of-scientology-by-us-intelligence-agencies/ https://thetanetworkersscientology.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/...

by W3AVE 8y ago

Hmmm. Kinda fly's right over the many, many correct technological predictions that Kurzweil has made over the years...and comparing singulitarians to scientologists is rather absurd I think.

arkades 8y ago

Any of those you want to describe in detail? Reading Kurzweil’d actual books felt rather like finding out the emperor has no clothes, to me: he made a lot of false analogies, conflated massively different things so he could argue for exponential growth, and made predictions so vague that he resembled a fortune teller more than a technologist. The validity of arguments for/against the singularity are distinct from whether Kurzweil is a bullshit artist, of course.

jryan49 8y ago

I mean random chance means some of his predictions came true, some of them insightful, but a lot of the stuff on this list [0] is wayyy off the mark. "Average life expectancy is over 100 :P [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzweil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzwe...

notthegov 8y ago

I know a Scientologist and a former government employee who started a new techno-religion decades ago. It kind of operates as a conspiracy directed against the US Government. The CIA has declassified documents where they suspect certain people known to them may had been Scientology agents; specifically the remote viewing psychic Pat Price who died under mysterious circumstances. These members of this esoteric deep state worked with Pat Price at the CIA in the 1960s. [0] Thus they've held the highest security clearances for decades and several are current CIA contractors. [1] Although it appears sinister, it's more like an optical illusion. Most of them are just scientists who have a legitimate interest in the unknown. Yet somewhere there is some grand secret with a subtle or covert force at work. Deciphering it is almost impossible though. This techno-religion is affiliated with several former military and CIA employees. The US Government views it as a long-term, persistence kind of 'paranormal deep state' conspiracy which threatens national security. And, of course, the government considers their claims regarding remarkable secrets held by the government and exotic technology as false. (And they are false.) One person involved in this is a Stanford professor who was recently in the NY Times discussing exotic and controversial research. His partner is the one who said (in the 1980s) that he was starting a new religion with the Scientology scientist; and ostensibly these people either have or are on the direct peripheral of "Singularity-type" radical technology. Yet the only person affiliated with the group who actually works for the US Government is a JASON scientist. Some say he is the mastermind of it all but that's unlikely. JASON's an interesting group of elite scientists who meet once a year to work on various problems and topics for the federal government. My point is there's interesting conspiracy-like actions happening, whether they are self-organizing and random, or some cosmic force of deception. If you think of the Stoic's idea of Amor Fati, then a first principle like 'deception is a force of nature' makes a lot of practical sense. Resist the temptation to get angry, have faith in chaos and unlock mysteries of life. [0] https://mikemcclaughry.wordpress.com/2017/06/29/pat-prices-death-effectively-ends-all-official-cia-involvement-in-esp-research/ https://mikemcclaughry.wordpress.com/2017/06/29/pat-prices-d... [1] https://thetanetworkersscientology.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/against-rons-will-remote-viewers-hal-puthoff-ingo-swann-and-the-hijacking-of-scientology-by-us-intelligence-agencies/ https://thetanetworkersscientology.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/...