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I saw an absolutely epic debate between Jaron and a Singulatarian. He totally called them out on being religious in that they were just trying to make a geek version of the Christian rapture. I agree that the guy is like RMS in that he is an original thinker who works from first principles and that tends to give him an understanding that is unique and worth listening to.

BTW, Speaking of RMS and Jaron, is there some requirement that you have to have an iconic hair style to be a revered tech commentator?

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Thinking singularity is geek rapture isn't really original thinking, it's just regurgitation of a cliché. Now dead blog by Steven Kaas had a nice article, listing reasons why this comparison is not valid.

http://web.archive.org/web/20110718031848/http://www.acceler...

I won't quote the long list of arguments, just a tangential remark:

"It’s also interesting to think about what would happen if we applied “Rapture of the Nerds” reasoning more widely. Can we ignore nuclear warfare because it’s the Armageddon of the Nerds? Can we ignore climate change because it’s the Tribulation of the Nerds? Can we ignore modern medicine because it’s the Jesus healing miracle of the Nerds? It’s been very common throughout history for technology to give us capabilities that were once dreamt of only in wishful religious ideologies: consider flight or artificial limbs. Why couldn’t it happen for increased intelligence and all the many things that would flow from it?"

But flight or artificial limbs was sought after for all kinds of reasons. Meanwhile many singularity proponents want it purely for it being the singularity.

I may be misreading this blog post, but it seems like the author believes that calling the singularity the "geek rapture" is saying the singularity is unlikely to happen (presumably what the author believes about the the non-geek rapture). That is...not the critique I believe anyone is making when they call the singularity the "geek rapture."

I believe the phrase is used to critique the singularity for the way it is used to hand-wave away a huge set of problems. It's pointing out that, even if you believe in the singularity, its time horizons are uncertain at best. Bringing it up as a response to problems that exist in there here and now is textbook "apocalyptic thinking" and should be called out.

> That is...not the critique I believe anyone is making when they call the singularity the "geek rapture."

I think you read the article correctly, and that this is precisely the critique being made. The way I seen it used is, "this quacks like religion, so it is religion, therefore it's all bullshit".

The arguments about the nature of Singularity and possible time frames are made from applying logical reasoning to extrapolate from observable facts. The reasoning can, and absolutely should be criticized on the object level. But just dismissing it because it sounds sorta, kinda similar to some religion shouldn't be considered valid criticism. It's a thought-terminating cliché.

> I believe the phrase is used to critique the singularity for the way it is used to hand-wave away a huge set of problems.

Such uses of the concept should definitely be shot down. But it's not something I see popping up frequently among people discussing the concept seriously.

Or be from MIT? Not sure which debate you saw, but I recently watched an Intelligence Squared about "the promise of AI" in which he made a similar argument, along with many others. His team jumped 29% percent audience agreement in the post-poll.

I don't know how many in the audience would know the reference, but the fact that he worked directly with Minsky made it a pretty lopsided debate, in terms of credentials.

Thanks for describing this. I wanted to see this debate myself. For others who might want to watch it, it's available on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/yC_dfbxQqRI

Absolutely phenomenal. I hadn't actually heard of Jaron Lanier until today but now I'm a big fan.

Hairs are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos, and transmit them directly into the brain.

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