Why is Ray Kurzweil's hypothesis particularly important to contrast other hypotheses against? What sets it apart in relevance and/or authority?
Of course, there are debates around which inventions count as significant. And there is recency bias.
Never underestimate the power in something easy to communicate.
Yes, I suppose that's the biggest thing with these "futurologists": their predictions are both tantalizing and easy to digest. I reserve the right to remain skeptical about any of these Silicon Valley religions though.
He claims he's right even when he's obviously wrong. He is not someone whose predictions should be blindly trusted.
What strikes me as particularly interesting about Silicon Valley and some techie circles -- as opposed to Nostradamus -- is that many of these people self-identify as hiperrational, agnostic, atheist or wary of traditional religions, yet here they are, building their own religions under a more palatable technological guise (I could list ideas like the Singularity, Super AI good or bad, immortality, "we're living in a simulation", "every problem in the world can be fixed with the right app", etc, but if the list of absurdities goes long enough I'm sure to hit some raw nerve, so I'll stop here).
These modern day Nostradamuses also tend to overinflate their own importance in the wider world. Outside of techie circles Kurzweil is a nobody, and the notion that his theories are some bar that other theories must somehow pass is laughable.
Likewise, if someone said "human aging and death are unavoidable" this wouldn't be bold just because Kurzweil has written a lot about immortality.