October 19, 2006

Simon Smith on 'laughable forecasting'

Betterhumans editor-in-chief Simon Smith beat me to this, but at the same time saved me the hassle of having to write an entire post: "Evolution expert" Dr Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics has made some rather suspicious predictions about the future of humanity. Actually, ridiculous is a better word to describe his work.

From Simon's article:
I just came across an article in the UK Daily Record that demonstrates how, despite transhumanist memes filtering out into the public consciousness, and increasing awareness about the accelerating pace of technological change, many academics just don't get the timelines or the scope of change truly being discussed. Example:

- SCIENTISTS have announced what they think we will look like in the future - chinless wonders with coffee-coloured skin.

- Within just 1000 years, we are going to evolve into giants up to 7ft tall and living to 120 years old.

- Then it's all downhill, with the human race degenerating into genetic "haves" and "have-nots."

Within 1,000 years! By 2029, we'll likely have computers on our desktop that are smarter than us and cost $1,000. A few years later, if Kurzweil's anywhere near right, we'll have computers on our desktop with the equivalent brainpower of the entire current population of humans. In 1,000 years, it's highly unlikely that humans will still be biological creatures (at least not all of us).
You can read the rest of Simon's post here.

No comments: