We need a word for what happens if it all goes wrong. The optimists have got the singularity. I propose that we take back the multiplicity, to suggest both the variety of possible or likely disasters, and the fragmentation of civilisation which will follow them.
Meanwhile, as if to balance all the large, probable disasters, there are lots of very small, but very improbable ones. For instance, how would you rate the chances of being hit, while riding a jet ski, by an airborne sturgeon?
multiplicity seems insufficiently blood soaked.
the current front runner is “grim meathook future” which rolls off the tongue nicely, and has meme-legs. but it annoys me slightly because the guy who said seems like a bit of a jerk. i’m open to better terms, though gmf is going to be hard to top.
i pretty much think the grim meathook future and the singularity are both going to happen. also, everyone seems to think the singularity will be good, and i’m not so sure. the singularities of history have a few common features. each one did have that quality of excession, that post singularity people can’t really explain their world to pre-singualrity people. they have population booms. and they have kill rates the scale of which is in excess of the conception of prior generations. not much new torture, though. we appear to have invented all the ways of torturing people pretty quickly.
I think the sturgeon did the right thing and, when the news spreads among them, I am sure this will be a rather common event.”