The Committee to Nuke Elysium

1. There is no one Singularity. Any area of scientific inquiry, pushed far enough, could provide its own native version of a cataclysm: biological, cognitive, mechanical, cybernetic, you could name it. If man is the measure of all things, then there probably is no measure by which we can’t be made more than human.

2. A Singularity ends the human condition (because that is its definition), but it resolves nothing else. It would almost certainly be followed by a rapid, massive explosion of following Singularities. These ultra — cataclysmic events would disrupt the first Singularity even more than the first Singularity disrupted the human condition.

3. The posthuman condition is banal. It is crypto — theological, and astounding, and apocalyptic, and eschatological, and ontological, but only by human standards. Oh sure, we become as gods (or something does), but the thrill fades fast, because that thrill is merely human and parochial. By the new, post Singularity standards, posthumans are just as bored and frustrated as humans ever were. They are not magic, they are still quotidian entities in a gritty, rules — based physical universe. They will find themselves swiftly and bruisingly brought up against the limits of their own conditions, whatever those limits and conditions may be.

4. Messy, embarrassing, reversible, goofy, catch — as — catch — can posthumanism is politically preferable to sleek, streamlined, sudden, utter, Final Solution posthumanism. The best way to encounter a Singularity would be to nick over the event horizon for a minute or two and have somebody else yank you back. Then the rest of us would be able to debrief you, and see if you could still write as well as Jaron Lanier.