LongeCity Media & Archives / Calendar
Sterling vs. The Singularity (CA)
Sat Jun 12, 2004 6:59 am
Subject: BRUCE STERLING vs. The Singularity, Friday (for forwarding)
One reason lots of people don't want to think long term these days is
because technology keeps accelerating so rapidly, we assume the world
will become unrecognizable in a few years and then move on to
unimaginable. Long-term thinking must be either impossible or
irrelevant.
The commonest shorthand term for the runaway acceleration of
technology is "the Singularity"---a concept introduced by science
fiction writer Vernor Vinge in 1984. The term has been
enthusiastically embraced by technology historians, futurists,
extropians, and various trans-humanists and post-humanists, who have
generated variants such as "the techno-rapture," "the Spike," etc.
It takes a science fiction writer to critique a science fiction idea.
This Friday in San Francisco BRUCE STERLING will give a public
lecture titled "The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole."
Friday, June 11, 7pm, Fort Mason Conference Center, San Francisco.
Doors open for coffee and books at 7pm; lecture is promptly at 8pm.
The room seats only 250, so you may want to come early to be sure of
a seat. Admission is free (donation of $10 very welcome, not
requiredl).
Along with being one of America's leading science fiction writers and
technology journalists, Bruce Sterling is a celebrated speaker armed
with lethal wit. His books include The Zenith Angle (just out),
Hacker Crackdown, Holy Fire, Distraction, Mirrorshades (cyberpunk
compendium), Schismatrix, The Difference Engine (with William
Gibson), Tomorrow Now, and Islands in the Net.
This is one of a monthly series of Seminars About Long-term Thinking,
given every second Friday at Fort Mason, organized by The Long Now
Foundation. Future speakers in the series include Jill Tarter, Danny
Hillis, Paul Hawken, Michael West, Ken Dychtwald, Laurie Anderson,
and Jared Diamond. If you would like to be notified by email of
forthcoming talks, please contact Simone Davalos---
simone@longnow.org, 415-561-6582.
You are welcome to forward this note to anyone you think might be
interested.
--Stewart Brand
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