LONGECITY

http://www.kurzweila......html?id=2786

Scientific American has published a letter from Ray Kurzweil in its January 2004 issue in response to an editorial in the September 2003 issue critiquing Kurzweil's vision of reverse-engineering the brain and the future of machine intelligence.

Cool; it's become fashionable to decry Kurzweil-style futures. I guess people assume that it's anathema to ecologically wise futures - that's the way it looks on the surface, I guess. At least they published his response!

I think people "fashionably diss" Kurzweil because he is successful. So far his forecasts have been mostly right and he lets people know. He has gathered a following without following the "proper course" through politics or acedemia. He is not a professor with tenure. He is not a agent of the government. So-called "Intellectuals" attempt to trash his reputation because they feel threatened. That is my opinion.

I agree with Mind.

Somebody has told me that he thinks that Kurzweil is my prophet, while all I have done is acknowledge the fact that Kurzweil truly seems to know it all.

In my opinion, it takes guts to admit that about a certain person. Most people feel too intimidated by an acknowledgement like that, I think. Me... I'd just like to accept the fact that he is obviously a genius (I've got a secret, anyone?), and that he is a lot of experience, and a lot of models backing him up.

It's too bad that people have thought of me as a blind follower of the latest religion...