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1.  

   Oh God, cults.

   

   dorpus, Jan 12th, 2004 @ 5:50am

   
   

   Yesterday I was hoodwinked by a posting on craigslist.org about a "zen archery club" near my place -- it turned out not to be an archery club at all, but really a religious cult in which they create an atmosphere of total silence to make it uncomfortable to leave, and people are supposed to spend 20 minutes aiming at the target until the arrow "shoots itself". Predictably, the sensei was a fat middle aged guy named Bob with purple tinted glasses who likes to touch people.
   
   Having spent the past month in Japan, I felt like strangling them and telling them that Japan is nothing like their fantasies -- it is a place obsessed with fashion, drinking, and sex. The only people who practice zen in Japan are white tourists.
   

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2.  

   Re: Oh God, cults.

   

   dorpus, Jan 12th, 2004 @ 5:51am

   
   

   But as luck would have it, I did go to another craigslist.org activity after that, an air hockey session featuring normal people -- we went out to dinner.
   
   

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3.  

   Maybe they can reach their goal (sort of):

   

   Precision Blogger, Jan 12th, 2004 @ 8:18am

   
   

   It might not be so hard for them to develop an AI that's smarter than THEY are.
   
   - The Precision Blogger
   http://precision-blogging.blogspot.com
   

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4.  

   not really a cult

   

   transhuman2, Jan 12th, 2004 @ 8:53am

   
   

   more of a reasoned, analytical follow the assumption and see what is the inevitable result. If you think your mind is rational and can handle the truth then think seriously about this topic and do a little research...
   a brief perusal of http://www.singinst.org/ will
   get you started

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5.  

   more of the same

   

   eeyore, Jan 12th, 2004 @ 11:54am

   
   

   Everybody wants to live forever. Every religion has it's own version of the afterlife. It sounds like this guy sees this as his ticket to immortality. He will probably be as ironically disappointed as all the idiots who had themselves cryogenically frozen after they were already dead.

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6.  

   Sure kid, I've read Vernor Vinge, and all the rest

   

   Anonymous Coward, Jan 12th, 2004 @ 12:51pm

   
   

   Obviously, Mr. Yudkowsky is a very intelligent man (yes, I've looked at his website), but this story sounds like it came straight out of an issue of Wired Magazine from 1999. Where do these geniuses get this idea that you can "achieve immortality" by dumping your "consciousness" into a computer? There are very fundamental questions for which Yudkowsky and the "Singulatarians" offer ludicrous answers based on unfounded nonsense. Let's face facts: after half a century and more of research into "artificial intelligence" (note that many researchers today are scared to use the term, fearing ridicule, and prefer newer, cooler terms such as "intelligence augmentation"), no one on this planet has the slightest idea what thought or consciousness really is. Well, "obviously", it's a multithreaded program running on an organic supercomputer, easily simulated by the latest open-source toolkits. And also "obviously", if you build a tower high enough, you will reach the sky. Come on, being human is pretty amazing, wouldn't you say?

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7.  

   Hey, haven't I seen this plot before.....

   

   Adrian Anders, Jan 12th, 2004 @ 2:57pm

   
   

   Hey, this is my first time posting on techdirt, but after reading the aforementioned article, I couldn't help but bring up the striking similarity between the goals of these “Singularity” cultists, and those of Seele, the sinister organization behind “The Human Instrumentality Project” in the popular Japanese anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Seele’s plot was to use these bio-angelic organisms known as Evangelions as an instrument for the next stage of human evolution (don’t ask me why, the whole series is pretty f’d up). In the minds of Seele, they believed that they were preventing mankind’s eventual extinction by bringing every human mind together into one singular being (starting to see the similarity?). Let’s just hope that these nutballs never rise to possess any real power, otherwise we might have city crushing robots to deal with ;-)
   
   ATA

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8.  

   Re: more of the same

   

   Anonymous Coward, Jan 12th, 2004 @ 3:39pm

   
   

   "The dead do not get disappointed."
   -Kai, Last of the Brunnen G

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9.  

   Re: Sure kid, I've read Vernor Vinge, and all the

   

   toinfinityandbeyond, Jan 12th, 2004 @ 8:40pm

   
   

   hmmm...i think its called a space elevator ;-) - just one of the many coming wonders of nanotechnology (aroundd which much of the singularity will be based) -- try a little extrapolation of your initial premises and be truthfull about where the exponential curve is taking you...if your mind can handle it without future shock...

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10.  

    Re: not really a cult

    

    kri, Mar 19th, 2010 @ 10:06am

    
    

    you are a dork, my not-friend.

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11.  

    Re: not really a cult

    

    kri, Mar 19th, 2010 @ 10:14am

    
    

    and when i say dork, i am referring to transhuman2 and everyone else excited in the singularity cult/religion. seriously, you make the future the lamest place imaginable. get a girlfriend and quit hoping for a virtual one who will always "love" you. that's what this is all about you know, nerds who can't find girlfriends, so they have to ruin the world in order to make their virtual ones. they're worse than scientologists.

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12.  

    Re: not really a cult

    

    kri, Mar 19th, 2010 @ 10:15am

    
    

    and when i say dork, i am referring to transhuman2 and everyone else excited in the singularity cult/religion. seriously, you make the future the lamest place imaginable. get a girlfriend and quit hoping for a virtual one who will always "love" you. that's what this is all about you know, nerds who can't find girlfriends, so they have to ruin the world in order to make their virtual ones. they're worse than scientologists.

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13.  

    Re: not really a cult

    

    kri, Mar 19th, 2010 @ 10:15am

    
    

    and when i say dork, i am referring to transhuman2 and everyone else excited in the singularity cult/religion. seriously, you make the future the lamest place imaginable. get a girlfriend and quit hoping for a virtual one who will always "love" you. that's what this is all about you know, nerds who can't find girlfriends, so they have to ruin the world in order to make their virtual ones. they're worse than scientologists.

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