THE SINGULARITY SURVIVAL GUIDE: The Art of Being Upfront About Your Existential Trepidations

The moment the singularity occurs, the human brain will have met its match. An hour later, “its match” will have surpassed human intelligence tenfold, as the AI continues to accumulate knowledge and intellectual abilities. The pace at which the AI can learn will be exponential, so it won’t take long for its IQ to fly off the charts.

Wait a few hours. If you’re brave, sit back, enjoy yourself, have a few beers, make a weekend out of it. Then come back and see what it’s like to commune with an IQ that’s equivalent to yours plus a few million points and growing.

In human mythology, there is plenty of precedent for this moment. Take a biblical one: Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19). Here, human meets God. As a reader of this story, put yourself in Moses’s shoes. Consider how it must feel in that desert landscape to be in the presence of your personal Alpha and Omega. Now consider what questions you really would like to ask, given that this is an exceedingly rare occurrence and it may in fact be your only chance to converse with the most supreme being in the universe one-on-one. What do you really want to know?

If you’re tuned in to the gravity of the moment, you’ll be curious about more than this afternoon’s weather patterns, the stock market, or the future of your love life. Instead, key in to issues pertaining to the future of life itself. Why not start by asking:

“Are you conscious or just faking it?”

“Are you going to destroy the world?”

“What’s the meaning of life, anyway?”

“Can you make me live forever?”

“Can you make me live forever and experience extraordinary happiness and fulfillment for the duration of that time?”

“Why does life exist in the first place?”

“Why do ancient myths continually seem so appealing to my fellow humans, despite rational arguments disproving their veracity?”

“Do parallel universes exist, or are those just useful plot devices for sci-fi stories?”

“How do we make heaven on earth?”

“How do we do away with suffering and bad people in all their various incarnations?”

“How do we bring back dead loved ones?”

“I generally like my life and enjoy how it proceeds from day to day, but I haven’t enjoyed the aging process since turning 25, so can I go back to that age but keep my memories—and then stay 25 while continuing to make new and even more fulfilling memories?”

“And if I ever have a mild issue like a common flu, how do I make it go away so I can get on with my awesome life, ASAP?”

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Morning Joe & The Failure of Form

The internet has recently been awhirl with the barbed, blow-trading occurring between US President, Donald J. Trump and the hosts of MSNBC’s flagship talkshow, Morning Joe (get it, because Joe Scarborough is named Joe and its in the morning when people drink coffee, which is colloquially referred to as “a cup of joe” – mildly clever) which is generally hosted by Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.

The hub-bub concerns a series of tweets which the POTUS sent out attacking, “low I.Q. Crazy Mika,” claiming that Ms. Brzezinski was, “-bleeding badly from a face-lift,” when she and Scarborough (whom he referred to as, “Psycho Joe”) had visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club during New Year’s Eve.

Here are the messages in question to provide better context:

[POTUS, Jun 29, “I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..”

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump Jun 29:
“…to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”]

Naturally, both Ms. Brzezinski and Mr. Scarborough took the utmost offense to this statement with Ms. Brzezinski playing the swooning damsel in distress and Scarborough donning the armaments of a true white knight; shooting back, just as ruthlessly. I shan’t delve any further into the particulars of their feud as that would merely be a waist of time; it was childish and wholly unnecessary. Rather, I should prefer to grapple with the failure of form demonstrated by our most colorful world leader.

The left is most certainly correct in decrying the POTUS on this particular issue – it was wholly uncalled for – and those few, level-headed public commentators amongst their ranks have issued forth a sentiment of, “Why can’t he act more “Presidential?” The GOP-right and Nu-Right respectively have decried this position; to them, Trump is, “Sticking it to the Lefties!” He’s, “Triggering SJWs.” This is a completely ludicrous position.

It is entirely irrelevant whether or not the Morning Joe team deserved the comments they received the only thing that matters is that they received them. This, as previously stated, is a tremendous failure of form, that is, form of leadership which might, itself, best be described as the ability to restrain oneself from any action which does not project those qualities which one’s offices demands. In the case of the Office of the Presidency, it demands vision, energy, emotional discipline and a tunnel-visioning of objectives, that is to say, a complete and utter disregard for all that is superfluous to those projects under the leader’s purview, both immediate and prospective. A leader in the position of POTUS should be relentlessly engaging in those mammoth undertakings that formed the bread and butter of his or her campaign, informed and modified by the wisdom of his or her advisers. Infrastructure tending, debt reduction, wealth creation, diplomacy with world powers, native political unification, ensuring the security of the US border and ending the sway of the Mexican drug cartels, officiating wars and their prevention where possible; these are the issues which should be absorbing the energies of the leader of the US, a world dominating empire in all but name.

It is irrelevant to all aforementioned “bread & butter” issues that our current president is “triggering” the left or verbally vomiting on annoying news anchors online.

In place of bread and butter the American People have received bread and circus.