The Coming Convergence

Stanley Schmidt 2008 Prometheus Books

About the convergence of technologies to make new technologies, and the "singularity". Mostly descriptions of existing technologies.

• p_88 - a useful description of computed tomography.
• p126 - SF a vaccine for future shock
• p136 - Brain imaging - but not resolution or microfunction
• p138 - Meme, psychohistory, argument from analogy
• p173 - Nanotechnology - doesn't talk about statistics
  • note that Schroedinger ("What Is Life?") had a clue in 1942
  • if activation energy for a change is small, it will happen fast
  • Life does things in parallel, increasing the activation energy for damaging the ensemble
• p189 - Waldos, telepresence - no mention of predictive-adaptive telepresence
• p200 - External copies - no mention of extensions
• p211 - space elevator, Arnold/Kingsbury spaceport (no mention of stability or energy handling)
• p225 - Fermi plague: powerful crazed individuals create planet-destroying havoc
• p232 - Clarke's Law - any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so lazy people will forget how they work