The singularity is already here, and it’s boring.

It's a singularity that singularity enthusiasts don't talk about much, if at all, because it isn't selective, and doesn't have a clear point in time of arrival. What I mean is that, in my opinion singularity can be thought of as a point in time where the rate of progress (of science, technology, etc) becomes exponential. We've already reached that point today, though. <br><br>To be honest, though... not much has come out of it. It's not some magical future, and it's not some doomsday event. It's not the end of humanity, and it's not ascent to godhood. It's just boring, banal reality. <br><br>I will argue here that the accelerationist historians are entirely right - human progress, even in the 20th century, began accelerating exponentially - and that this reality is the result, and that it isn't particularly interesting. That, actually, the concept of a singularity is a bit useless, as it's actually a gradual process, and people are just cherry-picking some point in time and calling it "the future", when in reality, it's already here, and always has been. <br><br>What would happen, in other words, if the way we talk about the future actually described the present? If it's boring, and not interesting, then perhaps there's a hidden spiritual reality to our world that science and technology can't capture, or perhaps the only way to get out of our banality is to accelerate progress even faster, to some critical point where it becomes interesting. <br><br>This is a philosophical discussion, first and foremost. As such, I'd like to start by quoting Karl Marx, who said "For the *materialist,* the transforming of circumstances [of the world] is absolute; for the *idealist* the transforming of consciousness [is absolute]." (Feuerbach, 44). Marx's historical materialism is an ideology that the "material" world around us influences our thoughts, and that the "spiritual" world of ideas is really a product of the "material" world. <br><br>I think that Marx is right. And what he missed was the effect that technology had on the "material" world, and by extension, on the "spiritual" one as well. I'll call this spiritual world of ideas and consciousness *subjective reality* and the material world of science and sense experience *objective reality*. <br><br>To clarify, objective reality is a socially understood concept of the world, through direct and indirect sense experience. Subjective reality is individual's own "inner world". The effects I will be describing in this essay are necessarily in the objective reality, though I believe they indirectly effect subjective reality. <br><br>One effect that technology has on the "material world" is described by Carlo Rovelli, who says "Science makes marvels, technology makes them useful…or bearable." (Order of Time, 149). Every time science discovers a marvel, technology uses it to make our lives easier, to create a better world - and also to create more advanced killing machines. <br><br>The effects on the spiritual world are well-documented. John Stuart Mill, a 19th century liberal philosopher who lived during the dawn of the industrial era, said that "I have known no man of any intellect who was not a melancholy one; nor anymelancholy one who was not a man of intellect." (Souls of Black Folk, 27). And this is a problem for the liberal capitalist order that must be solved, because "Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we are all in this together to give it the meaning. " (Marie Curie). <br> <br>The accelerationists instead propose another solution: just speed up progress even faster. Accelerate beyond the singularity.