A Letter To Ray

In a fit of literacy, I wrote a letter to Ray Kurzweil, famed inventor and futurist.

Dear Mr. Kurzweil

Darn you! Darn you to heck! How dare you publish a book detailing an idea I've had kicking around in my head since well before I've ever heard of you! It doesn't take much to look at sociological, economic, and scientific graphs and notice they all have one thing in common: an exponential shape. This seems eminently obvious to me, but when I introduce the idea to others, they tend not to see my point. Humph. And imagine my annoyance when I saw your book sitting on a shelf at the library. A quick browse of the early part reveals that at least someone else has the idea. Though, I suppose this, too is inevitable, as the amount of ideas exponentially increases, the likelihood of them being truly original decreases at the same rate. The thing I wonder about this is whether or not any legitimately new technologies will be imagined up or if all future technology is going to be some sort of refinement or improvement of a current idea.

Or have they always been this way? Has every technology followed a clearly defined path, a sort of universal technological advancement causality? A real world "technology tree," to use a term from real-time strategy games? Is the computer really just the logical extension of the abacus? The gun, the spear? And what will happen in the future? Will we truly reach the singularity, or will we reach ever higher and ever wider, but never truly meet the asymptote? Does it matter? And lastly can we truly escape our base natures, instincts, and impulses in time to prevent our own destruction by passion? Would that make the world better or worse? Does that matter either? In true scientific fashion, the answer only raises (exponentially) more questions. I hope this finds you well, and have a(n) (exponentially) fantastic day!

Jacob,

Disillusioned college freshman