One of the big problems with this article, and it also applies (albeit slightly differently) to the singularity folks, is this: You are comparing normal existence today with front edge people of the past. This is easy to accidentally do, because it is much easier to see the people who really jumped all over lighting, and telephone in the past when looking from now. Further it is much more common to write about those people than it is to write about the smiths, who not keeping up with the Joneses, didn't get the telephone for another decade. There were plenty of places in the us that only used outhouses into the 70's. Horses were used for plowing and whatnot into the 1950's (tractors having been around for decades at that point).
My point is, in 50 years we will be writing about the curve the internet took, and my children's kids will grow up believing everyone did this internet thing fluently. It will be hard to explain to them how a lot of my contemporaries will never quite get it. Much like I still can't quite wrap my head around the telephone troubles my grandfather's parents seemed to have.
I guess the point is, there really is not a good way of measuring impact of technology until we can look back and go, "woah, that was a big change!" or "what a dud!". Compare period write-ups of the future of zepplins or pneumatic tubes, to current reality.
Excellent point, the trouble with the singularity folks though is that their persistence that it will happen borders on religion. It is up to the proponents of a hard to verify claim to prove that claim to be true. The evidence so far is against them, the singularity hasn't happened (yet), and when it does it will be a simple matter of fact.
Until it does it is pure speculation and all that speculation and 'but it will' stuff isn't going to make it happen one microsecond sooner (assuming it eventually will happen, which I do not believe until I see it).
The singularity has been jokingly called 'the rapture of the nerds', and there is a lot of truth in that.
The rapture people from the 'scriptural' side of life tend to go off on all kinds of tangents about how 'the rest of us' do not get it and possibly will be left behind, the 'singularity' folks seem to have many of those traits in common.
This planet has existed for four billion years and change, the universe is currently estimated to be between 13.5 and 14 billion years old and it seems all evidence points to the fact that the singularity has not happened anywhere in the universe, because according to that theory it would take over the entire universe as we know it at light speed.
The only loophole this leaves is that it has happened but so far away that the effects have not reached us yet.
There is the possibility that reaching singularity means something different than those folks think. For example, it could be that the singularity is real, however one of the consequences of ever increasing technological improvements is that more people have more power than ever before, and social structures and protections (e.g. law enforcement) are not able to keep up. Such a thing can result in the death of all of us at some point shortly before singularity, via accident or madman or similar.
Another possibility (assuming singularity) is that the after effects are far, far, different than anyone predicted, and it happens pretty frequently around the universe. This could easily explain why we haven't heard from super advanced species elsewhere in the universe.
Singularity effects could have reached us as many points in the past, perhaps starting our own quest towards singularity.
Or, as you say, it could just be that singularity won't happen. (I am inclined to agree with this myself, the above disagreement is just an exercise to keep my mind open.)
My point is, in 50 years we will be writing about the curve the internet took, and my children's kids will grow up believing everyone did this internet thing fluently. It will be hard to explain to them how a lot of my contemporaries will never quite get it. Much like I still can't quite wrap my head around the telephone troubles my grandfather's parents seemed to have.
I guess the point is, there really is not a good way of measuring impact of technology until we can look back and go, "woah, that was a big change!" or "what a dud!". Compare period write-ups of the future of zepplins or pneumatic tubes, to current reality.