1.0   We have invented everything there is to invent

    Paleolithic hunter-gatherers had many of the ‘needs’ that we have today, such as the need to have tables,
    chairs, cups, plates, stoves, refrigerators, weapons, tools, transportation, housing, diapers, tampons, and
    entertainment. Perhaps the Paleolithic table was a huge stone and the chair was a small rock, or the stove
    was a campfire while the fridge consisted of burying meat in the snow or covering it with salt. Maybe
    recreation consisted of making tools, playing tag, wading in a river, or having sex, but the hunter-gatherer
    undoubtedly must have had many of the needs we have today. After all, they were human. They ate, they
    drank, they slept, they went potty, they had children, they needed warmth, they were concerned about
    security, they created tools to facilitate their work, etc. What I am getting at is that, when you look at it
    philosophically, we have not done much more than improve many old inventions over the years to make
    our lives more comfortable. We no longer build rafts to go to the other side of the river or rely on campfires
    to cook our meals. We have replaced these with ships and microwaves respectively. But the need for the
    gadget is as old as Man.

    " Technologies like genetic engineering, cloning, cybernetics, and nanotechnology
       will allow us to escape our human limitations and evolve beyond our dreams." [1]

    Until the 19th Century, most of these things that make our daily lives more comfortable had not yet been
    invented. We created prototypes and fine-tuned them after the Industrial Revolution. I am talking about
    inventions that are truly revolutionary and that we cannot even conceive of not having in an urban setting
    today: light bulb, oven, fridge, TV, phone, car, windows, tables, toilets, etc. These ground-breaking
    inventions kick-started major industries and are responsible for the might of the developed nations today.    
    I will refer to the artifacts that practically every household purchases as ‘necessary’ technologies. The loose
    criterion I will use is how close the number of items matches the total population. We can expect ‘necessary’
    items such as refrigerators, clocks, and tables to be in every household. We certainly won’t find jewels,
    radios, and camcorders in every household. Some borderline artifacts, like TVs and phones are close to
    becoming ‘necessary’ because they are purchased almost by any family that can afford one. Others, like
    cars, have no chance of becoming ‘necessary’ because most people will never attain the discretionary
    income to own one. We are destined to have a public transit system until Man is no more.

    Yes. I realize that these are very vague definitions. I’ll trust your intuition just to get my point across. I am
    saying that there are different levels of necessity and those artifacts and gadgets occupying the upper most
    levels are the ones that everybody finds useful whereas the ones at the bottom are optional. We don’t ‘need’
    jewels, piercing rings, pet rocks, video games, camcorders, or radios. These are fads or ‘nice to have’ items.
    Not everyone has or wants one. Not everyone can afford luxury items even assuming that everyone desired
    them. We have higher priorities to take care of first. We ‘need’ dwellings, tables, chairs, beds, clothing,
    transportation, and some form of lighting. Maybe we also 'need'  TVs, phones, and fridges. Almost everyone
    has one or buys these manufactured products before buying an item from the non-essential list. The ‘must
    have’ list simply includes items with a higher priority. The less fortunate among us substitute certain
    expensive ‘needs’ that are out of reach with comparable services: public transportation for cars, internet
    cafes for computers, telephone booths for cell phones, etc. It is not coincidental that the inventors of the 19th
    Century dedicated so much time developing devices that would make the lives of the majority of people more
    comfortable. The entrepreneurs realized the enormous economical benefits they would reap if their ideas
    were to succeed.

    Today, there are probably very few if any ‘necessary’ artifacts left to be discovered, and we have significantly
    designed them to the point that further improvements are largely cosmetic. The ‘necessary’ things are
    working as efficiently as they ever will be. Marginal returns will nevertheless increasingly outweigh the cost
    of developing these ‘nice to have’ features further. For example, despite that we have recently developed
    products like the DVD, the flat-screen TV, the Blackberry, and the iPod, these outstanding products have
    made no dent in manufacturing. The labor force in the ‘tangibles’ industry continues to decline worldwide.
    In the U.S., the proportion manufacturing contributes to GDP continues to spiral downwards. The
    fundamental reason for this is that manufacturers have nothing new to sell to a household. Everyone already
    has a bed and a TV and a fridge. The few manufacturers that are still around are either in the replacement
    market or in the service industry. They don’t sell you a table. They sell you an insurance policy in case the
    table breaks. Another powerful reason for the decline in manufacturing in developed nations is that more
    and more of these products are produced elsewhere at much lower costs.

    So what is the relation between technology and labor? Why am I raising this issue?

    From the Industrial Revolution to World War II, a period of about 150 years, the advanced nations were in a
    discovery phase, specifically of two aspects of technology: invention of and improvements to ‘necessary’
    artifacts and improvements to the manufacturing process. The car,  the telephone, the refrigerator, and the
    stove, still had a long way to go and suffered radical transformations during this period. Therefore, not only
    did the development process demand technicians and engineers, but higher demand also implied more
    workers. This initial period is characterized by being labor intensive. Children had a purpose because they
    would serve both as workers and consumers. High fertility fueled early manufacturing from both ends.

    Today we have not only made most of the modifications to ‘necessary’ appliances and gadgets, but we have
    also streamlined the manufacturing process. If an established company wants to put out more TVs or DVD
    players, it just needs to crank up the production line with little or no increase in the number of workers.
    Whereas 19th Century and early 20th Century manufacturing went hand in hand and benefited from
    population explosion, post-War manufacturing is characterized by a sustained shedding of labor. The
    contemporary trend is to outperform the competition by becoming more profitable. Do firms become more
    profitable by selling more? No! They become profitable by reducing costs. The emphasis has shifted from
    sales and revenue and volume and innovation to cost reduction and profitability:

    " long-lasting economic profit is thus viewed as the result of constant cost-cutting
       and performance improvement ahead of industry competitors" [1]

    Since World War II, manufacturing has streamlined production methods and eliminated jobs through attrition.
    It is more important to keep investors happy from quarter to quarter. Thus, you will see no radically new
    products on the market.

    But assuming an anonymous Edison invents something new in his lab, it wouldn’t matter anyways. The
    product is quickly bought by an established company and produced with existing labor. Whatever ‘new’
    product that a corporation patents is guaranteed not to reverse the declining labor trend in manufacturing.
    It is to note that global manufacturing is also declining both as a percentage of global labor and of GDP.

    The bottom line is that today we have invented most if not all of these ‘must have’ devices and developed
    them to their fullest. We have now in most urban homes around the world the comforts Paleolithic Man
    could only dream about. The ‘relevant’ technology, or technology designed for things we ‘need’ on a
    regular basis, is at a dead end. We did all of the meaningful inventing during our recent exponential
    demographic growth phase. For all practical purposes, we have drawn all the candies from the bag, and
    there are very few left, if any. Certainly, we won’t be inventing new ‘necessary’ appliances, gadgets, and
    artifacts for the next million years.

    We are finished with the home. There is little more that we can do to a fridge or to a table or to a microwave
    that will be truly revolutionary. Here and there, the manufacturing sector may surprise us with a couple more
    ideas and products, but none of them will propel manufacturing to the heights this sector enjoyed back in
    the days of the telephone, the car, the TV, or even the computer.

    In fact, it is daunting to realize that a breathtaking invention such as the computer failed to put people to
    work in manufacturing. It is a myth that technology creates jobs. Technology takes away jobs in the long
    run by making us more efficient. Technology merely postpones the date of massive layoffs:

    " The U.S. economy has been shedding manufacturing jobs since 1998, with the current
       level of manufacturing employment at its lowest point since 1958." [2]

    " The manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy has experienced substantial job losses
       over the past several years. In January 2004, the number of such jobs stood at 14.3
       million, down by 3.0 million jobs, or 17.5 percent, since July 2000 and about 5.2
       million since the historical peak in 1979… long-term trends indicate that even after the
       economy has fully recovered from the 2001 recession, employment in manufacturing
       is unlikely to return to its pre-recession level. Over the long term, productivity in
       manufacturing has increased at a consistently strong pace, so sales would have
       needed to expand even faster for employment to show any gains. But the growth in
       demand for manufactured goods has not kept pace with the growth in productivity, as
       consumers continue to devote more of their spending to services instead of goods…
       Employment in manufacturing was its lowest since July 1950 in all 21 industries that
       constitute the manufacturing sector, employment has declined, and 17 of the 21 have
       seen losses exceeding 10 percent..." [3]

    Compare these alarming trends with the revolution triggered by the telephone, the car, and the radio 100
    years ago.

    There are two reasons for these ominous trends in manufacturing:

    •        The new products hitting the market target ‘discretionary’ income. They are not
    necessities, but luxuries. There is no such thing as runaway technology.
    •        Yet a more fundamental reason is that irrespective of what you invent, it will fall
    under one of the broad line items published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor. [4]
    For all practical purposes, the number of manufacturing industries and categories will
    remain constant. From now on all that the new generations can do is tweak existing
    ‘necessary’ inventions or invent things which fall under existing categories. When one
    line item increases, it can do so only at the expense of another.


    2.0   The singularity will save us: runaway technology

    Kurzweil argues that the singularity is what will take Man to the future. A singularity is a moment (allegedly
    to occur this century) after which technology will advance exponentially.

    " The Singularity occurs as artificial intelligences surpass human beings as the
       smartest and most capable life forms on the Earth. Technological development
       is taken over by the machines, who can think, act and communicate so quickly
       that normal humans cannot even comprehend what is going on. The machines
       enter into a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, with each new
       generation of A.I.'s appearing faster and faster. From this point onwards,
       technological advancement is explosive and cannot be accurately predicted." [5]

    " That medical advancements could keep a significant number of his generation
       (Baby Boomers) alive long enough for the exponential growth of technology to
       intersect and surpass the processing of the human brain." [6]

    [I tend to think that the technology has already intersected the brains of some people
     right through the medulla.]

    The modern 'science' writer feels compelled to invoke statistical terms (e.g., exponential, percentage,
    infinite) because he wants the mathematicians to read his book and regard it as a work of science. I already
    debunked the idiotic notion that there is anything such as super-intelligence. Here I will look at runaway
    inventions: whether the development of technology has limits.

    Let's begin with definitions so we understand what Kurzweil is referring to when he says that technology
    will grow exponentially. Does he mean that the rate of new inventions proceeds at an ever faster pace? If
    so, it is a worthless claim. Take a simple spoon. I am sure that a lot of people can come up with a million
    esthetic modifications to a spoon. You can make it triangular, red, of wood, long, heavy, with holes, or with
    polka dots if you wish. Should we count each of these patents as a separate invention? Or maybe we
    should measure the revenue one of these special spoons produces?

    In fact, don't take my word for it. Go to sites such as Invention Reaction or Market Launchers, which
    Kurzweil has certainly never visited (for else he would not use vacuous words such as 'exponential' in
    this context). You will not see a single new radical invention. Everything you see is simply an improvement
    of an existing or known gadget, device, or apparatus.

    After browsing the sites you may disagree. Here and there you found some interesting things. You might
    even be willing to form a partnership with the inventor If you had the money to invest.

    If you believe that there are interesting and truly novel inventions, you didn't understand what I am talking
    about. I have just finished arguing that we will not invent anything that is necessary to our daily lives. Flat
    screen, plasma TVs, i-pods, Blackberrys, etc., are not products that we absolutely need, certainly not of
    the level of urgency as tables, chairs, and beds... or food. More significantly, flat screens, iPods, and
    Blackberrys will not get a manufacturing revolution started. The same electronics companies that
    manufactured TVs and computers in the past invented, produce, and market these products today. These
    companies did not need to hire millions of workers to meet demand. They modified an existent, efficient
    assembly line to put out the new product. Once the craze is over, unless a comparable product is invented,
    the firms will continue to trim labor. An economist who even insinuates that a new invention can break the
    field wide open and take manufacturing to its former glory does not understand the fundamentals of his
    alleged 'field of expertise.' Manufacturing constitutes only 14% of U.S. and 34 % of global GDP!
    Manufacturing cannot save us even if a latter-day Edison invents a ship to travel to the stars! Manufacturing
    is dead!

    But let’s concede for the sake of argument that the relativistic economist is right and technology may have a
    chance to save mankind. What products or ideas are going to take us beyond the singularity? What's gonna
    put us back to work in manufacturing? What is it that inventors are patenting and making millions off of today?
    What is it that makes people gawk and with excruciating jealousy wonder why they didn’t have the idea first?

    What we discover is that there has not been a single ground-breaking invention since the computer (which
    did not create manufacturing jobs in the long run either). What we find at the patent office today are
    modifications to existing products or discretionary, nice-to-have products.  Products such as iPods and
    Blackberrys are not inventions in the traditional sense. They are just petty innovations, cosmetic changes
    to known artifacts or gadgets that are merged to form a third. When I say ‘invention,’ I mean revolutionary
    products. The invention of the telephone was revolutionary. It kicked off a gargantuan industry and put
    millions of people to work not only manufacturing the gadget, but also installing the lines. The invention of
    the cell phone wasn’t nearly as radical in terms of labor. Certainly, it enabled developing nations to skip
    wiring the land as developed nations had to do with the old phones. Automation (low-labor) and efficient
    distribution enabled everyone on the planet to have a cheap cell phone without the need get a phone line.
    So the cell phone was not even remotely as revolutionary (at least in regards to employment) as was the
    original phone. The invention of the Blackberry and the iPod were even less revolutionary. Specifically,
    they were predictable. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that eventually people will want to have more than
    just a portable radio. So what did the manufacturers do? They put their engineering teams to work on
    merging every electronic feature imaginable into ever smaller volume. The ultimate goal is to have a
    handheld, all-in-one ‘TV-media player–computer–etc., etc., etc’ boxed into a volume that fits in your hand.
    How long will that take to develop? 10 years? What then? What’s next? Tell me something I don’t know.

    That petty modifications are flooding the market becomes clear from the inventions that corporations are
    registering at the patent office. Take, for instance, the claim by the National Association of Manufacturers
    (NAM). It proudly puts Procter & Gamble as an example of innovation:

    " In 2005, The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) was among the top innovators
       with more than 600 patents to its credit that year alone." [7]

    So what were the ground-breaking inventions with which P&G startled the world? Was it a saucer that
    travels through the 11th dimension? Was it the Star Trek teleporter or perhaps a time tunnel? Or maybe
    it was a machine that produces anti-gravity?

    " Among its new innovative products are the successful Swiffer Duster and the
       Crest SpinBrush, which were developed by searching worldwide for good ideas.
       Also, P&G’s enhanced line of Pringles chips were enabled when the company
       identified a small baker in Bologna, Italy, who had invented an ink-jet method of
       printing on baked goods." [8]

    Note that the engineering teams at P&G were irrelevant. The multinational firms pirate inventions from little
    people around the world who have no capital to develop and market them or who have failed to recognize
    the economic potential of their discovery.

    But more amusing are the great inventions being logged at the US Patent Office. They consist of an
    assortment of dusters, toothbrushes, and potato chips. Great! Is this is what the idiots of Relativistic
    Economics and the lame brains of Techno-Utopia are referring to when they say that after we reach the
    singularity, technology will expand exponentially? Are dusters and brushes going to save the world?

    NAM also gives the example of Ingersoll-Rand which developed the Toolcat 5600 over a period of 6 or 7
    years. The famous Toolcat is a truck with a shovel in front of it: an excavator. It is used in construction
    and for yard work. Absolutely breathtaking!

    Yet another company NAM boasts about is PPG, which developed a new type of car paint:

    " PPG has developed Cerami-Clear® clearcoat, the first automotive clear coat to
       use nanoparticle technology. The clearcoat is the final coating applied to a vehicle
       body, protecting the color coat while providing a durable, glossy appearance." [9]

    Other out-of-this-world nanotechnology innovations being developed and patented are: scratch-resistant,
    lightweight, and rust-proof auto components, nanoparticles that make pants, shirts and ties stain-repellent,
    hard alloys used in drill bits, military armor, and jet engines, and nanoclays used in bottles that extend the
    shelf-life of beer.

    So is this what the ridiculous techno-utopianists and the stupid relativistic economists of the world are
    referring to when they gawk and say that nanotechnology is going to save the world? Excavators painted
    with nanoparticles? Long-life beer? Are these the breakthroughs that are going to put billions of people to
    work? Is this what the unfathomable technological singularity is all about?


    3.0   No new industrial categories

    A more ominous strategic parameter that should trouble you is that we are not creating new manufacturing
    categories. We don't add a new manufacturing industry to the list every month. The reason for this is simple.
    We have invented all the necessary technology that we need to make our lives comfortable. The trivial
    inventions of today -- the Blackberry, the i-Pod, the flat screen TV -- are discretionary, nice-to-have stuff.
    We are done with the necessary things Man has always wanted around the house since we were hunter-
    gatherers. Once the necessary gadgets markets are saturated, we sell to those countries that still don't have
    them. Once the entire planet has them, we are done with manufacturing. A handful of companies with few
    employees will produce the necessary items to cover residual global demand.

    In fact, I don't even need to go to any site to know that there are no new inventions. You know how I know?  
    I know because of two crucial parameters in the economy. The first one is that manufacturing has been in
    decline since shortly after World War II. It has been in decline in both categories: in number of employees
    and as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

    [The reason Simon won his bet against Ehrlich is that Ehrlich didn't seem to grasp the fact
      that manufacturing is becoming more efficient day after day. Fewer companies with fewer
      employees produce more goods at cheaper prices. That's why manufacturing corporations
      reward employees in the long run by laying them off. Likewise, Simon would also have
      won the bet if Ehrlich would have insisted that people would massively die of starvation in
      the 70s and 80s. If next year we wish to double or triple the food supply to feed Africa,
      there would hardly be any technological impediment. Of course, it is not as easy as that,
      but the point is that, at the right price, enough people will attempt to strike it rich by
      investing in agriculture or in any other line item of the economy. In our artificial economy
      it's mostly a matter of money. Again, the 'chicken-littles' like Ehrlich don't master the
      fundamentals, they raise the wrong arguments, and then end up looking like fools in the
      debates.]

    People better wake up and fast! Manufacturing is now terminally ill, dying a slow death day by day.  The
    decline in manufacturing means that service jobs that depend on tangible goods (chemists, materials
    scientists, technicians, engineers, miners, mechanics, supervisors and managers, etc.) will also vanish
    in the process. Indeed, a more revealing statement about the true health of manufacturing in the NAM
    report is the admission that engineering is disappearing:

    " the number of engineering degrees awarded in this country has declined by 20
       percent from its peak in 1985." [10]

    Why is this so if technology is proceeding at an ‘exponential’ pace? How will we make it to the singularity
    without engineers? The report blames it on two negative trends which only enhance my arguments:

    " Federally supported R&D in the physical sciences. Spending has fallen from
       0.25 percent of GDP to only 0.13 percent over the past 20 years." [11]

    " This deficiency is spurred in part because too many of today’s graduates do
       not have the math, science and technical skills required to work in today’s
       manufacturing." [12]

    The authors miss the lesson. The lesson is that engineers are not needed in a country that is de-
    industrializing. Why is anyone going to study Math, quantum, and relativity if there will be no place where
    they can apply such skills? If an engineer wishes to have a job nowadays, he will have to emigrate and
    learn Chinese. (Unfortunately, manufacturing is declining in China and India too! So if you think that other
    parts of the world are absorbing the slack in manufacturing, think again!)

    It could be argued that health is one broad category where technology is making some inroads. To a
    certain extent, this is true. If any fields have a future they are genetic engineering and pharmaceuticals.
    But this shouldn’t surprise us. People are growing old and old people are rich.

    However, we must put health in its proper context. Anything related to health is terminally ill. First, it won’t
    kick-start a gargantuan manufacturing industry comparable in proportion to anything we saw in the 19th
    Century. If a revolutionary product is invented, a few companies will make some money for a while and
    will do so without a major increase in labor. Then, anything destined for the elderly is a good investment
    during the period in which the pyramid overturns and people are in the process of growing old. After that
    phase is over, a better bet is for you to put your money in mortuaries, crematories, and cemeteries.
    Hopefully, the techno-utopianists will one day invent some new way of getting rid of dead bodies.

    Another field where the technology argument is ubiquitous is energy. People have in the back of their
     minds that we will discover some breathtaking technology that will allow us to have free or cheap energy
    to drive our cars and fuel economic expansion. Hopefully, this new form of energy will free us of the
    dependence on polluting coal, vanishing oil, and unsafe nuclear energy.

    Again, assuming this were true, the argument misses the mark. Even if we implement the invention today
    and it produces not abundant, but unlimited energy at zero cost, it will not change anything. The problem
    is not the dwindling oil reserves. The problem is that urbanites don’t produce children. We are not creating
    demand. Without demand, we needn’t worry about energy because the real problem is unemployment.
    The more costs a company cuts, the higher the unemployment, the fewer children the proletarian puts out,
    and the lower the demand for the next round. The problem today is that we are not creating manufacturing
    jobs. We are expanding abstract services. The energy argument is moot. The energy people are attacking
    a strawman.


    4.0   "The androids are coming! The androids are coming!"

    It turns out that when Kurzweil invokes the singularity, he is talking about something completely different.
    He is talking about computing power and nanno-bugs. Kurzweil is talking about how small and powerful
    we make an integrated circuit (a chip) and about the wonders nannotechnology will do for health and
    longevity. As far as he's concerned, this is all the technology that matters. The exponential (or hyperbolic:
    runaway, infinite) changes that technology will induce in the next 30 or 40 years will be so extraordinary that
    nothing else will matter.  We may not 'need' chairs or tables if we don't sit to eat breakfast any more. We may
    simply ask our nanno-pet to convert a piece of dung into a juicy apple on the run (Where to, Kurzweil? To
    Work? Why the rush if we have no jobs to run towards?). And you may not need a plasma TV or even a
    nanno-cellphone if you upload your soul onto the universal cybernetic highway.

    The first thing you must factor in when dealing with individuals like Kurzweil, Bostrom, Tegmark, and Kaku
    is that they have runaway brains. They indiscriminately extrapolate past trends and relativistic fantasies into
    the future without pondering qualitative, down-to-earth show-stoppers.  Another important issue you must
    keep in mind when dealing with the lunatics known variously as post-humanists and extropists is that they
    typically have an enormous fear of death. Their pet peeve is to keep themselves alive and as healthy as
    possible until the singularity. After that it will be all gravy. The nano-docs will retrofit whatever obsolete part
    they have in their bodies or send nanno-viruses streaming down their arteries to dispose of any ailment,
    from cancer to white hairs. The dream of all post-humanists and extropists is first to become androids and
    then to dispose of the body altogether. The reasoning goes something like this: Love causes pain. So let's
    get rid of the body altogether and just stick with love.

    The errors in reasoning:

            1.     Mathematical Physics has made these individuals believe that anything is possible.
                    We will even be making tribars out of metal as far as these people are concerned. We
                    will be making stones we can't lift and then lifting them. If you ask them why hasn't a
                    more advanced Kardashev Level III-type civilization made contact with us, they might
                    tell you that we are God's state-of-the-art biological experiment. After all, General
                    Relativity holds that the Universe is but 15 or 20 billion years old. We are chicks who
                    are just barely breaking out of their eggs.

            2.     If replacing a limb with a prosthesis will eliminate pain in that side of the body and
                    convert Kurzweil into the Bionic Man, what is it that he's waiting for? Why isn't he
                    rushing to the surgeon's office to have all his vital parts replaced? Why isn't he
                    begging his dentist to replace all his teeth? Kurzweil can be an android today if he
                    really wishes to be one.


    5.0   Conclusions

    People have to get it through their thick skulls: manufacturing is dead. Technology is dead. Not a single
    invention will ever again trigger a second Industrial Revolution. The Age of Manufacturing was the 19th
    Century and part of the 20th. We are now living in the Age of Service with as much chance of going back
    to manufacturing as we have of going back to subsistence agriculture or hunting-gathering. What new
    inventions are going to radically alter the economic landscape?

    You may reply that if you knew the answer, you would get into the business yourself. You tell me that it is
    an invalid question because I am asking about something that doesn’t exist yet.

    But then, you’re missing the point. Look around you! What do YOU need? Well, that’s what everyone else
    needs! Do you have a place to live, a TV, a table, a bed, an oven, and a fridge? Do you have clothes on
    your back and in your drawers? Do you have a cell phone and access to a subway or to a car or to a bus?
    If you answer yes to all, you don’t need anything else. You have everything you need in life. That’s why
    there are no new inventions. That’s why manufacturing is declining and will continue to decline. No one is
    buying the items we need on a regular basis because we already have them. Therefore, any argument that
    relies on a gadget that we may possibly invent in the future is moot. Irrespective of how fantastic the product
    is, it will not make a dent in the declining manufacturing trend.

    So it raises an eyebrow when Kurzweil predicts that technology will reach a crucial point after which it will
    take off exponentially. Clearly, he has no clue of what he is talking about. What are the nanotechnologists
    going to produce? A new microwave? A new TV? A new kind of table for the living room? Who is going to
    buy the worthless gadgets and robotic bugs manufactured by nanotechno-logists? The old people are
    living what remains of their lives, and the young people are not having babies because they can't find jobs.
    The new generation can barely find subsistence jobs in the cities. The population expansion rate is
    decreasing. Globally!!!! The Russians, all of Western Europe, Japan, all are having negative population
    growth. The U.S.., Australia, and Canada have been able to avoid it only because of immigration. But even
    that will be too little too late. If we don't reproduce, there will be no need to produce. Who will we produce
    for?

    Kurzweil now makes the same basic errors that ridiculous economists like Simon and Friedman made.  
    These economists didn't master the fundamentals of economics. The issue in front of us is not whether
    Man can invent a new gadget. The issue is whether that invention is going to reverse the downward
    manufacturing trend. There hasn't been a single invention in the last 50 years, including the chip, the
    computer, or anything that requires them, that has put masses of people to work in manufacturing.
    There is not a single invention the nannotechnologists can come up with in the next 100 years that will
    reverse the decline of industry. The shift to services is irrevocable. And services has now started its
    decline too. For instance, without manufacturing, there is no need for transportation. These services will
    certainly decline when manufacturing reaches a critical point. The financial services industry will also
    collapse once it extends its tentacles to every corner of the planet and saturates its markets. And so on.
    There are only three major segments in Man's artificial economy: agriculture, manufacturing, and services.
    There is no other major category we can imagine. There are no other manufacturing or service industries
    we can imagine. When the service sector crashes, where will people work then? This is the only question
    Kurzweil has to answer.

    So it is ludicrous for Kurzweil to suggest that inventions will play any significant roll in whatever time we
    have left. So what if we develop nano-bugs capable of crawling through our bodies and curing us of every
    illness? How is that going to put billions of people to work in the future? How will it get us out of economic
    saturation? What will be the purpose of extending the life of a patient if that is exactly what the problem is?
    We need to get rid of the old people and populate the planet with youngsters. Kurzweil is working in the
    wrong direction. The longer humans live, the longer they hold on to their jobs, and the more they crowd
    out the new generations from the job market! The Industrial Revolution happened 200 years ago. Kurzweil
    missed it! He just needs to read up on a little bit of history and forget his ridiculous statistical extrapolations.
The singularity is near, Bill!
After that, we have nothing to
worry about forever and ever.
R. Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, Penguin (2006)  

    Module main page:   Of catastrophists and doomslayers: Is Man going to live forever?

    Pages in this module:
Adapted for the Internet from:

Why God Doesn't Exist
Runaway
technology is going
to save us

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