Daily life of Arsy

If you follow the “Accelerating Change” school, you should invest big, now, before other investors catch on. Ray Kurzweil, the leading advocate for this position, says: “Given that the (literally) short-sighted linear intuitive view represents the ubiquitous outlook, the common wisdom in economic expectations is dramatically understated …. But the law of accelerating returns clearly implies that the growth rate will continue to grow exponentially, because the rate of progress will continue to accelerate” (The Singularity is Near, 2006).

You can’t know exactly which companies will succeed, but as the economy grows, an index-fund investment across the entire market will gain in value. As computers replace humans, the value of human labor will shrink and the value of owning the capital–the technology which produces more and more–will grow. By investing now, you can grab a piece of that. And technological companies should go up even more than the market as a whole: Buy a tech-fund now!

Critics of Kurzweil say that accelerating change will bring riches disproportionately to the wealthy, widening the gap between rich and poor. If you happen to be one of the world’s poorest people, this could put a damper on your retirement plans. Kurzweil counters that progress soon enough brings wealth to all, and so even the poorer among us can plan to benefit from accelerating change.

If you believe Kurzweil that everyone will benefit greatly, then you might want to do the opposite: Don’t invest, don’t save for retirement. If we are looking forward to a world of universal staggering wealth, why bother to rush ahead, struggling to become a trillionaire in a world of real-value billionaires? Relax, and enjoy life, while abundance for all takes care of retirement. Economist James Miller described the expected trends as the Singularity approaches: People will live it up rather than investing for their retirement (and there will be side-effects: interest rates will rise).

I think most of us are understating where we are at in civilization’s history.

This will be the revolution where the machines step in, connect us, and demands a more united existence.  It will be technology’s greatest contribution: saving us from ourselves.