February 4, 2026
Tomorrow, forever — pick your apocalypse
The Singularity Is Always Near (2006)
Commenters clash: always two years away, already hit, or a magic box we’ll pray to
TLDR: A revived 2006 essay argues the tech “singularity” always seems near but never arrives, framing change as steady, not sudden. Commenters split: some mock the perpetual “two years away,” others insist it’s a smooth acceleration, while a few say it already happened—or warn of a coming god‑box of self‑improving AI.
A 2006 think-piece just resurfaced to say the “tech singularity” — that mythical moment machines outsmart us and reshape everything — is an illusion that always feels close but never arrives. The author nods to Vernor Vinge’s runaway loop and Ray Kurzweil’s 2040 prediction, then argues the real story is steady, relentless change, not a sudden cliff.
Cue the comments cage match. One camp rolls its eyes at the annual countdown: as paulpauper shrugs, “It’s just 2 years away” every year — a meme for doomclock fatigue. Another camp says acceleration is real but smooth: Legend2440 insists the curve feels wild, yet “it just isn’t sudden,” pointing from centuries-long plumbing adoption to today’s gadgets spreading in years.
Then the spicy takes landed. somat drops a black-hole pun and declares the “singularity” basically happened in the late 1700s — the moment humanity’s output exploded and time “dilated.” guelo paints the hard‑sci‑fi picture: when software can improve itself faster than we can, tech becomes a “magic box” we pray to. Nostalgia hits too: chasil claims they’re the last generation who could vanish and later reconnect; constant contact means no more disappearing acts. The vibe: equal parts hype detox, history lesson, and apocalypse bingo — with jokes, puns, and side‑eye at immortality promises
Key Points
- •The article argues the technological singularity is an ongoing illusion that always seems imminent but never occurs as a discrete event.
- •The term “singularity” originates from physics, describing a black hole threshold beyond which information and future states are unknowable.
- •Vernor Vinge proposed a scenario where increasingly intelligent computers recursively design smarter successors, making outcomes beyond a threshold unknowable.
- •Ray Kurzweil extended the concept to multiple information-driven fields and estimated a machine intelligence crossover around 2040, declaring “the Singularity is near.”
- •Kurzweil and others suggest possible mind immortality via downloading, migration, or continual repair enabled by future superintelligence.