| abstract
| - The Singularity is the eighteenth episode of the third season of the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the sixty-second episode overall.
- This is The Singularity's Wiki! Whoo! Feel free to add whatever you want. It's everyone's... As long as you're not a complete jerk! (The Singularity is full of jerks and not recommended for anyone to make their home.) The Singularity was one of the most unique rooms on Kong. It had been active for a very long time and its history, which is extremely eventful, has been carefully recorded until the depression but is slowly being restored. Anyone except trolls like Secrets are welcome here. Respect was given to the longer lasting members or the most valued regulars for their contributions. You'll soon pick up on who's who and where the emotions lie if you stick around. Trust me, it's a worthwhile experience. Be careful though, there's quite a few people who can come across as being a complete jerk but they're merely testing you as to whether you deserve respect in the room. __TOC__ Unfortunately, the battle for existence has been lost. What once was is no longer; the only evidence of The Singularity's existence is recorded here for any and all seekers of the truth. Or you could ask Endarei about her chat logs. Either way. Like refugees of the Great War, the members of the late Singularity have been flung far and wide across the wasteland of Kongregate, searching for a place of acceptance and security. Oddly, most have found refuge in The, a strange new world of mystery and intrigue. A few have landed in Babylon, but really. Who wants to be there? Please, come in. Douse yourself in our history. Bask in the good times that were had by all. Weep for the desolate depression that was experienced by many. Marvel at the weird shit that was pretty much everyday life in The Singularity. But please, be respectful. After all, this is as close to a tombstone as we'll ever get. Sincerely, Grargh
- A Technological Singularity is a theoretical point in technological development beyond which things are incomprehensible to anyone who came before. Predictions of what life will be like after a Singularity are by definition impossible -- the nature of human life and even the concept of intellect may change completely. The guesses in fiction are either utopian or dystopian. Some writers are hopeful, and look to improvements: an end to death, scarcity, and the errors of ignorance and stupidity. There is the prospect of self-editing, mental and physical: people finally able to be whatever they wish to be. A singularity can be transcendent; we hack the cracked walls of reality itself and move on to better things. This is an excellent Hand Wave or a literal Deus Ex Machina for writers struggling with the impossibility of plots involving entities many orders of magnitude greater than themselves or the reader. Others see no end: endless ecstatic ascent. The singularity is sometimes called the "rapture of the nerds". There are inevitably spiritual overtones to a singularity. Spirituality deals with transcendence; that which lies beyond the everyday. A singularity opens a door to the transcendent, drawing in interested writers. The less hopeful works point out the dangers. Environmental exhaustion. There are all these extinction scenarios so ready to hand. Our extinction by an uncontrollable creation, intelligent or not. There is the question of who inherits the wonders of acceleration: us or our posthuman descendants? Can we coexist in peace? Charles Stross sometimes envisages a singularity runaway as enjoyable as unchaining Cthulhu on a bad day. The Black Goat knows the answer to Fermi's question. Agent Smith does not like you. There's also a question of who, exactly, gets to be part of the Singularity; while technology is progressing at leaps and bounds in the First World, there are plenty of places around the world where people have little-to-no access to the kind of technologies most tropers take for granted, and even within the First World not everyone has an equal share of the pie ("We are the 99%," anyone?). Far from ushering in a utopia of egalitarianism and plenty in which everyone is part, there are plenty who argue that the Singularity could just accelerate elitism, creating an exclusive club where only those who can afford to pay can take part. Note is also taken of how hard it is to uninvent something without completely halting the inventing species and its descendants. For instance, as time goes on, the probability that mankind will use (or make pocket size) any given Weapon of Mass Destruction increases, while only a similar civilization-ending catastrophe and/or mass Ascension Into Space would result in humans forgetting said knowledge. Of course, a middle path involves either economic collapse or imperfect transcription of knowledge followed by a Feudal Future. Or a merely grimy Used Future, sort of the future equivalent of the Dung Ages. A singularity may produce Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, and in doing so act like cosmological hyperinflation: species differences stretched into nothingness. We all end up as snooty toga-clad points of light obsessed with mathematics in the end; or, it may not work like Evolutionary Levels. Those who pursue one particular path might end up that way, while others may choose different directions of development. Some writers content themselves with "soft singularities": technologies that cause an unforeseen societal phase change, in the veins of the steam engine, motorized transportation, or computers. Soft-singularity transistors create portable radios and end the tyranny of distance. "Hard" singularities end people; turn them into radio waves. Don't confuse these uses of "hard and soft" with Mohs Scale of Sci Fi Hardness; some people even consider them opposite in meaning, since the "soft singularity" is fairly plausible according to science as we understand it, while the "hard singularity" is a lot more speculative. Since Cyberpunk and Post Cyber Punk are immersed in accelerating, multifarious cross-breeding technology and societal change, singularities form a natural end-point and have traditionally been a part of this genre. The purposes of including a Singularity in the setting of a story, beyond the Rule of Cool, can be to examine the difference between how people of particular political philosophies approach change. In both cases, a singularity is a revolution, but political radicals want to throw away the whole system of society in one go, excited with the possible rewards, where conservatives tend to focus on all the risks, which are appropriately grave. Characters (and writers) of either bent can find much to say about the topic. In order to get around the problems some viewers (are thought to) have relating to the troubles of, say, super-intelligent flocks of pigeons or 12-dimensional hermit crabs, stories set after The Singularity feature a disproportionate number of Space Amish protagonists and Fans Of The Past. See also No Transhumanism Allowed and Transhuman. For the game, see Singularity . Examples of The Singularity include:
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