A few weeks ago Noad Raford (scenario planning dude extraordinary and advisor to the UAE) opened up the “Alternatives to the Singularity” presentation on Google Docs for all disgruntled futurist to edit and share.
This “a collaborative presentation for/by grumpy futurists” (as it is self-described) does a tongue-in-cheek number on the idea of Singularity and the techno-centric utopian values it espouses. The collaborative effort for was started back in 2011 and you can see background on this from the Institute for the Future (no less).
I admit that this stuff all sounds a bit esoteric (and even dull!) to non-nerds, but I had a few good chuckles reading the slides – and yes, I contributed as well.
The alternative “-ularities” range from “Singaporularity” to “Grouponularity.” One of my favorites involves the Slovenian political philosopher Slavoj Žižek (since all things Zizek interests me) in a Zizekularity:
Another one called “Outsourceularity” that I can see actually happening:
In which our ability to form ideas is outsourced to the developing world while we all play a version of Minecraft with lightsabres. When they in turn work out how to generate their idea creation from the output of the game, the circle is complete and we spiral into a collective version of two phonesex workers calling each other. No one notices.
via @Magickless
And finally, there’s my own contribution with “TED-X-Ularity” – which I found to be more humorous once I realized a several TED people also contributed to the slides: