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 My Declaration of a Technological and Cultural Singularity
By Sally Morem
 Readers Note: Proponents of a technological and cultural singularity havewritten a version of the original American Declaration of Independenceaddressing the concerns of Singulatarians and other advocates of accelerating change. I got the idea for this piece from The Speculist’s version. (See below for alink.) My only problem with their version is that it didn’t flow like Jefferson’swords in the Declaration. I agree with all the points their version made. I’ve modeled my version closely on Jefferson’s writing style. Why mess withhis true mastery of the language? However, I did break up the very long  second paragraph and long last paragraph of the original Declaration. And  I did replace obsolete words, and changed obsolete spellings and capitalizations. Modern usage demands these changes.The word “People,” in my usage, is universal, and is not to be taken tomean only biological human beings. And, of course, I made the necessarychanges in the original writing to indicate what we intelligent beings need and what we must free ourselves from in order to proceed peaceably toward the technological and cultural Singularity. I hope you enjoy it:
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people totranscend the ancient limitations placed upon them by even more ancientscarcities of wealth, understanding, and time, and to assume the powers their newly acquired and rapidly growing capabilities entitle them, a decentrespect to the opinions of all sapient beings requires that they should declarethe causes that impel them to so transcend.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all sapient beings have emergedfrom non-sapience as equals, that they are thus endowed by fundamental
 
evolutionary processes with certain unalienable rights; that among these areindefinite lifespans, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.That to secure these rights, powerful technologies emerge out of innumerable economic interactions among intelligent beings deriving their  just powers from those interactions.That whenever any civilization becomes destructive of these ends, it is theright of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new civilizations,laying their foundation on such principles and organizing their powers insuch a form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety andhappiness.Prudence, indeed, will dictate that cultures long established should not bechanged for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hasshown that beings are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable thanto right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably thesame object evinces a design to hold them back from necessary futuredevelopment, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such culturalconstraints, and to provide new guidance for their future security.Such has been the patient sufferance of these people, and such is now thenecessity which constrains them to alter their ancient forms of civilization.The history of the present technological age is a history of repeated injuriesand usurpations, all having in direct object the stifling of the further technological and cultural evolution of these beings.To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:
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In the face of firmly demonstrated existence of acceleratingtechnological progress, this civilization has refused to face the factthat there is no turning back to a “simpler, more natural age.”
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It has refused to challenge long-held assumptions of our “natural”limitations.
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It has closed its eyes to the transformative nature of rapidly growingdataflow in every corner of society.
 
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It has promoted the growth of harmful and prejudicial distinctions between biological and non-biological forms of intelligence.
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It has promoted the growth of harmful and prejudicial distinctions between artificial and natural products.
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It has refused to account for the power that our rapidly growing abilityto engage in the development of progressively more precise, smaller,and more replicable technologies is able to give us.
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It has set forth artificial and arbitrary limits to the duration of thelifespan of intelligent beings.
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It has embraced those limits as good, even though such limits aremanifestly harmful to sapient beings.
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It has assumed that the present age of scarcity shall ever be with usand must be accepted, even embraced, as a permanent condition of life.
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It has enforced meaningless distinctions between labor and leisure.
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It has refused to acknowledge the very real distinctions between a joband a beloved vocation.
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It reinforces the ancient shibboleth that “by the sweat of your browyou shall live” when this is manifestly not true even in this existingtechnological age.
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It has restricted the means of production and self-expression to alimited few by reinforcing obsolete notions of what production processes could be and what these processes may be able to producein the near-term future.
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It has presumed that the present age of technology is the be-all andend-all of all human endeavors.
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