Tracy R. Atkins: Don’t Wait For The Singularity, Change The World For The Better Today

Tracy R. Atkins is not only a contributor to Singularity Weblog but also the author of a brand new singularity book titled Aeternum Ray. Aeternum Ray is rather unique because it is openly and whole-heartedly utopian in character. It is written in the epistolary literary tradition of classic science fiction works such as Frankenstein, and is structured as a mémoire – a series of letters from a father to his son. The book is also interesting from a technical point of view: It also comes in a Dyslexia edition which has been formatted to include a special typeface that may assist readers who have a developmental reading disorder (DRD or Dyslexia). The open source font – OpenDyslexic by Abelardo Gonzalez, utilizes weighting at the bottom of many characters in an effort to prevent letter inversion while reinforcing the line of text. This typeface modification technique has been shown to increase reading accuracy for some forms of DRD. During our conversation with Tracy R. Atkins we cover a wide variety of topics such as: his definition of the technological singularity; how Star Trek inspired Tracy to love science fiction and how Transcendent Man inspired him to write a singularity novel; growing up in a home that marveled in science and technology; what the title Aeternum Ray stands for and what the novel is all about; whether the future of humanity is digital or if there are benefits to biology; writing dystopia versus writing utopia; human nature and the potential for a pre-sigularity global war…