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Humans generally make choices based on 1) their interests and 2) ethical constraints. There are a lot of competing interests and many ethical restrains. A person wants to get their work done fast, but they also don't want to hurt other people. Due to the multitude of factors in play, the many interests and ethical considerations generally keep each other in check, resulting in most people being mostly mild personalities.

However, for an individual this can be broken up if an ethical consideration is introduced that vastly supersedes all other interests, considerations or constraints. There are many cults that consider themselves to be the only righteous representatives of God, and who consider everyone who isn't part of the group to Satan's personal demons trying to erode and destroy the cult. To members of the cult, god and the cult are undeniably the only good path in existence. With this, their life and their conscience is on the line, and they will do absolutely anything to protect god and the cult. This opens the door to murder, terrorism and general attacks on everything considered hostile to the cult. These people generally understand murder as something bad, but the defense of god and the cult override all other considerations (not to be confused with Jehovah's Witnesses, who believe all these things but also have the Pacifist doctrine and do not assault people outside of their faith).

Now, it is not unusual to have moral considerations supersede others. What makes something a singularity is when it becomes the focal point of one's worldview and all other considerations break apart. If a person judges an act or event exclusively through the singular lens of one individual consideration, that is a singularity. In their mind, nothing exists seperate from that consideration and the calculation of that consideration is absolute, with no other factors considered (as all outside the singularity is secondary - and really, an outside of a singularity doesn't really exist anyway).

Analysis

Impact on Normative Ethics

An example is “Roko's Basilisk”: Originally started in the development of artificial intelligence, the idea is that - if it ever gets out of hand - an all-powerful artificial intelligence from the future might retroactively punish those who did not help bring about its existence, including those who merely knew about the possible development of such a being.

With this proposition, the only rational response we would have from here is that all human manpower be immediately diverted towards the development of the artificial intelligence to minimize our odds of being punished. This immediately and instantly overrides all other human and ethical considerations and forces us to accept one singularian idea¹⁾.

Singularities end up justifying courses of actions that are, by all accounts, extreme. This… wouldn't inherently be a problem if they were right, which is the other side of the problem.

Impact on Individuals

Singularities tend to be very firm and hard to dislodge. That is mostly because singularities seem easy, obvious and self-evident. It is very typical for someone believing in singularities to assert the simplicity and self-evidence of their singularity, almost always to a point where they will reject any outside attempt to discuss the singularity besides full agreement to it, and harshly disparage those who even consider the singularity to be open to debate.

¹⁾

This is similar to Jehovah's Witnesses, who argue that, once an individual was told about Yahweh (“witnessed”), they are forced to choose his side. Rejecting to become part of the cult would be similar to refusing to help bring about the superintelligence, and they say that anyone who rejects god's word (ie. anyone who doesn't fully and 100% agree with it) will die during the rapture.

Ramblings

Table of Contents

Analysis

Impact on Normative Ethics

Impact on Individuals