Want to have the ability to move things around with your mind, print out any new body parts you might need, including organs, and be able to work from home every day via a completely convincing virtual reality setup? All of these things are not only within reach, according to a movement that is gaining traction more rapidly than almost any other in history, but they are inevitably happening within the next 30 years. Many authors (myself included) struggle to give a name to this incredible movement, instead deferring to the event where all of this converging technology culminates in a brand new way of life for all human beings, utterly different in ways we aren't capable of imagining with our "unaugmented" human brains: the Technological Singularity.

Futurists like Ray Kurzweil (in his incredibly acclaimed The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology ) have put forth a timeline for the Singularity, and the time frame most futurists tend to agree on is within the next 30 years or so. Why does this seem so unbelievable to us? It's simple: because we think in a linear fashion, not in an exponential one. Kurzweil's favorite example to illustrate this point involves taking 30 steps forward. At step one, you've taken one step forward, and at step 30, you've taken 30 steps. With exponential growth (simply doubling the distance covered with each step), at step 1 and 2, you're still only one and two steps forward, respectfully, but by step 3, you're 4 steps forward, and by step 30, you're a billion steps forward.

The world we live in is not one of linear growth, nor has it ever been one. Our growth as a species has been exponential since the very beginning, because we've always "stood on the shoulders of giants" with our technology, ultimately using the last great invention to actually create the next one. This is nowhere more apparent than with Moore's Law, the observation that computing power, speed, and price-performance double every 2 years or so (technically, Moore's Law is much more specific, but we'll go with the more popular meaning for the purpose of ease of use).

While the word "Singularity" is captivating, and perhaps even appropriate, it describes a single approaching event, but not really the concept or the ensuing movement as a whole. Enter the word "transhumanism", now extremely en vogue. "Transhumanism" first appeared on the scene in the 1980s, but didn't gain widespread popularity until the last year or so. It has become the phrase to describe what many of us believe, much to my chagrin.