These objections are addressed in the article. To begin with, specifically look for:
"Won’t the Singularity create the ultimate "digital divide" due to unequal access to radical life extension and superintelligent computers?"
To sum up Kurzweil's answer, in the 80's cell phones didn't work well and were ultra-expensive. In the 90's they worked a little better and were less expensive. Today they work great and are inexpensive enough for populations in Asia who were pushing a plow fifteen years ago. Tomorrow's mobile communications will be ubuquitous and nearly as too-cheap-to-meter as ones and zeros are on the internet. This is how information techologies proceed.
To elaborate on what Kurzweil is saying, I see fabrication machines extending that principle to personal desktop manufacturing. By the time fabbers start constructing other fabbers, the social and economic forces you are counting on will be turned on their heads.
The real threat of entrenched interests creating the digital divide which you describe comes from over-rigidity of intellectual property law. See Cory Doctorow's recent short story "Printcrime" for an illustration.
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"Won’t the Singularity create the ultimate "digital divide" due to unequal access to radical life extension and superintelligent computers?"
To sum up Kurzweil's answer, in the 80's cell phones didn't work well and were ultra-expensive. In the 90's they worked a little better and were less expensive. Today they work great and are inexpensive enough for populations in Asia who were pushing a plow fifteen years ago. Tomorrow's mobile communications will be ubuquitous and nearly as too-cheap-to-meter as ones and zeros are on the internet. This is how information techologies proceed.
To elaborate on what Kurzweil is saying, I see fabrication machines extending that principle to personal desktop manufacturing. By the time fabbers start constructing other fabbers, the social and economic forces you are counting on will be turned on their heads.
The real threat of entrenched interests creating the digital divide which you describe comes from over-rigidity of intellectual property law. See Cory Doctorow's recent short story "Printcrime" for an illustration.