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The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures. A Big History Perspective
Switzerland :
Springer, 2020.
Academic editor: Korotayev A., D. LePoire
This book introduces a 'Big History' perspective to understand the acceleration of social, technological and economic trends towards a near-term singularity, marking a radical turning point in the evolution of our planet. It traces the emergence of accelerating innovation rates through global history and highlights major historical transformations throughout the evolution of life, humans, and civilization. The authors pursue an interdisciplinary approach, also drawing on concepts from physics and evolutionary biology, to offer potential models of the underlying mechanisms driving this acceleration, along with potential clues on how it might progress.
The contributions gathered here are divided into five parts, the first of which studies historical mega-trends in relation to a variety of aspects including technology, population, energy, and information. The second part is dedicated to a variety of models that can help understand the potential mechanisms, and support extrapolation. In turn, the third part explores various potential future scenarios, along with the paths and decisions that are required. The fourth part presents philosophical perspectives on the potential deeper meaning and implications of the trend towards singularity, while the fifth and last part discusses the implications of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Given its scope, the book will appeal to scholars from various disciplines interested in historical trends, technological change and evolutionary processes.
Chapters
Korotayev A., , in: The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures. A Big History Perspective.: Switzerland: Springer, 2020. Ch. 2 P. 19–75.
The idea that in the near future we should expect “the Singularity” has become quite popular recently, primarily thanks to the activities of Google technical director in the field of machine training Raymond Kurzweil and his book The Singularity Is Near (2005). It is shown that the mathematical analysis of the series of events (described by Kurzweil ...
Added: January 27, 2020
Korotayev A., , in: The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures. A Big History Perspective.: Switzerland: Springer, 2020. Ch. 26 P. 571–595.
This chapter discusses in some detail the possibility of the Singularity being a product of biased human perception described by the Weber–Fechner law. It is shown that though the Weber–Fechner effect can produce series with a hyperbolic shape, the hyperbolic acceleration pattern with the twenty-first century Singularity detected in Panov and Modis–Kurzweil series is explained first ...
Added: January 27, 2020
Malkov S. Y., , in: The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures. A Big History Perspective.: Switzerland: Springer, 2020. Ch. 23 P. 517–534.
Using mathematical modeling, we consider the phenomenon of singularity in the biological and social history. It is shown that hyperbolic trends in biological and social evolution can be explained by transitional processes that accompany the expansion of ecological niches due to periodically occurring revolutionary innovations. During these periods, strong positive feedbacks are actualized, leading to ...
Added: February 3, 2020
Grinin L. E., Grinin A., Korotayev A., , in: The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures. A Big History Perspective.: Switzerland: Springer, 2020. Ch. 15 P. 287–344.
In this chapter, we consider the process of technological progress presenting one of the options for measuring its speed throughout the entire historical process. We find that the general dynamics of accelerating technological growth over the past 40 thousand years can be described with amazing accuracy (R2 = 0.99) using the following simplest hyperbolic equation: yt = C/t0 − t, where yt is the ...
Added: February 3, 2020
Panov A., LePoire D., Korotayev A., , in: The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures. A Big History Perspective.: Switzerland: Springer, 2020. Ch. 1 P. 1–18.
This introductory chapter discusses the overall place of the twenty-first-century Singularity within the overall Big History. It is shown that to place the accelerating trend of complexity in the context of Big History, we need to distinguish the two forms (arms) of megaevolution so far in the universe. The first arm of evolution is the ...
Added: February 3, 2020
Korotayev A., LePoire D., , in: The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures. A Big History Perspective.: Switzerland: Springer, 2020. P. 599–620.
This concluding chapter summarizes major findings of the present collective monograph. It traces the emergence of accelerating innovation rates through history and the major historical transformations through the evolution of life, humans, and civilization. It draws on the concepts from physics and evolutionary biology to offer potential models of the underlying mechanisms driving this acceleration ...
Added: November 13, 2020
Language:
English
Институт Китая и современной Азии РАН, 2026.
Ежегодник «Китайская Народная Республика» издается с 1970 г. и рассказывает о ; различных асктах жизни КНР. В настоящем выпуске читатель найдет подробную ; информацию по основным аспектам ситуации в Китае в 2025 году — году 80-летия великой Победы над немецким фашизмом и японским милитаризмом, в которую Россия и Китай внесли значительный вклад. Издание состоит из ...
Added: September 4, 2026
Суворова А. А., Kazantseva E., Podlednov D., СПб.: Алетейя, 2026.
The authors of the monograph examine three aspects of the phenomenon of marginality in artistic culture from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. The first part of the volume focuses on the processes and actors of the “borderlands” in the context of art and culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The ...
Added: September 3, 2026
Koshcheev D., Isopeskul O., М.: Инфра-М, 2027.
государственным служащим.
The monograph presents the results of a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of research related to the assessment of the tourist potential of administrative-territorial units (ATUs) from 1882 to 2024. For the first time, scientific schools are identified, and the author's approach to predictive values and a methodology for the quantitative assessment of the ...
Added: September 3, 2026
Bubnova M., Chetverikov V., Pozhidaev E., Информационные технологии 2026 Т. 32 № 8 С. 404–413
A specialized methodology was developed, computer modeling was conducted, and a comparative analysis was performed for autonomous control methods for small spacecraft, differing in how the nonlinearity of the initial stabilization problem is taken into account:
— control constructed using a system of linear differential equations (SLDE);
— control constructed using SLDE applied to a more general ...
Added: September 2, 2026
Malinov A. V., СПб.: Интерсоцис, 2009.
This monograph is devoted to the development of history as a science in Russia in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It focuses on concepts of the historical process, the sociology of history, historical cognition, the structure of historical knowledge, the understanding of history as a scientific discipline, and the methodology of history. It ...
Added: August 30, 2026
Ustyuzhanin V., Zinkina J. V., Korotayev A., / Series "SocArXiv". 2026.
“Leaderlessness” is widely held to be a defining feature of contemporary mass mobilization, yet the claim rests on a handful of recent cases. We offer the first systematic cross-national analysis of this phenomenon from 1791 to 2019. We show that the absence of leadership is real but older and more modest than claimed: the share ...
Added: August 29, 2026
Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2026.
This volume is a product of the conference “Proizvodstvo, Dokumentatsiia, Interventsiia. Proizvedeniia iskusstva v usloviiakh neofitsial'noi sovetskoi kul'tury 1960-80-kh gg.” (Production, Documentation, Intervention. Works of art in the conditions of unofficial Soviet culture, 1960s-1980s), organized by Ilja Kukuj and Brigitte Obermayr at Munich University (LMU) in November 2018. The conference was financed by Professor Riccardo ...
Added: August 28, 2026
Medushevsky A. N., Сравнительное конституционное обозрение 2025 Т. 34 № 4 С. 135–166
The communist morality created in the USSR to form a “new man” was based on a code of moral values that replaced traditional religious ideas with the ideological postulates of a one-party dictator ship. The crisis and collapse of this ideology in post-Soviet Russia led to the emergence of an “ethi cal vacuum” — moral ...
Added: August 26, 2026
Medushevsky A. N., Российская юстиция 2025 № 11 С. 14–25
Globalization has exacerbated the eternal conflict between law and ethics: should national laws be respected when they conflict with universal international principles of human rights; should the law-abiding attitude operate in the same way in democracies and authoritarian states, and calls for emancipation take into account the degree of internal freedom of society and its ...
Added: August 26, 2026
Волчкова Е. А., Легкова К. С., Минушкина Л. О. et al., Российский кардиологический журнал 2026 Т. 31 № 8S Статья 6987
Goal. To assess the contribution of polygenic risk scores to the short‑term mortality prediction model in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM).
Materials and methods. The study included 137 patients with DCM. The mean age was 56.8 ± 13.5 years; there were 115 men (83.9 %). The median follow‑up period was 17 [13; 22] months. During the follow‑up period, 26 ...
Added: August 24, 2026
Shams S., Quality & Quantity 2026 P. 1–18
Case studies are widely used in the social sciences. However, while a frequently revisited topic, the design of case-study research contains unresolved issues. Namely, these are the issues of generalizability, the role of theory and the empirical aspects of the design process like contextualization. In this paper, I revisit recent debates on case-study research in ...
Added: August 23, 2026
Shabanov N., Kuricheva O., Kurbatova J. et al., / Series Working Papers SSRN "Department of Economics Ca’ Foscari University of Venice". 2026.
The carbon balance of an ecosystem is the difference between Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) and Ecosystem Respiration (Reco) as expressed by Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE). While remote sensing retrievals of GPP have reached maturity, Reco estimation remains underexplored and ultimately cast bias on NEE. Here we present an end-to-end multi-scale analysis of the mechanism of ...
Added: August 21, 2026
Ivanova M., Территория: журнал исторических исследований 2026 Т. 2 № 2 С. 94–132
The aim of the article is to characterize the current field of spatial studies as applied to the history of the Russian Empire. The work examines the main tenets associated with the “spatial turn” in the humanities and analyzes the extent to which existing approaches of spatial history have been adapted to the period of imperial ...
Added: August 19, 2026
Идрисов Р. Р., Токолов А. В., Криминологический журнал 2026 № 2 С. 168–176
Provides a comparative legal analysis of the qualification of cryptocurrency offences in the Russian
Federation and the Republic of Uzbekistan. Three levels of regulation are examined, namely the qualification of
illegal mining, unlicensed cryptocurrency circulation, and procedural mechanisms for the seizure of digital assets.
It is established that the absence of specialised criminal charges in Russia compels practitioners ...
Added: August 19, 2026
Идрисов Р. Р., Лазовская Е. И., Токолов А. В., СУДЕБНАЯ ЭКСПЕРТИЗА И ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ · Российская Федерация 2026 № № 2, 2026 С. 139–148
A legal analysis of such a phenomenon as cyberbullying is presented, the author's definition of this concept is given. The existing legal mechanisms for bringing to justice for cyberbullying, as well as the latest Russian legislative initiatives aimed at criminalizing this offense, have been analyzed. To study the problem of criminalization of cyberbullying, a comparative ...
Added: August 19, 2026
Biryuk D., SSRN Electronic Journal 2025
The relevance of the development of youth entrepreneurship in Russia is due to the important role of this type of entrepreneurship in solving socio-economic problems: reducing unemployment by creating new jobs, training qualified personnel, paying taxes, developing the economy in the area of activity, etc. It should also be borne in mind that federal legislation ...
Added: August 18, 2026
Biryuk D., SSRN Electronic Journal 2023
Globalization, the process of global integration and unification in all spheres of our life is still significant among the tendencies of the modern world. Thus, the process of globalization leads to an increase in international communication, including the field of higher education. A lot of international organizations such as the European University Association (EUA), UNESCO, ...
Added: August 18, 2026
Korotayev A., , in: Complexity in Universal Evolution. A Big History Perspective.: Springer, 2026. Ch. 13 P. 359–409.
We have undertaken an attempt to propose a periodization of the Big History Biosocial (Anthropogenesis) Era on the basis of the most recent scientific data. This periodization is complexity-based, that is, the boundaries of the identified epochs are marked with complexity jumps, that is, in our case, such phase transitions that result in significant increases ...
Added: August 10, 2026
Leonid Grinin, Alexander M., Korotayev A., , in: Complexity in Universal Evolution. A Big History Perspective.: Springer, 2026. Ch. 12 P. 283–355.
In the first half of this chapter, Grinin et al. survey general similarities and differences between biological and social macroevolution. They undertake a systematic comparison between biological and social evolution at different levels of analysis and in various aspects, formulating a considerable number of general principles and rules of evolution, and working to develop a ...
Added: August 10, 2026
Грегор Э. Д., СПб.: Владимир Даль, 2026.
Фашизм традиционно считался иррациональным и антиинтеллектуальным феноменом, ведомым мистицизмом и приверженным хаосу и грубой жестокости. Настоящее издание — итог почти четырех десятилетий исследований одного из ведущих экспертов по этому вопросу, американского историка Энтони Джеймса Грегора. Он утверждает, что итальянский фашизм был не более и не менее иррациональным, чем другие революционные идеологии XX века. Грегор прослеживает историю ...
Added: August 10, 2026
David J. L., Grinin L. E., Korotayev A., , in: Complexity in Universal Evolution. A Big History Perspective.: Springer, 2026. Ch. 2 P. 29–90.
This chapter explores the role of complexity dynamics in Big History through an integrative theoretical framework that spans physical, chemical, biological, social, cognitive, and civilizational domains. Building on foundational work in systemstheory,thermodynamics,andevolutionarytheory,thechapterarguesthat complexity can serve as a conceptual bridge across disciplines. By examining how complexity emerges, is sustained, and transforms across thresholds, as well as ...
Added: August 10, 2026
Korotayev A., LePoire D., , in: Complexity in Universal Evolution. A Big History Perspective.: Springer, 2026. Ch. 5 P. 151–171.
A previous study compared the symmetries of the cooling after the Big Bang and thedevelopment oflife, humans,and civilization on Earth. Asimple model ofthe relative rates of change depicts two cones joined at their bases representing the Big Bang expansion and the acceleration of complexity development on Earth through life evolution, human evolution, and civilization development. ...
Added: August 10, 2026
David J. L., Leonid Grinin, Korotayev A., , in: Complexity in Universal Evolution. A Big History Perspective.: Springer, 2026. Ch. 1 P. 1–25.
Complexity is widely acknowledged as a foundational and pivotal concept in Big History, offering a unifying lens through which to examine the emergence and development of systems—from particles and galaxies to life, civilizations, and beyond. Yet, despite its centrality, major gaps remain in how we define, measure, and interpret complexity across different phases and scales. ...
Added: August 10, 2026
Tsydypova M., Современные проблемы дистанционного зондирования Земли из космоса 2026 Т. 23 № 3 С. 263–275
The article presents a methodology for mapping coniferous forest decline, based on the integration of automated remote sensing data interpretation techniques, vegetation indices, remote sensing data on above-ground biomass (Biomass CCI (Climate Change Initiative)), and materials from ground-based forest pathology surveys using forests of the Khamar-Daban ridge (Republic of Buryatia) as a case study. The ...
Added: August 9, 2026