Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
You can get the sci-fi novel
Accelerando by Charles Stross for free online and have it printed and bound somewhere.
It's an interesting take on the Singularity, in that it goes beyond the idea there's an event horizon which prevents us from speculating what life might be like after things change.
I've read most on the Singularity from one of its boosters, Ray Kurzweil. He has a
pdf collection and is optimistic about seeing the Singularity within his lifetime [born 1948], views the event, among other things, as a way of reversing the aging process and avoiding death...
if you're a Baby Boomer with the right fitness plan (for Kurzweil that involves over 200 supplement pills a day plus intravenous treatments once a week), you may just live long enough to live forever. [link]
He has a machine that he says gives him
a full workout in four minutes [I'm skeptical], as well as graphs to back up the idea of accelerated development, which look a lot like visualizations of Terrence McKenna's Timewave Zero / increasing novelty, bringing us to the millennial thread running through the Singularity.
Two years after Artificial Intelligences reach human equivalence, their speed doubles. One year later, their speed doubles again. Six months - three months - 1.5 months ... Singularity.
Plug in the numbers for current computing speeds, the current doubling time, and an estimate for the raw processing power of the human brain, and the numbers match in: 2021.
Staring into the Singularity - Elizer Yudkowsky.
I like the 2001 trip, which is recycled through Accelerando, as the key moment in the acceleration of novelty is a message from aliens that acts as an attractor.
In
Accelerando the new humans are outfitted with all kinds of enhancements. They rely on technology like a turtle relies on its shell.
But it doesn't matter. If you have good teeth and good health - following diet, luck and exercise - things can be as good now as they ever have been or will be.
The pleasure of a cat is enough to keep it happy, and what's wrong with being a cat?