We agree with Vinge’s suggestion for naming
events that are “capable of rupturing the fabric of human history” (or leading to profound societal
changes) as a “singularity” [...] In this paper, we consider two past singularities (arguably with important enough social
change to qualify) [...]. The
globalization occurring under Portuguese leadership of maritime empire building and naval
technological progress is characterized by a metric describing diffusion. The revolution in time
keeping, on the other hand, is characterized by a technological capability metric.
If there’s still somebody who thinks that the word “Singularity” hasn’t lost all meaning, look no further than this paper: