Despite the incredible advances that technology has made, in some sense it is still very primitive. It is often the case that, when we compare our technology to the workings of nature, it is the latter that comes across as more elegant, and efficient. This is hardly surprising, given the 4.5 billion year headstart that nature has had. At the same time, there is no reason why our technology cannot be brought up to the levels of nature...and beyond. One of the most popular objections to the Singularity is that, if it allows for extreme longevity, how will we feed all those extra mouths? But this objection assumes that NOTHING ELSE CHANGES. But a serious look at the capabilities of cloning, genetics, robotics, nanotech shows reasonable methods for improving our abiltity to produce food, and reduce the environmental impact of doing so. Today, huge amounts of land are needed to produce meats, but the farms of the future will require miniscule amounts of space. These farms will use cloning. Cloning does not necessarily mean producing a whole animal; we can clone the parts that we need. Chicken breast, Cow's liver, Codmeat and so on. All could be derived from a single cell. These farms would not have to be restricted to land that is green and pleasent. These factories could be set up on a salt-flat and produce meat. Meanwhile GM technology could produce plants able to grow in harsh conditions, like poor soil, need less water, or even thrive on salt water. Moreover, food produced this way would fall under IT technology. And IT technology becomes cheaper with the passing of time (see 'The Law of Accelerating Returns' by Ray Kurzweil). What about the environmental impact? Well, all of our methods of producing energy use heat. But burning a fuel wastes most of its energy. But nature's machinery utilises chemical energy, which is far, far more energy efficient. In fact, nature is more efficient in just about all areas including fabrication, pollution management, and molecular separation. But with nanotechnology, we can have tools that match nature's for sheer efficiency. This is a near-term goal: It will not require the Drexlarian Assemblers that some people dismiss as unfeasible. In short, future tech will allow us to produce MORE food for LESS energy expenditure. And that's before we reach the Singularity. Unfortunately, trying to predict what humans will be like beyond the Singularity is impossible, but maybe they will thrive in space as a duck takes to water. The ultimate promise of the singularity (to me, anyway) is that this planet has an expiry date......but intelligence may not.

It will make technology available for all to use! This will create new problems and will require new tech to address these problems. Will the world die a death like the grey goo scenario or be consumed by a release of energy from a new creation that has no controls on it? Although we may discover the technology to do the impossible we don't have the wisdom or social structure to use it properly!

it will use the homeless for fuel?

Presumably the singularity (IF and WHEN) will bring technological advances far beyond our current expectations (which is as I understand it the point of it) due to being in the "asymptotic section" of the exponential curve. So the singularity would presumably deal with these but how is anyone's guess. Like trying to predict in the 15th century what advances genetic manipulation would bring. I think an interesting question is "how can we hope to achieve a singularity when a great deal of the world's population lives in fear, poverty and misery?" Or "How do we avoid an imminent singularity of the elite and a comparative "downgrade" of the remaining poor?"

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