Monday, January 09, 2006

Dangerous Ideas, Dangerous Minds 

What if The Bell Jar wasn't wrong after all? Is the world fundamentally inexplicable? Will parenting require licensure in just two generations? Is school inherently bad for kids? Are there some ideas so dangerous that the world's best and brightest should not (and do not) mention them, let alone discuss them?

Each year, The World Question Center asks over a hundred of the brightest minds in science and technology to consider one question. This year:

What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?

Answers range from religion to race to reality in evry shape and size; from the complexity of "The simulation and the real have become permanently and inacceptably interchangable" to the irresistable simplicity of "This is all there is." Each is mystifying and thought-provoking -- even those few which merely respond that some ideas are SO dangerous they should not be spoken.

Plan on hours to read terrifying "what-if" results from the likes of George and Freeman Dyson, Sherry Turkle, Clay Shirky, Stewart Brand, Richard Dawkins, Howard Gardner, Diane Halpern, Michael Nesmith (!), Stephen Pinker, and a holy host of fellow futurists, psychologists, historians, builders, makers, shakers, and science-types. You'll never look at the world the same way.

I blogged about this last year, too!

posted by boyhowdy | 9:49 AM |

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