Lots of short entries by many different people but some were interestingly thought-provoking ( )

Lots of short entries by many different people but some were interestingly thought-provoking ( )

A mixed bag of essays about what worries different scientists. Some are short and lack substance, while a few might make you think. A pick and choose approach to which you read might be better than a straight through read. ( )

What Should We Be Worried About? In the eponymous book of that title, we find that a lot of heavy thinkers worry about things as we do. Some of them worry about the Technological Singularity, others argue against that and say that a Terminator Styled future is ludicrous. Not many of them agree, but many of the ones that do fear an upcoming lack of interpersonal skills in the next generation caused by our technological prowess. Skype, texting, webpage loading; all causes for alarm. Some of the interesting ones focused on our losing our ability to patiently wait for something. This was printed back in 2013 so some of the things I had forgotten about are still fresh in the minds of these scholars. Take the Mayan Long Count Calendar Reset. I had completely forgotten about that Apocalypse Scare. I had figured that if the Mayans couldn’t foresee their own demise, what business did they have doing it centuries after their fall? However, I digress.

Most of the fears are about our new technology and our possible inability to handle the implications of its use. Technology that I had forgotten about is fresh in the minds of these scientists. Take Bio Bricks. They’re some kind of artificial building block thing to create your own life I guess. I am not really certain, but the implications are tremendous. The ones that spoke to my own heart the most were the fall of the Internet and some other ones. I mean, if I was to lose my ability to use the internet, I can only imagine how frustrated I would be. I grew up without having internet for a while, and when I did finally get it, it was Dial-up at first. So I have the patience of a Saint in some cases, but if it were to be disabled then I don’t know. ( )

A few years ago I decided I didn't have as much time to live on edge.org like I'd like to so I stopped reading the site every day. I pretty much stopped altogether and try to fit into my too long reading list John Brockman's annual collections of answers to his...um, annual questions.

Now that the Edge Question is a pageant, I get the impression reading this one that quite a few contributors think to themselves, "Crap! Another question. Well, I have to submit something or I won't be viable anymore!" And I really want to know who didn't make the cut! because some of these baffle me. Jim Rome's radio schtick of "have a take...and don't suck" didn't seem to apply to the getting process. Or, maybe it did!

The answers to what we should worry about range from a handful of genuine concerns to some pretty whacky (think soft sciences) ones, running the gamut with more than a little overlap. A lot of those soft science contributions - from psychologists, sociologists and... apparently people actually do call themselves...philosophers - sure seemed to either be lectures on some sort of history or self-promotion. Note to those guys: answer the damn question and stroke your ego on your own time.

Carlo Rovelli, a theoretical physicist, wrote in his essay, “The task of separating the good thoughts from the silly ones is hard, of course, but this is where intelligence matters”. Brockman's editing/selection could have used more intelligence, because we're supposed to be worried about Internet effects on words or declining population or it being too late to stop telling aggressive aliens where we live. On the other hand, there are excellent observations about legitimate concerns over dumbing down of the populace, science illiteracy and similar sentiments.

Despite the odd assortment of WTF? essays, I concurred with many, including problems of "fast knowledge" - (paraphrasing in my words) smart devices make it so we don't have to think/remember; digital tattoos - we're leaving lasting trails of ourselves everyday on the world interconnections; reduction in science knowledge due to social media - “In sum, the science that laypeople encounter will become increasingly unfiltered by scientific experts."; anti-intellectualism; and the rise of stupid.

Always interesting, for the social experiment of scientists and others vying to be included, as well as the content. ( )