Saturday, April 5, 2014

What Should We be Worried about? By John Brockman

Sooner or later bye intent or by accident we will face a catastrophic breakdown of the Internet. Yet we have no plan B in place to reboot a rudimentary, low bandwidth  emergency communication network if the high-bandwidth system we've come to depend on fails.
George Dyson

I know that my own perception of time has been changed by technology. If I go from using a fast computer or web connection to using even a slightly slower one, processes that just take a second or two longer seem almost intolerably slow.... Because our experience of time is so important to our experience of life, it strikes me that these kinds of technology induced changes in our perceptions can have broad consequences
Nicholas G. Carr

If we have 1 million photos, we tend to value each one less then if we only had 10. The Internet forces a general devaluation of the written word, a global deflation  in the average words values on many axes. As each word tends to get less reading time and attention to be worth less money at the consumer end, it naturally tends to absorb less writing time and editorial attention on the production side.... But it any rate, the Internet drivel factor can't be good and is almost certain to grow in importance as the world fills gradually with people who have spent their whole lives glued to their iToys.
David Gelernter

We should worry about losing lust as the guiding principle for the reproduction of our species. Attempts to manage reproduction through biotechnologies and screenings of eggs, sperm, partners and embryos will interfere with the lust dominated process.
Tor Norretranders

We have nothing to worry about but worry itself.
Virginia Heffernan

Don't worry about the end of the universe or the earth falling into a galactic black hole. But if banks leverage to the hilt again, then you should worry about hearing another big sucking sound.
Seth Lloyd

I've given up worrying. I merely float on a tsunami of acceptance of anything life throws at me and marvel stupidly.

Terry Gilliam

If the population of less educated, religiously conservative individuals increases and continues to vote as they have been voting, funding for education and scientific research is also likely to decrease. A less educated population could contribute not only to an upward shift in population size but also to a downward economic spiral... A higher performing intellectual class is also associated with better developed and freer economic and political institutions... According to my colleagues from other countries, the American educational system has an unimpressive reputation through the university level but is regarded as the top of the heap when it comes to training at the highest level...
Douglas Kenrick