Dangerous ideas

[helemon]

Pick your favorite, return and report. :)
http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_index.html

[vixenz]

I love the question this year, so so many good thoughts! Here are a couple that I thought were good and/or interesting, I still want to read more of them...
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CLAY SHIRKY
Social & Technology Network Topology Researcher; Adjunct Professor, NYU Graduate School of Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP)

Free will is going away. Time to redesign society to take that into account.
Criminal law is just one area where our concept of free will is eroding. We know that men make more aggressive decisions after they have been shown pictures of attractive female faces. We know women are more likely to commit infidelity on days they are fertile. We know that patients committing involuntary physical actions routinely (and incorrectly) report that they decided to undertake those actions, in order to preserve their sense that they are in control. We know that people will drive across town to save $10 on a $50 appliance, but not on a $25,000 car. We know that the design of the ballot affects a voter's choices. And we are still in the early days of even understanding these effects, much less designing everything from sales strategies to drug compounds to target them.....
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DAVID G. MYERS
Social Psychologist; Co-author (with Letha Scanzoni); What God has Joined Together: A Christian Case for Gay Marriage

A marriage option for all
Much as others have felt compelled by evidence to believe in human evolution or the warming of the planet, I feel compelled by evidence to believe a) that sexual orientation is a natural, enduring disposition and b) that the world would be a happier and healthier place if, for all people, romantic love, sex, and marriage were a package...
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HAIM HARARI
Physicist, former President, Weizmann Institute of Science

Democracy may be on its way out

Democracy may be on its way out. Future historians may determine that Democracy will have been a one-century episode. It will disappear. This is a sad, truly dangerous, but very realistic idea (or, rather, prediction)...
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[helemon]

I haven't looked at all the posts but I wonder if any speculates about the potential of human hybridization that could and probably will occur in the world now that we have unlocked the human genome. I highly doubt that one nations laws will prevent some one somewhere from cloning and other wise genetically altering human dna and seeing what develops. I saw a show on Oscar the Humanzee. There was speculation that he was a human chimp hybrid one study showed that he had one more chromosome than chimps and one less than humans. Although recent tests presented on the show said he was just a mutant chimp.

The show said that an American biologist said a human chimp hybrid had been born back in the 20's but the scientists supposedly killed it after it was born. Stalin aparently wanted to make a humanzee army. I guess this is where the Planet of the apes idea originated.

With the rapid pace of technological change and genetic understanding I think there will likely be human hybrids of one form or another in my life time. If such work increases the chance that intelligent life can persist on the planet and persist in perhaps a more harmonious state with the environment then I am for it. I'd rather see biological hybridization than technical borgification but either way it could create some radical changes in the future ecosystems of the planet. Perhaps there will be both.

[vixenz]

I haven't looked at all the posts but I wonder if any speculates about the potential of human hybridization that could and probably will occur in the world now that we have unlocked the human genome. I highly doubt that one nations laws will prevent some one somewhere from cloning and other wise genetically altering human dna and seeing what develops. I saw a show on Oscar the Humanzee. There was speculation that he was a human chimp hybrid one study showed that he had one more chromosome than chimps and one less than humans. Although recent tests presented on the show said he was just a mutant chimp.

The show said that an American biologist said a human chimp hybrid had been born back in the 20's but the scientists supposedly killed it after it was born. Stalin aparently wanted to make a humanzee army. I guess this is where the Planet of the apes idea originated.

With the rapid pace of technological change and genetic understanding I think there will likely be human hybrids of one form or another in my life time. If such work increases the chance that intelligent life can persist on the planet and persist in perhaps a more harmonious state with the environment then I am for it. I'd rather see biological hybridization than technical borgification but either way it could create some radical changes in the future ecosystems of the planet. Perhaps there will be both.

I haven't heard anything about human hybrids although that wouldn't surprise me in the least, we humans have done some pretty crazy things in our little existance. I do know human clones have already been born, though I'm not sure of the details, in fact I think it's even in a book I'm reading right now...

[helemon]

I haven't heard anything about human hybrids although that wouldn't surprise me in the least, we humans have done some pretty crazy things in our little existance. I do know human clones have already been born, though I'm not sure of the details, in fact I think it's even in a book I'm reading right now...

I thought the Korean guy who said he had done that admitted that he was lying. But it wouldn't suprise me if there wasn't stuff like this going on under the radar.

[vixenz]

I thought the Korean guy who said he had done that admitted that he was lying. But it wouldn't suprise me if there wasn't stuff like this going on under the radar.

I've heard of a few things, I'll go home tonight and see what my book says, but like you said, I'm sure there's ALWAYS things going on under the radar. We just can't resist playing with things ;)