This postOver at The Edge last year, they asked the question “What is your dangerous idea?” to the world’s leading thinkers, and got quite a lot of answers. This year the question is “What are you optimistic about?”, and the answers are intriguing.
Steven Pinker talks about the decline of violence (and he’s got a point). Nicholas Humphrey is excited for the great works of art to come in the future. Cory Doctorow says that copyright is hopefully on its way out. And there are dozens and dozens more.
Of the few I read, Daniel Dennett’s bothered me. He claims that religion will soon be virtually extinct: “Smoking is no longer cool, and the day will come when religion is, first, a take-it-or-leave-it choice, and later: no longer cool — except in its socially valuable forms, where it will be one type of allegiance among many.” Humbug.
Anyway, there’s 110,000 words worth of answers there, so enjoy.
