What me, worry?

And now for something completely different. Allow the inner-nerd in you to engage.



In a previous, now ill-remembered life, I was responsible for identifying and investigating emerging technologies that had the potential to be applied in the products our company built or might build. In the course of this rather happy charter, I came across a truly marvelous website: edge.org. The Canberra Times dubs it "The most stimulating English-language reading to be had from anywhere in the world." 

One particularly tantalizing aspect of this site is the "annual question". Since 1998, Edge has posed a question and asks scientists and thinkers around the world to respond. At the end of the year, they publish a book of the responses. Some past questions:  

1.          What Do You Think About Machines That Think?
2.          What Scientific Idea is Ready for Retirement?
3.          This Explains Everything
4.          This Will Make You Smarter
5.          Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?
6.          What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?

What follows is based on the 2013 question: What *Should* We Be Worried About? and asks (for scientific reasons) what worries you, but may not be on the popular radar yet.  

Try not to let reading this spike your anxiety levels.

A sampling of responses - paraphrased.

• An astro-physicist worries that we fret too much over the minor, improbable hazards of everyday life - air crashes, carcinogens in food, etc. rather than "scenarios that have thankfully not yet happened—but which, if they occurred, could cause such world-wide devastation that even once would be too often." Global warming, nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists, super-viruses, the electrical power grid, international finance ... 

• "If we have a million photos, we tend to value each less than if you had 10". A Yale computer scientist worries about the “internet drivel factor” creating a devaluation of words - and the ability to communicate with the written word. “...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.”

• An artist/composer worries that smart people want nothing to do with politics. “...we don't do politics. We expect other people to do it for us, and grumble when they get it wrong.“

• An MIT professor worries about banks - once again. “... don't worry about the end of the universe or our sun collapsing into a black hole. But if banks leverage to the hilt again, then you should worry about hearing another big sucking sound.”

• A physicist worries that search engines are making judgements for you on what is true, real and important - a search engine with a point of view. “From now on, search engines will have an editorial point of view, and search results will reflect that viewpoint. We can no longer ignore the assumptions behind the results.”

• A journalists worries about “global greying”. “For example, out of the 9 billion people expected when the Earth's population peaks in 2050, the World Health Organization expects 2 billion—more than one person in five—to suffer from dementia. Is any society ready for this? ...  I think we can expect to see some frank and ugly intergenerational conflict."

• A Harvard physicist worries that long-term research investments will not be made. “We need to know what the universe is telling us. Some of the best new ideas come from trying to explain mysterious phenomena.”

• Stanford wild-man Robert Sapolsky worries of “the danger of inadvertently praising zygomatic arches”.  [Editor note:  I don't know what that means either, but how can you ignore such a declaration? Anatomy. 1. the bony arch at the outer border of the eye socket, formed by the union of the cheekbone and the zygomatic process of the temporal bone. Note - Sapolsky has a fascinating book on stress - Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.]

• Tim O’Reilly fears the rise of anti-intellectualism and the end of progress. “... it's at least as probable that as we fail to find those solutions quickly enough, the world falls into apathy, disbelief in science and progress, and after a melancholy decline, a new dark age.”

• A Harvard Business School prof worries about “science by social media” - knowledge by tweet - e.g. red wine linked to longevity.  Is that enough information? “... science that laypeople encounter will become increasingly unfiltered by scientific experts. And even when science has been vetted by experts, laypeople will increasingly make their own determination of the credibility of that science not by the quality of the research but by the media outlet in which that science appears.”

• A professor of life science worries about the vulnerability of complex systems. "On the morning of August 31, 1859, the sun ejected a giant burst of charged particles. They hit the earth 18 hours later, creating auroras so bright that at 1 AM birds sang and people thought morning had dawned.  A similar event now would cause "extensive social and economic disruptions." Power outages would last for months, and there would be no GPS navigation, cell phone communication, or air travel.  “Complex systems like the markets, transportation, and the Internet seem stable, but their complexity makes them inherently fragile. 

• A professor of psychology worries that “idiocracy is looming”.  See Luke Wilson movie.

• A Stanford mathematician worries about the “death of mathematics”. “if (free-form) scribbling goes away, then I think mathematics goes with it. You simply cannot do original mathematics at a keyboard. The cognitive load is too great.”  [Editor note: A man after my own heart.]

• Wikipedia founder worries about “internet silos” - information with a single point-of-view. “We should be worried about online silos. They make us stupid and hostile toward each other.”

• A historian worries about “presentism”, collective amnesia. “While access to information has never been so universal as it is now—thanks to the Internet—the total sum of knowledge of anything beyond the present seems to be dwindling among those people who came of age with the Internet. Anything beyond 1945, if then, is a messy, remote landscape ...”

• A mathematician worries about Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). “Breakers (vandals, griefers) have more leverage than Makers (builders, creators), even though the Makers far outnumber the Breakers. This is the source of some of our greatest fears about technology—that if weapons of mass destruction are cheap enough, then the relatively small percentage of Breakers will be sufficient to destroy civilization.”

• Steven Pinker worries about the “real risk factors for war” - narcissistic leaders, groupism, perfect justice, utopian ideologies, warfare as a necessary tactic, ... “It's natural to worry about physical stuff like weaponry and resources. What we should really worry about is psychological stuff like ideologies and norms. As the UNESCO slogan puts it, ‘Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed. ”

• A professor of Psychology worries about the epidemic of lying and cheating that has infected public discourse in a diversity of domains. "The psychological mechanism that motivates and facilitates these corrupt behaviors is hubristic pride—the emotional feeling of arrogance, egotism, and superiority that drives people to brag, lie, cheat, and bully others to get ahead can lead to large-scale deception and even crime, and further increase the gap between true accomplishments and just rewards. "

• A professor of neurology worries about the consequences of exporting America's view of an unhealthy mind to the rest of the world? "In my own travels to India, it's obvious to see these trends in full bloom. As the Asian psyche becomes more Americanized, people from Bombay to Beijing are increasingly turning to pills for stress, insomnia, and depression. Is this the best direction for the entire world to follow? "

• A physicist worries about water resources. "In the next twenty years, we will need to supply roughly 40 percent more water than we do today to support greater economic activity, from food to energy production. Because almost half of global food production comes from 20 percent of cultivated land that is under irrigation, it is unlikely that we are going to meet the food requirements of a growing and wealthier population without capturing, storing and delivering more water."

• A neuroscience professor worries about the teenage brain. "Recent research on the human brain has demonstrated that many brain regions undergo protracted development throughout adolescence and beyond in humans. There's a lot of concern about the hours some teenagers spend online and playing video games.We don't know whether the effects of new technologies on the developing brain are positive, negative or neutral. We need to find out."

• An anthropologist worries that more than ever we depend on the successful cooperation of nations on planetary scale decisions. Many of today’s most dire problems cannot be solved by actions taken within single countries, but will only find solutions if the global community joins forces in a collective action. More often than not, however, global cooperation is failing. Why? 

• A research fellow worries about fictional violence. Hard as it is, we must struggle to keep these acts of terrorism in perspective. We worry a lot about mass shootings, but we are all in so much more danger from a simple traffic accident on the way to a school , a theatre, a political rally, than we are from gunfire once we get there.  It’s cliché but true: when we overreact, the terrorist wins. When we overreact, we give the sicko meme of the mass shooting the attention it needs to thrive. So here's what shouldn't worry us: fictional violence. Here's what should: the way our very understandable pain and fear leads us to respond ineffectively to real violence. 

• A journalist worries about "capture". When a business gets caught breaking the rules, the regulatory agencies tend not to impose penalties that amount to more than a slap on the wrist. As a result, the watchdogs are toothless. This process, known as "regulatory capture," turns regulators from watchdogs into lapdogs.

• A professor of psychology worries about the outsourcing of your mind. "My spelling has deteriorated as automated spell checking has improved. With a smartphone at my fingertips, why bother doing multi-digit multiplication in my head? And I can't say whether GPS and navigation software have made my mental maps any more or less accurate. We have to give up on the idea that fast and easy access to information is always better access to information."

And this is a brief summary of just a few thoughts in the Edge report. You can read the full text of the responses at: https://www.edge.org/responses/q2013. 

This is all a bit humbling as I have been mostly worrying whether the Twins can escape last place next season.

What are you worried about?