We’re lining up a new of futurism Brain Parades this November and we’re kicking it off with a series of Pet predictions.
Putting aside a comprehensive vision of the future, do you have a single “pet prediction” of something that you think might happen over the next decade or two?

The weather was crap today so […]

Today we tackle a subject that has been vexing me more and more later. I’m going to blather on in a moment but first the question….

Do you think the rise of self selecting media channels is going to facilitate more people subscribing to a lot of loony conspiracy theories and consensual realities, or will the net effect be to dispel many such notions?

In today’s Brain Parade I asked a number of science fiction authors (and one fan) a rather ambigous question:
Is there a conspiracy?

I’m a bit too drunk to comment on this one intelligently. But I’m not going to let that stop me. Yes there is a conspiracy but it’s probably something that no one imagines and by the time it comes to light no one will care.

I was going to post a frivolous Brain Parade up tonight but as I’m all grumpy and introspective from my battles with nicotine withdraw I can’t be asked to write anything funny. So today I’m going to give you a bit of controversy by asking whether scientists should criticize religion or if this is counterproductive?

Every once in a while we run a Brain Parade on a question that we don’t really have an answer for ourselves. In a way these are my faves because these are often the Brain Parades I learn the most from and it also means that I don’t have to write any commentary of my own because I simply can’t answer the question.

As usual you’ll have to wade through my two cents first: The first step that I see happening are networked grassroot movements gaining an increasing say in the internal politics of political parties. This isn’t going to happen quickly.

We’re seeing renewed attacks on evolution, certain branches of scientitic research and conspiracy theories involving climatologists and Global Warming. At the same time supernatural thinking (new age, crystals, ID, deified interpretations of the Gaia hypothesis) are thriving. Should we be concerned by the level of magical thinking in our society? And if so what, if anything can be done about it?

I’m not going to answer this Brain Parade myself. I’ve already in fact written on this topic here (link) and I’ve got plenty of good commentary that covers most of the bases I’d want to elaborate on further anyway.

Today we talk about our aspirations of what we’ll be doing on the internet in five years time. Here’s today’s question:

What do you see yourself doing on the internet in five years that you aren’t doing now?