2003 Edge.org World Question

murky.waters writes "The responses to this year's Edge.org question have been published; basically, people were asked to imagine they were nominated as White House science adviser and the President asked them what are some important issues in science and what we should do about them. There are 84 responses, ranging in topic from advanced nanotechnology to the psychology of foreign cultures, and lots of ideas regarding science, technology, politics, and education. The responses were written by academics (e.g. Roger Schank, Marvin Minsky), journalists (Kevin Kelly), Nobel Laureates (Eric Kandel), and others (Alan Alda). Some of responses are politically loaded but the majority has either a more specialised proposal, or general remarks about our world. Many are absolutely fascinating: funny, insightful, interesting, hell even informative. ... One of the most public supporters of the Singularity 'religion', Ray Kurzweil, is a regular at Edge, and currently discussed issues range from said transhumanism to early-universe theories, and many other kinds of exciting and novel science."

Comments

Re:Hmm

[TGK]

I continualy hear all this about the "liberal press." Yet when campaign season rolls around it's never that way. I just keep wondering when all these paranoid right wingers are going to wake up.

The JOURNALISTS are libreal. Yes. Everyone knoes that. Education tends to do that to people (no that's not a barb, that's a political reality).

At the same time WEALTH tends to make people conservitive. The independent newspaper has gone from the rule to the exception in this country. The media today is the buisness of massive congolmerates. Media is big buisness, and we're all really clear on who the party of big buisness is.

Are there libreal aspects to our media? Certainly. The West Wing pushes a liberal agenda... but then who's really against lowering the infant mortality rate, championing the cause of the downtroden, and fighting for education in the privacy of their own home when it doesn't cost them a dime?

But the question we should be asking ourselves is not "is that reporter a liberal" but rather, is the overall media prespective biased against conservitives.

I think you'll find the answer is no. Did the media go after Lott following his comments? Of course. Did they not also persue Clinton and Monica after their ignoble trist?

While there are countless incidences of highly conservitive bias in the media (for an entertaining read on this check out Stupid White Men and other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation - Michael Moore) I am hard pressed to come up with many liberal ones.

Re:Hmm

[0x0d0a]

No one has told you to go back to hating Arabs or any other ethnic group. On the contrary, President Bush and his administration have time after time gone out on the limb and publicly denounced the calls for general retribution against the Arab world or American Arabs.

Oh, yeah. It sure was going out on a limb denouncing race crimes against American Arabs.

And who lashed at Trent Lott, who was one of the most prominent Republicans in the U.S.A. at the time, almost without delay? Yup, President Bush.

Because it sure would have been *really* politically savvy not to, uh huh, yup.

But that wasn't good enough for the liberal press (who said anything about jews? I don't have anything against the Jews!). No, they had to tear the poor man to peaces in public. Conservative press would never have stooped that low if it had been a Democrat on the spot.

Already forgetting Clinton and a certain intern that got *far* more noise in the press, are we?

As far as Bush's alleged stupidity goes, I have only this to say: if you can get yourself elected as the President of the U.S.A. and deal with the 9/11 atrocities with the skill, restraint and diplomacy as he has done so far, you cannot be stupid.

Where the hell did you get "skill, restraint and diplomacy" from? I mean, he hasn't declared war on China or anything, but I don't see him doing anything all that brilliant. He managed to piss off multiple unrelated countries with his "Axis of Evil" speech (which Powell and others then had to frantically soften), he managed to use Christian terminology multiple times in his post-WTC speech (a Bible quote and "crusade", which has been noised about Islamic countries to his detriment), he's setting up a massive American domestic monitoring and control agency with almost no oversight, he's managed to lose most of the global antiterrorist feeling by feeding off the momentum to fuel his pet war against Iraq...how did you reach those conclusions?

Admit it. You and your liberal butt-buddies are just bitter after losing two elections and looking to lose the 2004 year presidential elections too.

*I* wanted McCain, but that's besides the point...